DrAndyRoark.com

Articles, Videos, & Training on Pets & Veterinary Medicine

Katie Berlin, DVM

In Defense of the Hard Way: The Most Important Time to Love Your Neighbors Is When You Can’t See Them

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If you had dinner with a group of veterinarians in any given year B.C. (Before COVID-19), you probably heard variations on these stories:

  • The one about the client who wanted his pet treated but didn’t want to pay for anything
  • The one about the client who wanted medication without an exam
  • The one about the client who went to the pet store or the internet for answers instead of the vet
  • And we can’t forget the one about the acquaintance who Facebook messaged them in the middle of the weekend to ask for free vet advice

Well, it’s not B.C. anymore. Now, vets exchange comments without irony in online forums about variations on the following stories:

  • The one about the client who barged into the waiting room past the signs that said “no clients inside”
  • The one about the client who cried or lashed out because she couldn’t be with her lethargic, vomiting cat for his exam
  • The one about the client who was experiencing signs of illness himself but wanted to bring his dog in any way because he was worried about him
  • The one about the client who messaged them on Facebook at midnight to ask whether their pet could contract and transmit the novel coronavirus 

If I had to pick one metaphor to summarize most of the human condition, it would be that the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. It’s normal to want what we can’t have. But just because it’s normal doesn’t mean we can’t work on our assumptions about what we DO have.

At least the client who ignores the “no clients” sign is bringing us business. Maybe he was laid off from his job, or maybe he has a high-risk family member at home, and he’s worried about having to spend time and money at the vet – but he’s doing it anyway.

There’s a good chance that the client who desperately wants to be with her sick cat loves him just as desperately. Maybe the cat is her emotional support during a time of terrifying anxiety and isolation. What would I be like if one of my animals got sick right now and I had to hand him to a stranger and wait in the car? Probably not as sweet as I’d like to think, and I fully agree with the transition to curbside care and the reasons for doing it now. 

What about the client who admits to being sick but asks for an appointment and cares enough about his dog to put his own comfort aside – and enough about the health of our team members that he admits to his clinical signs before showing up? Maybe he doesn’t have someone to bring his dog in for him, or he isn’t aware that telemedicine might be an option. Possibly he doesn’t know that exceptions might be made to the “no meds without an exam” rule we spend so much time training our clients to accept. He probably couldn’t imagine a world in which we would just say, “here’s some medication.” Three weeks ago, neither could I. And now vets are joking about chucking it through the car window as he drives by. Nothing wrong with joking, by the way – but there’s a difference between laughing at a scared client and laughing at ourselves. 

It’s actually a sign that our message has been getting through when a client who is terrified his pet might get sick from COVID, or could transmit it to his elderly mother, asks us about it and not his cousin’s sister-in-law who works as a groomer. Also, if a client sends us a Facebook message at midnight or at 4 a.m. on a Sunday, it’s not because they want to wake us up or act like our time isn’t valuable – it’s because they’re awake and worrying about their pet. Yeah, been there myself. 

We spend so much mental energy under normal circumstances wishing for more – more trust, more money, more respect. Honestly, it’s taken a global pandemic for me to realize that most people are ready and willing to give us ALL THOSE THINGS. We’ve asked for them and we’ve earned them. And now we have to be gracious when they’re offered, even if the package in which they come looks a little different than we’d choose. 

A side effect of social distancing is that we are all online all the time. It’s great, actually – imagine having to be socially distant during a time when that really meant isolation! I mean, I had an 80’s dance party in my living room over Zoom last week! But it also means constantly being subjected to the media, to updates on deaths and equipment shortages, and most of all, to other people’s actions, opinions, disagreements, politics, choices… many of which will not align well with our own. The constant simmering anxiety we all feel, along with an inability to look these people in the eye and remember they are also anxious and facing unknown demons, makes us even more likely and willing to judge them. 

In this new reality, when we can’t see two weeks into the future, when our policies and protocols are changing not just daily but sometimes hourly, it’s never been more important to remember that we are all struggling with something – and for once, we’re all struggling with the SAME big thing. We don’t have to travel too far in strange shoes right now to understand the view.

