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Andy Roark DVM MS

Why Change Is Like Sledding With Children

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Why Change Is Like Sledding With Children

Originally Published: DVM NewsMagazine, June 1, 2011

 

 

In my heart, I am an 8-year-old boy trapped in the body of a 34-year-old man. In reality, I am a middle-aged man blessed with a wonderful, beautiful, princess-obsessed daughter whom I really don’t understand. As a result, I spend my time looking for things that both little girls and 8-year-old boys enjoy. When I find those things, I jump all over them. These adventures are my fondest pastimes.

A few months ago, a mammoth snowstorm hit the East Coast, and I remembered that both little girls and inner children enjoy sledding. I set about organizing the neighborhood kids in a bid to blaze a sled path down the hill in my yard. The process turned out to be not at all what I expected, and I distinctly remember one point where I found myself separated from my sled with my face in a snow berm. At the time, I thought, “This process is exactly like trying to make changes at a veterinary hospital.” Here’s how I got there:

The benevolent idea

Most change initiatives I see start (and end) with what I like to call “The Benevolent Idea.” This is the plan that one idealist puts forward with the greatest of certainties that other team members will see the value in it, embrace it for its brilliance, and then execute this miraculous vision.

In the case of my sled experiment, the benevolent idea took the form of me in the middle of a circle of adolescent girls. (Males seem to be scarce in nearly every aspect of my life.) My arms flailed wildly as I demonstrated the velocity and excitement that a sled course would bring after the kids had packed down the snow. The crowd dispersed, with the most polite kid remarking, “Yeah … that idea might be cool.”

The personal investment

As I stood alone with my sled and my 3-year-old watching from the living-room window, I found my resolve. While I’ve allowed many initiatives to die amidst a sea of eye rolling, that would not be the case here. I decided this was too important, and that I was willing to roll up my big, puffy sleeves and make it happen. It would be hard work, but I was confident the children would see I was invested. They would understand I was serious about this initiative and would help me create something outstanding for us all. I trudged alone to the top of that hill. I took ownership of the plan and committed myself to making it a reality.

I put my sled in the spot I believed would yield maximum velocity once the snow below was packed. I sat down. The sled sank about eight inches into the powder, and snow went up my pant legs. The urge to join my daughter in the living room surged. Instead, I started the tedious, exhausting process of slowly plowing my overloaded Dora-the-Explorer sled down the hill through the powder. My arms burned, and my shoulders ached. The process seemed never-ending.

The neighborhood kids continued a dance routine that I had interrupted with my original proposal. The sounds of Justin Bieber made me wish I had never started this process. But I had come too far to stop now. My commitment to the project was strong enough that I would pursue the goal even if everyone around me chose to ignore what I was doing.

Visible results

Just as my resolve began to waver and I was about to resign myself to a life where my daughter would dance to teeny-bopper songs instead of ride a sled with her father, it happened. The snow started to give way, and the sled made progress. Each trip I made down the hill plowed the trail further forward. Top speeds were slowly increasing, and rides were getting longer.

The bubble-gum music quieted. Soon, it stopped altogether, and kids with sleds appeared ready to take part in something that was clearly working. They packed, and the course grew longer. The vision became a reality. The team was energized and enthusiastic. My daughter and I laughed and rode together. One girl shouted, “This is great! I’m so glad we made this!”

I resisted the urge to tell her to get off my sled track and said, “Yeah! We’re really making this dope!” (I thought I heard somewhere that kids were saying that again, but the look she gave me said otherwise.) Just as in the veterinary hospital, everyone wants to be part of a success. When people see results, they’re much more willing to get involved. If you let them, this is when the tide finally turns in all change initiatives.

Sustained change

As the days went by, the kids continued to spend time on the hill (even though I was too sore to lift my arms, much less carry a sled). The snow packed down tighter and froze over to create a lightning-fast sled ride that made me glad I have extra liability insurance. The vision was realized in full, and an entire neighborhood of little girls (and one dad) benefitted. When initiatives produce results and get buy-in from the team, they become part of the culture. They become “just what we do,” and that is how changes become permanent (unless a key component of your initiative melts, of course).

As I evaluate ideas for change in the clinic where I work, I think back on this experience often. Ideas for change are exciting, but executing change is not easy. “Benevolent ideas” fail. If you’re willing to put an idea forward, then you should also be willing to stand behind it and exert the energy to make it happen. You will often work alone and without recognition, but results change minds. If you can present a plan that you believe in and push it all the way to positive results, then you can bring your team on board and make a permanent organizational change. Or at least a great sled track.

