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Search Results for: buisson

Imposter Syndrome and Finding Our Place in Vet Medicine

August 22, 2022 by Andy Roark DVM MS

Dr. Cherie Buisson joins the podcast to discuss the idea that, deep down, none of us think we belong here. We think we’re not moving fast enough, that we’re not smart enough, and that we’re not accomplishing what we should be accomplishing (or what others are accomplishing). Why do we have these thoughts, and more importantly, what do we do about them?

Cone Of Shame Veterinary Podcast · COS – 156 – Imposter Syndrome And Finding Our Place In Vet Medicine

You can also listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Soundcloud, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts!

LINKS

A Happy Vet: https://ahappyvet.com/

Helping Hands Pet Hospice: https://helpinghandspethospice.com/

Dr. Andy Roark Exam Room Communication Tool Box Course: https://drandyroark.com/on-demand-staff-training/

What’s on my Scrubs?! Card Game: https://drandyroark.com/training-tools/

Dr. Andy Roark Swag: drandyroark.com/shop

All Links: linktr.ee/DrAndyRoark

ABOUT OUR GUEST

Dr. Buisson wasn’t (and isn’t!) always A Happy Vet. In fact, for many years, she was An Unhappy Vet. Despite working in wonderful practices with compassionate mentors, she always felt she didn’t fit in. She found private practice draining and felt like a failure for her inability to be “a real vet”. She learned the hard way for two decades, and her mission is to provide veterinary professionals with the tools to find their happiness and to help them be comfortable if they take a nontraditional approach. She believes it’s never too late to find your place, but there’s nothing wrong with starting early!


EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

This podcast transcript is made possible thanks to a generous gift from Banfield Pet Hospital, which is striving to increase accessibility and inclusivity across the veterinary profession. Click here to learn more about Equity, Inclusion & Diversity at Banfield.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Hey, guys. If you’ve listened to this podcast for any time at all, you know how much I care about keeping pet care accessible to pet owners, and how much I hate when people don’t have the resources they need to take care of their pets or staff included. Guys, if you are here, you are probably pretty hardcore about pet healthcare. Figo Pet Insurance helps you and your clients prepare for the unexpected so that you never have to make the tough choice between your pet’s health and your wallet. Whether these pets are eating out of the trash or diving off of furniture, pets don’t always make the best decisions, we know that. But with Figo you can, and pet owners can. Designed for pets and their people, Figo allows you to worry less and play more with customizable coverage for accidents, illness, and routine wellness. To get a quick and easy quote, visit figopet.com/coneofshame, that’s F-I-G-O-P-E-T.com/coneofshame. Figo’s policies are underwritten by Independence American Insurance Company.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Welcome everybody to the Cone of Shame Veterinary podcast. I am your host, Dr. Andy Roark. I am here with my friend today, the one and only Dr. Cherie Buisson. She was highly requested when I put out a call to say, “Hey, what was the best lecture you ever saw and who gave it? Because I’d like to talk to him on the podcast.” She was on the list and got a number of little up votes. And I know Cherie and I agree that she does a heck of a lecture, and she is awesome to listen to. And so she’s on today talking about imposter syndrome and finding her place in vet medicine. This is a fun conversation. We get into a lot of different stuff. It’s sprawling, there’s lots of stories being told. Lots of laughs. I think the world of her guys. I hope you are going to enjoy this one. Let’s get into it.

Kelsey Beth Carpenter:
(Singing).

Dr. Andy Roark:
Welcome to the podcast, Dr. Cherie Buisson. Thanks for being here.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Hey, thanks for having me. It’s exciting to be here and I’m so glad to see you again. It’s been forever.

Dr. Andy Roark:
It’s been a minute.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
It’s been a minute.

Dr. Andy Roark:
It’s been pre-pandemic since you and I got to hang out. Yeah.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Oh gosh.

Dr. Andy Roark:
I know. I haven’t seen you since then. Yeah.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Wow. That’s a long time.

Dr. Andy Roark:
It was 2020 and then it’s 2022 and here we are.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Yeah. All right.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. For those who don’t know you, Dr. Cherie Buisson is a practicing veterinarian. She is a hospice veterinarian in Largo, Florida. She is certified hospice and palliative care specialist, and she is the brains behind A Happy Vet, which is a website online with a lot of mental health and wellness resources for vet professionals. And so that is Cherie. We met back in the day when I was running the Dr. Andy Roark website, and she just submitted an article out of the blue. And I was like, “This is amazing.” And then she started writing more and more. And then she started getting asked to speak and present on the things that she had written, which were amazing. And then I got to see her just take off like a rocket in our profession, and she is an outstanding presenter and speaker. And if you get the chance to see her in the post-COVID world, you should totally do that. And so Cherie, welcome and thanks for being here.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Thanks so much. I really appreciate it.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Oh man.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Gosh, it has been a really long time. That was 2017 when I submitted that article and I thought, “Wouldn’t it be cool if somebody like Andy Roark picked this up?” And then all of a sudden I had messages from you on every platform. And I was like, “Wow.” Talk about asking the universe for something. That was awesome.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, you were writing a lot of fascinating stuff. I think one of the things that you have really contributed to this profession, more than anybody, I will go that far.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Oh wow.

Dr. Andy Roark:
And say I think one of the things that you really put a stamp on, and that you said before anybody else was talking about it, you talked about imposter syndrome. And I think that was one of the first things that I really remember you writing about was imposter syndrome. And you were writing about euthanasia and hospice care early on as well. But I think, and correct me if I’m wrong, I think the thing that’s probably resonated the most with people, I think was your writings specifically on imposter syndrome. I hadn’t heard a lot about it back when you started, and then that’s where your career came from.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Yes. And the term imposter syndrome has been around since the seventies, so it’s nothing new and it’s nothing I came up with. But man, when you’re struggling in the vet profession and you feel like you don’t belong here, if you’re a geek, you start looking stuff up and you’re like, “There’s got to be an explanation for this.” And I don’t even remember where I heard it first or if I just came upon it on the internet, but I was like, “Oh, this explains so much.” And I thought this is something the students need to hear, because if I had known that as a student, that most of the people in my class felt that way … Because I think there’s this bravado that we all put on, like we know what we’re doing and we’re confident, and we’re freaking out completely on the inside. And I think there wasn’t a push for vulnerability back then. So everybody was just like, “Oh, everyone is so much smarter than me and I don’t belong here.”

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
And I felt that way, I still feel that way sometimes and it’s been 22 years since I graduated. I think it’s just something, if we can start and let the students know it’s a thing, then I think … I watch their faces light up in an audience. It cracks me up, because I can always tell who the students are, because their jaw drops and their eyes get big. And then they’re like, “Oh yeah. Okay. That’s me.” So it makes me so happy to see them go, “Oh, okay. I’m not alone. Everything is fine.” I do think that we’ve gotten … Everybody found out about it and now it’s this cliche thing. “Oh, there’s my imposter syndrome.” And I think there’s more being said about how maybe it’s not so much imposter syndrome in a lot of places that it’s more toxic workplaces and discrimination, that you don’t feel this way because something’s wrong with you.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
There’s something wrong with the world.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Right.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
I do think we’ve put it on individuals, “Well, if you feel this way, you need to fix it.” And I think that’s something we need to lean away from. We need to take responsibility for ourselves, but we also need to address the fact that systemically there are problems that cause people who are marginalized to feel even more marginalized.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Sure.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
And we need to address that. So hopefully we’re working on that, but it’s not a small problem for sure.

Dr. Andy Roark:
I just want to make sure I understand this too. So it’s funny, I don’t think of imposter syndrome as being a vet student thing at all. To me, I look around at everyone else that I know, and I guess I’m at a place in my career where I am fortunate, humble brag, I get to visit with the people in the C-suites and CEOs of big vet companies. You know what I mean? And I know people who own seven vet practices and I know that they still have imposter syndrome. They probably more so because they’re like, “There’s 300 people that work for me, that they have no idea who I am. They clearly don’t know that I was not supposed to get this job.” And it’s funny. So that’s the mindset that I have is in high performing people, whether they’re associate doctors or whether they’re people who own practice groups being affected by this. And it’s just funny to me that you see it on the faces of the vet students, which totally makes sense, but it’s not at all the lens that I was looking at it through.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
And it’s just because as a vet I remember feeling that way, like I was the dumbest one in my class. I graduated third in my class. Okay. So I wasn’t …

Dr. Andy Roark:
You weren’t quite the dumbest.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
No.

Dr. Andy Roark:
You weren’t quite the dumbest.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
And not that the last person that graduated at our class was the dumbest, because not everybody’s good at school, but that was always my thing is that I’m good at school. So I was like, “How am I going to be a veterinarian when school stops? Because I’m good at school. That’s what I do.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
That’s funny.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
And so I was like, “If somebody had just told me, or if I had shared that and maybe they do better in vet school now and the students share, “Hey, I feel really worried about this,” or, “I’m upset about this.” But I was just in this room full of geniuses and I was like, “How did I get here?” And I talked to another veterinarian who I just love. And he was telling me that when he graduated, he didn’t know they didn’t put your diploma in the envelope or cardboard thing that they hand you.

Dr. Andy Roark:
In the tube, in the tube that they give you.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
In the tube.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
So when he opened it, he thought, “Oh my God, they just didn’t want to embarrass me in front of my family. I didn’t graduate.” And it made me laugh, but it didn’t even surprise me. I was like, “Yeah, I can see that. Totally.” They handed us a cardboard folder, whatever a pleather folder. And we knew our diplomas weren’t going to be in there. And then funnily enough, they misspelled our graduation date on the things. We all had to give our diplomas back and get them back. Yeah. It’s just the more people I talk to the more I hear it, “I don’t know what I’m doing here. I just feel like I don’t belong here.”

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
So if everybody feels that way, maybe that means we all belong here? I think that’s where we need to come from. I had great mentors and they respected students and young veterinarians and were very supportive and like, “Hey, take it easy on yourself. You’re learning.” But I think for new vets too, it gets really hard because in a lot of practices everybody’s real supportive in the beginning, and then once they feel like you should have your feet under you, they’re like, “You’re not going fast enough.” And then it just goes downhill from there. You’re just like, “I can’t keep up and I can’t do this.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
Do you think that is a failing in our profession? So you say if none of us feel like we are supposed to be here, I think it’s always hard to speak in generalizations, but I definitely get the impression that a lot of us feel like we’re not supposed to be here especially early in our career. Is that a failing in our training you think? Or is that an inevitable part of being a human being?

