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Some Things Cannot Be Fixed…

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“Some things cannot be fixed, they can only be carried.”

I’ve been thinking a lot about this quote recently. There are so many challenges beyond our control. I think it’s good to remember we shouldn’t expect to conquer all our burdens. Some of our struggles can only be addressed by breathing, accepting, being kind to ourselves, and putting one foot in front of the other.

If you are struggling right now, please take heart that you are not alone. I hear stress from across the industry as our workforce is spread thin and demand for our services just seems to keep going up. You aren’t doing anything wrong. You’re just in a hard position (and you are not alone).

Remember you can’t please everyone, and you can do more harm than good if you try too hard. You need to take care of yourself first, because no one is more responsible for you than you. Put your own oxygen mask on before assisting others. After that, take care of your team. After that, take care of your clients.

Know that this too shall pass. You will not be emerging from a pandemic forever. The summer rush will end as it always does. You will sort out the headaches you are facing, and then you’ll get a new set of headaches. The frenzy of corporate consolidation will come to an end, and most groups buying up practices will be gone. Prices and wages will sort themselves out and our businesses will persist. The only thing that won’t change is that people will love their pets and want to take care of them.

I don’t say these things to encourage anyone to “suck it up.” I say them because I don’t think, for most of us, there’s an immediate answer to our struggles. Some problems won’t be solved; they’ll just be endured. All we can do is take care of ourselves and discipline our minds for the required endurance. We can rest, hold on to the good parts of our job, and be proud of all that we accomplish. We can see our jobs as worthy challenges instead of unfair burdens. We can find meaning in laying our hands on patients, supporting our community, learning and growing daily, giving people a healthy workplace, serving those we lead, and setting an example for what it means to be a kind and loving person. We can encourage each other and celebrate our victories. We can try to make the world better than it would be without us.

Tips to Make Your Day Less Stressful and More Productive

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We are all living through practicing during COVID. It’s an adjustment and we are all a little extra stressed throughout the day. But there has been a growing trend of burnout, negativity, and overall unhappiness seen in the veterinary clinic and it definitely is having a huge effect on everyone. To me, every day is a new day for something good to happen. I try to remain positive at work, which then impacts my team and the work they do daily. Here are some of my daily tips that can lead to a less stressful day and might help you become more productive.

1. Arrive early!

Nothing makes a day more stressful and irritating than arriving to work and already having several rooms waiting for you. You pretty much have already started your day in the mindset that you are behind and will always be behind. Continuing this pattern leads to burnout and an unhappy work environment. Setting your morning alarm an extra 15-30 minutes early will allow you time to get to work before appointments have started and give you the opportunity to get ready for the day. You can assess the appointments coming in, look over your messages and respond as needed, and review any lab work that you may have sent out. This leads to less stress at the end of the day as well since you will have taken care of most of your messages and calls to owners.

2. Pack your lunch the night before.

It sounds so simple but honestly, this can make or break your lunchtime.  Having an already packed lunch means you don’t have to waste time looking at menus, ordering food, waiting for the food to arrive and stressing about the delivery potentially being late. You will also feel better with a self-packed lunch versus spending unnecessary money on greasy takeout. Obviously, you may want to treat yourself from time to time but in general, having a pre-packed lunch means less stress for you.

3. Learn how to multi-task efficiently. 

You are a veterinarian which means you already know how to multi-task. You have done it throughout your entire schooling and continue to do it to this day. But there is a difference between multi-tasking and efficiently multi-tasking.  Trying to see three rooms at once only helps if you can switch your focus easily.  If room 1 needs blood work then have your technician get it running, write down your notes and switch to room 2. While your technician is discharging room 2 you can write your notes and then move onto room 3 while still remembering that lab work is running on room 1. But if all three rooms require large workups it’s not efficient to try to take on all three at once. Pick your battles and learn that trying to do it all can actually slow down your efficiency.

4. Leave your home life at the door.

One of my technicians states that her child tells her to take off her work coat when she gets home. It’s a cute way of saying, mommy separate your work life from your home life. I know it’s hard – your staff is like your second family. But if you continue to come into work upset about what may be going on in your home life, you are just going to spread that negativity throughout the day. Spending 15 minutes complaining about how you have so much laundry to do at home means you just wasted 15 minutes that could have been used to write notes, call owners, or finish an exam. We all need a little time to vent but if that negatively continues to make your day worse, then it really isn’t helping you decompress.

5. Utilize your technicians and staff. 

Your staff is the lifeblood of the clinic. You need to trust them and trust in them to help you with tasks.  Don’t be the doctor that refuses to allow their technicians to get blood or urine themselves. If you are worried they will miss something on ultrasound when obtaining urine then teach them what to look for to sharpen their skills. If you have technicians that monitor your hospitalized patients, trust in their skills of observation and let them guide you to change or keep certain treatment plans. Train your staff to feel comfortable going over lab results with owners and discussing the doctor’s plans. The more you use them the less stress on your plate.