Become a Veterinary Conference Commando

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Become a Veterinary Conference Commando

Originally Published: DVM NewsMagazine, April 1, 2011

 

 

It’s the most wonderful time of the year—not Christmas, or Thanksgiving or spring break. It’s conference season. Every year, I beg and plead with my boss to finagle as much time off for CE as possible. I harass my fellow doctors to swap days. I badger the practice manager to tweak the schedule. And I shake down the owner to trade in sick days for CE days—as the father of a 3-year-old in daycare, my immune system is practically bulletproof, or so the argument goes.

I know other people like attending conferences, but I love them. I prepare for them like astronauts prep for a moonwalk, and these gatherings have opened innumerable doors for me. In my experience, if you want to get the most out of your time at a conference, you have to know why you’re going and you need to have a plan before you arrive for how to achieve your goals. When I prep for conferences, I make goals in three areas. They are:

Networking

Shake hands and kiss babies. It may sound odd to make this your top conference goal, but conferences are the one place where you can meet people face-to-face, all day long, who can help your career. Whether you’re interested in asking a practice management guru specific questions about your practice’s finances, making a career jump to industry, joining a new initiative in organized medicine or adding a clinical giant to your Rolodex for those “freak out” moments when your colleagues just don’t have any good advice, conferences are the place to make it happen.

Learning

Build your own curriculum. It seems like most conferences today offer somewhere between 3 million and 2 zillion hours of CE over a four-day period. The big conferences have all of your absolute favorite speakers—speaking at approximately the same time. This overlap of teaching superstars leads to what I like to call the “veterinary squirrel phenomenon.” This is when veterinarians dart full speed up one hallway to stop, look around, change their minds about what session they want to attend, and then dart right back the way they came. The affected veterinarians then become traffic hazards to all other attendees around them, and they end up late to everything they attend. Don’t be a squirrel.

The other problem with taking a wait-and-see-what-grabs-me approach to CE is that you end up with such a mixed bag of new tricks, that you never use the majority of them. You can avoid this problem by deciding what skills and topics you really want to explore, and then devise your own curriculum to make major educational gains in these select areas. You can still pack in lots of variety, but when it’s over you’ll have some new areas of expertise that you can tout to your boss, colleagues and clients. Just research the conference program ahead of time and make those tough choices on whose lectures you’ll attend so that you’ll know where you’re going and can spend break periods finding your way around the massive convention center in an orderly fashion.

Socializing

This is what you did before the days of Facebook. Obviously it’s great to bump into your friends at conferences, but given how rarely you see these people and how important staying in touch can be for your development and career, you should take socializing seriously. Most conferences have alumni receptions for veterinary schools, so start there. Once your reunion is blocked in for one evening, make sure there aren’t any irresistible recreational events offered by the conference, like behind-the-scenes tours, wine tastings, amusement park discounts and so on. If there are, then put out the word to any and all of your friends that you’ll be attending and they should join you. You’ll end up doing exactly what you want to do with a lot of your old friends. It doesn’t get much better than that.

To push your socializing to the next level, leverage social media before the conference. If you’re a fairly recent graduate, there’s a good chance that most of your classmates are on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Post the fact that you’re going to the conference, and ask who else will be there. When people respond, start coordinating ways to get groups together to catch up. Social media is also a great way to promote personal gatherings. Whether it’s at an amusement park, bar, coffee shop, breakfast buffet or dinner spot, don’t be afraid to pick a time and place and call for a party. If rock stars can have huge parties at hotel bars, so can you.

If you go to a conference and pursue networking, educational and social goals, then you can expect lots of new career opportunities, a rewarding experience, and complete exhaustion at the end of the event. So make your goals, set your plans to accomplish them, and take an extra day off work after you get home. You’re going to need it to recover. See you there!

Be the Business

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Be the Business

Originally Published: DVM Newsmagazine, January 1, 2011

 

 

Veterinarians, generally speaking, are not self-centered people. Focusing on others helps us to build relationships with our clients, empathize more deeply with our patients and create stronger teams with our staff. This tendency to avoid a selfish outlook does not, however, make us the best veterinarians that we can be. To grow as doctors, make ourselves maximally valuable to our patients and our employers and achieve true job satisfaction, we need to pay attention to ourselves. We need to understand what our career options are; how we want to grow; what our strengths, weaknesses and passions are; and what success looks like for us as individuals. The best method I have found for achieving this mindset is trying to view myself as my own business. (I think Andy, Inc. has a nice ring to it.)