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Well, I think part of it is the selection process for veterinary school is that they tend to select for lack of better terms, anal retentive, perfectionists.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. They’re going for the people who are third in their class and think that they’re not supposed to be there. That’s who they go for.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Right, right. If it’s not perfect, we didn’t accomplish it, I think is how a lot of us feel. And so when we have cases that go wrong, we’re like, “Oh it must be me,” instead of, “Oh, it must be nature.” Because this is how this works.” Sometimes perfectly healthy things just pass away and we don’t know why or sometimes anesthesia problems happen and we don’t know why. Although I’m sure the anesthesia nerds have an explanation for that and that’s why I love them.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Oh yeah. They’re great.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
They’re fantastic. But I think it’s not realistic. Our whole thing of, “I love animals, but I don’t maybe so much love people so I should be a veterinarian.” I think there’s just, we start off on the wrong foot with, “I need to be perfect. I need to get straight. I need to get it right all the time.” And there’s no way for that to happen ever.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
You’re going to screw up. You’re going to have patients that die for no reason. You’re going to have patients that die because of you. And if you’re like me, all of them do because that’s what I do for a living now.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Right, yeah. It’s different when you’re hospice. Yeah.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
I never, never would have thought that that’s what I wanted to do. And so I just think we need change in that we just need to let everybody know it’s okay. I feel like all vet students need a letter that’s like, “Here, you’re going to feel like you suck and you don’t belong here. That’s crap. Here, you’re not going to get everything right, and that’s expected.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
I think our expectations are so far from what reality really is. And a lot of us, this is what we wanted to be since we were kids and kids don’t have logical, smart ways to look at the world. So we’re just like, “Oh, I want to play with puppies and kittens all day.” And that’s not what it is.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. I had this theory. I wrote about it in a article that came out just last month. So it came out I think in the July Today’s Vet Business, but I’ve got this idea, Cherie, that we need more graduations. And my theory is this. Okay. When we talk about graduations, the point of a graduation is supposed to be end one chapter of the life and move on to the next chapter. So it’s based on these rituals of adulthood, where you no longer a child and now you are a grown up and now you’re a member of the tribe and things like that.

Dr. Andy Roark:
And so I think that we don’t do a good job of ending college and beginning vet school and saying, “This is not college anymore. This is different and you’re going to learn differently and the expectations are going to be different.” And then I think we really don’t do a good job, and I don’t think it’s on anyone at the schools don’t get me wrong, but I think that we have trained ourselves so that we do the thing and we sit through the ceremony at the end and then we go on and we don’t really think about it. I’ll say, I don’t remember the graduation being a transformational moment for me at all. It was a scheduling challenge that I had to fit on my day and I had to go and do the thing. And I was like, “Oh, I got to make sure I eat before I go, because I don’t want to be angry for photos afterwards.” Then that was as much as I had, I just went on.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Because I was like, “I’m going to graduate. It’s going to happen.” And I think that we need more graduations, which are like, “Hey, you are not in school anymore. You are not meant to get everything and you’re going to work with people and that you can’t get everything right with people because they don’t work that way. And people are not going to have the money that you need to do the things that you want to do. And you are going to be doing your best with a pile of unfortunate circumstances, things that are beyond your control and that’s not failure. That’s what you’re doing now.” You know what I mean?

Dr. Andy Roark:
But I think that a lot of us never really put school behind us and the idea that we needed to get the A and we needed to get it right. And everybody needed to like us and be happy. And so that’s my idea with imposter syndrome is I wish that we could really put people through a graduation that would say, “You’re no longer a student. You are a professional with a CVT or a DVM. And this is what you do for a living, which means you make recommendations. You make hard choices. Some people don’t like what you have to tell them. You’re not going to have all the answers. You can’t fix all the things, welcome aboard because this is what you do now.” And so I don’t know. Does that make any sense when I say it?

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Yes. I love it. Because I read that article. Now that you’re saying it, I’m like, “Oh yeah, I remember reading that,” and I agree. The difference for me, I went from not being able to do anything without direct supervision, to being able to do whatever I wanted with no supervision in 15 minutes. And I was just like, “How is that? Yesterday I didn’t know anything and today I’m supposed to know everything.” And I think that’s perfectly said, you graduate and it’s a graduation but there’s no handbook.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
You can’t even get Dr. Spock’s How to Survive Your First Year of Med School. Although there are books now that cover that, or your first year as a veterinarian. But yeah, I think we don’t give that the credit it deserves for how hard it is to do that. I remember seeing a case of flea allergy and I live in Florida, everything’s a case of flea allergy. And I didn’t know what to do with it because I didn’t … How do I work this up? What do we do? And my boss was like, “It’s flea allergy, put some advantage on him and give him a shot of steroids and let’s go on his way.” And I was just like, “Yeah, they didn’t teach me that in school.”

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
And I was involved in the advantage clinical trials. So I knew, but it wasn’t practical for what I needed. And it just wasn’t something that I was used to seeing. Apparently I didn’t get any flea infested dogs in Mississippi when I was on community practice. It was probably wintertime. It might have been wintertime. So I don’t know, but it was just so odd to me and I felt so stupid. I was like, “He’s going to fire me now.” And I think that’s another big component to imposter syndrome is people, if you have good mentors, they will tell you. My boss went to the ends of the earth to tell me how much he appreciated me, how great a job I was doing. And I was like, “Oh my God, I’m going to get fired.” What?

Dr. Andy Roark:
As soon as he started saying nice things, you were like, “This is it. He’s setting it up.”

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Yeah. I’m like, “This is it. He’s going to fire me.” And then I was lucky. Some graduates get bosses who gaslight them and are mean to them.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
I can’t even imagine how you get through that. So yeah, I think there’s a whole host of mess that we all have to get through to do this. And we are just thrown in the deep end and it’s like pin a $20 bill to your collar and wish you the best of luck, have at it.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Hey everybody, I’m just jumping in with two lightning, fast updates. Number one, if you have not gotten signed up for the Get (censored) Done shorthanded virtual conference in October, it’s October 6th through the 8th, you need to do that. If you are feeling overwhelmed in your practice, that you want things to go smoother and faster. If you do not want to watch webinars, you want to actually talk about your practice. You want to do some discussion groups. You want to do some workshops where you actually make things and work on things and ask questions as we go along and have round table discussions and things like that, that’s really going to energize you and help you figure out actionable solutions that you can immediately put into practice to make your life simpler and more relaxed. I got you covered buddy, but you don’t want to miss it. Go ahead and get registered.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Mark yourself off at the clinic for the time so that you can be here and be present and really take advantage of this. I don’t want it to sneak up on you. I know October seems like a long way away. It’s not, but go ahead. I’m going to put a link down below and then when registration opens, we’ll let you know it’s open and you can grab your spot. But you do not want to sneak up on you. Check out our Get (censored) Done shorthanded conference. It’s going to be a great one. The second thing I’m going to tell you about is Banfield. Thank you to Banfield the Pet Hospital for making transcripts of this podcast available. You can find them at drandyroark.com. They are totally free and open to the public and Banfield supports us increase accessibility and inclusion in our profession. It’s a wonderful thing that they do. Guys, that’s all I got. Let’s get back into this episode.

Dr. Andy Roark:
I want to just switch to conversation here a little bit, because you’re going right into a really interesting place. You’ve had a very non-traditional sort of career. And so you started off when we talk about imposter syndrome and I think it’s interesting that you come out of vet school and you’re third in your class and you’re like, “I’m not meant to be here,” and this sort of experience. Talk to me a bit about finding your way in vet medicine and because that’s something that you speak a lot about and it’s something that you’re known for. Yeah. Walk me through what your path was as you explored vet medicine coming out of this training out this training program that we all go through.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
I started very traditional in a private practice, dogs, cats and exotics. Not a lot of exotics, but some. It was a two practice, so I went back and forth between two practices. I had fantastic mentors, fantastic. The doctors placed me in the hands of my CVTs and they were like, “Ask them anything.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
I love those. I love those techs.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Yeah.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Oh man.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
And then they had to pull me in the office and say, “Ask them anything but not where the client can hear you.” So I had that happen one time and I was like, “Oh my god, they’re going to fire me.” And then I realized that I have a little … We didn’t have … I’m sure it was around, but training fear free and low stress handling were not a thing. Back then we did the wrestle, WrestleMania and I got beaten up by way too many big dogs, which god helped me was not their fault at all. It was all me not knowing what to do with them.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
And I had an affinity for feline medicine, so I actually moved to a feline only practice. Again, fantastic mentor. A woman, so someone who looked like me in VetMed, which was something I had seen, I had female professors at the university, but my first job I worked for two men. And so she was just amazing and so the kind of boss that I still try to be today, just fantastic. And we’re still really close friends. And so I did feline medicine for a while and I was going to buy her practice and that plan fell through.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
And I had already acknowledged and decided the things I was going to change that were making my life stressful. And when it turned out that she was going to stay my boss and I was going to stay the associate, I was like, “Okay, I can’t do this anymore. Because I now want things to be my way.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
And for whatever reason, then I transferred to shelter medicine where things are never your way.

Dr. Andy Roark:
I was going to say, cause that’s where you get things your way. Yeah.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Yeah. I was my own boss and it was cool. I did get to plan out, really design the medical department that hadn’t been updated in years and years and that kind of thing. So I did shelter medicine. I loved spays and neuters and I loved being able to take care of pets without owners involved, which at the time I really burned out in practice because of owners, partially because I had no training in how to communicate with them. I took everything personally and felt like a failure every time things didn’t go perfectly with a client, which how often do they really?

