Dr. Nick Kirk teams up with Dr. Andy Roark on this week’s episode of the Cone of Shame Podcast to discuss how he turned his passion into a unique business. Together, they dive into Dr. Nick Kirk’s journey to board certification, his business partnership with a technician, and his mission to share knowledge in avian veterinary medicine.
You can also listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Soundcloud, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts!
LINKS
Migratory Avian Services: https://migratoryavianservices.com/
Association of Avian Veterinarians: https://www.aav.org/
American Board of Veterinary Practitioners: https://abvp.com/
Uncharted on the Road: https://unchartedvet.com/on-the-road/
Charming the Angry Client Course: https://drandyroark.com/charming-the-angry-client/
Dr. Andy Roark Swag: https://drandyroark.com/store/
ABOUT OUR GUEST
Dr. Nick Kirk grew up in the Middle Tennessee area, and is a Nashville native. He received his B.S. in Biology with Minors in Chemistry and Music at Belmont University in 2012. After undergrad, he went to the University of Tennessee College of Veterinary Medicine where he graduated with his Doctorate in Veterinary Medicine in 2016. He then went straight into emergency medicine for two years until receiving advice to move to Utah for further avian and exotic training. He then started an ABVP-Avian Residency program at his clinic under the mentorship of Dr. Scott Echols. During this time in Utah he worked in private practice, with three separate facilities (including an all avian AZA facility) as their primary care veterinarian, participated in research, gave national and international presentations, and also picked up relief at a local emergency clinic. After finishing his residency, Dr. Kirk returned to Nashville and passed his boards for specialization. At this time, he continued traveling back and forth to Utah for work and also founded Migratory Avian Services.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Dr. Andy Roark: Welcome, everybody, to the Cone of Shame Veterinary Podcast. I am your host, Dr. Andy Roark. Guys, I got a great one. I’m here with Dr. Nick Kirk. He’s a boarded exotics veterinarian. He is the owner, co owner of Migratory Avian Services.
Guys, I talked to him about how he followed his passion and made his career into, kind of what he wanted to be. And it’s just, it’s a great story. It’s an inspiring story. I love the business model that he’s got. I love that he’s working with general practice hospitals and providing avian services through them and doing training for their staff.
I think that’s fascinating and, and just, just really, really interesting stuff. Neat guy, really cool business that he’s doing. Let’s get into this episode.
Kelsey Beth Carpenter: (singing) 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. Nick Kirk. How are you?
Dr. Nick Kirk: I’m doing great. How are you Andy?
Dr. Andy Roark: I’m doing really good, man. It’s good to have you on the podcast. I love you being here. You are such an interesting guy. You and I met very recently just kind of by chance and I heard what you were doing and I was immediately interested. So for those who don’t know you are the owner of Migratory Avian Services Why don’t you just talk a little bit about what that is and kind of what your business model is.
Dr. Nick Kirk: Sure. Absolutely. So Migratory Avian Services. I am partial owner in the practice Um, it’s one of the LLC’s that I am am an owner of but Migratory Avian Services is a service that goes around to dog and cat clinics and offers Um, specialty avian services because I’m a boarded avian vet Um, but also exotic services clients in the area around nashville that um, will provide extra services that they can’t offer.
I just, I really just love this immediately and it’s because like, I, so I’m a herp[etology] guy, like I a snake reptile or a reptile know, amphibian guy sort of by training and I, went to graduate school before in the vet school and I with with, mostly with snakes in my graduate training.
And I, so I’m a big, I’m a big herp[etology] fan. I think birds are awesome, and I do not feel particularly comfortable with them and so, but I want to make sure that pet owners of exotic pets have access to great care, and vets are being asked to know how to do so many things. I love that migratory avian services, you’ve come up with this idea of being able to move around and support general practices in brick and mortar facilities so that they could provide some of these services so they can support those pet owners.
