“While it is undeniable that the veterinary profession has made many important contributions to both human and animal health, one wonders what other contributions could have been made by a more diverse and inclusive profession.”
BVER DEI Praxis: At Bridgetown Veterinary Emergency + Referral (BVER) we strongly believe that a diverse hospital team is the catalyst to exceptional care and innovation. Our commitment to the goal of improving overall diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging is a shared responsibility among our leadership, doctors, and staff. We embrace and celebrate the value of team composed of people with varied ethnicities, cultural backgrounds, gender identities, sexual orientations, ages, religious beliefs or a lack thereof, and physical and mental abilities. Our commitments to DEI will extend into our hiring practices and into our hospital protocols. They will extend into our community involvement, and our dedication to providing accessible medicine to the pet families we serve.
This has been a pivotal year for us, filled with the challenges, stresses, and excitement of building a new hospital from the ground up. This specialty hospital is unique: envisioned, owned, and created by the women who will also work within its walls. BVER will be our house, and we are the builders. As we work to lay a foundation to support clinical excellence, we have also incorporated an intentioned focus on integrating inclusion, equity, and belonging into our evolving and developing workplace culture. And with any new project, things will change, new rooms will need to be added, some walls will need to be reinforced, and certain design aspects may need to be completely torn down and rethought. And to this we say: bring it on. We will continually strive to foster a hospital environment that allows our team members to be empowered to grow and thrive so that we are able to do the right thing by our employees, clients and their pets, referral partners, and community.
“Freedom and justice cannot be parceled out in pieces to suit political convenience. I don’t believe you can stand for freedom for one group of people and deny it to others.”
~ Coretta Scott King
In 2020, an overwhelming number of painful events resulted in a national outcry demanding recognition and insisting on change. Veterinary medicine joined in this collective demand and how we respond will no doubt define the future of our country as well as our profession. This awakening has since led to education, discussion, collaboration and listening, and we now know better how we as a profession are contributing to racial and social inequity and are focused on what needs to change.
Personally, I decided to join the team at BVER in part because of a strong foundational commitment by management to promote racial and social justice and reform within veterinary medicine and our community.
Veterinary medicine requires resiliency, creativity, collaboration, grit, endless problem solving, and deep compassion. As veterinary professionals we must learn to communicate with our patients without the benefit of a shared language, using instead close observation and trained intuition to determine what care they need. We are curious and comfortable with change, endlessly confronted with new ways of practicing medicine that require us to shed long held views and modify the previous standard of care. I truly believe that if we apply these core characteristics to the fight to confront and dismantle racism, discrimination, and inequity within our field, we will find we can together elevate our profession beyond the ceiling of the current status quo.
“Radical simply means “grasping things at the root.” Fighting for a new society where everyone can thrive.”
~Angela Davis
At BVER, we are aligned with the ‘principles of inclusion statement made by the American Association of Veterinary Medical Colleges (AVMA): We affirm the value of human diversity for the enrichment of the community and believe diversity fosters a climate conducive to success for all members of the veterinary medical education community. We confront and reject all forms of prejudice and discrimination, including those based on race, ethnicity, gender, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, religious beliefs, political beliefs, geographic, socioeconomic, and educational background or any other differences that have led to misunderstanding, hostility and injustice.
“It is learning how to stand alone, unpopular and sometimes reviled, and how to make common cause with those other identified as outside the structures, in order to define and seek a world in which we can all flourish. It is learning how to take our differences and make the strengths. For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.”
~ Audre Lorde
Veterinary Diversity Organizations:
Veterinary Wellness and Mental Health Organizations and Resources
Reading:
Podcasts:
Allyship resources and education programs:
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Monday – Sunday: 7:00am – 10:00pm
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