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New grads say it.
Their bosses say they are doing it.
And both sides end up feeling misunderstood and frustrated.
Support is one of those words that sounds simple, until you realise no one’s talking about the same thing.
I recently coached a graduate vet who told me, for months, that everything was fine. She was thriving, confident, and didn’t need more hand-holding. She felt she was the sort of person who liked to get on with things and ask for help if she needed it.
Then suddenly, one month, she was in a heap. “No one is supporting me.”
Turns out, things had changed; she was hitting new challenges, her confidence had dipped, and she wanted more guidance again, which is totally valid, as of course she’s allowed to change her mind.
The problem? She didn’t tell anyone.
She expected the level of support to change automatically, and when it didn’t, she felt abandoned. She was genuinely frustrated and felt let down by her employer, feeling like they should be doing more.
The practice hadn’t failed her; the communication loop had.
Here’s the irony: leaders in vet clinics are often bending over backwards to support grads. They feel like they’re damned if they do, and damned if they don’t.
Take the boss who scrubs into 80% of a grad’s surgeries, or goes out on their calls with them. From their perspective, they’re providing safety, guidance, and reassurance. From the grad’s perspective, it can feel like a lack of trust, like they’re never allowed to try on their own.
Then, the one time that same boss doesn’t scrub in and something goes wrong, the grad feels like they were left to fail. Both people are trying to do the right thing. Both walk away feeling unseen and misunderstood.
Here’s the truth: The biggest predictor of frustration isn’t how much support you have. It’s the gap between what you expected and what you experienced.
If a grad expects daily check-ins and gets weekly ones, that’s disappointing. If a leader thinks they’re fostering independence and the grad expected close supervision, that’s disappointing too.
Neither side is wrong. They’re just misaligned.
“Support” is too vague to be useful. Let’s start being specific.
Instead of: “We offer a supportive workplace.”
Try: “In your first month, you’ll have a daily check-in and all your surgeries supervised. By month three, you’ll have weekly reviews and gradually more autonomy.”
“For the first 12 months you’ll always have at least one other vet on shift with you, and available to call when you’re on-call.“
Instead of: “I need more support.”
Try: “I’d feel more confident if we could debrief after surgeries for 10 minutes.”
“I’d like to run consults solo, but know you’re nearby for backup.”
“I’m struggling with time management, can we work on that together?”
That’s how you close the expectation gap.
It’s also worth revisiting what “unsupported” actually means as sometimes what we label as unsupported is really just uncomfortable.
You can feel stressed, tired, and out of your depth and still be supported. That’s how growth works. Being challenged isn’t the same as being abandoned. But when we don’t talk about the difference, people burn out for the wrong reasons.
Here’s the hard truth: Most “support” issues aren’t support issues; they’re communication issues.
The fix isn’t more mentoring or more checklists. It’s teaching people how to talk to each other about what they need and what they can give.
It’s grads learning to articulate the type of support that helps them most, and to recognise that they are and aren’t feeling, and leaders learning to be transparent and flexible about what sort of support they can offer.
That’s what a supportive culture actually is. Not “we care” but “we’re clear.”
So Maybe the Real Question Isn’t“How supported do you feel?”
But rather, “Do we have a shared understanding of what support looks like right now?”
For more information and support for both employers and new grads, visit Unleashed Coaching and Consulting
Dr Jess Moore-Jones is an occasional vet, a challenge-the-status-quo type of business owner, a no BS-consultant, and an engaged mum (except at 5am when she's a very mediocre mum). Having led teams large and small, from animal shelters to zoo departments to specialist hospitals, Jess is slightly annoyingly obsessed with keeping vets engaged, fulfilled and resilient in our profession. After a leadership career of transforming toxic cultures, reducing staff burnout, and helping nurture the self-awareness of young leaders, Dr Jess decided that she could support more vets by bringing her skills to any organisation that had the courage to recognise that they needed some help. Now she runs Unleashed Coaching and Consulting, with the sole aim of Keeping Veterinary Professionals in the Veterinary Profession. Unleashed works with veterinary teams, individuals and leaders to build resilient teams, engaged cultures, and thriving businesses without any of the academic psychobabble or politically correct but unrealistic advice you could have googled.
Connect with Jessica:
Even in the most capable veterinary teams, not every working relationship feels easy, and there’s usually a reason for that. We’ve all been there. You're working with someone who’s perfectly competent – maybe even kind and considerate – and yet, something doesn’t...
