Dr. Jen Quammen joins The Cone of Shame Podcast to discuss her candidacy for AVMA President-Elect and why she’s stepping up to lead the profession. In this episode, she and Dr. Andy Roark explore what it takes to run for AVMA leadership, the changes she hopes to bring—like expanding membership to include credentialed veterinary technicians—and the challenges of guiding a large, public-facing organization. They dive into the AVMA’s evolution, the importance of diverse representation, and how veterinary professionals can get involved without overwhelming commitments. If you’ve ever wondered what the AVMA does, where it’s headed, or how leadership decisions are made, this conversation is a must-listen.
You can also listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts!
LINKS
Jen Quammen: https://jenquammen.com/
Dr. Andy Roark Charming the Angry Client Team Training Course
Dr. Andy Roark Swag: drandyroark.com/shop
All Links: linktr.ee/DrAndyRoark
ABOUT OUR GUEST
I (Dr. Jen Quammen) am a practicing veterinarian and influencer of Digital Transformation within the Veterinary Medical Profession. I have extensive experience in small animal medicine, surgery and telehealth. harnessing and creating team harmony using emotional intelligence (EQ), change management and kickstarting new projects. I enjoy spending time with family and friends, baking and traveling.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Dr. Andy Roark: Welcome everybody to the Cone of Shame Veterinary Podcast. I am your host, Dr. Andy Roark. I’m here with my friend, Dr. Jen Quammen. She is running to become the president, or technically the president elect of the AVMA. And I am here to ask her, why? What in the world are you thinking? Why would you do that?
And it’s an intervention, I think, and it just doesn’t go well for me at all. She seems like she’s got really good reasons, and she seems pretty dedicated to it. And so anyway it’s a fun conversation about why someone would want to be the president of the AVMA and what that means and like what she wants to accomplish.
So anyway, we dive into that and it’s pretty fantastic. I really hope that my friend Jen Quammen is the next president of the AVMA. She’s pretty incredible. If you are somebody who’s hey, I don’t like the fact that the AVMA doesn’t let people who are technicians in.
Dr. Andy Roark: I think you should listen to what Jen has to say. She’d like to change that. So, anyway let’s get into this episode.
Kelsey Beth Carpenter: This is your show. We’re glad you’re here. We want to help you in your veterinary career. Welcome to the Cone of Shame with Dr. Andy Roark.
Dr. Andy Roark: Welcome to the podcast, Dr. Jen Quammen. Thanks for being here.
Dr. Jennifer Quammen: Thank you so much, Andy. Really excited to be here.
Dr. Andy Roark: I love having you on the podcast. You have been a friend of mine for some time now, and I am so thrilled to see the things that you are doing in our profession, and I wanted to get a chance to just unpack some of that stuff with you.
For those who do not know you, you are Dr. Jen Quammen A.K.A Super Q. You are a practicing veterinarian. You are also a candidate for the AVMA President elect position. I didn’t say you’re running for the AVMA presidency, but that’s not how they say it. Yeah, same thing. That’s what it is. And yeah, you’re also the Chief Veterinary Officer at Otto.
Anyway, you have been a friend of mine for a long time. You started to, you decided you were gonna run for AVMA president. And I was like, Jen, like help me get my head around this. Like, why? Let’s just, let me just start with that. Why did you decide to do this? it’s not like you don’t have other things going on.
Dr. Jennifer Quammen: That is a really fair and fabulous question. that saying of ask a busy person if you want something done. I, first of all, I really struggle with the B word. I don’t use that in my life. I’m richly scheduled because I’ve said yes to these things.
Yeah, it’s great. Right? I don’t
Dr. Andy Roark: That’s hilarious. Richly scheduled.
Dr. Jennifer Quammen: Busy feels like it’s this avalanche that’s hit you and I’m like. Yeah. No, I have said yes to these things. Are there days when I’m like schedule’s a little insane today? Sure. But these are things that acknowledged and said yes to. So in terms of the why in terms of the AVMA president elect campaigning and running, it’s, a few things.