Measuring others against standards we’ve created in isolation – that’s the easy way out. Anger, bitterness, and knee-jerk reactions are streetcars offering faster travel down that easy road. Withholding judgment and assuming everyone is just trying to do the best they can with what they have – that’s the hard road. It requires a lot more maintenance, but it’s leading to a better destination.

How does that article you’re reading today about teens throwing spring break parties in Florida affect how you will relate to your clients tomorrow? That client who hates the thought of being separated from her dog while either of them is sick? You and I ARE that client, or we could be, and a lot sooner than we ever expected. When it’s our turn, how will we want to be talked about? How will we want to be treated?  

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.

Associate Vets Have Voices and Should Use Them

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Not every vet wants to be a practice owner. But every vet is made up of more than medical knowledge and surgical skills.

I’ve said before, it’s OK to want to be happy at work. We spend a lot of time there.

A traditional associate veterinarian is a person who comes gangbusters out of school and works 60+ hours a week, becoming a production machine and never saying no. She lives on gratitude and the joy of following her calling into the career of her dreams.

To be a good vet, associates absolutely do need to pay their dues for a while – be scared and challenged, do things they’re not sure of, be honest about what they don’t know and then try to learn it. And associates absolutely need to make money for their employers so the practice can be a profitable and supportive place for the whole team. BUT, I would argue, associates, get so well-trained to put their heads down and do their work that they don’t acknowledge the signs of burnout early enough or are ashamed to admit them when they do notice. And they forget they are whole beings with other interests, other gifts, and the ability to speak up for themselves. So what happens when they reach the point where they know they need to see fewer appointments or make a change that lets them feel energized by work again?

I reached that point about 5 years after graduation. I was tired of people and exhausted all the time. I was escaping into my other activities but dreaded going to work. I was ready to leave practice and probably would have if things had gone on as they were. Everyone said, “Be an owner, then you can make your own decisions.” No part of me wanted to do this and I felt trapped. I was married at the time and was able to cut back a few appointment hours a week, which helped. Then I got divorced and needed health insurance. I asked my boss if I could try working for the practice in some other capacity – I love speaking and writing and social media, so I asked if I could work on some client education, content creation, marketing ideas. But it wasn’t what he wanted or needed from me. If I wanted benefits, I’d have to add another evening or weekend shift. I felt defeated and panicked at the thought, even though it was only a small difference. I knew I was at capacity. More appointments just weren’t something I could do. I wasn’t afraid of more work; I just could not do more of what I was doing.

Enter my current job. I don’t know if I would ever have left my other job if I hadn’t needed to find one with benefits; it was scary out there, and I was comfortable, and there was no model for what I was trying to do. Through necessity, I spoke honestly about what I wanted: fewer appointment hours and a bigger voice in the practice. Normally, the fewer hours we see, the smaller our voice unless we are owners; but Shiloh was open to someone who prioritized wellness and balance, who wasn’t afraid to have opinions and speak up about them, and who could help to put the culture and heart of their practice into words and pictures. Turns out I can see a full day of appointments and be worn out and tired of humans – ask me to add on another two hours with clients at the end of a long day and I feel desperate and depleted – but I can get home and tinker with social media and leadership topics for two hours with new energy and no resentment. I don’t usually want to come in early to see more appointments, but I’ll come in early to meet with my boss about marketing materials. That’s not the classic model of a “great veterinarian” but it helps me love the appointments I do see. A happier doctor is usually a better doctor, and clients and coworkers will be happier too.

Practice owners, you know this – you need associates who will stick around. The costs of doctor turnover are enormous. If you have an associate vet who fits and loves your culture, who gets along with your team, who practices good medicine and likes to collaborate and learn, who doesn’t make you worry when you are out of town or unavailable, you know how great a gift that is. Don’t wait for this bright light to hit her limits and burn out. Encourage her to use her voice and talk about whether she wants to impact the practice in other ways.