I just think, I feel like you kind of came up with a neat way to sort of scale yourself of being able to move around and support these different groups. Because we always hear, you know, dog and cat owners come in and I’ll talk to veterinarians and I’ll say, well, do they have exotics? And they’re like, no, they, and I’ll say, how do you know?
And they’re like, well, they didn’t. They didn’t say so, but the truth is they’ve got, you know, I’ve got a bird at home or whatever, but they’ve got no signs that it’s the appropriate to bring the bird to their general practice vet. And so I just, I think that there’s a need for the type of services that you provide.
And I just, I think your business model is really interesting. How did you decide to start this? So tell me sort of starting from the beginning. Let’s step further back. Talk to me a little about your training. When did you decide to be bored in an exotics with something you always knew you wanted to do?
How did you make that happen? Because there’s a lot of people, I think, who have sort of passions that they maybe feel like they didn’t get to pursue, or they may want to in the future.
Dr. Nick Kirk: Sure. Absolutely. Um a lot of what was really into early on Um, even before vet school, uh, I was trying to decide going to go into like avian research or was vet school the appropriate path um got into vet school and realized very quickly that there is not a lot of Great avenues for people who Not just want to study exotics, but avian specific.
Um, I got really in depth in the community really fast, but the big thing that we’re trying to do with migratory avian services is provide services to not just clients, but education to um, clinicians around the area that will benefit if they’re trying to see avian and exotic animals. Um, give them an idea or at least some tools in their tool belt even if it’s not the specialty that we offer um, to have these patients be better cared for as opposed to kind of the um, the uh, that a lot of clinicians use that was just throwing in reflux system at a bird or, um, a bunny or or something like that, and actually offering more specific, uh, specimen care.
Dr. Andy Roark: Talk to me about what that looks like. So, so you’re, again, this, I really this holistic support of the general practitioners in the area. Talk, talk to me about, like, what are those resources? What does that training look like, Nick? Like, do you go in and kind of do lunch and learns with, practices?
Like, like, and again, if I wanted to, I guess what I’m thinking is if I wanted to get my team up to snuff as far as just basic training, Basic exotic animal handling things like that. What does training for that look like? What do you think that people? What is reasonable to provide to a staff like what is was the staff’s kind of reaction to that.
Dr. Nick Kirk: That’s a really good question. Um, a lot of the offerings that I– right now, since we’re a more new veterinary practice, it’s one on one with doctors. But when I worked in emergency medicine, which is what I did before uh, I. program. I did a lot of training for staff things like that.
And then once I got into my residency, I had staff that was a little bit more trained, but I still worked with emergency practice. Um, when I was in Utah as well as Moving back here to Nashville after I got my specialty and being able to do hands-on training and things like that is one of the most paramount.
But we are currently working on CE’s not just from the doctor side, but also the technician side with um, my nurse, uh, there,
Dr. Andy Roark: That’s really cool. I love that you’re putting this with the education together to go along with the mission. Talk to me a little bit. So you have one technician, also the co owner of your practice, right, Devin? I’m always interested in technician owners.
I think that’s great. I love that. How did you decide– tell me about the birth of Migratory Aviation Services. How did you decide to go into business with your technician? What was the thought process there?
Dr. Nick Kirk: There were a lot of thoughts that went into it. One of the main ones was how we work together from a doctor and technician standpoint. One thing that she is super valuable for is her attention to detail. I’d say she’s more of a type A person, I’m more of a type B. I roll with the punches, but she’s more of a structured person.
But when I think about how our practice works, we really work hand in hand and having her be a part of the business, as opposed to just being a paid employee was really important to me because I think from everything that I’ve learned as a veterinarian for, you know, the the almost 10 years now after graduation um, is the veterinary team is truly a team.
And if it’s going to be a small practice, then everyone should benefit from the success.
Dr. Andy Roark: No, that totally makes sense. I really like that. I just think that’s interesting, especially talking about the education and things. And I also love, it totally makes sense, you know, when you’ve got this partnership of skill sets. And as someone who benefits from having a type A person as a partner, I like, I love that.
A hundred percent that makes sense to me.