Before you skip to the next article, let me say that I know that thinking about business is probably not your favorite thing to do. Most veterinarians would probably rank strategic business planning right up there with watching C-SPAN and getting a flu vaccine in the list of awesome things to do on your day off. Career planning is not sexy, but you know it is important. And this method is a quick and easy way to wrap your head around what you are doing and where you are going as a veterinarian.

Now, let’s pretend that you are your own business and you work for no one else. Are you doing the following things well?

Setting your price

For most associates, figuring out what to ask for in an employment contract is like playing basketball with small children. You worry about being humiliated and taken advantage of in a way that even your close friends will never let you live down. You also fear being perceived as an egotistical jerk who treats poor, good-hearted practice owners mercilessly for your own pleasure. But if you think of yourself as a business, you can escape that feeling by asking yourself: “Are my prices fair? Do they reflect my value to the consumer (practice owner)? Will they keep me in business?”

If the answer to any of these questions is no, then you need to negotiate. And it offers some direction on what you should ask for. Remember, asking an outrageous price for your services or nickel and diming your client (practice owner) is not how you want to run your business. However, you also can’t survive if your costs to live are greater than what you are able to bring in. You need to know what your overhead expenses are (your personal living expenses including debt), and what value you can bring to the hospital (both financially and culturally). If you have these key pieces of information, you can take an educated stand on your salary and benefits.

Sometimes your potential client (practice owner) will not be willing or able to pay the price that you are asking. You have the power to try to negotiate further, to accept the arrangement your client is proposing or to find a different client. Remember that money isn’t everything, and sometimes it’s better to make less money and work for a client that fits your style. Just never forget that you always have to be able to pay the bills.

Protecting your reputation

When you go to a Ritz-Carlton Hotel, you know what you are going to get. The people at the front desk will be available, the cleaning crew will have the room ready, you won’t see any emotional meltdowns from the staff and management will not be caught yelling or throwing things. This dependable, committed approach to service exemplifies professionalism, and it is the easiest way to build and protect your reputation.

Consistently behaving professionally will increase your value to the practice, protect your reputation in the veterinary community and ultimately provide you with credibility and career options. You have to do it every single day—even when the urge to go “Jersey Shore” on certain staff members is overwhelming—but it will pay off in the end.

Building your brand

How do you want your clients, your peers and the staff to think of you? Are you the gifted surgeon, the local expert on avian medicine or the compassionate guardian of underprivileged animals? When you share your interests with clients in person or on your website, when you consider taking a different job or when you research CE opportunities, never forget who you want to be. If you tell people what your interests are and you actively seek opportunities to build skills in those areas, then you are guiding your career toward your dream job, even if you aren’t 100 percent sure what that dream job is. Keep focusing on the areas that you are passionate about, and people will seek you out with opportunities to do what you love most.

Thinking of yourself as a business, especially when your work schedule and conditions are largely dictated by your employer, probably feels a bit odd. However, this mental exercise can empower you to make your career what you want it to be. So, Dr. CEO, what do you want to be, and how are you going to get there?

How Veterinary Associates Can Manage Work-Life Balance

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How Veterinary Associates Can Manage Work-Life Balance

Originally Published: DVM Newsmagazine, November 1, 2010

[Author’s Note: I like this article, but was never fond of its title. This was my first venture into the delicate world of writing about involvement in organized veterinary medicine. I think that the title may have turned people off, and I wonder if this piece ever had a chance. If you’re reading this, I hope that you might give it one now. -awr]

 

 

Most veterinarians never get involved in industry groups such as AAHA, AVMA, AAEP and AAFP. Consequently, they never reap the many rewards such involvement can bring. Through these groups, you can find career and business mentorship, develop as a leader, make connections to people who share your interests and goals, and keep informed of career opportunities both in practice and in industry. Organized medicine can be your platform to call attention to a problem and your soapbox to elicit the changes you believe our profession needs. It can be your creative outlet, your source of energy and encouragement in pursuit of your passions, your leverage for creating better educational opportunities and your medium for improving the way we all practice.

However, it’s also important to note that organized medicine can suck up a lot of your time, bog your ambitions down in bureaucracy, put you in an airport every weekend you have off, and generally make you wonder why you ever volunteered to pick up extra work for free. Managing your involvement and participating on your own terms is thus critical to leveraging organized medicine to advance your career and increase your happiness in our profession. I have seen great success stories among associates who took the initiative to seek organizations and positions that most inspired them while largely avoiding these common drawbacks. These veterinarians are currently improving their own careers, reaping the rewards of connecting and surrounding themselves with people who share their interests, enjoying life outside of practice, and actively making veterinary medicine a better place for us all. You can benefit from organized medicine, too, by following these simple guidelines:

Grab the reins yourself

Don’t wait for a position that requires a veterinarian with your exact talents. It’s not likely to fall into your lap. Instead, find a contact who shares your interests and let him or her know you’d like to get involved. Every month, DVM Newsmagazine and http://dvm360.com/present dozens of articles on different initiatives that others in our industry. The people named in these articles are great points of contact. Just Google their names along with the associated organization, and you are well on your way to having their email addresses.