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
So I did shelter medicine and was able to help these pets. I had financial constraints and I had a board of directors to answer to, but I felt more brave. I tried surgeries that would save a life because there were no consequences if it went wrong. I knew I had tried, whereas on a client’s animal, I would’ve been much more stressed about that. And it really rounded out my professional life. The politics of being in a shelter was again too much for me, and I ended up with compassion fatigue, and burnout all at the same time, which is a special kind of hell.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
And so I decided I really did need to be my own boss. I need to make my own rules. And I don’t know why I didn’t know that because I’ve been that way my entire life. I don’t like people telling me what to do. I like to do my own thing. I’m very obedient when I have a boss, but I don’t like it. So I moved on to relief work, which was shelter stuff, high quality, high volume spay/neuter. And then that, I did that for a while. Totally beat myself up doing way too many surgeries and had wrist and hand problems.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
And I had a colleague ask me to do some relief work for a home euthanasia practice. And I really didn’t want to. I was like, “This sounds like the worst job ever.” But I had lost a big client, I needed the money and I was like, “All right. I’m going to give this a try. I can always back out.” Which I think is something else that vet professionals, we feel like we have to marry something every time it comes up. I’ve been committed to vet medicine since I was 13, and so I have a hard time just trying things. If I’m not going to succeed at it and I’m not going to love it, I will stick with it even if it’s not good for me. So I think that’s another thing that we do is we feel like we have to commit to everything forever.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
I was like, “I’ll try it and see if I like it.” And the first one that I went to, I was like, “Oh my gosh, this is what I’m supposed to be doing.” I was observing so I’m terrible at that, so I cried through the whole thing and then the client hands me the Rainbow Bridge Poem and asked me to read it, which I can’t read without crying in my office.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Oh yeah.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
I know what’s coming. I know, but it’s like Steel Magnolia’s level ugly crying that I do if I have to. So I had to read this whole poem out loud through my tears crying. I was like, “Oh this is so embarrassing.” And I got out the door and the other veterinarian put her arm around me and she’s like, “You are going to be so good at this.” And I was like, “Okay, if you say so.”

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
And so then yeah, it went from there. I worked for her for a few years and then went back to regular relief for a while and then opened my own practice back in 2015 now. We just had our seventh anniversary and it’s just been a ride, but I’ve learned a lot about trying new things, especially with my practice because the wellness portion of my career is really important to me and I needed wellness and I wanted my team to have wellness. And veterinary medicine tells you that’s not possible, and I won’t say we do it great all the time, but we really try and I try to be open. I’m like, “All right, we’ll try this for three weeks. And then if we don’t like or if I don’t like it, we’re going to go back.” Because I’m the boss and I say so.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Have a fancy name for that. We call that pilot programs and it makes me sound smart.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Yes.

Dr. Andy Roark:
And it’s the same thing.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Oh.

Dr. Andy Roark:
It’s like you say, Cherie, you say to the team, “We’re going to do a pilot program.”

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
That sounds so much better.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. We’re going to roll this out for three weeks and then we’re going to see if we want to expand the program. And that’s how you say basically I’m going to try it. And if I don’t like it, we’re going to stop. But you don’t say it that way.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
I love pilot program.

Dr. Andy Roark:
You say it in business speak. Yeah.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
And especially now with Top Gun being out, you sound Tom Cruise level cool. We’re going to have this pilot. I feel like I could have the glasses and leather jacket.

Dr. Andy Roark:
I wear Ray-Bans when I say it. Yeah.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Oh man, I have Ray-Bans in the car. I’m going to have to put them on.

Dr. Andy Roark:
There you go. That’s what you do.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Oh, I love it. I love it. Yeah. It’s given me that kind of freedom to try new things and see what I like and what I don’t like and not be afraid to say, “That didn’t work at all.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
“We’re not doing that again.” And I just had one of those moments this morning. My other doctor and I, and our receptionist were scrambling to try to help a family. And we were trying to figure things out and we’re texting and it was crazy. And we called the lady and she had found help elsewhere or she had gone to the vet in the middle of the night or something. And I was like, “Okay, this is the thousandth time we’ve done this.” And like you always say on your Uncharted podcast, “This is now practice policy.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. It’s a surprise.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
So we need to change it.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
I was like, “Okay, why don’t we instead call people and see where they are and what they need. And then we’ll figure out how to help them if they actually need help.” And it’s just something as simple as that. Whereas before I would keep doing this and keep doing this and beating my head against the wall. And so we changed our hours multiple times. We used to be open 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM as far as answering phones. Now it’s eight to four because that’s what my team needed for their family life.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
And I hired people I wanted and they were like, “Hey, we got to be out of here by four to take care of kids or whatever they need to do.” And I was like, all well, we’ll try closing at four and I’ll keep an eye on how many things we’re missing between four and 5:30, which is where we had gotten back down to. And then we just changed that if people are having a problem with something I’m like, “Okay, well let’s try something. Let’s see what,” instead of that whole, we do it this way and that’s the only way and like it or leave it. I just feel like that doesn’t get us anywhere.

Dr. Andy Roark:
I love that so much. And I think that there are these maxims in vet medicine, the sacred cows that are not to be touched, that people grab onto what I mean? And this sounds so simple, but there’s so much of our careers that we have more power over than we think. So I remember during the pandemic, I run an Uncharted veterinary community for those who are not familiar with that, but it’s a leadership development community for veterinarians and vet leaders. And anyway, during the pandemic we had people burning out left and center and their staff was leaving and things.

Dr. Andy Roark:
And the idea came up, this, “We need to close another day a week.” And at first when that was said, it was like, “This is heresy.” You know what I mean? There are so many people who are like, “We can’t just take Wednesday off.” And the truth is you can.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Yeah, you can.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, you can. It takes some planning, but it’s not written down anywhere that vet clinics shall be open on Wednesdays or even that clinic shall be open on Saturdays. And we’ve had a lot of clinics that Uncharted that were like, “Hey, we’re small staff and our people are burning out and we’re taking the weekends off. We’re not working on Saturdays.”

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
I’ve worked for two of those practices in my hometown. The cat practices that were open Monday through Friday and one of them closes a half day on Wednesday. And you know what? They are so busy, they don’t know what to do with themselves.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Exactly.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
And I remember my first boss, when the cat hospital, when she decided to close on weekends, she was like, “I don’t know if I can do this.” And her doctor told her because she had gotten shingles, she was like, “You’re either going to see less of the clinic or more of me. Take your pick.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
And she was like, “Yes, ma’am.” And she shut it and she said there were probably three people out of all of her clients that left the practice because they could not be seen on the weekend.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Three. And I think we underestimate how many people see us on Saturdays because it’s convenient as opposed to that they absolutely can’t. And no matter what you do, you’re going to lose people. I’ve heard practices that are like, “We just need to be open 24 hours.” And I’m like, “Okay. Well, no.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
If you can find the people who want to do that great. And for emergency clinics obviously, but we even have an emergency clinic that they’re open specified hours. They’re 24 hours on the weekends and holidays, but not during the week. They close and they refer to other places and it takes some shuffling around and it’s hard but if we have a shortage of team members, largely our own fault because we work people to death for very little pay. And I worry about that all the time and I pay quite a bit more for my team than most of the local practices. And they work from home.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
They deal with clients on the phone. They’re not in person. People tell, “We just can’t afford that.” And I’m like, “I make way less money than you do and I can afford it.” I make sure to, and yes, I have to make sacrifices for that. And sometimes I’m like, “Why am I doing this?” But I have wonderful team members who are here with us and say it’s the best job that they’ve ever had, which means the world to me and people are looking for something different. And I don’t think anybody likes the grind. And when work becomes a grind, especially something like this, that’s a passion for you, having it become a grind is just the key to burnout and being miserable.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Right.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
And I will say, I burned out completely during the pandemic too. Because when you work until you get sick and then you don’t get sick, that’s a really stupid plan.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. That was the plan.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
That was the plan. I was like, “We’ll be sick. Between my husband and I, we’ll probably not be able to go out into the world for a month.” Because back in the beginning it was two weeks for each person that got sick and I was like, “Plan to be out of work for a month. I’m going to work my butt off and then take a month in bed with COVID,” and that didn’t happen. I caught COVID this past April for the first time that I know of.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Oh man.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Best laid plans of veterinarians.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, there you go.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
And stuff.

Dr. Andy Roark:
My favorite piece of career advice, which is so dumb, but it’s true, it’s figure out how to do more of what you like and figure out how to do less of what you don’t like.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Yes.

Dr. Andy Roark:
And then just repeat it and repeat it and repeat it. That blows some people’s minds and it sounds so simple, but it’s true. And it’s just what do you like to do? I remember when I was working full time as a veterinarian and I had little kids and I was just writing at night and on the weekends and I was going some to some conferences to present. As long as I could get there after work on Friday so I could get speak on Saturday, then I would do the job. But I was doing all this stuff and finally I was like, “I’m not going to work full time anymore in the clinic.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
And that just felt, I don’t know, like some taboo thing to be like, “I’m not going to work four days a week and every other Saturday. I’m going to work three days a week and every other Saturday and I’m going to take Fridays off.” And I told my boss that I was like, “This is what I need.” And I think so many people just can’t imagine themselves saying, “Well, this is what I’m going to do.” You can do that. It’s allowed. And of course I did not go. I don’t want to just sound like I unilaterally said to my boss, “This is how it is.” No. I went and I said, “I have an idea and this is what I would like to do. And I can see how it could work here as well.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
And at that point it was back when things were slow sometimes and she was happy to not pay me 18% of my salary or whatever it worked out to be for me to cut down to that. So she was happy to get the cost off the books and I was happy to get the free time and it worked out. But yeah, it’s funny how much control you have and I think your story’s great. Moving around through the rooms of vet medicine, it’s a big house. There’s a lot of rooms.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Yes, I love that.

Dr. Andy Roark:
I think it’s also [inaudible 00:34:31] to try that. So if you could go back knowing what now, just in regard to finding your place in the profession, what advice would you give to young Cherie, if you could?

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Ooh, I did a whole lecture on this. I post it every year at graduation.

Dr. Andy Roark:
I need about a three-minute answer here.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
They told me 10 minutes and I pushed it to 20, so I’ll try to be good. Yeah. I think just to do what makes you happy and to speak up. I think there’s a lot of … I know, I was raised in Louisiana and Florida. I’m a good Southern girl. We don’t like to make people uncomfortable. We don’t like to have uncomfortable conversations. We are just pretty and we sit nice and we do the things to make everyone happy and comfortable so no one’s uncomfortable. And then you are uncomfortable all the time.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, then you live your life uncomfortable. Yeah.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Yeah. And I’m 47 now. I’m still uncomfortable having uncomfortable conversations. But I think getting comfortable with that and I think take a communications course for the love of God. Please take a communications course and learn how to talk to people and learn how to not take what they say personally. But yeah, I think those things, now I look and I’m like, “Yeah, get therapy because it’s super helpful. Meditate.” If I could go back and make myself meditate. I think that would’ve been great. But sometimes you just got to find things when it’s your time to find things.

