Jessica Vogelsang DVM

If you ask employees what would make them feel appreciated, you will notice that many of them will say that they would simply appreciate a “thank you” or “good job”. You can increase wages, benefits and retirement packages, but if your employees don’t feel appreciated you are missing a crucial piece of the puzzle.

Saying thank you, showing appreciation and acknowledgement doesn’t mean we all have to sit around a drum circle singing kumbaya and patting each other on the back.  But taking the time to notice an employee’s good behavior and work ethic will likely improve morale and sprinkle some sunshine into what may have been a dark and dreary day.

When I first came into practice at an ER facility, I had no idea what I was doing. I was an assistant and had restraint skills, but not really any technical skills. One of the first cases I remember was a cat who came in laterally recumbent and was having difficult time breathing. It was a crazy night and all of the other assistants and technicians were in the middle of about 20 million other emergent tasks. I remember doing the only thing I knew how to do: I comforted the kitty and gave it oxygen via face mask while the doctor spoke to the owners about its condition. Honestly, I felt absolutely helpless. I couldn’t place an IV catheter. I couldn’t take radiographs by myself.  I felt like I was letting the doctor and the cat down.

After discussing the cat’s prognosis, the owner elected euthanasia. I continued to pet the cat and provide flow-by oxygen while a licensed technician placed an IV catheter. I briefly spoke to the owner and told them how sorry I was that they had to make this decision. My doctor gave the final injection and the cat was at peace. I went home that night and felt like a little fish in a really big pond!

I woke up and continued on at work making it a point to absorb any information I could.  About a week later I received a card in my mailbox at work. The dyspneic cat’s owner had taken the time to tell me thank you and that she appreciated me being there to pet her cat and talk to him during his final moments. I was amazed that this woman even remembered my name. I felt so utterly useless that I never even realized that it meant something to her. I have saved that postcard for 14 years and often read it when I am having a bad day.

Appreciation is something that all of us human beings strive for. We want the approval of our peers and coworkers. The easiest way to do this is simply to say “thank you” or give genuine compliments on work performance. Hearing “Hey, good job getting that IV catheter in that bulldog.”, or “You did a great job keeping your calm dealing with Mrs. Grouchypants today!” is the little boost you can give to your employees and coworkers to really make them feel appreciated.

You never know what kind of day someone is having, and small acts of kindness may truly push this person to smile and do the best they can. Kindness is something we should strive for in our profession and as human beings.  Believe it or not, it very well may be the thing that gives you a happy and cohesive team.

We should also not forget to be appreciative to our veterinarians and management team. So often we forget that they don’t always get the thanks they deserve. It means a lot to show support and appreciation to those above us. Be grateful for any knowledge they bestow upon us. The sense of responsibility they have pales in comparison to our daily tasks. Never forget whose butt is on the line when things go wrong.  So in closing, I simply say “thank you” to those who have taken the time to read my little article. It means a lot to me and I hope that in some small way it brings perspective to you! Kindness costs nothing! Sprinkle it on everything!

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About the Author

Jade is a licensed technician of 9 years who lives in Port Orchard, Washington. She enjoys emergency and critical cases, dentistry and creating a bond with her clients and team. During her off time she is busy keeping up with her two crazy Basenjis!

You never forget your first patient. This is the story of mine and how he shaped the rest of my career as a vet.

The first three years of vet school you sit in lectures, watch others, and learn from the best and brightest vets in the world. But it isn’t until the fourth year that you actually see patients. Of course, you are still a newbie at that point, so you have a resident doctor who oversees you, guides you, and points out your mistakes (hopefully) before you actually make them.

My first “rotation” was an 8 hour shift in the ICU. It wasn’t a particularly busy night, so they only had one patient for me to oversee. Eight hours and one patient. Some of my classmates were jealous that I got such an “easy shift”. Others felt sorry for me because I wouldn’t get enough patients to learn as much as they did. I decided I would make the best of it and do right by my patient and not worry about what everyone else thought. I was given “rounds”, which is doctor talk for a Cliff Notes version of this animal’s story.

It always starts with name, age, sex, and breed: Bozley was a 10 year old, male neutered, Golden Retriever. Then what they’re in for: He was diagnosed with stage IV lymphoma (cancer) and was no longer responding to chemotherapy.

