Dr. Jason Coe joins Dr. Andy Roark on the podcast to discuss effective veterinarian-client communication, specifically addressing sensitive topics like pet obesity. He highlights the importance of understanding the client’s viewpoint, avoiding rushed recommendations, and advocating for a collaborative approach. Dr. Coe recommends resources such as the AAHA nutrition guidelines, communication skill books, and training programs for further learning in veterinary communication.
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LINKS
REFERENCES
1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10339898/pdf/animals-13-02150.pdf
MacMartin C, Wheat H, Coe JB. Conversation Analysis of Clients’ Active Resistance to Veterinarians’ Proposals for Long-Term Dietary Change in Companion Animal Practice in Ontario, Canada. Animals. 2023; 13(13):2150. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani13132150
2. https://bvajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/vetr.1979
Sutherland, KA, Coe, JB, O’Sullivan, TL. Assessing owners’ readiness to change their behaviour to address their companion animal’s obesity. Vet Rec. 2022;e1979. https://doi.org/10.1002/vetr.1979
3. https://avmajournals.avma.org/view/journals/javma/260/9/javma.22.01.0043.xml
Sutherland KA, Coe JB, Janke N, O’Sullivan TL, Parr JM. Veterinary professionals’ weight-related communication when discussing an overweight or obese pet with a client. J Am Vet Med Assoc. 2022 Apr 15;260(9):1076-1085. doi: 10.2460/javma.22.01.0043. PMID: 35429375.
4. https://www.aaha.org/globalassets/02-guidelines/2021-nutrition-and-weight-management/resourcepdfs/new-2021-aaha-nutrition-and-weight-management-guidelines-with-ref.pdf
Cline MG, Burns KM, Coe JB, Downing R, Durzi T, Murphy M, Parker V. 2021 AAHA Nutrition and Weight Management Guidelines for Dogs and Cats. J Am Anim Hosp Assoc. 2021 Jul 1;57(4):153-178. doi: 10.5326/JAAHA-MS-7232. PMID: 34228790.
5.https://avmajournals.avma.org/view/journals/javma/260/15/javma.22.08.0380.xml Janke, Natasha, et al. “Veterinary technicians contribute to shared decision-making during companion animal veterinary appointments.” Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, vol. 260, no. 15, 2022, pp. 1993–2000, https://doi.org/10.2460/javma.22.08.0380.
6. Skills for Communicating in Veterinary Medicine by Cindy L. Adams and Suzanne Kurtz
7. Colorado State University College of Veterinary Medicine – FRANK Training
8. Relationship-Centred Veterinary Medicine at the Ontario Veterinary College
9. Relationship-Centred Veterinary Medicine at the Ontario Veterinary College Research Ream’s LinkedIn
ABOUT OUR GUEST
Dr. Jason Coe, a Professor at Ontario Veterinary College in Canada, embodies a career bridging veterinary practice and academia. After earning his DVM and returning from mixed-animal practice, he completed a PhD in veterinary communications. Currently leading the clinical-communication curriculum, he’s internationally renowned for his work on the human-animal bond and veterinary education. With over 100 peer-reviewed publications, numerous speaking engagements, and holding the VCA Canada Chair in Relationship-Centred Veterinary Medicine, Jason’s dedication to improving veterinary care through communication is recognized globally. He’s the recipient of prestigious awards, including the AVMA’s Bustad Companion Animal Veterinarian of the Year.
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 am here today with the amazing Dr. Jason Coe. Jason is fascinating. He is probably the best known researcher on communication in the veterinary industry that’s out there and the guy has published bajillion things.
His research is fascinating. We get all into it about different findings he’s had as far as making effective recommendations to pet owners, what they push back on, what we think works and doesn’t. It’s just, this is a really great conversation about what we know about communicating in the exam room. Gang, I am excited to get into this.
The episode is called Don’t Rush the Recommendation. However, it is about all parts of communicating and especially about communicating about awkward things. We talk a lot about communicating about pet obesity and nutrition and things like that. And just, build out from there. Anyway, it’s a great episode.