Dr. Andy Roark:
I’ve had that thought a lot recently just of there are so many things that I do now in my forties that I’m like, “God, why didn’t I start doing this when I was 30?”

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Right?

Dr. Andy Roark:
And I don’t know that you could’ve talked me into it when I was 30.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Yes.

Dr. Andy Roark:
So meditating or I don’t know, I’m trying to think of the other stuff that I do. I have a-

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Saving money.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Saving money, yeah. All those sorts of things where I go, “Why didn’t I pick this up earlier?” I’ve got been cooking a lot recently and I really enjoy it. And I’m like, “All of the money I could have saved in my twenties cooking for myself instead of eating out every meal,” just basic stuff like that.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Yeah.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Also just the enjoyment I would’ve had of doing a hobby that I didn’t find until much later on. But I think you find it when you find it.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Oh yeah, for sure. And I think lost myself. Cherie the vet became my entire persona and Cherie the person didn’t really matter. We just ran her to death until she was like, “Okay, that’s it. I’m sick now. And now we have to be Cherie the person in bed with a thermometer in your mouth because you overdid it.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Just that balance and that it’s not a balance of work is 50% and your personal life is 50%. It’s a constant shift and it’s like yoga. You’ve just got to keep your balance. You’re going to sway one way or the other. And I really just wish I could have told myself, “Just sit back and enjoy it,” because it’s such a great ride. And 22 years later looking back and I’m like, “Oh my gosh, I’ve had such an exciting career and such a diverse career.” And I’m so glad I tried the things that I did because being an anxious person, I have a lot of problems trying new things and potentially failing at them, to just try stuff if it interests me and just to go for it and see. Good luck. My whole career is based on something I didn’t want to even try.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
And I was forced to by circumstances and look how great it turned out. And now I’m doing what I want to do. And I think too, just not being so hung up on what vet medicine is right now and how you have to run a practice. There are practices that run a bit like mine, but I’ve never seen one that’s so schedule friendly. It’s a lot of work on me when somebody says, “Hey, I’m taking vacation,” and somebody else goes, “Oh, I’m going too.” And it’s like, “Oh, why did I do this? Why don’t I have those rules where new one goes on vacation without my permission.” But then I look at how people want to stay and want to work and it’s worth it. It’s fine.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
And I just love everybody of being their own boss and they have to work within the confines of my practice, but there’s not that I am the boss and you must do what I say or else. We are a co-op I think of people. And so far I like it, but I’m glad I had the experiences that I had, otherwise I might not have been brave enough to try this. And I still, at times I’m like, “Am I doing the right thing? Is this that imposter syndrome?” It’s like, “Oh gosh, am I qualified to be somebody’s boss? I can’t even manage my own life.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
I’ll bet, yeah.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
“Could I really run this business?” And then my accountant’s like, “Hell yeah, you can look at these numbers. You’re doing great.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
It’s like, “Okay. All right. All right, I’ll believe it.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
All right.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
“Now that you’re showing it to me in black and white, I can do it.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
I know. Talking to a guy who owns a veterinary conference.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Yeah.

Dr. Andy Roark:
I can’t believe there’s not some ruling body that has to sign off on that, but they don’t.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
I love that.

Dr. Andy Roark:
I waited for three years for the AVMA to show up and shut me down. I’m like, “I don’t know if they have that power, but I feel like they should.” But no, they don’t. They don’t.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
You just go for it.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Yeah.

Dr. Andy Roark:
You just do it and it works out. Dr. Cherie Buisson, you are amazing. Thank you so much for being here. Where can people find you online? Where can they read your stuff and get more of your wisdom?

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
They can find me ahappyvet.com, which is my website for wellness in the vet profession. We’re very active on Facebook. I’ve been neglecting it a bit lately because Helping Hands, which is my hospice practice has been busy. If you are interested in hospice and palliative care, helpinghandspethospice.com is my website for my mobile practice. So you can reach me at either of those places and my email address and my phone number are on there so you can contact me if you’re interested. But I’m so happy that you contacted me to come do this, because I’ve been missing the camaraderie and seeing your face and talking to you. It’s been great.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Do you want to tell a story about where this came from? Where this podcast came from?

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Okay, I will.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Because I [inaudible 00:41:01] when you told me this. Okay.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
I will. Okay.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Okay. Tell it, because this is great.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Andy had a post asking for people’s favorite lectures. And I think it even said that you were looking for people to interview for your podcast.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, it did.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
But you were just like, “I want to know your favorite lectures” and it came across and I was afraid to read the comments because I really wanted somebody to mention me. And I was, “Oh, the irony of that.” And what’s hilarious is that the person that mentioned me actually specifically mentioned imposter syndrome, which cracks me up because I was like all imposter-y, like, “Everyone else is going to get loved and I am not going to get loved ever.” I watched it for a couple of days. This is so embarrassing. And finally somebody did post and said something about me. And my thought that ran through my head completely some subconsciously, but it came up was, “Oh, thank God. I’m for real.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
Thank god, I needed that.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
That was what came up. Yes. Thank God. I am actually a human being who got some recognition, so that’s all good.

Dr. Andy Roark:
I needed that validation. Someone in the comments.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Yeah. I needed that validation. Someone in the comments on Facebook validated me.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Oh yeah. So true.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
So my career is meaningful and I was like, “Okay.” Yeah. And I think I actually talked to my therapist about it that week. I was like, “You are not going to believe how worried I was about this.” And she just cracked up and shook her head.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Humans are strange animals, aren’t we?

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Yeah. That’s why I don’t work on them.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Oh man. Yeah. That’s a good call. All right, I think that’s the last word of wisdom on this side. I think that’s great insight. All right. Thanks Cherie. Hey everybody, take care of yourselves. I’ll talk to you next week.

Dr. Andy Roark:
And that is our episode guys. I hope you enjoyed it. Thanks so much to Cherie Buisson she’s incredible. Gang, take care of yourselves. Be well, I’ll talk to you later on. Bye.

Filed Under: Podcast Tagged With: Perspective, Wellness

Why You Should Learn to Forgive

September 16, 2021 by Andy Roark DVM MS

Dr. Cherie Buisson of A Happy Vet and Helping Hand Pet Hospice is on the podcast to discuss a popular article she wrote on why we should learn to forgive. In a time when so many of us seem to be living with a low-level of anger, forgiveness is more important than ever. But what about when the people we are angry at don’t care about or deserve our forgiveness? Let’s get into this episode.

Cone Of Shame Veterinary Podcast · COS 98 Why You Should Learn to Forgive

LINKS

Why You Should Learn to Forgive (Original Article): drandyroark.com/?s=why+you+should+forgive

TEAM POWER: Adding Value to Your Visits: unchartedvet.com/product/adding-v…your-vet-visits/

Uncharted Culture Conference Oct 21-23: unchartedvet.com/uvc-culture/

Charming the Angry Client On-Demand Staff Training: drandyroark.com/on-demand-staff-training/

What’s on my Scrubs?! Card Game: drandyroark.com/training-tools/

Dr. Andy Roark Swag: drandyroark.com/shop

All Links: linktr.ee/DrAndyRoark

ABOUT OUR GUEST

CHERIE BUISSON, DVM, CHPV
Dr. Cherie Buisson is a 2000 graduate of Mississippi State University College of Veterinary Medicine. She is certified in Hospice and Palliative Care, Low-Stress Handling (TM), and QPR Suicide Prevention. She teaches her colleagues about hospice, euthanasia, compassion fatigue, burnout, and how to be happy in their chosen profession. She is the owner of Helping Hands Pet Hospice in Seminole, FL and the founder of A Happy Vet, a website promoting wellness in the veterinary community.

Editor: Dustin Bays
www.baysbrass.com
@Bays4Bays Twitter/Instagram

Show Transcript:

Dr. Andy Roark:

Welcome. Welcome. Welcome, to the Cone of Shame Veterinary Podcast. I am your host, Dr. Andrew Roark. Guys, I got a great episode today. This is one that I needed. We posted an article from Dr. Cherie Buisson recently through our social media channels and the articles a couple of years old. And when I saw it on social, I was like, oh man, that’s amazing. That’s exactly what I need right now. And the article blew up being a repost from earlier on. It was like a 2017, 2018 article. It blew up and there were so many comments. Like I need this. The article is, oh, Why You Should Learn to Forgive. And so I bring on Dr. Buisson and we talk a bit about forgiveness and I don’t know, this has been a thing that I’ve been working on in the month of September.

Dr. Andy Roark:

I’m having my own sort of mindfulness month where I’m going, I need to take it down a notch. I think I need to relax a little bit and get in into a more positive head space. And I need to be more forgiving of other people. I think a lot of us feel that. I think a lot of people are carrying a lot of frustration around. And so, yeah, I think it’s time to try to let that go. And so anyway, that’s what we talk about today. Guys, I hope you really enjoy this episode. Let’s get into it.

Kelsey Beth Carpenter (Singer):

This is your show. We’re glad you’re here. We want to help you in your veterinary career. Welcome to Cone of Shame, with Dr. Andy Roark.

Dr. Andy Roark:

Welcome Dr. Cherie Buisson. Thank you for being here.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:

It’s my pleasure. I’m always happy to join you on the podcast.

Dr. Andy Roark:

I know. I love it. And we always have the best stuff to talk about because you are writing wonderful things and making wonderful lectures and you make it really easy to find interesting things to talk about with you. So welcome back.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:

Well, thank you very much.

Dr. Andy Roark:

Yeah. So what I want to talk with you about today is, it’s interesting in that I have an article over on the doctor in your website that you wrote a couple years ago, and my team found it recently and pulled it and published it through social media again, just to say, “Hey, guys, you should see this.” And so I saw it with the audience and I saw it come out and I was like, “Man, what is this, Why You Should Learn to Forgive?”

Dr. Andy Roark:

And I clicked on it again. I recognized it as being something that you’d written a while back. And then I was like, oh my God, this is so perfect for right now. I’m not kidding. I literally set out for September, and I try to make personal for myself every month, is kind of where I am right now. It’s a new habit I picked up. So far I really love it because it’s like just got to do this for 30 days. And then if I love it-

Dr. Cherie Buisson:

Oh, that’s good.