I think about the job of the president elect, which is to move into president, obviously, but you are Chief communicator of the profession. and so feel as though I have that skill set. I think I do represent a large swath of what the profession looks like right now. And I think I can speak as well as I’m able to for those that are not represented and really help.
Kind of bring together and have those conversations, not only within the profession, but to the public at large. And so AVMA has a pretty big broadcast, within the U. S. and beyond. And so my hope is that I can be the sort of friendlier side of and bring a little bit of levity, but also some knowledge and some fun with what is up to.
Because I don’t think people are always super aware.
Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah, I don’t think, I think, I don’t think fun and levity and AVMA are typically tied together, as many, as much as they, as much as they could be
Dr. Jennifer Quammen: Agreed. So this is my tangent on that. if I can be the little, aperture to just open up a little bit for people to see that AVMA, yes, there are traditions that are there, but I don’t think we are the same as we were a decade ago. I don’t think we’re the same as we were 2 decades ago.
I don’t think we’re where we’ll be in a decade. And if you’ve not looked in a little while, maybe look, there, there are different people here than there have been in the past.
Dr. Andy Roark: There have been real troubleizers at AVMA, like I was thinking, you and I were talking about sort of AVMA presidents gone by, and I remember Dr. Mary Beth Leininger was someone I really looked up to and she was the AVMA president, and I got invited to do the speaking job one time, and it was up in it was up in Michigan.
It was this really swanky place, and they were having a, like conference gathering, cocktail sort of thing, and I didn’t recognize that I was wildly underdressed compared to everyone else there until Mary Beth Leininger was like, Andy, you have to go back to your room and put on a tie.
And I was like oh, really? And she was that person for me who, when I was just stumbling around, not paying attention to what was going on she looked out for me. But yeah, we talked about Mary Beth Leininger and we talked about Renee Carlson and people like that. Talk to me a little bit about, let’s talk a little bit about sort of history of AVMA presidency, because I knew that was a thing that you and I discussed as being something that was inspiring for you as you were considering whether or not you wanted to do this.
Dr. Jennifer Quammen: Yeah, it’s a thank you for that opportunity to share. And Mary Beth is lovely. This is our first AVMA female president, right? This is a pretty, pretty wild to interact and meet someone to me that has so much history and depth with her station in this profession. And if you get a chance to meet her, as you say, she’s really down to earth, easy to talk to.
And she’ll be like, by the way, you’re not wearing the right thing. I could totally see her doing that still. Today. Yeah, 100%. And so for me, when I think about the history, like this organization has been around a long time, got over 150 years of history and we’ve had some changes over time.
I think for me, still like wanting to acknowledge, all the depth of history. We have of Mary Beth and Renee Carlson and Lori Teller and all those folks that are in those positions now and in very recently as leaders, but also really acknowledging where we’re going. And so I think about, Michael Bailey as well.
We have our first African American president of AVMA. He’s president elect right now. Those are things I think that we can talk about and celebrate as. I think for me, as I’m leaning into this and to circle back to your question is for me, there are moments when I’m like, questioning my sanity is like, why am I doing this?
But then there are then there, because it’s like, how do I even put myself in the same sentence as these folks? But also. I do think that there is a place for me and there’s a place for many others to think about where your voice could be. And so I’m honored to just be among those names. I want to stand on the shoulders of those giants that have been there before me and help to continue to elevate this profession.
So that for me is, me, and why I’m taking this position on now. If you’ve not had a chance to check out Dr Leininger or Renee Carlson, or even Sheila Allen, there’s some really amazing leaders within the profession overall. But, obviously, specifically with AVMA also.
Dr. Andy Roark: So when you start thinking about getting in with the AVMA first of all, let me just say this. I think the hard thing with the AVMA now is, as you said, they’re such a public body and we live in this insane world where everyone is hyper connected and they can all just comment on whatever they want, everything you do, there’s people who can just come and comment.