6. Breathe

Take a few moments to just breathe, decompress and assess the situation. You are the doctor, you are the rock. If three emergencies come through the door and you have frozen, then the rest of the staff will panic. Know that if you push through with a positive attitude it will be easier to get through those unexpected rough moments. Yelling at the staff, blaming the staff, or getting mad at the circumstances of the emergency will never help you in a time of crisis.

I’m not an expert but I know what has helped me the most over the last several years of practice. Walk into work happy and ready for the day and likely you will leave work a happier person as well.

How Do I Want to Show Up for My Team?

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If the past year has taught us anything, it is how quickly life can change. The veterinary industry is working through many challenges, including increased demand and a decreased workforce. My hospital is no exception. Since the end of last summer, we have been working with a skeleton crew when several of our team members left to either stay home with their children or take other positions. Those of us still working have been growing weary under the weight of our increased workload.

When work increases and team capacity decreases, we may begin thinking of ourselves as victims. I experienced an episode of this on Thursday. I was the only scheduled doctor with surgeries and also a spattering of client appointments. As I slogged through the pile of records that I had leftover from earlier in the week, attended to my surgeries, and answered the myriad of questions that my team brought to me, I started to feel overwhelmed. I am usually excited by a good challenge, but my brain goes into victim mode when I start to feel overwhelmed with stress. As I begin to feel like a victim, I become short with my team and reclusive. I want to crawl into a hole to protect myself from one more question. I get snappy and impatient. Finally, my brain tells me that it is all too much, and I start to indulge in my victim story. I begin to think, “Why do I have to do everything? Maybe I should just quit. Why won’t they leave me alone?”

I have coached others and had coaching on this exact subject, but my brain still gets away from me sometimes. So, when I find myself thinking that I am a victim of my circumstances, I have to ask myself one key question to help bring me out of my victim thinking. How do you want to show up today?

My attitude is my responsibility and requires constant work on self-improvement. I have the power to change the way that I choose to think about everything. Self-development is the key to controlling ourselves when we start to feel overwhelmed and victimized. Your subconscious mind will direct you if you ignore training it to behave. I mean that if we don’t practice positive thinking, our brains will not learn to change from negativity to positivity.

Decide who you want to be, and practice being that person each day — keeping in mind that we all need to experience failure to learn lessons. If you strive to take one small step towards your ideal self daily and visualize the person you want to be, you can snap out of your thinking as soon as you realize that you are in victim mode.

Have some “power thoughts” at your disposal to use in times of extreme stress. For example, thinking things like, “You got this,” “All things will pass,” “You are a rock star,” or anything that helps you to drop the victim statements. Taking control of your brain requires you to teach it new and powerful thoughts. It may feel strange when you start to use these thoughts — they will feel inauthentic and cliche, but once your brain starts to believe them, it will be easier to get out of “poor me” and into solution mode.

When you feel like a victim, remember to work to change your thinking and be the person you want to be.

– Dr. Julie Cappel

“There’s nothing more daring than showing up, putting ourselves out there, and letting ourselves be seen.” – Brené Brown

Top 5 Things I Want Veterinary Medicine to Keep

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As we tentatively re-open our doors to clients, sweep the dust from our exam tables, and consider showing close friends our unmasked faces again, normalcy seems to be creeping back into our lives. Time only flows one direction, however, and we will never go back to working exactly as we did before the pandemic. I think that’s a good thing.

At the April Uncharted Conference we had some wonderful discussions about what we are planning to “hold on to” as the pandemic winds down. I’ve been thinking about that conversation, and today I wanted to share the Top 5 Things I want Veterinary Medicine to keep. Here goes:

  1. Better Delegation – Many of us have struggled our entire lives to let other people “take work off of our plates.” The pandemic pushed us until we had no other choice. Let’s keep this skill and grow it! Delegation is key to happier, healthier doctors, leaders, managers and practices.
  2. Knowledge that we can’t see all the pets – The flood of pandemic puppies and kittens may have finally hammered home the truth that people can only work beyond their capacity for so many days before the wheels fall off. Many of us were finally forced to set actual personal boundaries for ourselves and our staff. We took lunch breaks, insisted on going home, and protected our family time. This is a good thing for everyone (including the patients and clients).
  3. Remote Work – I know it wasn’t a majority of clinics, but many took the leap and figured out how to work with employees outside the building. Whether this was a “home day” for practice owners or managers, or a virtual CSR who helped handle the phones from 100 miles away, our profession moved into a new era of getting things done.
  4. Exams Beyond the Exam Room – Veterinary clinics that have long been held back by building size and a lack of examination rooms saw there may be solutions that don’t require a construction crew. It’s hard to explain how big this discovery is, and how shackled some practices have been by the belief that an empty exam room was required to serve clients.
  5. Curbside has upsides – Some clients really like being curbside, and some practices really like doing it. Now is the time to survey clients to determine how to make this service part of our long term strategy. Just think of how curbside can increase our practice flexibility and efficiency when we refine it to become part of our normal workflow! Everything is more attractive when it’s not required.