I am so proud to unveil the biggest project I have ever worked on. This is a partnership with NAVC’s Vetfolio and Uncharted, which is the veterinary conference that I started and run. For 15 years, I have worked with people on being effective as communicators and making their practice better places to be.
Now, I am so thrilled to be launching the Leadership Essentials Certificate with Uncharted and Vetfolio. Guys, these are the seven courses that I believe, really believe anyone who’s leading other people in vet medicine should have. This is vision and value setting. This is basic strategic planning. It is understanding different communication styles, and I have my friend, Stephanie Goss, uh, helping teach that session is, uh, getting the team to buy in to new ideas and initiatives.
It is how to coach and give feedback. It is how to set priorities. It is how to delegate effectively. It is how to do time management. It is the talks and the stories that I am probably most well known for giving. My red dot talk is in here. My GPA talk is in here. Everything about the north stars, everything that I Layout where I’m like, this is just so essential to managing people.
It’s the trust game. It is everything about building and maintaining trust with your team. I think that this is something that I would recommend for anyone who is a practice owner. Uh, it’s anyone who’s definitely who’s becoming a new practice owner. It is for anybody who has especially gotten promoted up into management.
It is huge for our team leads. We take people who are CSRs, we take people who are technicians, and we make them lead techs or lead CSRs, and we give them zero leadership or management training. There’s no excuse for that anymore. This is, this is on demand whenever you want. It’s broken up. It’s eight hours.
It’s got race CE. It has the Uncharted Vetfolio certificate with it. It is there, it is accessible. I really hope that people will take this and put it to work. I went really hard on this. It has been years in the making and refining to get this content down and right. So it is really for everybody who is leading and managing other people in vet medicine. I hope you will check it out.
I’m so proud of it. I’m so glad to be partnering with NAVC on it. Anyway, guys, I’ll put links in the show notes. I hope you’ll have a look. Let’s get back into this episode
let me step back here and ask you your general perception here. So when you start thinking about the care that veterinary medicine in general provides for avian patients, and again, I know this is, I’m sure the answer is regional. What is your general take on education that we have for doctors, for technicians, exotics, avians?
Do you, are we in the dark ages? Do you feel like most bird owners can probably get competent care? Like, where do you think we are? Is it, is, yeah, I just, I’m interested in a general temperature check from you. Are you going are you going to clutch your forehead like your migraine has appeared?
Or, are you okay with where we are?
Dr. Nick Kirk: That’s a really good question. Um, and the true answer is that there is a whole lot of difference between the practitioners. There are tons of. Non Avian Boarded Certified Practitioners that can provide um, great avian care some, just like anything else, Boarded Avian Practitioners who may not be completely on the cutting edge, like, For example, myself and my residency with Dr. Scott Echols. Um, we are very intertwined with doing advanced imaging and things like that. That’s not very common within the avian world. But as far as general care, I think that a lot of people, and I’ve heard this from multiple clients when I moved back to Nashville, I heard that there are practitioners who won’t even take the bird out of the cage and do a complete physical exam.
And that worries me a lot. And I want our avian patients to have as good of care as our dog and cat patients. And that’s one of my main goals.
Dr. Andy Roark: I think that’s a very, like, it’s a simple, clean goal. I want our avian patients to have the same care level as our dog and cat patients. That makes sense to me. I want to ask you this on two different levels. So part of it is as I look at you and I look at what you do And again, I see an obvious deficiency in my own game here and I go, okay there’s actually really two different levels that I’m interested in here.
The first one, I’m curious in how you, Nick Kirk, decided to go in this direction. Like what does it look like to move from emergency medicine. I don’t, I’m curious when you got into your residency, how you had positioned yourself to be able to make that transition. I’m sure other people would want to know that.
And then I think I’m gonna ask you that first, but then know that I’m going to come back around. I’m going to ask you as a general practitioner who would be interested in sort of trying to raise his game. how, can a practice that doesn’t have access to you say like what are some of the basic steps they start to take?
