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Burnout Isn’t Always About Workload: The Role of Exclusion and Bias
We’ve Been Framing Burnout Too Narrowly
In veterinary medicine, burnout is often explained as a simple equation: too much work + not enough rest = exhaustion. It’s not wrong — workload absolutely matters — but it’s incomplete.
Burnout is as much about the conditions under which you work as it is about the hours you put in. And one of the most overlooked contributors is how included, respected, and safe you feel in your workplace.
In other words, exclusion and bias are burnout risks.
When the Problem Isn’t the Job, It’s the Environment
Two veterinary nurses might work identical rosters, handle the same caseload, and earn the same pay. One thrives, the other burns out. What’s the difference? Often, it’s in the everyday climate:
Is one regularly left out of important conversations with vets and clients?
Is feedback given constructively to one and harshly to the other?
Are their career opportunities equal, or is bias quietly shaping who gets the “good” cases and promotions?
The same can be true for veterinarians. A new equine associate might be assigned long, unsociable after-hours call blocks while their peers receive more rewarding casework and mentorship opportunities. On paper, everyone’s working hard. In reality, the environment is silently creating inequity.
This kind of cumulative disadvantage doesn’t always show up on the schedule — but it drains energy, morale, and motivation just as surely as an endless on-call roster.
The Invisible Load of Exclusion
Exclusion and bias can create an ongoing “second shift” of emotional labour:
Self-monitoring — continually scanning for cues about whether it’s safe to speak up.
Code-switching — altering language, behaviour, or appearance to “fit in”.
Advocating for basic access — having to ask (and re-ask) for adjustments that should already be standard.
Absorbing microaggressions — the subtle slights, jokes, or comments that reinforce a sense of “otherness”.
Consider a deaf veterinarian who has to remind colleagues for the third time in a week to face them when speaking. Or a veterinary nurse who endures ongoing comments about “part-timers not being serious” because she works three days a week to balance family care.
Over time, these micro-burdens add up. Research shows that chronic experiences of exclusion activate stress pathways in the body, increasing cortisol and eroding psychological reserves. The result: slower recovery from everyday pressures, higher risk of burnout, and often, earlier exit from the profession.
What the Research Says
Organisational psychology tells us that burnout risk is shaped by more than workload — factors like fairness, belonging, and psychological safety are equally important.
When people feel:
Valued — for their skills and perspectives
Heard — without fear of retaliation
Equitably supported — with resources and opportunities
… they are more resilient to high workloads, and more likely to stay in the profession.
The evidence base for burnout is clear: workload is only one part of the puzzle.
Maslach & Leiter’s model identifies six domains that shape burnout risk: workload, control, reward, community, fairness, and values. Exclusion erodes at least three of these simultaneously — fairness, community, and values alignment.
The Job Demands–Resources model (Demerouti et al., 2001) highlights that access to supportive resources (such as belonging, fairness, and psychological safety) buffers against high job demands. Without them, the same workload becomes far more damaging.
Amy Edmondson’s research on psychological safety shows that when people feel safe to speak up without fear of punishment or humiliation, they’re more innovative, engaged, and resilient. Without it, even simple tasks feel riskier and more stressful.
Veterinary-specific studies echo these findings. Workforce surveys in Australia, the UK, and the US show that people from marginalised groups report higher attrition and lower job satisfaction. For example:
A 2024 Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS) study found that vets with chronic illness or disability were significantly less likely to disclose their condition to employers, citing fear of discrimination and lack of support.
AVMA surveys consistently identify toxic workplace culture as a driver of attrition — sometimes rated as high, or higher, than workload pressures.
The takeaway is clear: burnout is not only about hours worked, but about how people are treated while doing that work.
Equity Gaps: Who Carries the Heaviest Burden?
Burnout doesn’t fall evenly. While anyone can experience it, exclusion magnifies risk for certain groups:
Veterinarians and nurses with disabilities or chronic illness who must continually advocate for basic accommodations.
LGBTQIA+ professionals who may face microaggressions or lack of recognition in family policies.
Parents and carers who are penalised for flexible schedules or part-time roles.
Racially minoritised staff who shoulder additional identity-based labour, from representing diversity on panels to correcting assumptions from clients.
This is where “equity” matters. Two people may be working the same number of hours, but one is carrying a hidden, unacknowledged load that makes their role heavier. As the saying goes: equality is giving everyone the same shoes; equity is making sure the shoes actually fit.
Inclusion and equity aren’t “extras” — they are protective factors against burnout.
Why Resilience Isn’t Enough
Too often, veterinary burnout is addressed with individual resilience strategies: mindfulness, yoga, time-management, resilience workshops. These can be helpful, but they risk sending the wrong message: the problem is you, not the system.
The reality? You can’t meditate your way out of being excluded from career pathways. You can’t breathe away the exhaustion of constantly code-switching. You can’t self-care your way out of systemic inequity.
Real burnout prevention means fixing the system, not just fortifying the individual.
Practical Steps for Leaders
Reducing burnout risk means looking beyond rosters and staffing numbers. Leaders can:
Audit inclusion — Review whose voices are heard in meetings, whose ideas are implemented, and whose needs are met.
Address microaggressions early — Even subtle bias, left unchecked, can become a chronic stressor.
Create equitable opportunities — Make sure professional development, training, and leadership pathways are accessible to everyone.
Normalise adjustments — From flexible rosters to assistive tech, make accommodations a standard part of operations, not a special favour.
Invest in middle management training — Many exclusionary experiences happen at the team leader level, not the executive level.
The Cost of Ignoring the Link
When leaders focus only on workload without addressing climate, they risk:
Losing great people who leave not because they can’t do the job, but because they can’t keep doing it there.
Replacing them at high cost — financially and culturally (turnover drains insitutional knowledge).
Reinforcing a cycle where the remaining team carries a heavier load, leading to even more attrition.
The profession is already facing a workforce crisis. Ignoring exclusion as a burnout risk is like ignoring infection control in a surgery — you can keep working, but at escalating and preventable cost.
The Bottom Line
Burnout is not just a personal resilience problem, and it’s not just about hours worked. It’s also about how people are treated while doing that work.
If we fail to address exclusion, we don’t just lose individual veterinarians and nurses — we risk hollowing out the diversity, innovation, and resilience that the profession needs to survive its current workforce crisis.
At Vetquity, we help veterinary leaders identify and remove the structural and cultural barriers that quietly fuel burnout. Explore our free Equity-Based Burnout Risk Matrix for a veterinary-specific approach to burnout prevention.
And if you want to embed inclusion infrastructure in your workplace, have a look at The Inclusion Lab Signature Series.
Protecting our workforce — and the future of veterinary medicine — requires making inclusion and equity just as non-negotiable as safe working hours.