What do you think? Are there things you will be keeping after the pandemic has faded into memory?

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.

“Choose Your Own Story”

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Maybe this will age me. That’s OK. As an aging Gen X’er, I am reminded often of the “Choose Your Own Story” books. For those who don’t remember, with these stories, every choice the reader made, they were instructed to skip to a section in the book that either gave you another choice or you had to read what fate your choices had sealed.  

I remember often being unhappy with my end result and flipping the pages back to try and find the ending that was least traumatic. Often it was the ending I felt my character deserved. Although these books may bring nostalgia to some, my thoughts often go back to them whenever I am faced with a difficult choice. I can definitely say that I’ve made several wrong choices in life and in my career. Those choices often felt so permanent. But ultimately I always had the power to reflect and decide if this was the story I felt that I deserved.

As I began my journey as a kennel assistant, more moons ago then I would like to admit, I realized all my choices pushed me closer to the chapter I felt was next. As an assistant, I remember stumbling when I had to decide if I wanted to be a licensed veterinary technician. It meant making choices to work hard, study my butt off and put substantial effort into doing what I felt made the most impact when working with my patients. What made the most impact towards having a career that I wanted. No one else got to choose my journey. It was mine. There were times I failed and times I struggled. But every thought, every small expenditure of energy brought me closer to what I believed was MY story. 

As an LVT, I realized those choices didn’t stop. Every action I took either brought me to a place where I could give up and accept this as my story. Or I could keep flipping back the pages to see if there was another choice. When I was toxic, I could read back to see what I could do differently.  When I found myself in clinics that didn’t appreciate me, I chose to focus my energy on changing my path. Sometimes it meant making tough decisions and stepping away from comfort to take a plunge into the unknown. 

As a practice manager, my job is to encourage others to choose their story. To give them the options to decide what this path of veterinary medicine means to them. I cannot write their story. Perhaps their time at my clinic is just the beginning. Maybe it’s not where they see their vet med story ending. My goal is to give my team the tools, resources and freedom to make their way through the pages. My story hasn’t ended, but it’s shown me that the greatest thing someone can do is encourage others to find their best ending. 

So often we are caught up in our bubble of our current clinic, our coworkers, our friends and family that we forget we have those choices and can make choices for our happiness at any time. We choose what we love about this profession. We choose where we work. We choose who surrounds us and what we give energy. Now is the time to remember that we can always choose our happiness. Remember vet med is your story. You create your journey. Not your coworkers. Not your manager. But you. 

If you find yourself questioning your happiness, flip back through the chapters. Yell “Plot twist” when things go wrong. Don’t allow villains to shape your future. Above all, never give up and never stop looking for the ending you deserve. 

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.

A Love Letter to the Front Desk Superstars

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Dear Brave Guardians of the Front Door, Telephone, and Email,

Thank you. From the bottom of my heart thank you for keeping my introverted phone-hating self from having to answer calls. Thank you for preventing my stomach from tying into knots with every ring. Thank you for all the times you had to hang on to the wrist of your receiver-holding hand to ensure you wouldn’t slam that thing back into the cradle.

Thank you for being patient with me every time I left a detailed message and the client called right back without checking their voicemail. Or the times when the client and I have played phone tag all day long. Or when you had to interrupt me in the middle of something to relay an emergency message. Or when I was frustrated with something else and you had the misfortune of needing to talk to me. I’m sorry my faces were out loud.

Thank you for being there for every scared and sad client. Thank you for being the gentle, reassuring voice that guides them to where they need to be. Thank you for answering emails while talking on the phone and waving/smiling at someone entering the door – all at the same time.

Thank you for learning the right questions to ask so you can determine if there is an emergency. So many of you don’t have a medical background and yet you work hard to keep our patients safe before we ever see them.

Thank you for having my back, for protecting me from sales calls, and for being delighted when you call me up to the front desk and I’m met with a bouquet of flowers instead of the angry client I was expecting. Thank you for getting me cookies from The Cookie Man when I was too busy to order some. Thank you for knowing I hate the ones with raisins. Thank you for every time you didn’t overload my schedule or squeeze in an appointment after hours when I had somewhere to be. Thank you for defusing upset clients before I ever got to the phone.

Most of all, thank you for doing the most dreaded job in the hospital with grace and humor. None of us could do this without you.

Hugs, love, and admiration,
A Happy Vet

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.