And to me, it’s, I’m not, I’m not. There’s definitely things that I’m really grateful for to the AVMA. I think they’ve done a wonderful job of protecting the interests of veterinarians at the state and federal levels, especially given the very limited resources they have compared to outside entities that would like to have their way with veterinary medicine as a profession.
I think that they have. done a good job for us, and that has been wonderful. And also, there’s aspects of the AVMA that, have driven me up the wall, and that, and that I think a lot of people struggle with. It seems like no matter what you do at the AVMA, you’re going to have to hear about how it’s terrible. And how, and it is! It’s just like how terrible, how awful it is. I really, I appreciate you wading, into this. I think one of the things that I admire about you is, it’s so easy to shake our fist at the moon and go, Ah, everything is terrible and the world is burning down And it takes a certain kind of person who goes, I’m going to go and run for an elected position to see if I can do something.
Oh, wow. That’s definitely next level commitment. Is there an aspect to the AVMA or where you see the AVMA going now where you’re like, that’s the dragon that I want to slay? That’s the potential for good that I see in the world. What is that?
Dr. Jennifer Quammen: I do think that when you’re a very public facing organization, AVMA has over 108, 000 veterinarian members right now. So this is a big, giant elephant in the room, right? In the sort of how much, how, and how many veterinarians we represent. I think our market penetration is at 74, 75 percent of U. S. veterinarians are members. So a grand majority of our veterinarians are members of this organization. And I do think that means that things are thrown your way. But also, I think that we are all trained in the medical way and in the scientific way to question things, right? If we’re not being questioned, and we’re not thinking about why we’re doing things, we’re just going to chuck along and keep doing that same thing over and over.
I think being asked about that. Are those opportunities for us to think? Oh, I do need to maybe be mindful and maybe switch directions a little bit. I tease a little bit that AVMA is never going to, make a massively wrong public decision because there are a lot of people behind the scenes on the volunteer side and on the staff side through the CEO that’s managing that are really thinking about those before they’re out in a public way.
However those decisions then come slowly, right? It takes a long time to get those decisions to be made. And for myself as an individual, that can be a little bit frustrating. It’s not my personality. the sort of yin and the yang of my life is I’m the chief veterinary officer for a technology startup that we can spin something and have a major adjustment in 3 days.
And be running down a different path. That is not the same with a AVMA. However my startup group can also go off on a path. It’s we just blew a whole lot of money on something that we maybe didn’t make the best decision. And so thinking about that feeds for me, the 2 pieces of my, I want to see that bigger impact, which is where
I think where you can have that that sort of ability to be that voice in the AVMA sense, but also want to see some action, and so there’s 2 pieces to that. For me, the president ultimately doesn’t dictate the direction of the association, right? We have a board of directors, 16 people.
The president is one of those individuals, but that entire board every single year is doing strategic planning and thinking about direction and working with the staff side of the organization of where are we heading? And every year I would tell you there’s probably three or four main things we’re leading into for me as an individual.
I would love to see us think about, because this conversation has come to our House of Delegates before, but I would love to see us think about what does it look like to have a membership beyond only veterinarians within the AVMA. So for me, I think contemplating, do we include our CVPMs or do we include our credentialed technicians?
The pushback is always, what about the liability insurance and the bylaws? So you have to be veterinarian and yes, there are pieces that we have to address to get there, but I think if that’s the will of the House of Delegates and that’s the will of the profession, that’s the way the AVMA should go.
Many of our state organizations include technicians as members. And so I think it’s a little bit of a groundswell that could lean that way. So that if I were to say the one thing I, at least in my perspective today, that’s one thing I would love to have is one succinct collective voice across the veterinary team.
Dr. Andy Roark: Say that you’re elected president and you get your action oriented way and things roll forward and it goes fantastically well, five years from now. We have this succinct voice and there’s you know more than veterinarians in the AVMA and we’ve got this collective voice there as well.
What else has happened at the AVMA? What is a wildly successful AVMA five years from now look like?