Associates, we are told if we want to have a bigger voice, we should strive to be practice owners. But not all associates want to be owners, and buying or starting a practice when it’s not what you’re into does not benefit anyone involved. We owe it to our employers to help them create successful practices. But we are far more likely to be able to do this in the long term if we are able to create roles for ourselves that allow us to use more of our unique interests and skills. This is an incredible profession and we work so, so hard to be good at it; our days can be long and sad, but we often underestimate the amount of beauty to be found in a senior cat wellness appointment or a routine dental procedure with an owner waiting nervously for the text that says everything went fine. We owe it to ourselves and to all of those beautiful interactions to think about what we need to be happy in the field, not just how long we can push through until something else comes along and we can quit. Supportive employers are key, and they are out there, but they can’t read your mind. We must be active participants in our own happiness.

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.

We Are All on the Same Team

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We all live in fear of the “Bad Review.” We don’t want to be accused of caring only about money, and we don’t want to be told we killed someone’s pet because we made a mistake. But the thing that hurts the most is to hear someone say we let them down because we just didn’t care enough. 

There are vets who care more about money than others. There are vets who make worse mistakes than others, and vets who blame others for their mistakes. We aren’t immune to bad decisions, bad planning, bad management, or bad marketing. But the one thing I don’t believe you can say about us is that we don’t care enough. It’s a sad generalization. I’m speaking about vets here because that’s what I am and therefore what I know from personal experience. But this can be said about just about everyone in your average veterinary hospital. We are flawed, sometimes emotional, sometimes abrupt – but we care. And we do it deeply.

The reason 1 in 6 veterinarians will consider suicide during their career is not that they don’t care enough. It’s almost certainly in part because we care too much, and because some of us literally would rather die than see ourselves painted as heartless or to be shamed publicly for things we could not control, or for things we didn’t even do.

The reason Fear Free and low stress handling, better pain management, and areas like acupuncture and physical therapy are gaining popularity is that they not only increase patient and client satisfaction, they make us happier at work too. We don’t like torturing animals. We care too much to be able to do that and be truly happy.

We didn’t become lawyers or stock traders or engineers because we aren’t smart or ambitious enough. We had to be plenty smart and ambitious to get into vet school, never mind get out with a degree and survive the first terrifying years of practice. We chose this career because we couldn’t imagine doing something that didn’t involve caring for animals and nurturing their relationship with people. We could make more money doing something else, possibly with fewer hours and less stress and less debt. But most of us stick around – because we care. Our hearts are full of sweet gray muzzles and kitten fluff and our pants are covered with dog hair and smushed treats at the end of the day, and we can’t imagine it any other way.

But caring so strongly about anything comes with a price. For too long now, vets have been expected to sacrifice nearly all aspects of their personal lives for the sake of the job, and we have succumbed because we had limited options and the weight of previous generations’ martyrdom on our shoulders. We all go into vet med knowing a certain amount of unpredictability is part of the deal. We might have to cancel plans because of an end-of-shift emergency. We might have days where we are swamped with calls that can’t wait. And we have charts (so many charts)  that have to get done before we forget what we saw and said, every single day. But here’s the thing: I believe the canceled plans, super late nights spent charting, and end-of-shift emergencies should be the exception, not the rule. I believe it’s OK for us to have goals outside of work that are just as important to us as being good vets. I believe it’s OK for us to have an identity that does not revolve only around whether we saw every possible patient or called every possible person back that day. And most of all, overwhelmingly, I believe this culture needs to start inside the hospital, with every member of the team.

Think about it: Those bad reviews where clients accuse us of being uncaring – the people who make a scene in the waiting room because they had to wait too long (what do they think we’re doing? We are seeing other pets! Because we care!). Those viral Facebook roasts – I mean posts – where someone blames their vet for a side effect, an “unnecessary” test or vaccine, an inability to see them at the last minute when emergency care was available elsewhere, or worst of all, a pet’s death, be it by perceived neglect or by mistake. We are walking in a social media minefield at all times. We are waiting to be the target. We can’t talk to every client about this directly, and we can’t change the minds of the angry mob once they’re shouting. But how can we expect clients to see things differently if our own team members judge us for wanting balance?