Dr. Andy Roark:

… I’ll keep doing it. Or if it comes natural, I’ll say, and if I hate it, then it’s just 30 days and I’ll be out. But for September I had already decided, I was like, I need to, I need to forgive people. I need to get more forgiving about other people so that I can be more forgiving of myself. I just say that because boy, I just feel like there’s a lot of anger and there’s just a lot of frustration out there. I feel it in myself and I’m really actively working against it to find peace. And so this article really resonated. So with that preamble yeah, tell me a little bit about the article. Tell me about your premise and where you’re coming from.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:

Well, the article and I don’t remember what made me want to write it, I just, I always write and speak about things that I’m not good at. Everybody’s like, “You’re such an expert in it.” No, I’m bad at this and that’s why I work on it so hard. And forgiveness is one of the big ones, because I can hold a grudge like nobody’s business. I mean, I can hold a grudge for what am I? 46 now. So I mean probably 36 years maybe. And I tend to be really sensitive and take things personally, which I’m also trying not to do. I got divorced and I’ve had business deals go bad and there’s just a lot. I started seeing all this stuff online about forgiveness. And they had a little cartoon of a girl on the monkey bar.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:

She was hanging and it said, in order to move forward, you have to let go. And it just, it hit me like a ton of bricks. And I was like, okay, I’ve got to start letting go of some of this stuff. And I’m like, and if I need to let go, I bet a bunch of the veterinary profession needs to let some things go. People outside the profession too, because I’ve heard from them about the article. It’s just, every time I say that we should be forgiving people are like, “But that’s condoning the behavior.” And I’m like, no, because I’m not good at that. I can’t condone bad behavior. And that’s the thing we all need to get past, is I felt the same way. If I forgive somebody that means what they did was okay.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:

And it doesn’t at all because you can forgive them without them ever knowing about it, which is the awesome thing. Because I’m not super confrontational. And I don’t like intimate conversations like that unless I really care about the person, which if I’m forgiving them, I probably don’t care about them that much. If I’m happy to go to that much effort to forgive them. So it was just more how it’s not about condoning behavior, it’s about not holding onto it and letting it eat you alive. We all do it and it’s just awful, that we’ll sit and Harbor this rage and anger and meanness for so long. And the other person isn’t even thinking about you.

Dr. Andy Roark:

That’s the worst part.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:

That was so hard. That’s the worst part. They’re just sitting there eating apple pie with their family and you’re like, and I have this rage deep in my heart and my children’s children’s children will hate you. And it’s like, they’re like “Cherie who?” I’m like, okay, we just got to let that go.

Dr. Andy Roark:

There are a couple of things here I want to unpack. We’ll jump back to the beginning. It’s amazing. That’s the secret to writing success that people don’t know, is you write the book that you need. That’s 100% my career, is me just wrestling with something that’s bothering me or something that I’m seeing. And I go, how do I feel about this and what do I do about it? And I’m with you. I found again and again in my career that the things that I just wrestle with and I have to sit with, and I’ll research and I’ll read and I’ll go, and I will do the legwork because I enjoy it.

Dr. Andy Roark:

Because I have to know, I can’t just not do anything, I have to do something. And so I will go and figure out what I think is a good thing to do. And then I write about it and people are like, “That’s great. I needed that.” I’m like, “Oh, thank God. It’s not just me.” But I’m always wondering, when is the time I’m going to write an article that I need and everyone else is like, “What is this?”

Dr. Cherie Buisson:

I’m going to go with never because I’m always like, oh, Andy has been, he’s got cameras in my house or something because he just knows what I’m going through right now. And yeah, it’s so helpful to know we’re not alone. And especially in this perfectionist environment, people lose a patient and they act like no one’s ever lost a patient in the history of veterinary medicine. And I’m like, if you haven’t you may not have been doing this long enough. Because it happens to everybody, but you just feel so isolated and alone and what do we do? We tell the young veterinarian or the young technician, “Hey, this happened to me and here’s what I did. And here’s how it helps.” So I think just letting everybody know. And I think right now, I mean, globally as much as we’re divided, we’re all together in that everyone is in rage.

Dr. Andy Roark:

[crosstalk 00:07:43] rage.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:

There’s just so much. We are so bound by our complete rage. Like the flaming sort of justice is just in everyone’s and the whole world is lit up with it. So yeah, in fact, the article came out and I didn’t know you guys were publishing it. And I was like, oh yeah, that’s probably what I need to read again, because I’m not feeling. Well, I’m failing in this.

Dr. Andy Roark:

Do you do the thing where you read your own stuff years later and you’re like, “Man, that’s good.” [inaudible 00:08:15]. I had really had it figured out in 2016. I’ll totally do that.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:

[crosstalk 00:08:20] say, oh, do you ever read it and go, “Oh, that really needs work.” And I’m like, no, I usually am like, “Wow, I can’t believe I wrote that. That was all right.”

Dr. Andy Roark:

I’ve had some stuff that hasn’t aged as well as I wished it had, but for the most part, and when I say age as well, I tend to make jokes about things that are topical. I was like, wow, I was you really into I don’t know, into Seinfeld at the time. And Seinfeld. Like oh, the Star Wars, The Phantom Menace was all in this article. I really wish I could strip that back out now.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:

Yeah, you’re you’re just like oh, yeah. It’s like, I’m 46 now, and I’m starting to almost put references in, that I know no one’s going to get, just so I can hurt a little more. I don’t know what that’s about, but the other night on Ted Lasso, one of the British people said cheers to him and he went, “Night court.” And I cracked up and I know like half the world was like, what heck was that?

Dr. Andy Roark:

My wife makes Zoolander jokes to her college students and they do not get it. Zoolander came out when they were born. So yeah, it’s funny I do wonder sometimes like, if I am destined to figure things out and write them down and then forget them only to rediscover the article years later and go, ah, I wish I remember that. I had it figured out back then. I love your point about the little girl on the monkey bars. And you talk about that in the article, that feeling of dangling in place, it really resonates. And I think it’s a beautiful image of just, I think that’s one of the things that’s bothered me a lot recently, is I’ll be frustrated or I’ll be angry. And I don’t feel like I’m moving forward through it. I feel like I’m just hanging out here. And part of it is, say, COVID frustrations and things like that. And I go, we have a vaccine. I don’t know what’s going to change in the future that is going to be radically different.

Dr. Andy Roark:

I think in the past, I was like, oh, we’re going to get a vaccine, and this will be a thing in the past. And now I’m like, I don’t think that’s true anymore. I think we’re just living here. And so that stasis is really heavy. And so I thought that that metaphor was really good, is to move forward, you have to let go. And so let’s talk a bit about actual forgiveness. I completely agree, the pushback that I get when I talk about forgiveness and the pushback that I feel myself is, I shouldn’t have to forgive someone one who is not sorry for what they did.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:

Oh my God. Yes. Why? Why should I do that? Because suffering is all about you. I think that’s why we have so much trouble because vet professionals tend to be about everything else and everyone else. And we rarely turn that spotlight on ourselves. And it’s like, yeah, this isn’t about me. Or this totally is about me. Forgiveness is all about whether I forgive or not has nothing to do with the other person. And that’s what’s so hard for people to get is that, the other person doesn’t ever have to know. In fact, in a lot of cases I mean, when you think about people who’ve lost a parent that they had a difficult relationship with, if you forgive them and they’re deceased, they really don’t. I mean, maybe they know in some ways, but they’re not here to be forgiven and asking for forgiveness it’s just one of those things I don’t have control over anybody, but me and that’s been a lesson.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:

If I could learn that lesson 100% of the time, I’d be the happiest person on the planet. But I forget it all the time. It’s like I have control over me. What can I do to make myself more comfortable and make this situation better and holding onto anger is never it. That is a great recipe for getting reflux in your esophagus. It’s going to give you heartburn. Don’t eat that. Don’t eat that anger, get rid of it. Let it go.

Dr. Andy Roark:

It’s super hard though. Yeah. It’s super hard. It’s like, I’m going to continue to drink this poison myself and hope that the other person suffers for it. It doesn’t work that way. But it’s so easy, especially if you have an interaction with a client, you have a dentistry and it doesn’t go the right way that you want, or the bill comes out higher than you thought it would be. And say that there was a quoting error made to the client and they say the most awful things to you. And then every time you do a dentistry after that for the rest of your career, you get angry.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:

Oh my God. That’s so true.

Dr. Andy Roark:

It is so true. I mean, so many of us live like that and I go, this is not helpful. This is no good. The text [crosstalk 00:13:09].

Dr. Cherie Buisson:

You’re cleaning teeth and you’re going Mrs. Fredrick said.

Dr. Andy Roark:

Yeah, you’re redoing it. And that’s why you are the one who needs to step back, sir.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:

You’re doing the conversation in your head where you’re just like, you’re having that, what did I wish I had said? And I think that gets a lot of us too, is that we don’t necessarily think on our feet, so somebody will tear us down and we get the greatest comebacks, like in the shower later that night. And it’s like, “That’s what I should have said.” So then I have that conversation where that’s what I said, like a thousand times, and it just eats you up. It’s just awful.

Dr. Andy Roark:

Do you have tricks for actually doing it, for actually letting go?

Dr. Cherie Buisson: Repetition, just like everything else that you become good at and people are like you just say, “I forgive you.” It doesn’t work that way. When I had people that have hurt me, I mean, I got divorced and it was a messy, ugly divorce. And it was eight years before I really felt like, you know what? That relationship was good for me, even though it turned out badly. That was what I needed to take the next step. And to actually, it tasted like vinegar, but you’re like, thank you for leaving me so that I could grow more of a

backbone. That was a hard, hard place to get to and saying it out loud, which is weird. So don’t do it in public.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:

But if you drive by the exit on the highway where that person lives just go in peace, you’re forgiven, I’m letting this go. And the more you say it, your mind hears it and believes it. I’m big on that all the time. You need to say things out loud so that your ears hear it and your brain hears it. And eventually, if you tell yourself enough, you’ll believe it. And you slip up. I mean, there are times where I’m still mad at someone that I thought I had forgiven. I have to go back and I’m like, okay, what are we going to do now? We’re going to forgive them again.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:

And it’s a work in progress. I mean, it’s like someone saying you got married and now you’ve got, marriage is done. No, it’s work every day. And you just have to keep at it, and you have to forgive yourself for not being good at it. I mean, that’s the other thing is that we’re all like I can’t let this go. Why can’t I let this go? It’s okay, well, forgive yourself too. It’s okay. You’re human. But we’re not good at being human in veterinary medicine.

