DENVER--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Veterinary Visionaries® announces the winning idea from its Spring Solving Event, which advocated for systemic changes within the profession to address mental health and psychological wellbeing.
The winning idea, selected from 133 submissions, was offered by Coral Doherty, RVT, CPHSA, from Better Mental Health for the Future in Manitoba, Canada. Her submission focuses on creating Standards for Psychological Health and Safety in the veterinary field and was selected using a variety of criteria, such as scalability and impact. This idea aligns well with countries like Canada adopting standards for psychological safety across multiple industries.
Veterinary Visionaries®, a collaborative effort of more than 60 of North America’s leading veterinary organizations working together to solve the profession’s biggest challenges, created its first crowdsourced solving campaign in May 2022.
This pilot event addressed pervasive and rapidly growing issues among veterinary teams — mental health, psychological wellbeing, and suicide prevention. During this month-long activity, members of the veterinary community were invited to submit solutions via an online platform tackling one big question: How might we build systemic solutions and support for veterinary teams to continuously improve mental wellbeing, especially related to moral distress, ethical trauma, and compassion resilience?
A panel of mental health and veterinary professionals reviewed all submissions and ranked each based on systemic impact, evidence-based approach, feasibility, sustainability, and reach.
Runners-up ideas:
- Wellbeing = Day ONE Competency for all Veterinary Professionals, submitted by Virginia Corrigan, DVM, MPH, DABVP, CCRP, CHPV, Program Director, Veterinary Technology, Appalachian State University, North Carolina
- Handling Moral Distress Accredited Course, submitted by Kat Williams, Behaviour Support Clinician and Veterinary Wellbeing Advocate, Brisbane, Australia
- Employee Assistance Program For All, submitted by Joseph Fifer, a veterinary medical student at Colorado State University
All winners receive a cash award, and a Solutions Squad will be formed to develop an implementation plan to put the winning idea into action.
"We were amazed by the amount of engagement and interest the program generated,” said Garth Jordan, CEO of the American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA), a founding member of Veterinary Visionaries. "The number of extremely well-researched ideas was truly invigorating. The professionals who submitted their solutions are serious about making change. The next step? Putting ideas into action.”
The Spring 2022 Solving Event was generously supported by Boehringer Ingelheim, CareCredit, and IDEXX Laboratories.
About Veterinary Visionaries®
Established in 2021, Veterinary Visionaries is a collaboration of more than 60 veterinary associations, higher education institutions, for-profit organizations, and employers including AAHA, Veterinary Medical Association, American College of Veterinary Surgeons, and Not One More Vet. Together, these collective communities share ideas, co-create solutions, and unify the profession's approach to solving shared challenges. Learn more at veterinaryvisionaries.org.
