When It Feels Like You Didn’t Do Enough
Dr. Geoff Carullo, DVM, FPCCP, DPCVSCA
- GPH Vet Business
- 3 min read
Some cases don’t just stay in the clinic.
They stay in your head.
They follow you home.
They echo in your heart when the day is quiet.
That one patient.
That one case.
That moment you keep replaying over and over again, whispering to yourself—
“Sana pala…”
“Sana pala, I skipped lunch. Maybe if I checked that puppy the moment they arrived, he’d still be alive.”
“Sana pala, I chose a different antibiotic combo. Maybe there’s something better out there I didn’t consider.”
“Sana pala, I had a working X-ray. I had to refer it. If only I had my own, maybe I could’ve started treatment faster.”
And there it is—that heavy mix of guilt, regret, and self-doubt that only a fellow vet would understand.
Not because you were careless.
Not because you didn’t care.
But because you cared so much—and it still wasn’t enough.
We talk about cases.
We talk about techniques.
But we rarely talk about what happens to us when things go wrong.
The invisible damage.
The silent self-blame.
The weight of maybe.
Maybe if I was quicker.
Maybe if I studied more.
Maybe if I had better equipment.
Maybe if I were a better vet.
But here’s the truth: you were doing your best in that moment—with what you had, with what you knew, with what you could.
And that has to count for something.
There are thousands of vets carrying the same quiet pain.
We all have those days: Where you stare at your patient’s cage hours after they’re gone.
Where you drive home and barely remember the road.
Where you lie in bed and ask yourself the same question again and again—
“Did I fail them?”
You didn’t.
You showed up.
You tried.
You cared.
Even if it doesn’t feel like enough, your presence already was.
You are not weak because you feel this.
You are human.
You are a professional, yes. But you are also a person—with limits, with wounds, with a heart that breaks quietly behind the clinic door.
It’s okay to mourn the ones you couldn’t save.
It’s okay to feel broken for a while.
But please, don’t carry it alone. And don’t let guilt erase all the good you’ve done.
Because you have saved so many.
You have comforted so many.
You have made more right decisions than wrong ones.
You just don’t remember them as clearly—because guilt has a louder voice than grace.
Being a vet means walking into uncertainty every day, and still choosing to care.
It means knowing you won’t always win—and still trying anyway.
You are not less.
You are not a failure.
You are a healer—even when healing doesn’t look the way you hoped.
So the next time you whisper,
“Sana pala…”
Take a breath.
And remind yourself:
“Ginawa ko ang lahat ng kaya ko.”
And sometimes, that is everything.
Sharing this helps others understand what it really means to be a vet. Like and follow if you’re with us.
Dr. Geoff Carullo is a Fellow and the current President of the Philippine College of Canine Practitioners.