Dr. Andy Roark:

No, we’re supposed to be better than human. We’re supposed to have it already. So there’s a lot there. I picked up a book a while back and it’s called something like What to Say When You Talk to Yourself, and it’s very much about the-

Dr. Cherie Buisson:

I need this book.

Dr. Andy Roark:

Yeah. It’s What to Say When You Talk to Yourself. And so as someone who has a continuously running inner monologue, I thought it was interesting. And I picked it up and basically sort of said that thing that we’re sort of saying, is your mind acts on the thoughts that you have. And if you think this person wronged me, this person was awful. I was mistreated. You’re going to feel those emotions and you are going to convince yourself, even whether or not it was true.

Dr. Andy Roark:

If you tell your mind again and again, I was mistreated, I was treated unfairly, your brain will come to believe that that’s what happened. And it will act that way. And you’ll get those cortisol level increases and you’ll get that rage and you’ll get the anger and the guilt and everything that comes with it. Sort of skimming through it, I thought the book was pretty good, but it was real big on self-talk. It was like, saying things out loud is good. And so you should say it to yourself when you’re not around. And then it went farther and it was sort of like, you should listen to audio cassettes of positive self-talk and I was like, I’m out.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:

That’s too much. That’s too much for me.

Dr. Andy Roark:

My wife, if she came into the bathroom in the morning and I was listening to you are a good person and you have a lot of friends. I would have one less friend and it would be my wife.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:

Yes. Absolutely. Let me tell you, because you just reminded me about the talk, when I was a kid I hated green peas and of course my parents-

Dr. Andy Roark:

Green peas?

Dr. Cherie Buisson:

Green peas, hated them, hate with a passion. No, not green peas. Green peas, the vegetable.

Dr. Andy Roark:

[crosstalk 00:17:11].

Dr. Cherie Buisson:

No, no, no. Vegetables. We’re on vegetables. Hated green peas. And my dad said, “You don’t hate green peas. You’ve just convinced yourself that you do.” He said, “What’s your favorite thing to eat?” I said, “Sweet potatoes.” And he said, “Every time you take a mouth full of green peas, you need to say this taste likes sweet potatoes.” I mean, I was like 10, and I’m like, this is BS. I’m not doing this. But we did. And I started gagging on green peas because they were so disgusting. And eventually, it worked. Eventually, and I love green peas now, and green peas but I love green peas and I will eat them. And all we did was I told myself out loud, these taste like sweet potatoes.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:

It is, it’s like it’s mind over matter in a lot of these cases and you’ve just got to keep repeating it till you believe it. Just like if you tell somebody that they suck enough, they’re going to believe that they do. You are no exception. You live in your head all the time. So if you’re constantly telling yourself you suck or you’re angry or whatever it is you’re telling yourself, you’re going to believe it. Because you’re in there all the time.

Dr. Andy Roark:

Most of us have an inner critic I think that is absolutely ruthless. I would fire my inner critic. If anyone said something to me that I say to myself, I would throw down. No one talks to me like that, but me. You know what I mean? I would quit my job if I had a boss who talked to me the way that my brain talks to me sometimes. And that’s again, it’s the types of things that we have to be better to ourselves. What we say to ourselves matters as much as what other people say to us. I think that’s important.

Dr. Andy Roark: The vocalization just saying, I forgive you. Just saying, I’ve moved past this to yourself. I mean, it actually is beneficial. Again, I’m not advocating for the self-help audio, self-talk things necessarily. But having that clear when you start to feel that anger about the client and you say, “I’ve moved past this.” Or I said

my piece and I am done with this. And you can say it out loud or you say it in your mind, but that type of repetition to yourself, it is how we actually do move past these things. We convince our mind that we’re over and then we are actually over it. But it takes time.

Dr. Andy Roark:

Hey, guys. I just want to jump in real quick with a couple quick announcements this week over on the Uncharted Veterinary Podcast, we are talking about what it means to be a rad relief vet, how to set yourself up as a rad relief vet and how to set relief vets up to be rad at your practice. So it’s all about relief vets on the Uncharted Veterinary Podcast. Get it wherever you got this podcast, it’ll be there. Uncharted Veterinary Podcast.

Dr. Andy Roark:

Gang, on the uncharted side of the house, we have got some great workshops coming up. My friend Dr. Mary Ann Vande Linde is doing Team Power: Adding Value to Your Visits on September 22nd. This is all about communicating value to pet owners. It is a two-hour workshop. It is from 7:00 to 9:00 PM Eastern Time that night. It is very much about building your exam room plan so that at see value in what we do. And I know with a lot of us wearing masks, with a lot of us still doing some curbside sort of limited contact and just seeing patients in different ways. I think a lot of us are asking, do our clients see the value in what we do?

Dr. Andy Roark:

There’s never been a better time for this workshop. It is free to uncharted members. It is $99 to the public. On October the 9th, Dr. Tracy Sands is doing Empowering Your Team to Get Positive and Stay that Way. This is a team culture positivity workshop, it is all about getting your practice to be a nicer, happier place to work. It is a two-hour workshop as well, 3:00 to 5:00 PM Eastern Time on October the 9th, it is free to uncharted members and $99 to the public. I’ll put links to both of those things. The last thing I’m going to say is the Uncharted Culture Conference, October 21st through the 23rd is a virtual conference. We have been doing buy two get one free, because we really think that you should bring your whole leadership team, your medical director, and your practice manager could come together.

Dr. Andy Roark:

Your practice owner and manager can come together with the head technician. And it’s really about getting people together to have this experience and see culture training and do culture training and do workshops, and have these shared experiences to take back into your practice so that you’re not trying to take this into your practice by yourself. It’s buy two get one free, but that deal is ending and it’s ending this week. So you need to immediately bust it over to Uncharted, get registered for the Uncharted Culture Conference and get your extra, buy two get one free deal hooked up. Guys, that’s enough about that. Anyway, links in the show notes for all of these things. All right, let’s get back into this episode.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:

I have a hack for you out the listening to the self-help tapes. Listen to your own podcasts.

Dr. Andy Roark:

Listen to my own podcast.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:

I will occasionally, especially if I’m having a rough day and I know I’ve done a podcast on that particular subject, I’ll go back and listen to it with somebody interviewing me and that’s I think a legitimate way that you can talk to yourself without being too weird. But I will, I’ll be like, I had that forgiveness podcast with Andy. I’m going to go listen to myself talk about what I should do. And maybe I’ll actually listen to myself, if I say it enough. But I swear our inner critic, is it literally the flaming raging sort of justice that is our inner critic? Because I feel like that’s all it is. It’s not even really a person. It’s just the sword.

Dr. Andy Roark:

So yeah. So I came up with the flaming raging sort of justice a while back in that I feel like so often what we do in vet medicine is unfair. It’s just unfair. Life is unfair. But I feel like in vet medicine, we get a big dose of unfair, and we see a big dose of unfair. It’s not fair that this aggressive dog who was abused is now going to be put down because people can’t handle him and he is not safe to be around other people. That’s wildly unfair, and it really sucks and it really makes me mad. And so that sort of feeling of unfairness. I think a lot of us have a feeling of justice. It sort of goes back to the idea why I think it’s so hard for a lot of us to say, I forgive you.

Dr. Andy Roark:

And especially when the person doesn’t ask for it and they don’t seem to care. The idea of me forgiving them for this thing that they did and got away with, with no negative repercussions, and they don’t even remember, that feels so wrong. And that feeling, I kind of summed up as like, I want the sword of justice. I want to smite that person. I want to strike them down. I want to tell the pet owner, do not show up 25 minutes late for your appointment and pitch a fit to be seen because you are ruining my day and you’re going to make everyone else wait and pets are going to be waiting all day because of you and it’s your fault and you’re going to be rescheduled. And if you don’t, I’ll smite you with this raging sword.

Dr. Andy Roark:

It feels so natural in your hand to be like, I’m going to smite her good. But the thing with the flaming raging sword of justice is it’s always a bad idea. It’s double-bladed and there’s always collateral damage, but man, putting that thing down of going, this is wrong. This is unjust. This is unfair. I think that that’s a real skill that a lot of us have to pick and it’s a very humbling skill. So yeah, it is a very humbling skill. I think there’s a lot of Buddhism in it of saying, I’m going to let this go. I’m going to find peace with this. I’m going to put this down.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:

And trading it for empathy. So you put that down to trade it for empathy. That is a skill. Because it takes a lot. I hold a lot of resentment because I have trouble telling people how I feel when I’m not hot about it. If I’m furious, oh, I can just lay into somebody. But if I have to say, when you did this, it made me feel this is way too vulnerable for me. I need the sword, but it’s the same with pet owners and being a hospice veterinarian. I’ve had to learn that people are going to say crappy things when they’re grieving. And I just put on my empathy hat and it’s like as long as I’m not in danger and no one’s screaming at me or hurting me, I’m going to let this go because this person is not at their best. And I have been at that point and I get it.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:

We do, we trade it and I will say, I have like 99.9% awesome clients. And I know a lot of those people are some veterinarian’s nightmare client, but we hit them with empathy from the minute they contact us and everything is empathy and understanding and calmness and coolness. And I think that’s why we have such great clients. It’s not the clients necessarily. It’s how we approach it. And the sort of justice it’s buried, and we don’t get to use it. I’ll rise to the defense of my team if somebody is giving them a hard time. But even then I throttle it down and it’s like, how can I approach this? So it’s a win for everybody. And the only way to do that is with empathy and that’s hard. It’s so hard.

Dr. Andy Roark:

It’s super hard. One of the things I say to myself that has been helpful over the years is everyone’s fighting a battle we don’t know anything about. I keep telling myself that. And so I use that example, about the flaming raging sort of justice. I had a client a couple of days ago come in. And she was 20 minutes late for her appointment and she called ahead and she said, I’m going to be 20 minutes late. And the front desk was like, do you still want to see her? And I didn’t really, but you know what I mean? I could 100% see how this could blow up my day. And so everyone whose’ worked appointments knows if this… I wanted to ask her if you promised this cat is 100% healthy and fine, and there’s no concerns, then you can come in, otherwise, the answer is no.

