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Spectrum of Care for New Graduates: When Gold Standard Isn’t Possible
Dr Sonja Olson
What You'll Learn
The transition from veterinary school to clinical practice often brings an unexpected ethical tension: reconciling “gold standard” medicine with real-world constraints of access to care, client finances, and emotional capacity. For many new graduates, this gap between ideal and feasible care can trigger perfectionism, guilt, and moral distress.
This session explores the complex intersection of access to veterinary care, spectrum of care, affordability, and professional identity. We will define moral stress, moral injury, and moral resilience, distinguishing them from burnout while examining how perfectionistic tendencies and imposter thoughts amplify ethical strain.
Participants will gain practical tools for stress regulation, ethical decision-making, and structured case debriefing. We will also examine how teams can cultivate psychological safety and shared ethical dialogue to reduce moral residue and foster collective resilience.
Rather than asking, “How do I cope with compromise?” this session reframes the question: “How do we practice ethically, compassionately, and sustainably within the realities of modern veterinary medicine?”
Meet Your Speaker
Dr Sonja Olson
DVM
Dr. Sonja Olson grew up with her human and animal family members mostly in Maryland, USA. She graduated from Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine with a focus on exotic animal and conservation medicine.
Her professional path led to over 25 years of practicing clinical small animal and exotic emergency medicine in both private and corporate practice environments in Virginia and in Florida. The myriad of opportunities to teach, mentor, and lead during these years were deeply fulfilling and inspirational. Through these personal and professional experiences, there developed an increased awareness of the far-reaching need for veterinary well-being awareness and healthy coping strategies. This combination fostered Sonja’s passion to better understand and increasingly support, the holistic health of the veterinary caregivers.
Dr. Olson’s full-time role currently is Veterinary Wellness Educator for the BluePearl Health & Well-being Team, working alongside licensed mental health professionals. The team has had the opportunity to create initiatives and resources as well as facilitate discussions on well-being concepts that foster a more compassionate, healthy caregiving community and culture. Both in her BluePearl role and outside of work, she seeks to support veterinary associates more globally through podcasts, writing, speaking virtually and in person to veterinary colleagues, and creatively collaborating with other like-minded souls.