Patient care should not suffer just because a doctor wants to go home. But if there is an alternative – a drop-off appointment the next day, the ER that night, phone triage with a technician, a pain medication to send home before closing. It’s not unreasonable to expect that a client will accept one of these options and that most of the time, the doctor can go home to her family, her plans, or her microwave dinner and time on the couch with her dog. It doesn’t matter what the reason is. She’s allowed to go home without being painted by her team as indifferent. She probably poured her heart into every appointment she saw that day, every call she returned, every decision she made for her patients and her team, and she deserves to be done when she’s done.

The expression “you can’t pour from an empty cup,” is trite, but true. There are some rock star vets out there, I’m sure, who can work late every night, come in early every day, take late emergencies every Saturday, and make calls on their days off and still see every patient with a smile, treat all team members with respect, and practice excellent medicine. But for the mortals among us, we need time to recharge, get regular exercise, go grocery shopping, call our parents if we’re lucky enough to be able to, and set goals for ourselves that don’t involve work. Do team members really want to work with a burned-out, grouchy, sleep-deprived doctor with a week of canceled plans behind her? Do they really think that what defines a good vet is how many patients or calls she can make in a day without turning into a jerk?

For me, being a good vet means being a happy person, because that allows me to sit right down on the floor and chat with a client until a timid dog climbs into my lap. It means I may be running late, but because I had a good day off the day before or am looking forward to a fun weekend ahead, I don’t let the stress of being late show during my appointments and clients leave smiling even if they had to wait. It means I am able to make good decisions for both my patients and our team. It means fiercely guarding what I love about my job, so I don’t let what I don’t love about it turn into all I can see.

We are all on the same team. Front office, tech staff, kennel assistants, managers, vets – we must be advocates for one another and for our profession. We need to present a unified front to our clients. If we want to see a future in veterinary medicine that involves less burnout and lower rates of depression and suicide, we must start in our own hospitals with our own culture. Support one another. Assume the best of one another. We all tell ourselves stories every day about the people we meet and the things they do and say. Tell yourself stories that paint other team members in a positive light. There is always a choice to be made; make the kind choice. Good patient care and work-life balance for vet teams are not mutually exclusive, but lip service does nothing to show this to clients. The energy you create by lifting each other up, the assumption of best intentions whenever and wherever you can, and the message that happier vet teams provide better care – those are what clients need to see. Those are what we will get us to a better future. Those are what will save us from the dark.

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.

How Selfies Saved My Career

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In 2014, I was teetering on the edge. I was burned out and tired of being a vet and I had only been one for five years. I spent a lot of time thinking about what jobs I might do instead, but would always boomerang back to “but it cost so much, and I worked so hard.” If people told me their kids wanted to be vets, or expressed admiration for the Dr. in front of my name, or told me they envied me because I had the best job ever – I got really prickly and launched into all the difficult and depressing parts of the profession. I would effectively shut down their enthusiasm about vets and darken my own mood by reminding myself of all the reasons I was thinking about quitting but couldn’t.

Then I went to a vet conference in 2015 and attended some incredible talks on social media and marketing, joy in practice, and the human-animal bond. I came home inspired and started to take photos with some of my patients (with permission of course) and put them on Facebook. The comments poured in. “You have the best job!” “I knew it – you just play with puppies all day!” “If you need any professional kitty snugglers, I’m available!” I thought this would annoy me. People just don’t understand our struggle and they need to know about our debt load and weird hours. They need to see how hard we work all the time! They need to know about clients who show up late with no money or who blame us for mistakes we never made or the clients who write bad reviews on Google because we couldn’t fix their neglected pet for free.

Except… I didn’t get annoyed. I was shocked to realize that not only did these comments not irritate me, it dawned on me that they were right. When they said, “You’re so lucky! I don’t get to have dogs climb in my lap at work!” they were telling the truth. I DO get to have that and that DOES make me lucky. If someone said, “That smile on your face shows how much you love your job,” it pointed out something I had forgotten – I smile a LOT at work, and for the most part, it’s genuine. Although I think we all have our moments where smiling is the only thing standing between us and hysteria or incarceration, right?