I hope you’ll love it. This episode was brought to you ad free by my friends at Purina Institute. 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. Jason Coe. How are you?
Dr. Jason Coe: I’m great. Thanks for having me, Andy. I know that I’ve heard your name in circles. Yet, this is the first time we’ve had a chance to meet. So it’s awesome to have finally be able to, to get together and do something together.
Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah, I have heard, I’ve heard so much about you over the years and this is, it’s amazing to me. I was like, I’ve really never met Jason before. I have not. For those who don’t know you, you are a professor at the Ontario Veterinary College. You have a PhD in the area of veterinary communications. You have published a bajillion, I think it’s the official count, of peer reviewed research papers on communications.
You have just, you are,you’re all over the world. You are probably the leading expert in the industry on communication. I know that’s probably a, a fierce battle, but you’re, you’re definitely in there. So you, you are you’re an expert in, in veterinary communications. I, I am. interest to have you in one because your reputation is just outstanding.
And I am a huge fan of communications in vet medicine and trying to have better conversations about being more persuasive about building relationships, about building trust. Those are all things that I just go back to and hammer on again and again about being successful in vet medicine. And so I just, I kind of wanted to come in and start to talk with you a little bit about, about difficult conversations with pet owners.
Let me just ask you sort of a broader question, and this is sort of society at large Are people getting more difficult to communicate with in general? Are they getting, from a customer service standpoint? I saw an article recently. It was in the Atlantic.
It was by this guy named David Brooks. And he, he, the question he asked was, “Are Americans getting meaner?” And I was just, I think that that’s an interesting question. Just, let’s start here at a mile high. Talk to me about customer service in general and just your perceptions of, of having effective communication.
Dr. Jason Coe: Yeah. I mean, it’s a really interesting question to kick things off with Andy. And you know, the piece that catches my attention in that, as soon as we start labeling people as difficult. It implies that we have assumptions or bias that we’re entering a conversation into. And so I think one of the things as we think about conversations that we may perceive as being difficult is really doing that gut check to check in and see, okay, why am I feeling like this is going to be a difficult conversation?
What is it that’s leading for me to have that experience? Because I think at the end of the day. Everybody is coming from a perspective, and part of it is understanding our own perspective, understanding the other person’s perspective. And that’s where I think through that, whatever it might be in terms of a challenge, we can start to explore, identify where common ground might exist in any conversation to really see what a path forward might be.
And so, again, I’m cautious about labeling people as difficult, just because I think that is in the eye of the person in terms of that. And so I just see it as an opportunity to kind of better understand the other person, which is going to be a core to communication.
Dr. Andy Roark: I think you’re probably spot on. I do think from a tactics standpoint, having those thoughts is probably a bad idea. That definitely makes sense. I like to joke that vet technicians can undermine veterinarians because they’ll come out of the exam room and they’ll hand you the file and they’ll be like, “Pfft, Good luck!”
And I’m like, Oh, and you, you’ve already set me up for failure. It’s this, let me go and experience this myself. And again, I know it comes from looking out for us. And it’s like, “I don’t want you to get blindsided when you go in there, Andy.” But I, I have had that experience before where I’m like, just, just don’t tell me just, just don’t tell me, let me walk in and, and as an empty slate, you know, a blank slate.
Dr. Jason Coe: Yeah, no, I remember those experiences too, where again, the team and the experience of the team, and they come and share that with you. And then you have. And so it is really trying to go in with as open a mind as you can, I think, around some of those elements so that, again, you can look at it with a clean slate, as you mentioned.
Dr. Andy Roark: Do you, what do you think about, do you think a lot of people carry anxiety into these hard conversations? So let’s, let’s go with sort of the classic sort of hard kind of sensitive conversation everybody’s had. So let’s talk about obesity conversations. And so, you’re getting ready to go into the exam room and there’s a cat in there, that was, that is 13 pounds and you saw it a year ago and it was nine and a half pounds and it’s six years old. And so it’s not like, you know, this is not kitten growth weight. And so you’re going, Oh boy, I’m, I’m going to go have this conversation.
