A personal account of mental health in veterinary practice — and why we need to talk about it more honestly. I remember the exact moment I realised something was wrong. It wasn't a dramatic breakdown. There was no single case that broke me. It was a completely ordinary, and I was sitting in my car in the clinic car park for twenty minutes before I could make myself go inside. I wasn't sad exactly. I wasn't panicking. I just couldn't move. I sat there staring at the steering w

By Vet's Pawspective I remember my first solo consult. A limping Staffy, a worried owner, and me — standing in the consult room with a stethoscope around my neck and absolutely no idea whether I was about to diagnose a cruciate rupture or make a complete fool of myself. I got it right, as it happens. But that's not the point. The point is that nothing — not five years of lectures, not the clinical rotations, not the textbooks I'd highlighted within an inch of their lives — ha