And then the plan: Owners plan on euthanizing in the morning; provide supportive care until the husband’s plane arrives tomorrow.

Well, there it was. My very first patient and my job was to keep him alive until his owners could arrive to let him go.

Bozley was a handsome boy. He had a shiny ginger coat and a completely gray face. His muscles were sunken in from months of chemo. His body was weak but his spirit was not.

I approached him to start my first official physical exam. Thump. Thump. Thump. He was too weak to stand, but being a typical Golden, the sight of a stranger (me) approaching him gave him such glee his tail began to wag with vigor, knocking over his EKG monitor. I went through my whole physical checklist. I attempted to examine his ears with an otoscope. He turned his head and licked my face so hard I dropped the scope. I tried to listen to his heart sounds, but he climbed up on my lap as I was squatting and sat on me.

I thought I could at least check his skin, but when my hand approached, he nuzzled my hand with his nose to indicate my instructions. I was to pet his head. I was to sit on the floor in the corner of the ICU with a Golden Retriever on my lap and pet his head. After 20 years of schooling, countless hours of studying, tests, reading, learning….the best thing I could do for my first patient, my dying patient, was to care about him. So that’s what I did.

My shift started at 4pm and ended at midnight. There were hourly treatments; giving medications, checking vital signs, cleaning and nursing care. If they required me to stop petting Bozley’s head, he would nudge me in disapproval. As long as I pet him, he rested contently. He was so weak. He had fought a long hard battle and I knew he was ready to go. I read to him about lymphoma treatment protocols (I was supposed to be learning, after all), but I knew he had lived them. I looked at the pictures with which his owners had decorated his wall. Bozley as a goofy puppy. Bozley in his prime chasing balls through the vineyards of Northern California. Bozley with his IV in getting chemo. Before I knew it, it was midnight, and the next doctor came in to relieve me.

I gave him rounds, he looked at the treatment sheet, saw the next treatment was due in two hours, and decided to go in the hall to study for the vet board exam until the next treatment was due. I knew if I left, no one would pet Bozley. These were the last 12 hours of his life. I figured the least I could do was give him the next 12 hours of mine. I stayed there with him all night. I couldn’t sleep because if I stopped petting him, I’d get the nudge. I couldn’t cure his cancer. I couldn’t help him regain his strength. All I could do was give him all he asked of me.

So I ran my hand through the white hairs of his face, over the boney figure of his skull, and I gave him the best thing I had to offer: my care.

The next morning, Bozley’s owners arrived. I stayed with him and watched him breathe his last breath. I watched the life leave his eyes. And he was gone. And I wept with his owners. He went peacefully, surrounded by people who loved him.
I learned a lot from Bozley that has carried with me throughout my career. I am grateful for all that he taught me. It was nothing I could have learned in a classroom, from a lecture, or prepared for any test. Sometimes the best medicine we have to give is our time.

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.

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About the Author 

Monica Revel, DVM is a veterinarian and the owner of West Hollywood Animal Hospital in California. She graduated from U.C. Davis School of Veterinary Medicine and has practiced in Southern California since then. She was named one of America’s 12 Favorite Veterinarians by the American Veterinary Medical Foundation, named the Official Veterinarian of the Hero Dog Awards (2012 and 2013) by the American Humane Association, and was published in the book “A Letter to My Cat” by Crown Publishing.

My vet school class was somewhat infamous for the number of women who became pregnant in school. I say infamous because it was not viewed as a good thing by many so much as a terrible, horrible mistake or affront to the rest of the profession.

Women who became pregnant were met with bafflement: Why would you do this?

Or indignation: Why does she get to sit down during surgery when the rest of us have to stand during our three hour spays?

Or, when the pressure and the schedule was too much and she would withdraw for a year, anger: She shouldn’t have taken this spot from someone who really wanted it, who wouldn’t have been so selfish as to gestate during school. We question her commitment.

Granted, there were also plenty of people who met my classmates with sympathy and support, and I imagine their friendship is the reason those women who did stick around made it through, but it wasn’t exactly the standard response. And sadly, that carries over to our work in a lot of ways: Moms make bad vet students and bad vets, so we are often told.

