Certificate in Applied Positive Psychology, University of Pennsylvania ’26
Doctor of Veterinary Medicine, Mississippi State University ’14
Bachelor of Science, Animal Science and Technology, University of Rhode Island ’05
“Veterinary medicine is a tough industry, and we don't get the emotional and social preparation as practitioners that we should,” begins Dr. Caitlin Vaughn (Certificate in Applied Positive Psychology ’26). Burnout, she explains, is a pervasive problem in her field, and something she struggled with personally as a clinician. The Penn LPS Online’s Certificate in Applied Positive Psychology helped Caitlin reframe her perspective and feel empowered to make constructive changes for herself and her colleagues in the clinic.
“I've learned what makes me tick, what makes me thrive, and what keeps me engaged.”
“I really loved emergency medicine,” Caitlin shares about her first four years in practice, though the emotional strain began to take its toll. Vets often struggle with professional pressures like compassion fatigue and the financial demands to see more clients. After several more years in general practice, and several bouts of burnout, Caitlin needed a change. “I thought, there has to be a better way to do this,” she says of choosing to step away from the clinic.
Pivoting to veterinary medicine professional development, Caitlin homed in on well-being and support for those in her vocation. Her roles included early-career mentorship and leadership development. A lifelong learner, Caitlin became a Certified Compassion Fatigue Professional (CCFP) and earned a Veterinary Human Support Certificate. “I loved the door opening to social work and human support. I think that it provided a lot of what I thought my clinical education was missing to keep me a happy, healthy, whole practitioner.”
Caitlin realized she had more questions about well-being in veterinary medicine. She knew first-hand that vets were resilient problems solvers, yet some still struggled to flourish. “You can feel like you’re in an echo chamber where everything is about the problems,” she says, recalling her own clinical experiences, “and I wanted to say, ‘Yeah, but here’s all the things we’re doing really well. How can we lean into that?’ Then a friend told me, ‘Ya know, that’s positive psychology.’”
Recognizing her knowledge gap, she started researching the topic. “The overarching idea in positive psychology of focusing on what is good and amplifying it really resonated for me,” she says. When she found the Applied Positive Psychology (APOP) Certificate at Penn, she knew the online credit-bearing program was the right choice to build her expertise and credentials.
Caitlin took her first course, Introduction to Positive Psychology, in fall 2025, which gave her a hands-on and evidence-based overview. Next, she chose Measuring What Moves Us: The Science Behind Human Flourishing to learn how to quantify well-being, a skill she could put into practice at work.
In early 2026, while taking her third course, Flourishing with Others: Building Thriving Relationships, Caitlin returned to a practicing vet position. With a new sense of agency over her workplace wellbeing, she was excited for the chance to apply her APOP relationship skills on the clinic floor.
“As a small animal veterinarian, I apply what I've learned at Penn every single day, with both colleagues and the families I work with.”
For example, in class, she was learning about psychological safety in the workplace and how it’s developed at the local, interpersonal level; This was something she was able to cultivate right away at work.
“As a veterinarian, you’re automatically in a position of leadership,” she says of the role’s inherent influence on clinic shift culture. “Starting a new job and being able to apply that concept of building relationships with people and creating a micro-environment based on what I was learning in class at the time was a really cool thing.”
Caitlin also brought that work experience back to the classroom for a course presentation on using compassion as the foundation for psychological safety. She’s currently developing the presentation into a blog post to share with a wider audience.
Her final certificate course was Human Flourishing: Strengths and Resilience, where students dive into character strengths, improving their own well-being and exploring how they can positively influence the world around them. “I've learned what makes me tick, what makes me thrive, and what keeps me engaged,” she says. “You can have an impact on everyone by just showing up authentically as who you are and flexing the skills that you have.”
After a short time back in the clinic, Caitlin can see the results her APOP experience has had to improve her own resilience and build a healthy workplace culture. She’s even working on a paper about resilience that she hopes to develop into a training opportunity at her clinic.
“As a small animal veterinarian, I apply what I've learned at Penn every single day, with both colleagues and the families I work with,” she says. “Veterinary medicine can be a challenging environment for a number of reasons, so shifting to a more positive approach with teammates has been truly meaningful.”