So let’s start with you specifically. So Nick, how, did you, open this door to kind of start moving down this sort of very specific path that you’re on.
Dr. Nick Kirk: So, I really started with doing networking through different organizations. So AAV was my big one, the Association of Avian Veterinarians, but I been involved with ARAV and then, which is the Reptile Association and AEMV. Which is the exotic small mammal association. But my main one was AAV.
I started to go to conferences during vet school. I hadn’t missed one for a long time. I missed one this past year, but that’s okay. But the reason I got super involved, is not just because I was interested in avian medicine, but also the research aspects of it and furthering medicine in that, in those cases, which led me to trying to do a specialty and things like that.
And I’ll circle back to that, but I did actually start my residency program when I was in Utah at a private clinic through ABVP. So the American Board of Veterinarian Practitioners. And once that residency was started, I was able to get boarded through that program, but the whole reason got into that was to really dig down deep and join these people that I’ve read books from, read papers from, and everything to try and forward medicine, not just for the specialists, but for everybody else.
And, you know, we need to make the general practitioner, if they want to see birds, feel more comfortable with it, as opposed to, oh, I hear this a lot from practitioners. Oh, we’re going to pick up this bird and it’s going to pass away in our hands.
(laughter)
Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah, I hear that. I may have made that joke. I may have made that joke. Yeah, I get that. No, but you’re right. That totally resonates.
Dr. Nick Kirk: Yep. Well, and I mean, like, the easiest part is starting your physical exam with just a general visual exam. Before you even pick up that bird. But there are so are out now, um, including AAV, the, um, the avian, uh, association is providing, um, opportunities for to have Not specialist level uh, introduction, but, general practitioner introduction programs that they offer.
Dr. Andy Roark: So you’re in general practice in Utah, and you’re starting your board with ABVP. So you’re in Utah, and you’re, yeah, you’re in Utah, and you’re starting your you know, boarded process through ABVP, and are you seeing a ton of exotics at this time? Are you it was it, were you in a hospital that had a large exotics department that, or you know, or are there doctors. Is that sort of comes from?
Dr. Nick Kirk: It was. So, um, one of my mentors, Brian Speer who’s actually in California, runs an all avian vet practice, medical center for birds. I did an externship during vet school with him. And then he connected me with Dr. Scott Echols, which uh, was my mentor for the residency program. And essentially it was like, Hey, if you want to be an expert on birds, go work with him and,
I did the interview process and everything worked out and then I did the footwork to create the residency and everything that went out for that as far as like, uh, sitting for boards and meeting the qualifications.
Dr. Andy Roark: That’s fantastic. I know, I love that you found this thing and you made it your own. I just, I love that vet medicine is a house with a million rooms and like you have, you’ve found your way. I love how you’re sort of sharing your knowledge out across practices. I just think it’s a neat business model.
I love that you’re a partner with your technician. I just, I, there’s just so many things about what you’re doing. I just think it’s really refreshing. I am so optimistic about the future of vet medicine, but I, Nick, I really think that you’re making your way in a way that’s just, sort of inspiring in all honesty.
So I love that you’re doing that. Thanks for the resources. I really everything up in the show notes. I always want to support people who want to start raising their game and practice.
Where can people find migratory avian services? Where can they find out more about you?
Dr. Nick Kirk: Um, migratory avian services is available online.. We have a website, migratoryavianservices.com. We’re on all the socials, you know, um, like Instagram, or Facebook, the same. We can uh, absolutely reach out to folks. I am super into people being willing to shout out, but um, as far digitally reaching out, I’m definitely into that as well.
So, I would rather see the community grow with better knowledge than us just trying to keep specialists and general practitioners separate.
Dr. Andy Roark: That’s awesome. Thanks for being here, guys. Thanks for listening, everybody. Take care of yourselves.
And that’s it guys. That’s our show. That’s what I got for you. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you got something out of it. Thanks Nick for being her. Gang, take care of yourselves everybody. I’ll talk to you later on.
