Veterinary Leadership Experience (VLE)

(Group photo: 190 veterinary students, faculty and industry members)

It has been 10 days since I came back from Spokane, Washington, where I attended Veterinary Leadership Experience (VLE) as faculty participant from Tuskegee. This, totally unexpectedly, has changed me in various aspects. I feel lighter and empowered, less worried. I feel rejuvenated.

This workshop was to enhance leadership in the veterinary community and this year's participants came from vet schools and industries in USA, Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Taiwan, and two participants were originally from Zimbabwe and Jordan. During the 5 days of the workshop, there was no medical discussion. No drugs, no treatment plan, nothing. Rather it was filled with self-awareness, self-management, and lots of new ideas how we can "be the change we want to see in this world." People can be crazy - love them anyways.

During the course of self-awareness, I realized how much negativity I have accumulated inside of me since moving to Alabama. I also realized how I started setting the walls around me, juggling so many roles I play every day: veterinarian, clinical instructor, teacher, professor's wife, wife (in general), mother, daughter, granddaughter, friend, member of this, and member of that. I have encountered a fair amount of unfairness, injustice, frustrations, and disappointment. I was becoming short-tempered, losing balance.

At VLE, I was able to get to know wonderful people who had been in this business for decades, most of them with the highest level of degree and/or board certification, and juggled their own personal lives. Remember - we are high achievers, and also surrounded by over-achievers! Some of them talked about their 'wake-up calls' in their turning points during seminars, and some revealed at personal levels. Several of them have told me their own tips how to balance lives, such as setting boundaries, making regular appointments to take care of things rather than doing them at random whenever we find time, and also to take care of ourselves. We don't fail just because things don't work the way we would like them to be.

This is work in process, but I know I can do something - how little it might be, I will take it one by one.

It is now my turn to serve the community.

(Front: cabins in the woods)
(Back: River)
(My Group photo:Group 9, 14 members with 2 facilitators)
(Getting in Canoe with Taiwanese doctors during free time)

(Roping during free time)