Grieving and giving back

Grief is not an unknown emotion within veterinary clinics. Clients come into the doors of hospitals and have to say goodbye to a beloved pet for a plethora of circumstances, and that grief can then spreading through other clients and veterinary team. While the grief from what is happening inside the clinic is nothing new, there are veterinary professionals who come into the clinic with grief of their own.

On this week's episode of The Vet Blast Podcast presented by dvm360, our host Adam Christman, DVM, MBA, and special guest, Andrew Ciccolini, DVM, MSOL, explore the complicated emotions surrounding grief as Ciccolini reflects on losing his son at a young age. The 2 talk about their own grief and how it has affected each of them inside and out of the clinic, plus Ciccolini shares more about the Colorado Children's Hospital and the power of therapy dogs.

Below is a partial transcript

Andrew Ciccolini, DVM, MSOL: We've all experienced our children being sick and just how stressful that can be. And plenty of other veterinarians have had children and NICU or PICU or just in the hospital in general. And I think it can be really challenging being a veterinarian, having to spend time in the hospital with your kid, and then you go to work in the hospital, and you're just constantly surrounded by medicine. And it can be really overwhelming. And that's kind of what I experienced. It really got difficult for me to do my day job, just in the hospital all the time.

I got really fortunate that I was able to find the job at the National Milll Dog Rescue around that time, because it's just a lot more laid back atmosphere, and they [have] been super supportive of me needing to take time off to take care of Ethan. Because even when he wasn't in the hospital, he was always, you know, having medical appointments. Children's Hospital Colorado, like, I just can't thank them enough, and what they did for Ethan and our family, I don't know that we would have even gotten 2 and a half years with him without them. And I know I talk a lot about his medical appointments, but I do, I think it's important [to] me to mention that, like he was a happy kid like his life was worth living.