Dr. Andy Roark:

And I should have just said that, but I didn’t. But I folded, and I was just like, “Just tell her to come in. We’ll make it work.” And so she comes in and she’s like, “I’m so sorry. My chemotherapy is making me feel terrible. I couldn’t get my cat into the carrier.” And I was like, “I’m so glad you came in.” I’m so glad you came in. And it was fine. And it went great. I felt really good about accommodating this person. And she was wonderful and she was lovely. I’ve been thinking about it ever since, because I don’t think that I was wrong when they said, “Hey, do you want to see this person who’s 20 minutes late,” to feel like, no, we’ve done this. And it tends to go badly. And there’s a lot of ways this [inaudible 00:28:20] wrong. And we have a policy that says that we don’t do this.

Dr. Andy Roark:

So I still feel, probably shouldn’t do it. At the same time when she comes in and you go, oh, you’re not just a pompous jerk who stopped for lunch at the coffee shop and had a good conversation and didn’t come over, you’ve got real issues and you’re doing your best, and I got to help you. So I don’t know. I’ve just been kind of rolling that around, back and forth. I don’t that it means anything, I don’t know that there’s any sort of policy changes I would make to this, but I do think it was a really good reminder that sometimes it’s good just to assume the best about people, even just for our own sake.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:

Yes, absolutely. One of the exercises that you can do for that is if you have somebody that blows up your day if you do rounds with everybody, or you’re just talking with a team, ask them to tell a story, what is the story that this client could tell you that would make what happened okay. Did they lose their wife last week? Are they recovering from COVID and they have brain fog and they’re scared won’t be able to resume their very important job. What is it that would make you okay with this? Because we tell ourselves, he’s a pompous ass. He did this, he did that. But why can’t we tell the other story, maybe this is what’s happening. Oh my gosh, wouldn’t that be horrible? And again, you’re hearing that, it doesn’t have to be real. You’re just hearing it, and you’re like, well maybe I should be a little more understanding.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:

And I am never one to abuse, is a hard line in the sand for me. If you have to come in and take out your pain and rage on other people, I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to learn a lesson from that. And that lesson is, we don’t put up with that crap here. It’s very sad to me that a lot of vet clinics don’t feel that way, but if somebody is having a fit, but you’re like, this isn’t the whole story. Something else is going on. I’ll pull them in and be like, “Hey, this isn’t like you, what’s going on? Tell me what’s on so we can help.”

Dr. Cherie Buisson:

And then they’re like, “I’m the worst person ever.” We’re like, “Yeah, we know, but we’re going to help you anyway.” Now that you’ve down a peg, okay, now that we’ve calmed everybody down, or just come in and be like, Anne is crying. What happened in here? Usually, you come in and we have a great visit. What’s going on? And the minute you turn from defensive to tell me what’s happening, it just makes all the difference in the world. I say that super easily, because I’m sitting in my office and it’s 8:30 and it’s quiet and nothing bad is happening. But it’s something that I’ve had to work on really, really hard because of how personally I take things, and every tip and trick I can get for how to throttle back that instant rise to anger that happens because I have anxiety and I get that fight or flight thing going on if I can just take a breath and go, how do I make this a win for everybody? It totally changes the game 100%.

Dr. Andy Roark:

Yeah. That pause between receiving the information, getting the emotional impact and then responding man, it’s all make or break right there. If I take that as a slight, as something negative, if it feeds into some of the frustrations I’m feeling about the world, it’s really hard to turn it into a positive or get my head into a good space. It’s heavy lifting. I think that’s where I am these days. I generally am a very positive person. I think that I’ve been worn down over the last couple of years to where, and it just becomes sort of aware of it recently of like how often my very first thought is a negative thought when I run into a point of frustration. When I hear from the front, oh, this person’s going to be, they called, they’re just going to be a couple minutes late. I go, “Oh, sure they’re going to be a couple minutes late.” [inaudible 00:32:15].

Dr. Cherie Buisson:

Of course, they are.

Dr. Andy Roark:

Of course, they are.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:

Mrs. Smith called and she needs this. Of course, she does. That was always my response in private practice, which is why I’m not there anymore, but I totally get it.

Dr. Andy Roark: It’s such an easy response. And usually, it will make the text laugh. If I say it in front of them, they’ll be like, oh, you know? I’m not going to say it in front of them, but you’ll get pats on the back. You’ll get people who’ll go, yeah. I know, I know. But ultimately, it’s a destructive response. It’s not healthy, it’s not a good response. And it just puts me in a bad headspace to do my job, which I’m ultimately going to do anyway. And so it’s just been an interesting exercise recently, as I try to commit to getting back on the positive track or on a more positive track, just taking that pause and checking myself and going, okay, what am I thinking here?

Dr. Andy Roark:

Are my thoughts in a good place? Am I being fair to this person? Am I being empathetic to this person? The default is just no, be a jerk. Just tell him to shut up. But because it’s super easy, it takes some effort to empathize. You know what I mean? To catch and be like, I’m going to be generous to this person. I’m going to show some love and kindness to this person. It’s a muscle that we build, but man, if you get out of the habit of using it, it takes some activation energy to get it back.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:

It does. And it’s like low-stress handling for people. And it’s the same thing. We can wrestle the cat to the table and we can get done what we need to get done. But if we just take that beat and calm down and think what would make this cat more comfortable so that I can work on it easier, it helps so much. And the other cool thing about the moment of silence is that half the time, if you’re silent long enough, the client’s like, “I am so sorry.” Because people hate silence and they want to fill it in. So if somebody’s like, “I need you to explain to me right now why you did this,” and I don’t answer they’re like, or maybe we could just talk about it.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:

Because I had a boss that all he would do is tip his glasses down and look at me over the tops of them. And I was like, “Shit, what did I say?” I better rethink that. And so that moment of silence gives you a second to think about a response, but also them a second to hear themselves and go, that might not have been my best move. That’s a dual thing there, but yeah, I try to a look at it like I do the low-stress handling because I’ve gotten so into that with my patients because I’m in their house, giving them a shot, their parents are crying and it’s all my fault. I’ve had to really get around like what is this pet feeling and how can I make it better?

Dr. Cherie Buisson:

And so I’ve tried to bleed that into how I handle humans. Because humans are not my favorite species. And it really, all that same principle of go slow, be quiet, be calm, find out what they need and give it to them, really makes a difference. And some people are just hopeless and that’s okay. But yeah, and I also find when I am not taking care of myself, my ability to be empathetic is crap. When I burned myself out last year, because I was just, I’m going to work. And then when I catch COVID I’ll take a break and then everything will be fine.

Dr. Andy Roark:

It’s a terrible plan.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:

I know. And I never caught COVID so I just worked the whole year without stopping, and then into-

Dr. Andy Roark:

It’s a horrible backfire.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:

I know, and then in January, I was like, God, if I don’t take a break, I’m going to die. And then we planned a vacation, but it wasn’t until May. So by May of this year, I had nothing left and people would want something and I would just grind my teeth. Thank God I had a mask on, but grind my teeth at every little request and I was like, this is not how I handle people. And I went on vacation and I came back and magically, it was better. And then a month later it got bad again. And I was like time for another break. And I took some more time off and I was like, I didn’t take any time off last year, this year I’m taking breaks whenever I need to, because I’m not recovered yet from all the abuse I gave myself in 2020.

Dr. Andy Roark:

No, I’m right there with you. It’s a whole lot easier to be forgiving, to be kind, to be patient to ourselves and to our coworkers and to our clients when you’re well maintained. And so things for me recently, I get good sleep. I have been really good about going to bed and getting a good night’s sleep. I’ve been eating better. And then by that, I mean, I’m more intentional about kind of what I’m eating and what I take to the clinic so I have some calories and things like that throughout the day. I just, I don’t want to get hangry and I’m trying not to get tired. That may sound ridiculous, but I tell you, man, that’s an investment that pays dividends.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:

Yeah. And the exercise, I have to be able to exercise, but my husband and I in this last year we usually get up really early because we’re in Florida and it’s hot. We get up and we’re exercising before it gets too hot. And I’ve needed more sleep, I just have, and it was like, you know what, if we don’t get to bed by 9:00 or 9:15 when the alarm goes off at 5:30, I’m not getting up. And I’ll get up when I’m ready and then we’ll go out. And if we have to, like you always say, choose how you suffer. I’m going to suffer in the heat as opposed to suffering because I have lack of sleep. He’s been right there with me because it’s been exhausting.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:

And how we haven’t figured out how to forgive ourselves for not being perfect in this life last year. Like this has just been a dumpster fire and everybody’s like, I don’t understand why I’m struggling. What? I do. Let me give you the list of why we’re struggling. Like it’s everything, everything is a wreck. And so we’re trying to be forgiving. We totally blew our diets out of the water last year and it was ugly. And I was like, you know what? I just don’t care. I’m going to eat what I want to eat. And we were exercising like crazy. So that was good. And now we’re kind of toning it down, getting that high cholesterol diagnosis from your doctor will do that to a girl.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:

So I was like, “Oh, God, really?” High cholesterol. Okay, fine. Will do better. But yeah, I’ve been much more forgiving of myself and also much more like treating myself like I would a kid who’s having a temper tantrum. It’s like, why don’t you just go lay down for a minute, sweetie, like go push your feet up and take a deep breath. And we’ll try again in 10 minutes. I put myself in timeout, put me in the crate. I don’t care. I need a timeout in the crate with a con and some peanut butter and I need to breathe until I can handle this like a grownup.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:

I look at vet med and how hard it’s been for everybody and how unforgiving we have been with ourselves and each other. And I hope we can start making that better, and stop hurting ourselves and each other the way that we have been. Because it just, it’s heartbreaking how bad things have been.

Dr. Andy Roark:

Yeah. I think it’s time. I really do. I hope that there’s a cultural shift going on. I think I don’t know, maybe I’m hopelessly optimistic, but I do think there are. I think that kids going back to in-person schools is a big step towards normalcy for a lot of people. For whatever reason, just this fall, I think the schools were part of it, but I just feel like a lot of us have kind of said, you know what? We’re kind of going back to work. I feel more normal now than I have in a long time, even as COVID numbers stay high, but it’s just, we’re going to work and we’re doing our job and the kids are going to school and we’re making it.