This is a love letter to all you bad mother doctors.

Now look, I don’t want this to turn into a parent versus non-parent or a mom versus dad or any of that garbage that got us to this impasse in the first place. The challenges of being a working mother are not going to be solved by individual practice owners; it is a reflection of a greater issue in American society. Today, I’m just here to acknowledge that you moms care, a lot, and you bust your butt. Because I don’t think people say that to you nearly enough.

The fact remains that for many mom DVMs, life feels like a constant circle of disappointing people.

The women in my class who became pregnant soldiered on out of sheer force of will. It wasn’t until I became a mother some years later that I understood the massive physical and emotional burden of pregnancy. Vet school and pregnancy are hard enough on their own; doing them together requires some Navy Seal level stamina. If you’ve never had to breathe through one of those crappy masks they make you wear during anesthetic procedures, I offer you the equivalent experience:

When I was pregnant, working in emergency practice with a toddler, I had to hire a nanny because no childcare could work with my insane hours. She was amazing. When I had a day off, my kids would cry because they missed her, and then I would cry too. Despite the fact that I took home about $150 a week after paying her, I kept working because I didn’t want to be a ‘quitter’ and somehow I felt like I was a better vet than mother, despite the subtle inferences that I was committed to neither, failing at both.

They laid me off anyway, shortly after the medical director told the staff of mostly young women that women who wanted babies had no place in emergency medicine. During the time I was there, I never missed a day of work- including first birthdays and every Mother’s Day, of which I was the only actual mother on staff. I did all I could short of not being a mother, but it’s never enough.

Someone’s Always Mad At You

The reality is, despite what you hear about how much mothers slack, they’re usually out there making sacrifice after sacrifice without complaint. This is the life of a working mother DVM, who panics at every child’s cough hoping this isn’t the day she has to choose between her kid’s illness and her clinic director’s ire. Someone is always mad at you and you are always feeling guilty about your shortcomings.

If you get enough time off to run to a school event, you face a bunch of women you’ve never met who know everything about your kid because they’re in class every day, and you don’t even remember the teacher’s name. Your cell phone goes off during the play and you hear someone sigh as you leave to answer it. You often, if statistics bear out, also do the majority of your household’s cooking and cleaning when you finally get home.

Yes, having a family is a choice, and most of us wouldn’t have it any other way. But if you find yourself questioning why it’s so much harder for you than everyone else, I’m here to tell you that it’s not. We’re all winging it. It’s hard for everyone because that’s the way the deck is stacked, and the fact that you’re still here pushing to do the best you can day after day means you are One Bad Mother Doctor, and I don’t mean that in the literal “bad” way, but in the Samuel L. Jackson/ Pulp Fiction kind of way.

Moms are tough. Mom DVMs are titanium. And in honor of the just passed mother’s day, as you’re throwing out your rotting flowers and getting back to the thankless grind, I present to you a different gift. A badge:

Cut it out. Stick it in your wallet. Give it to the BAMDs in your life. And remember this: you really ARE one Bad Mother Doctor, and I, for one, got your back.

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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.

My dad was a coach.  I spent countless hours by his side as I was growing up, first as the water boy and then as a player.  Until recently, I didn’t understand how the lessons he taught me through years of sports have directly affected my professional life.

After retiring from a long career in education, my dad found an opportunity to coach an after school youth basketball league for elementary school students.  On my rare (very rare) Saturday off, I was able to witness the out-of-retirement coach in action.  It was like a precious peek into my personal psychological development.  The more I watched, the more I thought about how the lessons taught through sports at that early age have made me a better person, a better leader, and a better veterinarian.

I could fill a book with all the lessons from that youth basketball game that directly relate to veterinary medicine, but there was one lesson that really stood out to me.  Whenever someone made a basket, my dad made sure that kid acknowledged the teammate who passed him the ball – either with a quick word of thanks or more often a fist bump (because apparently the cool kids don’t give high fives anymore).  By the end of the game, the kids were fist bumping after scoring without any prompt from the coach.  He looked so proud.