Do you think a lot of people, do they have anxiety going into those conversations or do you think I don’t know. I’m just sort of trying to get my head around, around the, the emotional experiences walking in the door.
Dr. Jason Coe: Yeah. Another interesting question. And so having had the opportunity to present and talk to different veterinary professionals around the topic of obesity, I think that I have heard from many that it can be a sensitive conversation, both from a client perspective, but also from the veterinary professional.
Part of it is. The anticipation of what is this going to lead to? Are they going to be on board? Are they going to resistant? Am I going to upset them all of those different elements that go into it? And so how do you think that there is the potential for people to carry some of those anxieties into it?
You mentioned, interestingly, You know, the cat was, I think, nine and a half, and now it’s 13 a year later, which makes me think about how do we transition into some of these more challenging conversations. And so one of the things that we did some research on was looking at how veterinary professionals, specifically veterinarians, use trends to support their conversations.
And we saw that it wasn’t actually used very often, yet we see it as a potential opportunity, yet when it is used, it’s around weight. And so I do think that weight is a perfect place to look at How can we track trends in an animal’s health trajectory? How can we start to pick up when an animal is starting to increase in weight so that we can start that conversation earlier, hopefully before it even gets outside of what might be considered a normal weight range for that animal.
And we can use that trend by showing the owner over time, how that’s creeping up where they can see, huh, it is changing. We are on a trajectory where, you know, we can then have a conversation to say what the impacts can be of having an overweight cat or dog.
Dr. Andy Roark: So, that, that totally makes sense. I had not really thought about the difference between walking in and saying, and looking at this, we’re just going to say this is an obese cat. Walking in and saying, well, you know, what I find on my physical examination is that your cat is obese. Versus coming in and saying, you know, I’m, I’m looking at the chart and I’m concerned about the, the upward trajectory that we’re seeing here.
You feel like those are different things?
Dr. Jason Coe: I do. I mean, I think, One is in terms of coming in and just kind of sharing our thoughts and ideas, where the other is starting to use a tool to create some collaboration, build some trust around that conversation. And so by using the trend, it kind of speaks for itself, where we almost don’t need to necessarily say as much other than, “hey, let’s look at this together” which starts that collaborative approach to the conversation rather than I’m sort of launching my ideas or thoughts on you, which, I mean, you probably appreciate as well.
As soon as someone tells you what they think you need to do or what’s happening, you kind of get your back up and become defensive. And so part of it is, how do we move into these conversations in a collaborative way, rather than a way that kind of creates resistance with our clients?
Dr. Andy Roark: How, how do you balance, when we talk about say obesity, so we’ve got this, this cat, and and we’re looking at this, we’re going to have this conversation. How do you sort of balance trying to understand what the pet owner cares about, what their sort of motivators are, with presenting data on health outcomes for obese patients?
Do you come in and sort of say, these are the things that I’m worried about when I see patients like this? Do you try to kind of? get information out of them as far as what their concerns are. I’ve had a hard time trying to draw out how they feel about their pet’s obesity. You know what I mean? Versus, it’s easy for me to say, well, you know, she’s six years old you know, I know it’s hard to believe, but she, it won’t be long until she’s, she’s a senior pet.
And, you know, there’s, there’s a lot of different interfaces with, with conditions we see in older cats that I want to make sure that we’re, we’re paying attention to and I want her to be healthy. I don’t know. How do, how do you sort of juggle those things? What is, what is the strongest, the stronger play?
Do you pause and ask questions? Do you kind of start to lay down your concerns and try to back that up with data? Does does it depend on the individual? How, how do you parse that out?