I also realized that the owners of most of the pets I photographed are pretty awesome people. They love their pets fiercely like I love mine. They want only the absolute best for them, and they sometimes ask a lot of questions to make sure that is what they are being offered. Then they decide to trust me not only with their pets’ care but also with their love.

When I was a kid in the 80s, glimpses into other people’s lives meant things I saw at sleepovers and birthday parties, photos tacked into lockers, albums pushed into my hands by people’s grandmas and the impossibly harmonious fictional world of The Cosby Show. I could envy the other kids’ sneakers and hair, but I also saw them get bad grades, eat gross lunches, and get in trouble for talking in class. I could never have imagined that one day, not long in the future, I would have 24/7 access to an endless stream of photos and videos of near or complete strangers. On social media they are seemingly living their lives spontaneously and joyfully, artfully edited, curated, and filtered with free apps and showing only the very best and most appealing parts of every day. While I used to long for the trendy clothes and breezy confidence of the popular girls, now we have literally millions of popular girls to envy, without knowing when they are sad, being privy to their family dramas, or hearing them whine about having to get up and go to work every day.

Experts tell us too much time on social media can be a barrier to happiness, because we fall into the comparison trap. Certainly, this can be true, but I would argue that social media can also be a powerful weapon in your happiness arsenal. Seeing your life through the eyes of others can be incredibly uplifting. Sometimes they point out the beautiful, amazing parts of your day that you are letting yourself miss. Yes, they’re seeing only the good parts – but don’t you deserve to enjoy those, too? And maybe even give them top billing in your mind when you think about work?

Overall, is it worth it to me to deal with the mean/noncompliant/financially irresponsible/bad-review-writing clients in order to stay in a job that allows me to sit on the floor and have puppies chew on my hair? Well… yeah. I could do something else for a living and still have to deal with people who don’t see things my way, but at least now there is always an animal involved who is blameless, voiceless, and generally adorable – and who needs my help. No matter what sad case I might see on a given day, at some point I know I will walk into a room where a smiling owner waits to start her life with a bouncy puppy who absolutely cannot bear to sit still one more second without leaping into my arms. And then we’ll take a photo. Maybe on my next down day, I’ll see that photo and remember that the bad stuff doesn’t always need to take the starring role. Try it yourself and see – if you take a simple step to let the good stuff shine, it might just make you feel a little luckier.

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.

The Associate Vet Cycle of Doom

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This is, in a way, a confession.

Some of us have this really great cycle that happens after a long day at work:

• We pick fights with our partners about stupid stuff when we get home, even though maybe we felt just fine or even energized when we left work.

• We don’t answer the phone when friends or relatives call because we just can’t talk to another person, and at some point, they stop calling entirely unless they have news like “Your cousin Sam had a baby” or “I got married last weekend.”

• We hash out conversations with our employers in our heads and think in despair that we know exactly how they will go.

• And then we get up and go to work the next day and do it all again and maybe it’s a good day and we think we were probably just being overdramatic.

• And suddenly, a decade or two or three might go by, and we have spent that time alternately feeling defeated by a real or imaginary “no” or angry with ourselves for not being able to just be happy doing what we were supposed to be put on this planet to do. I mean, we got into veterinary medicine because we love it, right? Then why are we so stressed out?

Just to be clear, by “we,” I mean “I,” but I’m going to assume I’m not alone.

During the ups and downs of this cycle, which is not something we associates are supposed to talk about – our public image is still of sweet, endlessly selfless individuals who enjoy days full of bouncy puppies and miracle saves, using up barely a drop of our bottomless wells of empathy, patience, time, and personal cash, then go home and relax and forget about work because we don’t have the stress of practice ownership. I have spent varying amounts of time fantasizing about what my life might be like if I got out of veterinary medicine. These daydreams prominently feature mountains, beaches, horses, iced coffee, early morning runs followed by naps, and my pedicured toes propped up on deck furniture.