A Simple But Vital Action

That may seem like a very random point to focus on, but think about that for a minute from an animal behavior perspective.  The kid with the assist received positive reinforcement for passing the ball, so he’s more likely to pass the ball again.  Also, consider the team building angle:  that simple interaction laid a foundation for a cooperative team dynamic that is so important to maintain in a group working toward a common goal.

Veterinary medicine is a team sport.  We do not succeed alone.  More importantly, we must acknowledge our team members who are vital to our success.

I thought I was good at this, but I learned that I sometimes make mistakes with how I acknowledge my team’s efforts at work.  Gratitude is not one size fits all.  I currently work at multiple locations, and the teams at each location have their own personalities.  One team is food motivated, so they are easy to please with sweets.  Another team includes a bunch of members on intense work-out and diet plans.  Instead of a box of donuts being a treat, they were actually upset I was ruining their diets.  Fail.  Air ball.  I have since learned that a bouquet of fragrant flowers for the break room was much more appreciated by that team.

(Side note:  Hint to the men out there – women love flowers!  It doesn’t make any sense to us guys.  Flowers are expensive, you can’t eat them, and they just wilt and die.  We’ll never understand it, and I don’t think we’re supposed to.  Just give the girls flowers.)

Two Little Words

Finally, don’t underestimate the power of a simple verbal “thank you”.  I once walked into a hospital after hours to find several of the staff still there because they were finishing treatments on an emergency patient.  As I passed through, I quickly thanked them for staying late to care for the patient.  Later one of the technicians told me that was the first time in weeks anyone had thanked her for her work, and she was very grateful for my comment.  That simple acknowledgement of appreciation was more important to her than I could have realized at the time.

Did you thank your team today?  Now, I try to remember to tell my staff “Thank you for your help today” before I leave each night.  Apparently it’s working, and some team members are learning from my example.  This week as I was leaving work I overheard a technician tell the new employee who just started, “Thank you for your help today.”  I suddenly understood how my dad felt when those little basketball players started fist bumping on their own.  Watching my team come together through the power of appreciation made me feel so proud.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Michael W. Miller, DVM is a part-owner of a four hospital practice and splits time between Lakewood Animal Hospital and Pine Bluff Animal Hospital in Morris, Illinois. He has a special interest in exotic animal medicine – especially reptiles, but he also enjoys working on dogs and cats including his mischievous shelter mutt named Wombat.

“What we have once enjoyed deeply we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us.”

–Helen Keller

I read a beautiful post today by Dr. Jessica Vogelsang (pawcurious.com) about the relationship between her terminally ill mother and her Golden Retriever during the last months of her mother’s life. Her words brought the first of the tears that threaten me daily this time of year.

My mother would have turned 70 this past January. She died on May 18, 1993, nine days after I had my fifteenth birthday party for the family in a waiting room at Sibley Hospital. Every spring, when May hovers close, its sweet green smell, hay fever, dogwood blossoms, and bird songs signal the imminence of Mother’s Day, and the anniversary of her death.

I once euthanized a lovely little cat that had nursed her owner through chemotherapy for lymphoma, and seen her through to remission.  There must be so many stories like this and to protect myself, I often don’t ask to hear them, for which I feel selfish. My own mother spent her 18 months of chemo in a big blue chair with two cats and an afghan draped over her lap. Much later, I became (among other things) the agent who stands by while loving owners whisper goodbyes to the small warm caretakers of their daily lives. I can begin now to imagine how my dad must have felt when my mother’s lap cats died. They were her bodyguards and her pain medication, and sometimes I think they were the metronome behind her beating heart.

Pets aren’t for everyone. I believe there are some people who can never know, or desire to know, what it’s like to have an animal embed itself so deeply in your life and your heart that losing it will tear fibers apart that can’t be sewn together again. For those of us who do know, the pain is exquisite, but made bearable by the love.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Katie Berlin is a small animal general practitioner in Mechanicsburg, PA. She is also a reader, a rider, a runner, a lifter, a teacher, and an art lover. She graduated from Williams College in 2000 with a degree in Art History and worked in art museums before going back to school and earning her DVM from Cornell in 2009. She is an avid supporter of Fear Free practice and the battle against compassion fatigue in the veterinary profession.