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Good Grief Academy
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Grief Literacy Assessment
Tactical Grief Processing Program
Vets - 1st Responders to our Pets
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Good Grief Academy
About
Grief Literacy Assessment
Tactical Grief Processing Program
Vets - 1st Responders to our Pets
Shop
Contact
Login Account
(0)
Cart (0)
About
Grief Literacy Assessment
Tactical Grief Processing Program
Vets - 1st Responders to our Pets
Shop
Contact
Login Account

You perform a euthanasia at 9 am + answer calls at 9:15.

A client breaks down in the exam room and you hold space for them. You then go back to the schedule. No debrief. No protocol for the weight. You’ve just learned to carry it.

What accumulates in veterinary medicine is not simply ‘stress’. It’s occupational (sector specific) grief. No training or framework on how to use grief literacy as a tactical skill so that you are psychologically well in your work.

Good Grief Academy built the framework.

This grief has a specific shape.

Volume.

In veterinary medicine, the frequency of death and difficult decisions is higher than almost any other care-based profession.

Euthanasia is not an exceptional event — it is routine. That distinction matters enormously when you're trying to understand why things accumulate the way they do.

Moral injury from euthanasia.

Performing medically appropriate euthanasia is a clinical skill. Carrying it emotionally — across hundreds or thousands of procedures over a career — is a separate

problem entirely. The two are rarely treated that way, because there hasn't been a framework that names the difference.

Client grief as occupational exposure.

When a client is hostile, blaming, or inconsolable, that lands on your team. Repeatedly. Without grief literacy, what's actually a grief response gets

processed as a personal attack, a professional failure, or something to suppress. None of those responses are accurate. All of them cost something.

The dismissal that doesn't help.

"It's just an animal" — you've heard it, maybe said it to yourself in a hard moment. It doesn't shorten the grief. It delays it.

No debrief culture.

Human-facing emergency services are slowly, imperfectly building language around occupational grief. Veterinary medicine is largely doing this alone — each team member figuring it out without scaffolding, or not at all.

Where does your clinic stand?

5 Questions. < 3 minutes. No email required.

5 questions. Under 3 minutes. No email needed. Find out where your team actually stands on occupational grief literacy.

1. In the past month, how many times did you or a colleague perform euthanasia and then immediately return to regular clinic duties without any form of debrief or transition time?

2. How would you describe your clinic's shared understanding of the difference between burnout and grief?

3. When a client is angry, hostile, or blaming during a difficult diagnosis or death — how well-equipped do you feel to understand that as a grief response rather than a personal attack?

4. Does your clinic have a formal or informal process for supporting staff after a difficult case — a euthanasia, unexpected death, or complaint from a grieving client?

5. How would you rate your clinic's current capacity to retain staff who are struggling with the emotional weight of the work — not the clinical demands, the grief load?

What the research says about veterinary teams

Tap any card to reveal what's behind the number.

1 in 3
Veterinary professionals report high levels of psychological distress
Tap to Reveal

Studies consistently find elevated rates of depression, anxiety, and burnout in veterinary professionals — higher than the general population and comparable to human healthcare workers. The emotional labour is structural, not individual.

Emerging evidence — CVMA wellness literature
50–80%
Of clinic staff experience compassion fatigue within 5 years
Tap to Reveal

Compassion fatigue is often misidentified as burnout. The distinction matters: burnout tells you you're depleted. Grief tells you what you've lost. Different roots. Different responses required.

Emerging evidence — veterinary compassion fatigue literature
$0
Average CE budget allocated to grief literacy in most veterinary practices
Tap to Reveal

Most veterinary CE budgets go to clinical skills. The emotional and relational capacity required to work in a high-loss profession receives almost no formal investment.

Inference — based on CE program analysis
40%
Of veterinary professionals consider leaving within the first 5 years
Tap to Reveal

Attrition in veterinary medicine is rarely about clinical dissatisfaction. It's about the unprocessed weight of loss — euthanasia, client grief, moral injury — with no framework for carrying it.

Emerging evidence — veterinary workforce literature
$25K+
Estimated cost to replace one veterinary team member
Tap to Reveal

Recruitment, onboarding, lost productivity, and client relationship disruption. Grief literacy training is a retention strategy — and costs a fraction of one replacement hire.

Inference — based on healthcare turnover cost estimates
82%
Of pet owners say emotional support during a loss affects their clinic loyalty
Tap to Reveal

A team that hasn't processed its own grief cannot hold space for a client's. The quality of care during the hardest moments is a direct function of your team's grief literacy.

Inference — client loyalty and veterinary communication literature

OVMA - Approved Continuing Education (1.5 hours)

The Weight of the Work:

Grief Literacy for Veterinary Professionals

The CVO recommends 50 hours of continuing professional development per year. Most of those hours go to clinical skills.

This one goes somewhere else.

90 minutes. OVMA-approved. Built specifically for veterinary professionals — not adapted from a generic wellness template.

What your team leaves with: — A working distinction between occupational grief and burnout — Language for what accumulates across a career — A

framework for processing what the work leaves behind — 1.5 OVMA-approved CE hours

Email us for Clinic Training
Take the course now (coming June 2026)

Good Grief Academy

Contact

info@goodgriefacademy.com

“Teaching a 1st responder how to manage a difficult airway saves patients lives. Teach them how to manage a difficult call, culture or tragedy and we’ll save theirs.”
— Wendy Lund, Founder Pinned Tweet @WLund100 (Jan 2017)

Follow us along on IG, click on any post below :

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