Professional Difficulties and Conflicts

Our authors have approached issues of care and professionalism from many angles throughout this book. This is not the only section that considers difficult topics, of course, but the title of this section is ‘Professional Difficulties and Conflicts’ because this theme particularly focuses on how the humanities can help us deal with the challenges of the veterinary world, either by helping us to negotiate and understand difficult encounters with other people or by helping us process internal conflict. Each of the five authors in this section offers a unique perspective on a particular professional difficulty and also suggests some potential solutions for their chosen topic. Some of these contributions may be troubling for some readers, but we make no apologies for this; we hope that the humanities lens will encourage people to think about personal or professional challenges with fresh insight, to recognise that others also find some aspects of the veterinary world to be problematic and to consider what we should all be doing differently.