In your Career feature, a PhD student distressed by killing two or three mice daily asks for “suggestions for coping mechanisms” (see Nature https://doi.org/rp77; 2026). The advice includes “getting enough sleep, eating well, exercising” and memorializing the euthanized animals. This is similar to telling someone who witnessed animal cruelty to practise self-care. Such support might help to protect the student’s well-being, but also risks treating an ethical conflict as a resilience problem.