Alternatively, you can often contact an organization, search for specific people to contact or look for volunteer opportunities directly through the organization’s webpage. You can also approach groups at conferences through their convention exhibit hall booths and ask them whom to contact. Finally, don’t ever overlook your own network of friends and connections. If you know someone involved in the organization that interests you, contact that person and ask for direction. Even if your friend doesn’t know the right person, he or she probably knows someone who does.

Get specific about how you can help

Once you have made contact with a person who is working in your area of interest, ask, “Is there a specific project that I can help you with?” This phrase is vital because the answer will provide you with a goal. It also will help prevent frustration on both sides by setting clear expectations about your level of involvement. Getting specific helps you set an end point so you can avoid entering into an endless commitment. That way, you can evaluate both the topic and the organization to see if you have found the right fit before entering into a long-term relationship.

Do not get frustrated if an organization is not currently working on one of your personal passions. Let your contact there know your interests in case the organization pursues them in the future. Additionally, ask if your contact knows of any other organizations that are working on your topic of interest. Then move on to a different group to pursue what most excites you.

Set boundaries to protect life balance

When you reach out, be honest about how much time you are willing and able to commit to an organization. It is better to be honest and set reasonable expectations for your involvement than to over-commit and then quit or produce sub-par results because you simply don’t have the time to do exceptional things. Points you might like to make at the very beginning include:

Travel constraints. If you cannot travel more than once or twice per year, make people aware of that at the beginning. Work-life balance is tough. Associates simply do not have the flexibility in their schedules that practice owners do, and using all your vacation days for organized medicine commitments is not fair to yourself or your family. Offer to telecommute or read minutes from meetings you can’t attend. If the position requires someone who can travel more than you are able, then it’s better for both parties for you to remove yourself from the running for this spot early on.

Schedule constraints.Let people know when you can be regularly available. If your day off is Tuesday and the committee you’re assisting has conference calls on Thursdays, ask if the committee could move it to Tuesday. If not, ask to schedule it early or late in the day, or possibly on the weekends. Maybe the committee could schedule every second or third call on a weekend so that you and other associates can participate. Some people will balk at the idea of having calls on weekends, but if these groups want participation from young veterinarians, then they would be wise to consider it when asked by a willing participant. Don’t expect everyone to leap to your schedule, but don’t be afraid to ask if the group can make some changes.

Standing committees. If you have had positive experiences with a group and are passionate about the topic of a standing committee, then this may be the best position for you. Take it if it fits with your goals, but don’t feel like this is the only way to involve yourself. If it doesn’t fit your goals, don’t be afraid to decline participation on a standing committee. Even if you can’t commit for 2 to 3 years, you can still volunteer to support these committees and help them on an “as needed” basis.

When it comes to organized medicine, you get out what you put in. Don’t miss the many chances to be involved, to be connected to your peers and to learn about an entirely different aspect of our profession.

If you reach out to one group or committee and it isn’t a good fit, then find another one that works better for you. Just be clear about what your interests and passions are and about how you want to be involved. Start slow and ease in until you are doing as much as you want, but not any more. You will be more passionate, creative and productive if you take this approach. Organized medicine can be a wonderful addition to your career, and it will almost certainly be even more rewarding if you approach it on your own terms.

 

Veterinary Associates: Lose the Guilt

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Veterinary Associates: Lose the Guilt

Originally Published: DVM Newsmagazine, September 1, 2010

 

 

Most of us embrace guilt like it’s in the Veterinarian’s Oath. If we didn’t pursue an internship, we feel guilty. If we pursued advanced education that took us away from spouses and children, we feel guilty. We feel guilty if we work part-time, because we’re not developing as quickly as we should. We feel guilty if we work full-time because our kids are “only young once.” We beat ourselves up relentlessly about angry clients, disappointed clients and clients who look pregnant but aren’t (I still feel bad about that one).

The guilt associated with lost patients is difficult to escape, and maybe it’s good in that it drives us to be better doctors. The rest of the “veterinary guilt” is overly abundant, unnecessary and obstructive to our pursuit of happiness. This guilt is an enormous hurdle to appreciating balance in life.