Dr. Andy Roark:

I think that that normalcy has helped me get my head back straight and being like, you know what, I’m going to treat myself better. I’m going to treat other people better. I’m going to enjoy my job again. I think that’s been a good reset. Well, Cherie, thanks for being here so much. Where can people find you online? Where can they read more of your stuff?

Dr. Cherie Buisson:

They can find me at happyvet.com. And then for my more hospice stuff, that’s geared toward clients at helpinghandspethospice.com.

Dr. Andy Roark:

Awesome. Thanks a lot for being here. Guys have a wonderful week. Thanks, everybody.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:

Thank you, bye.

Dr. Andy Roark:

And that is our episode. That’s what we got for you. Guys, I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you got something out of it. If you did, you can make my day by writing an honest review, wherever you get our podcast and just saying, “Hey, I got a lot out of this episode. This was really great.” It helps me to know what you guys like. And then also it helps people find the podcast and spread the word. So anyway, because that’s always a nice thing that you guys can do to help us out. Because my team works really hard on the show. We really do. So anyway, thank you for considering. Gang, take care of yourself. Be well. Forgive yourself and forgive others. And I will talk to you next week.

Filed Under: Podcast

5 Simple Phrases for a Happier Workplace

July 8, 2021 by Andy Roark DVM MS

One of our most popular episodes from last year! Dr. Andy Roark sits down with Dr. Cherie Buisson to talk about one of her articles on DrAndyRoark.com: 5 Little Phrases For A Happier Workplace. You can read it here:
drandyroark.com/five-little-words…appier-workplace/
Originally published: May 21, 2021

Cone Of Shame Veterinary Podcast · COS 088 Hall of Fame: 5 Simple Phrases for a Happier Workplace

LINKS

Secret Sauce to Optimizing Workflow: 
unchartedvet.com/upcoming-events/

12 Steps to Critical Conversations: 
unchartedvet.com/upcoming-events/

Charming the Angry Client On-Demand Team Training: drandyroark.com/courses/charming-the-angry-client/

Dr. Andy Roark Swag: drandyroark.com/shop

All Links: linktr.ee/DrAndyRoark

ABOUT OUR GUEST

Dr. Cherie Buisson is one of the first Certified Hospice and Palliative Care Veterinarians in the world. She is an international speaker and author. She spends her time in feline-only practice, hospice practice and teaching other veterinary professionals about hospice, euthanasia and compassion fatigue. Dr. Buisson is the owner of Helping Hands Pet Hospice in Seminole, FL as well as the founder of A Happy Vet.

Editor: Dustin Bays
www.baysbrass.com
@Bays4Bays Twitter/Instagram

Filed Under: Podcast

5 Little Phrases for a Happier Workplace

May 26, 2020 by Andy Roark DVM MS

This week on the cone…
Dr. Andy Roark sits down with Dr. Cherie Buisson to talk about one of her articles on DrAndyRoark.com: 5 Little Phrases For A Happier Workplace. You can read it here: drandyroark.com/five-little-words…appier-workplace/

Cone Of Shame Veterinary Podcast · COS 029: 5 Little Phrases For A Happier Workplace

We are supported by PSI Vet!
The PSIvet Healthcare Initiative hopes to introduce new ways to ensure all Veterinary Professionals get the healthcare coverage they need. Learn more at www.psihealthcareinitiative.com/

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of the DrAndyRoark.com editorial team.


ABOUT OUR GUEST:

Dr. Cherie Buisson is one of the first Certified Hospice and Palliative Care Veterinarians in the world. She is an international speaker and author. She spends her time in feline-only practice, hospice practice and teaching other veterinary professionals about hospice, euthanasia and compassion fatigue. Dr. Buisson is the owner of Helping Hands Pet Hospice in Seminole, FL as well as the founder of A Happy Vet.

Filed Under: Podcast Tagged With: Team Culture

Learn From the Customer Service Story of My Family Legends

January 20, 2018 by Cherie Buisson, DVM, CHPV

When I went away to college at Mississippi State University, I was a wreck. I’d never been away from home. Though I fell in love with the campus the second I set foot on it, being left alone there was another story. College was something I had worked my whole life for, but I was absolutely terrified.

I put aside my anxiety and bravely attended my first day of classes, only to find that my name wasn’t on the roll in any of them. For an introverted 18-year-old kid, this was the stuff of nightmares.  When I called to find out what happened, I discovered my entire schedule (that I had woken up at 5am to secure) was gone because a small fee had not been paid.

At orientation, Dr. Ruby had given all the parents his home number with instructions to call if they ran into trouble. When I called my Dad and told him my schedule had vanished, he was going to calmly try to talk me through how to fix it myself.

When he heard me holding back tears and panic because I’d already tried, he decided to avail himself of Dr. Ruby’s number.  I think it’s telling that he had the number ON HIM at work.

While I sat in my dorm room trying not to cry, this is what was happening at my Dad’s office:

His boss, seeing his red face (and likely the steam coming out of his ears), put him in a private room to make the call. Dr. Ruby answered.

“Dr. Ruby, I’m going to try really hard not to yell at you right now. My baby is up at MSU away from home for the first time. She has two thousand dollars on account, and some idiot in the registrar’s office just canceled her entire schedule over a $25 fee. We were assured everything was paid when we left.”

Now I have to tell you, my Dad has a VERY scary voice. I mean pee-your-pants scary if you get on the wrong side of him. They called him “the Voice” at the office and sent unruly customers to him. Those customers almost always settled down after a few words. While this may not look scary in type, trust me, there was murder in his tone and you could hear his teeth gnashing.

In deep voice with a thick southern drawl, Dr. Ruby said pleasantly, “Mr. Buisson, let me assure you. I will handle this evil which has befallen you”.

BOOM.

He left my Dad nearly speechless. “Okay” was all he could manage before hanging up. I called him 15 minutes later.

“What did you DO? All my classes are back!”

This story has been told umpteen times every year for the last 23 years. It’s one of our favorites. Seriously, if you ever meet my Dad, have him do his impression of Dr. Ruby.

Mulling it over, I realized what a brilliant customer service move Dr. Ruby made. Here’s why:

  1. He listened. He didn’t interrupt, or tell my Dad to lower his voice. He just listened.
  2. He responded in a way that indicated he heard the words, the tone, and the feelings
  3. He acknowledged the gravity of the situation – he held in his hands my Dad’s eldest child and only daughter as well as a big financial investment
  4. He kept his promises
  5. He disarmed my Dad with humor (for those of you who need to be told, this isn’t always appropriate)

In two sentences, he calmed a freaked out parent and made sure his worry was addressed. This is what we do every day in veterinary medicine. We handle freaked out parents who have trusted us with their beloved pets. Our clients often feel out of control and helpless. They may not be 700 miles away, but they feel as though they are. If we take the time to hear them, let them know their concerns are valid and important, and promise only what we can deliver, then we may gain their trust and loyalty.

It isn’t always that easy. Dr. Ruby got lucky in that my Dad was trying to be reasonable and has a wicked sense of humor. I wonder, though, how many of us spring to defensiveness first and then sort out the carnage later. Had he chosen that route, this story wouldn’t be nearly as entertaining.

Next time you have to deal with a person in distress, pause a beat. Take a breath. LISTEN. If you look at good customer service as a challenge instead of a chore, you might start to enjoy the nuances. You may even become the stuff of legends.

Thank you, Dr. Ruby.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of the DrAndyRoark.com editorial team.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Life With Clients, Perspective

Why I Support Pet Owners Who Drop Their Pets Off for Euthanasia

December 12, 2017 by Cherie Buisson, DVM, CHPV

If there’s one thing I’ve learned being in hospice practice it’s that every grief journey is different. That’s why it pains me when I hear people pass judgment on a person who can’t or won’t stay with their pet during euthanasia.

Of course, we’d love all pets to pass in the arms of the one they love best, but sometimes that’s just not possible. Before we cast stones from our glasshouses, let’s consider WHY someone might not stay with their pet.

Years ago, I had a lovely family present me with a tiny Calico cat named Little Jeannie. She was 5 years old and six pounds of feisty adorableness. Jeannie hadn’t been feeling well, so she wasn’t her usual self.  We ran labs, all of which were normal. Because she was vomiting and not eating, I hospitalized her.

Nothing I did helped. I watched helplessly as this young, sweet cat deteriorated before my eyes. In a matter of 36 hours, she went from very sick to dying despite treatment.

I talked seriously with the owners about taking her to a specialist all the while knowing that it was very unlikely they could help. I was pretty sure she had Feline Infectious Peritonitis, one of the worst diseases in veterinary medicine. It’s a virus with no cure. The owners and their children were devastated. They elected to euthanize her.

I asked if they wanted to be present and was surprised when they said no. They had done absolutely everything I asked, spent large amounts of money and still I couldn’t save their beloved girl.

They kissed her goodbye (she barely noticed), and left crying their hearts out. I had no doubt of the love these people had for their cat – NONE. They just couldn’t bear to see her leave them. I euthanized her and then broke down, something that rarely happens to me. It was agonizing for me. I can’t even imagine that family’s pain.

We never know what’s going on in a client’s heart, head, or home. That person we judge could have just lost a family member. They could be suffering from depression or feeling suicidal. Maybe they have PTSD. Maybe they are afraid that their anxiety will betray them and they’ll have a panic attack in front of us.

Whatever their reason, it isn’t our place to push, or lay a guilt trip, or sneer. Rather, we can give them the gift of empathy and say, “You don’t have to be here. We will hold her and tell her goodbye for you. We will see her safely to the other side”. Those words could ease their pain. They could save a life. And isn’t that exactly what we are here to do?

A Veterinarian’s Promise

You left your baby with me

I knew you couldn’t stay

I told you I’d be by his side

I promised you I’d say

That mom and dad both loved him

And though they missed goodbye

They held his memory in their hearts

Their love would never die.

Just because you weren’t here

Doesn’t change the fact

That you gave him a gift today,

A final selfless act.

Though my hands held him gently

As he ceased to breathe

Know that YOUR hands gave him to me

For a peaceful way to leave.

-Dr. Cherie Buisson

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of the DrAndyRoark.com editorial team.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Care, Euthanasia

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