Dr. Jason Coe: That’s a great question. And so I think, you know, as a veterinary professional, I appreciate we’ve been trained to identify problems. We have numerous solutions and so want to share that knowledge for the benefit of our patients. And the thing that I find interesting is we published a study this year, looking at specifically, When veterinarians made nutrition recommendations to a client, and what we found was over 50 percent of the time clients push back, they demonstrated overt resistance.
So we recorded these interactions, had cameras in the corner of the examination room. We saw the veterinarian make this proposal or recommendation for a long term dietary change, and we saw clients give reason to push back. And so that in itself was interesting. So we explored a little bit further to identify what were the reasons that clients were using as a basis for pushing back.
And so pet preference was number one, multi pet household was number two, doing something already to address the concern that the veterinarian was using as a basis for the recommendation or already on the food was number four. And so when we tease that apart, what we started to recognize was these were all patient Human related factors that by incorporating or understanding these up front, we could actually tailor our recommendation in a way that address some of the things like pet preference, multi pet household.
And so to your question, you know, do you invest in some time to gather and understand where the clients coming from? My thoughts are that’s imperative. It’s the foundation of any successful recommendation. And I would step back from, yes, I see this animal is overweight. I want to gather a more broad history.
So I know the environmental factors, I know the animal factors, and I know the human factors that have led to where we are in this conversation, which is going to give me insight to where that client’s coming from, which then allows me to again, tailor a recommendation and work with the client’s recommendation.
So your question about like research and impact, Those type, that is part of the conversation. Yet I would hold that for a bit further down the road.
Dr. Andy Roark: No, that, that makes sense. So you’re sort of saying not necessarily reveal, revealing, revealing the information that you have discovered right up front. Might be the, might be the right place. So try to avoid walking and going “Wow. he’s big.” Maybe, maybe that’s not the opening that we’re looking for.
Dr. Jason Coe: Yeah, I think that’s fair. And I mean, I understand, and I’ve seen it in videos and we have this training. We have this knowledge. We can benefit our patients. And so sometimes it’s holding ourselves back from releasing that information until we understand where the client’s coming from, what’s important to them.
And then how do we take our knowledge and incorporate it into that? Cause. We do have valuable knowledge to share with clients and so it’s figuring out how we communicate that in a way that there’s going to be uptake from our clients.
So another study that we did and we published last year was looking at clients readiness for change once they self identified their animals overweight.
So we sent out a survey, we asked people to body condition score their animal using the WSAVA body condition scoring guidelines. Then those individuals that self identified their animals being overweight, we acknowledge that their animal is overweight and we ask them where are they in their readiness to take action to address their pet’s weight or obesity.
And what we found were 94 percent of the respondents were either in what’s called a pre contemplation or contemplation phase where they’re not even thinking about their animal’s weight or wanting to make changes there, or if they are thinking about it, they can come up with all the reasons they don’t.
And so the fact that so many owners identified being in that pre contemplation and contemplation phase, even when they’ve identified their animal themselves as being overweight or obese, identifies that there’s a different conversation that needs to go on there that’s going to evoke motivation to want to make change.
Versus someone who’s further down and ready to make that change, which again, is partnering and working with them on how we can make that change. And so I think that was a really, I mean, I wasn’t expecting that finding. It was really eye opening for me and recognizing that again, it’s exploring understanding where someone’s coming from so that we can really look for the opportunities to kind of move along that spectrum of change.
Dr. Andy Roark: Is is that demoralizing for you when you, like, when you hear that and you say 90, 95 percent are in this pre contemplation, contemplation phase? Where they, they’re not, they’re not They’re not really, they’re not really motivated to, they’re not thinking about making a change. They’re not, even, and this is, this is when they have self identified that you know, weight gain as a problem in their pet, right?
They were like, “yeah, he’s put on some pounds”. And then, at that point, we’re still at 90 plus percent of people are like, “I’m okay with it” Like, does that, does that demoralize you?
Dr. Jason Coe: So it doesn’t demoralize me. I can understand how some might sort of see that result and think, ah, where are my opportunities? Yeah, I do see it as an opportunity and I see it as an opportunity to change the way that we approach this conversation. So we’ve done a lot of observational research for cameras in the corner of the examination room, and we know around those obesity conversations, the approach tends to be coming in and telling clients what we think they need to know, whereas this is really stepping back and taking a different approach in relation.