What they don’t feature, notably, is a hard day’s work, or the self-respect that comes with it.

Anyone on social media lately has probably seen this quote bouncing around, on a variety of beach/pastel/shadow people backgrounds:

“Working hard for something we don’t care about is called STRESS. Working hard for something we love is called PASSION.”

My friends, I think that is some straight up bull pucky right there.

It’s part of the illusion so deftly perpetuated by social media influencers and regular folks alike: the world is seemingly full of people who have figured out how to work from home on something they are never tired of and make bank sipping lattes in the middle of the day at Starbucks while they tap away at their laptops with color-coordinated bullet journals open beside them. If you aren’t that person, if you have to get up and commute every day to an office where you work for someone else at a job you don’t hate but that doesn’t keep you from counting down to the weekend, you clearly just haven’t found “Your Best Life.”

I believe with my whole heart that life is short, and we need to seek out happiness and love and passion wherever we can find them. But I also think we sometimes get a bit lofty in our dreams of a life so full of passion that there’s no room for stress. Anyone in a long-term partnership, career, or marriage should be able to honestly tell you that the presence of love does not mean the absence of stress. In fact, sometimes the things and people we love cause us the MOST stress, because we care so much about making those people happy. Sometimes, a career we love might actually stress us half to death – and maybe even make us forget why we loved it in the first place, and question whether we still do.

It’s tempting to think those Instagram people are perfectly happy, but the truth is that they get stressed too, and they might secretly not even really love what they’re doing. They might even also yell at their boyfriends for leaving food out on the counter before they even say hello when they get home. At the end of the day, most of us need to feel like we’ve made a difference, and we got into vet med to do just that. It’s a crappy feeling to think maybe we have to leave it behind in order to be truly happy. I believe there’s a place in clinical practice for everyone who wants to be there, even if they’ve convinced themselves it doesn’t want them.

I want to help all of us break that cycle of angry/defeated/angry by being open to change, feeling empowered, and getting excited about our own capabilities not just as doctors but as humans. And more than anything, I want to tell you that it might not be easy, but it is worth pursuing your own path to happiness in a field you truly love, because while it might still stress you out like crazy sometimes, and it might not involve frequent breezy weekday Instagrammed afternoons at an outdoor café, that doesn’t mean you can’t make a change that keeps you from fantasizing about quitting or from counting down the days until the weekend, vacation, or retirement.

No one is going to set boundaries for you or reach out and hand you what you need to sustain a truly happy life in this field. Taking charge of your own happiness means asking yourself the hard questions. What will you be most glad you did (or didn’t do) when it’s all said and done? (Can you please start writing that down?) What would you want in a one-paragraph summary of your life? If you don’t know what you’re looking for, you can’t expect to know when you’ve found it.

Once you know what you want, there’s a critical next step: Go out and find it. Trust me – you won’t be walking alone.

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.

What Running and an Old Cat Carrier Taught Me About Life

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James was my heart kitty. He was like a little person. He had stress-induced asthma and I used to sing to him (“Sweet Baby James”) in the car – when we drove cross-country from California, where he was born in an old church, or when I had to take him to the emergency clinic in the middle of the night to get him on oxygen. He saw me through five moves, my vet school graduation, my bad-idea boyfriends and my marriage. He knew the ins and outs of my moods and never loved me any less for one second, even when I got a dog.

 

 
An Old, Loved Carrier

 
Through all of this, there were few constants other than love, his affinity for chewing around the edges of plastic shower curtains, and… the cat carriers. Green plastic, the kind that open at the top as well as the front, but the handles cut into your hand when the rubber grips wear off. They sat in the study at my Dad’s house in Maryland, the living room in my one-bedroom apartment in Ithaca, my townhouse in Syracuse, and in the “cat rooms” at our houses in Pennsylvania. No matter where we lived, there they were, with old hairy towels at the bottom in any room where my cats liked to hang out. They used them as beds, they played footsie through them, and they left snack crumbs in them. Sometimes, they had to go to the clinic in them, but by then the cats and the carriers were old friends.

