A veterinarian in teal scrubs reflecting on a hard day with a stethoscope around her neck. A vet tech stands next to her and rests a hand of support on her back.

NOMV will transform the status of mental wellness within the profession so veterinary professionals can survive and thrive through education, resources, and support.

April 2022 Newsletter

NOMV Community Conversations

Making connections is at the heart of many wellness strategies. Providing resources, information, help, and hope to one another can often lead to meaningful changes in overall mental health and in the shape of our community.

NOMV has opened a forum called Community Conversations on our website. This accessible space is open to anyone in the veterinary community as well as their loved ones and friends. To interact, participants need to sign up as a member.

This space is brand new and needs more participants to truly be a dynamic forum for connections. If you sign up early, be prepared to carry the weight for a while. Additionally, we will expand the topics of discussion available but will begin with these five:

NOMV News
Successful Practices for Wellness
Research Statistics for Veterinary Wellness and Suicide
Cyberbullying Support
Families, Friends, and Allies

We hope you will Join the Conversation Today!

Learn More

A graphic that reads: Lifeboat by NOMV. NOMV is offering a revolutionary anonymous peer support system designed specifically for veterinary professionals. lifeboat.nomv.org

Paws and Pals

Shelby Walton, a NOMV student representative at Tuskegee University, recently hosted the first event called “Paws and Pals”! The goal of the event was a community building/stress relief activity with the assistance of Shelby’s dogs. The first year of vet school often means all day classwork, with little to no time with animals or pets. Shelby feels that this shift in environment can be detrimental to the mental health of students, and wanted to use this event to build the already strong community at Tuskegee.

Volunteer

NOMV at Texas A&M

Lilia Barnett, a student representative for Texas A&M University, has been working hard to raise awareness of NOMV around campus!

“I have always been a huge advocate for mental health, and while working in vet-med I discovered how important it is to have a support system and mental health resources for everyone in this field. At the beginning of this year, I was invited to join NOMV's Student Support and Mentorship committee as the representative for Texas A&M University. In February of 2022, I created the A&M NOMV Advocate team, and over 30 people have joined in just two months! We create thank you baskets for local vet clinics every two weeks and we are planning awareness and fundraising events for the near future. I am very excited for the future of NOMV, and very grateful that I was chosen to be part of it.”

Volunteer

Card Campaign

Several of our NOMV Advocates banned together to send cards to 160 clinics around the United States and throughout the United Kingdom! Clinics in Washington, Texas, Oregon, Minnesota, Maine, Georgia, Florida, and California received these heartfelt cards from our team in March. The volunteers all shared that they enjoyed participating in the event and look forward to events of this nature in the future. Thank you so much to our wonderful volunteers - especially during volunteer appreciation month - for all your hard work transforming the mental wellbeing of the veterinary profession, one act of kindness at a time!

NOMV Advocates

A box with the word "spotlight" centered on a light gray background with gold stars.

This month, we would like to spotlight Dr. Erika Lin-Hendel, a NOMV Board Member! Thanks to the help of Merck Animal Health, Tuskegee University CVM had the opportunity to host Dr. Erika Lin-Hendel as their first NOMV speaker during SAVMA's Week of Wellness.

Here is a statement from Shelby Walton, a NOMV student representative at Tuskegee University:

“Dr. Lin-Hendel was amazing and made it clear that they put a lot of effort and care into planning their talk titled "Dissecting the mental health realm: learning how to anticipate before complications". It has been a couple of rough weeks, especially for our first years at TUCVM in terms of test load, and this talk was much needed. After weeks of high stress and anxiety, feeling overwhelmed, disheartened, and EXHAUSTED, it was wonderful to speak with Dr. Lin-Hendel about how to take care of ourselves in this high-stress environment. Thank you so much Dr. Lin-Hendel for being an advocate and for everything that you do.”

We appreciate Dr. Erika Lin-Hendel for all that they do for NOMV and the veterinary community!

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