Here are a few strategies to keep in mind to counter veterinary guilt.

Remember your priorities

Priorities are deeply personal, and you are the only one who can fully assess what is important in your own life. Be strong in your convictions and remember what is meaningful to you in both the short and long term. Don’t be afraid to prioritize family, finances, hobbies and health in addition to your career.

Expect conflict

Conflict doesn’t mean you’re getting it wrong. Sometimes the priorities of others — clients, other doctors, staff members or practice owners — will appear to be in direct conflict with your own.

Sure, life balance would be easy if everyone just accepted your priorities as their own, but that’s not realistic. Neither is the idea that you should accept the priorities of others as indisputable commands. Often, the best we can do is to understand others’ priorities so we can establish mutually beneficial solutions. It’s important to be creative and sincere in working with others while we pursue what is most important to ourselves. If we’ve done that, we shouldn’t feel guilty about the paths we choose, even if others disagree with it.

Carpe diem (seriously!)

I know “seize the day” sounds cliché, but it’s the key to escaping guilt. When you see cases at work, engage them with your complete attention. When you go home, be fully at home in body, mind and spirit. I struggle to live this philosophy as much as anyone, but on my best days, when I get it right, I feel neither guilt nor regret.

We must learn to forgive ourselves for following our own priorities. If we want “life balance,” we have to not only make the hard choices but also embrace the experiences we create, guilt-free.

The Veterinarian’s Prayer

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The Veterinarian’s Prayer

Originally Published: DVM NewsMagazine, April 1, 2012

Click here or above to read the complete Veterinarian’s Prayer article.

 

 

The Veterinarian’s Prayer

As the holiday season approaches, let all of us veterinarians bow our heads together to ask for guidance in the coming year.

 

Dear Lord,

Guide Me in Medicine

Please let me find the tiny, dehydrated vein of the ancient kitty when I am asked to perform euthanasia under the emotional eye of her owner. I ask for this first, Lord, because it is my single most common reason for prayer, so let’s start there.

 

Lord, help me be a good doctor. Not even a great doctor like House, MD, but at least a doctor who will not space out and miss the glaringly obvious stuff that every veterinarian should know. Lord, let no other doctor look at one of my medical records, shake her head, and think, “what an idiot.”

 

If I do make a mistake, please let the lesson find its way firmly into my memory and not onto Google reviews or Angie’s List.

 

Grant Me Patience and Understanding

Lord, grant me a future that includes someday not having to work on weekends. And until that day, I beg you for a few Saturday shifts that are not completely insane.

 

When the anal glands express erratically, may their contents find my coat and not my face or hair.

 

It is not lost on me, O Lord, that the truly wonderful pets seem to have a significantly greater chance of getting an incurable illness at a young age. If these pets have memorable names (i.e., Professor Snacks, Captain America, Chipper Donut, Jabba Bear, etc.), live with children, and have delightful owners, their long-term survival rates are even worse. While I do not seek to understand your reasoning for this, and I am grateful for those pets that seem to be too bad to die, I would really appreciate it if more of the great ones could live nice, long lives.

 

Give me self-control

Bestow upon me the strength to eat heartily from the holiday veggie trays that clients send, and to merely sample the brownies. And when my strength fails (as it will), please guide me to be more reasonable in my goals and aim at least not to eat the entire batch before the technicians know the baked goods have arrived.

 

Make Smooth My Dealings with Staff

Lord, make me the kind of vet other people enjoy working with. Please let the technicians and receptionists like me for the right reasons, and if one or two of them decide not to like me, let that be for the right reasons too.

 

Also: Might I request to be scheduled to work when the staff training meetings involve free lunch, and off when they do not? Speaking of schedules, please smite the technician who calls me at home early Saturday morning when it is not really, absolutely, without a doubt, critically necessary. Smite him good.

 

Give Me Wisdom in Handling Clients

I thank you, Lord, for all the wonderful clients you send into my life each day. When it comes to those few who are less wonderful: help me to recognize the cases that I should refer away immediately. In extreme cases, feel free to strike me with an illness so I am not in the building when the true nightmare cases come in.  Lord, if I were able to choose between getting pneumonia or getting sued, I’d take the former.

 

When I call the mean owners to check in on their pets, let my call go to voicemail. Likewise, please do not let the mentally unbalanced breeders find out where I live. I don’t want to have to choose between moving and changing professions.

 

Finally, Lord, give me the wisdom not to ask any pet owner when she is due unless I am absolutely, 100% certain that she is pregnant.

 

Amen.