 

In the winter of 2015, James went into heart failure. He spent four days at the ER and came home to me for one night, held together by a whole bunch of medication and my desperate hope. I got up the next morning and found him gasping for air, unable to eat, looking at me with liquid eyes that asked for peace. He was in his carrier, sitting on his old hairy towel. I closed the door, put on my coat, and sang his song to him all the way back to the ER for the last time.

 

We hear it all the time: we live in the age of instant gratification. We have access to more information than we could ever hope to need about any subject we could possibly think up. We have drive-through coffee and order-ahead food apps and movie streaming and digital books and online bill-pay. We can renew our auto registration or pay the mortgage on the day they’re due. Somehow, even though we can get so many things done instantly, we have less time than ever before. And this makes the truth hard to swallow: in this era where you can have no cash on you and use an app to find a ride from a stranger in five minutes or less on Saturday night in a major city, some of the best things in life still take time – sometimes a LOT of time.

 

I schlepped those cat carriers across the country and up and down the East Coast, and I rarely cleaned them out because my cats loved the smelly old towels and were suspicious of new ones. They looked terrible and they weren’t even comfortable to carry. But knowing I didn’t have to stuff my terrified, gravely ill, once-in-a-lifetime kitty in a box he hated on the last day of his life? That was priceless. It literally took years and it was worth it.
 

The Long Game in Life

 
Bill Dellinger said, “Good things come slow, especially in distance running.” He might as well have said, “… in crate training,” “… in medicine,” or “… in relationships.” I heard a podcast a while back where two running coaches were discussing what kinds of clients they like to take on. They said the biggest thing for them that determined whether a runner would be successful was whether the person was looking for rapid progress or in it for the long game. A runner who entered the program knowing they would be working hard for 18 months or more before really expecting to try to achieve a big goal was already demonstrating the keys to most great things in life – dedication and patience.

 

But we don’t admit this enough. When we start a new job, we feel like we have to gel with the team immediately. We might feel lonely because no one really knows who we are, and it feels like they never will. Even if we left a job we knew wasn’t the right fit anymore, we think nostalgically about our former coworkers who really “got us,” forgetting that they had the benefit of many hours spent together in the trenches.
 

Clients Forget This Too

 
When we meet a client, there’s instant pressure to show them we are the best they’ve ever met and to convince them we know the right way for them to spend their money and emotional energy to keep their pet healthy. When we take on a project such as implementing the Fear Free initiative at our practice or trying to get clients and staff to embrace our message and culture, we are looking for immediate improvements in patient care, client perception and education, and staff happiness. These goals simply aren’t realistic, and yet we are surprised every day when we appear to fail.

 

I talk to clients every day about getting cats used to carriers, about conditioning their dogs to love the car, about the lifelong struggle that is allergic skin disease, and about planning ahead for things like flea season, emergency surgery, chronic disease, and possible weight gain after spay or neuter. I wonder if I often avoid direct references to the passage of time. People don’t seem to want to hear about that.

 

They want to know whether they will see relief for their pet in 24 to 48 hours, not hear that they will need to do a 12 week food trial with an elimination diet to try to avoid years of unnecessary medication. They want a guarantee of excellent behavior after one session with a trainer, not a link to videos about how to train your dog to allow his nails to be trimmed using positive reinforcement and about a metric ton of patience. And we can’t blame them at all, because this is what we want too. We just know better when it comes to our area of expertise.

 

Next time you feel the urge to roll your eyes as a client asks, “Why does her ear infection keep coming back? We can’t keep spending all this money for you not to fix it,” remember that client probably has 20 apps on her phone that let her get groceries ordered, bills paid, and trips scheduled faster than it takes you to figure out how to put a cat carrier back together.  Maybe, without condescension, find gentle words to remind her that anything really meaningful – like a pain-free, comfortable life for the Cockapoo whom she loves like a child – is worth the time and effort it takes to get it done right.

 

In the one-click age of Amazon Prime, sometimes the most revolutionary thing we can do is play the long game.

 

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.

Dr. Katie BerlinAbout 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.