And so as a follow up study, which we actually have just wrapped up, it was sponsored by Purina, who’s also Purina Institute sponsoring our podcast here. That we asked owners through a discreet choice experiment, what would get them motivated or move them towards wanting to take action if a veterinarian told them that their animal is overweight.
And it was really fascinating to see what the responses were for both the cat scenario, which we did independently of the dog scenario, impact on life expectancy was by far the number one thing that motivated clients to want to make a change around their animal being overweight.
What was interesting in our observational research is that that is actually one of the fewest things that we bring up as a reason for why an animal or an owner should Pay attention and want to address their pets weight.
Dr. Andy Roark: Really? I, I thought the, you know, one of the, one of the studies that most impacted me was the, was the old Golden Retriever study. You know, about, about being just slightly overweight can reduce, you know, longevity on average by like two years. I, I, I would pull that out in some version again and again and again because it just, it seemed like such a powerful statistic to me.
I, I, it’s funny, I do think we talk differently about cats. I do think I don’t know, I don’t know why exactly, but. But I, I can, I can see a difference in presentation between dogs and cats, I don’t know why it would be there, but it, that, that feels kind of right to me. Yeah, it’s, I can, I, anyway, I, I can see the, the life expectancy sort of being something that plays in.
Let, let me, let me step back for a second here. So you used some, some wordage, you know, when you said, okay, you know, okay, this, this pet is overweight. Uh You said, where are you in your readiness to take action? Is that, is that a, is that a question that, that we actually ask in the exam room of saying, all right, we have, we have identified this, where are you in your readiness to deal with the problem?
Should I be asking pet owners that when I’m looking at their 14 pound cat?
Dr. Jason Coe: Yeah. And so it might be. So the interesting thing about communication, it’s very contextual. So where you fit in, which question really depends on the interaction and where you are in that interaction. I mentioned earlier, one of the ways of transitioning into a conversation around weight is using trends.
Another that I would put out there is a permission statement. So asking a client. You know, I’d like to spend some time talking about Rory’s weight. Would you be open to that? And so it’s not explicitly asking them where they are in their stage of change. Yet you are feeling out where they are. And the reality is if a client is open to having the conversation, they’re going to say yes.
Most clients naturally, when you ask permission, are going to say yes as well, unless they’re adamantly against it. If they’re adamantly against it, they probably are in the pre contemplation, which doesn’t mean. We don’t address this at some point in time. It probably just means this is not the moment that we need to, in order to preserve the relationship.
And so again, I don’t know that I would ask that directly, although I think there will be places in a conversation that you could ask that directly. Yet I also think that a permission statement at the beginning of this before, so we’ve gathered our history and then we’re using our permission statement to transition into the conversation, which is like a soft warning shot to kind of feel out where our client’s at.
And if our client is like right on board and ready to move. We’re going to move with them. If they’re in that kind of contemplation phase where they’re like you know, I think there’s a problem here, but I’m not sure, they’re probably going to say, sure, let’s talk about it, which gives us an opportunity.
And we may feel that others that are like, hey, don’t go here right now. This is not good territory for us to be exploring, which we step back and we find other opportunities and avenues to enter the conversation.
Dr. Andy Roark: That, that, that makes sense. So I very much like the, “are you open to discussing this?” That that’s, that’s a nice way of, of sort of opening that up and it takes away a lot of the awkwardness as well, and you’re sort of saying, Hey, we’re gonna talk about this. I’m not, I’m not dumping it on you. Even if they say yes and you said the exact same thing, I think the fact that they gave you permission to engage in the conversation is probably setting you up more for success. I, I do, I agree with you that’s sort of why I was asking you about the where are you in your readiness to take action.