Dr. Jennifer Quammen: Fantastic question. there still can be some challenges because it’s such a behemoth of an organization in two, two places and they both relate to communications for me. And one of that is it can be a little bit siloed, right? It is because it’s a big organization, like any big company, right?
It is divided into different divisions. And so those divisions don’t always see what each other is doing. Now, that’s the job of the board and the CEO and the C suite to keep an eye on that. But I think keeping those lines of communication more open. So everybody knows what’s happening. And again, we’re doing that on an annual or semiannual very strategic way.
But I think on the day to day member nothing frustrates me more than you talk to someone and they’re like, I wish AVMA made X or I wish AVMA did Y. And by the way, in almost every scenario, I can be like, actually, they do let me show you where to find it. And so if we could fix that communication piece, and that maybe comes through their marketing team, right?
That’s 1 thing to think about there. The other side of this, when this comes to communication is truly how are we being 1 collective voice to the public at large and realizing that we are representing on an international stage to write like AVMA as a body goes to other organizations and other countries.
We go to Canada. We go to Mexico. We go to Japan. We go to Australia. Lots of places that we represent the veterinary medicine of the US beyond just our borders. And so I think opening those lines of communication of what could that look like? And for me, I think, boy, it would be really cool to. Open up those lines of communication and my even better yet would be if AVMA is at some point seen as not just this place that I go for the data because they have great data, but it’s this place that I go to find a colleague and to find a resource that I need when I need it or to share it with someone else.
And so it’s this, maybe not somebody you reach into every day. But, it’s that trusted source that’s there that when there’s a need, you have, that’s your 1st stop shop for how do I try to solve this problem? I can’t solve everything, but they can certainly be the convener for the grand majority of the profession.
Dr. Andy Roark: What do you think the big pitfall the AVMA needs to avoid is? so we talked about what’s great in five years. What is pothole that you think desperately needs to be dodged?
Dr. Jennifer Quammen: I have lots of thoughts in my mind about this right now. I think the 1 that is coming to me to the top right now is thinking about how we need to truly represent the profession at large and what I mean by that is there’s still this perception that is a bunch of retired older people of a certain generation, a certain socioeconomic status, those are the perceptions of this. And that doesn’t play in the world that we’re in anymore. And if that is it, then this is a dinosaur that we’re not going to have in another 5 or 10 or 15 years. And so I think we have to be, I don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, but I think we need to be thinking about who should be at the table and how do we invite people into this conversation?
And so that to me, I think is the pitfall of not just steaming ahead and not looking beyond. I don’t know if that makes sense or resonates with you.
Dr. Andy Roark: I think that’s a good point, I hear that, all the time, is, it’s the good old boys club, it’s the old white guys hanging out, and I go, look, it’s the elected organization. If people want to change what the AVMA looks like and what leadership is,
there’s really two steps that have to happen. Number one, people who don’t look like that, who have different experience, have got to step up and say, I’m willing to do the job. Then they’ll be able to vote for them but both of those things have to happen and so I guess my question to you is a little bit, I 100 percent buy into this idea of, hey, I hear criticisms of leadership.
And honestly, in my interactions with the AVMA, I’ve heard it again and again. We want to represent our people. And so please step up and, put yourself forward to be a leader and try to help us make this what we want to be. How does that happen though?
We live in an age where people are busy. people are two income families and we’ve got, veterinarians that sort of work as hard as they ever have before. How do we motivate? people to make the commitment or, to say, this is where I want to put this time and energy.
So you’re stepping up and doing it. And one of the reasons I want to talk to you about that is, I just, I think it’s interesting that you make time to do this and it’s something that you want to do. I think, the way that you described yourself when we were talking earlier, before the podcast is, you say you have a portfolio career and I thought that was really interesting because I also have a portfolio career.
It’s where you have a number of different things that you do and piece together into what you would technically call your job, but when I look at that, I say, what are the steps that we need to take to start to engage the next generation of people to make them want to come and be a part of the AVMA and to serve in that capacity?
Dr. Jennifer Quammen: If I step back and say, what does it look like to get people engaged? I would acknowledge that there are hundreds of volunteers that help the AVMA run every single day. There are dozens of councils and committees that people are serving on. And the one thing I will say is a little bit of a misstep.
And again, it’s a little bit of a rebranding piece for me is, someone hears you, you have someone that hears you can run for this position. It’s a three year term. That feels pretty overwhelming. But if I could say to you, it’s a 3 year commitment, but you’re gonna attend a board meeting or a council or committee meeting 1 and a half days twice a year and maybe have some calls in between doesn’t that feel more comfortable to say?
How about 6 or 8 days out of your year? I’m gonna need you to commit to this. That feels much more attainable to me than. You’re doing this for 3 years.
Dr. Andy Roark: You’re in for a year. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.
Dr. Jennifer Quammen: Yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark: years or whatever.
Dr. Jennifer Quammen: Yeah. So I think that is something that we’re still struggling with is like, Oh, yeah, it’s a because you need some longevity and you need some knowledge base that comes with this.
Some of that institutional memory. But I think that can come faster than people realize. And I do think that there are voices and in AVMA now from veterinary technicians and on some of our councils, we have the most niche knowledgeable people. Did you know that there is a committee strictly focused on aquatic veterinary medicine?
This is not my wheelhouse, but there are people that is what they do and they know the things and so finding what that looks like. I think for me, the kind of, I don’t know if we should say it’s like the stepping stone because it’s not exactly, but it’s the way in for a lot of people is through their state or their allied organization as well.
Part of your state VMA and seeing what are these opportunities. if you don’t want to commit to that 3 to 5 year, maybe you can commit on advocacy tied to the congressional advocacy network and you’re literally being asked to send a text or an email. Once a quarter, those are the kind of things that I think we can all do.
And they do add up when those voices are coming from tens of thousands of folks. For me, how do I do it? it’s strategic scheduling. Sometimes the schedule is a little bit of a Tetris game. But I’ve made the commitment. For me, it’s important. I want to have my voice and where this profession is going, but I also realize it’s not just my voice.
I want to hear from others. And so every time I’m in a meeting, every time I’m in an event, I’m bringing all those perspectives are trying to bring those perspectives from the other individuals that have helped me to get there and to have their voice at that table. If they can’t physically be there. I am happy to always be the person with the minority opinion, if you know what I mean.
Dr. Andy Roark: That’s really good insight. Dr. Jen Quammen, where can people find you online?
Dr. Jennifer Quammen: I have a, can you believe the Quammen URL wasn’t taken? shocking, right? I know, shocking. Probably the best place to find anything about me right now. Current is jenquammen.Com.
That will get you to my blog where I talk about, I’m putting content out about every week. All things related to vet med. I have all the socials connected there. I am on tick tock, which I never thought I would say, but here I am. Here I am. I didn’t think that would be happening. if you’re curious about the process that I’m in as a candidate, or how to get ahold of me, that’s the best way.
I’m really looking forward to this opportunity. If you see me as someone that you want in the seat as AVMA president, then I need your help. There are only 70 people that actually choose our next president elect. You can find out more about that through all my site and everything, but that’s where I would love for you to go and influence your delegate and ask them to vote for Jen in July of 2025.
Dr. Andy Roark: Outstanding. I’ll put links in the show notes to all of that. Jen, thank you so much for being here. Gang, thanks for tuning in. Listen, everybody, take care of yourselves, guys.
Dr. Jennifer Quammen: Thanks, everybody.
Dr. Andy Roark: And that’s what we got. Thanks everybody. Thanks for being here. Thanks to Jen Plummer for being here and making time. Good luck to her in the upcoming AVMA election. Guys, get behind her if you can.
And let’s keep trying to make this profession as amazing as it can possibly be. Anyway, take care, gang. I’ll talk to you later. Bye.