I, I had heard a presentation years ago and someone was talking about flea and tick prevention. And you know, the question they would ask the pet owner was something like, “what is your tolerance for fleas in your house?” And, That struck me as quite bold as, as a question to, to ask pet owners, you know, and their whole thing was, well, you know, you ask them what’s their tolerance for fleas and then, and then you make a recommendation.
But it always, I could never, I never did it and I just never had the guts to, to engage in that way. And so I, I really like your sort of reframing this question to something I could absolutely see myself saying and it feels polite rather than pointed, if that makes any sense.
Dr. Jason Coe: Yeah, I think it’s a very respectful way of entering into the conversation for sure. And I mean, how we frame questions are important, how we frame those questions are also important. And so you make a really good point with that as well.
Dr. Andy Roark: Okay, so when we, we go into these questions or we go into these, these conversations, we ask sort of for permission. I, I think you’re spot on as well, of if someone says no. The truth is you’re not going to get hurt anyway, you know, and, damaging the relationship doesn’t make sense to me. I’ve always been a big fan of like, we’re playing the long game here, right?
I’m trying to be successful over the life of the pet, not just over today’s visit. And so if they don’t want to engage with me, and I try to force the issue, in my experience, I’m going to not be successful. And I’m going to drive a wedge between us, they’re more likely to go see somebody else who’s not going to talk to him about nutrition or who’s going to let this go, you know, now and going forward. I, I don’t mean it to be arrogant, but I do think that I would like my patients to stay with me because I think that I will advocate for them well over their whole life.
And so keeping that relationship open. I, I have. There’s not many hills I’m willing to die on today. There are some, of course, when you say, We have got to stop feeding onions at every meal to this dog. You know, there’s some things where you’re like, No, no, no, no, no, you, you, you’re not hearing me. But for the most part, you go, Okay, we’re not gonna win this battle today, but I’m gonna try to strengthen this relationship, and then when they’re ready to hear me Then, you know, then I’ll be here and I’m gonna keep gently bringing it up.
But just in my experience, it’s funny, you’ll, you’ll get a new pet owner coming in and they don’t know you from, you know, the guy on the street, and they’re not willing to hear what you think about nutrition. And, and nutrition is just a classic one where they’ll have their own, they’ll have strong feelings or whatever.
And a lot of people are like, how do you get that person to change their mind? I, I don’t think you do. I think you, I think you hear them. I think you try to, you know, you know, shave the edges off of what they’re doing as best you can just to, you know, keep the patient healthy but then you try to focus on building that relationship up to the point where they finally say, okay, you know, tell me more.
I think you can get there, but that is, it’s the longer view.
Dr. Jason Coe: Yeah, I love that. I mean, I think that if we look at the short game, You know, we run that risk. We’re trying to solve the problem immediately. Whereas if we accept when it is like to work with a client, doing that now makes sense. Yet if we look at the longer game where we’re looking at relationship building, we’re planting seeds.
So the client comes around to the idea for our next conversation. I think that’s what pays off. And it’s not just in relation to an overweight animal, this is going to be relevant to all different health care recommendations or conversations that we want to have with the client. So I love that.
Dr. Andy Roark: Where, where do you see veterinarians really screw this conversation up? Like, what, what are the, what are the things, you don’t have to name names, but what are the things that what are the, what are the things that, that you see commonly in play that, that you think have a negative impact on actually getting results?
Dr. Jason Coe: Yeah, I appreciate that question. I mean, I really do look at that as an opportunity for our profession. And a big piece of it is starting to understand where our clients are coming from and using that understanding to help form how we move forward with a client. And so I think where I see, and it comes out in this paper we just published this year, looking at veterinarians recommendations is we moved too fast to our recommendation and we’re not necessarily set for that recommendation.
And so we saw when we did that, clients have resistance. They push back on it. And I’m not saying resistance is bad. I mean, it’s actually more challenging when clients don’t do anything yet. When we have resistance, it means we need to kind of step back, rework the situation to find a solution that’s going to move forward.
And from an efficiency standpoint, if we could understand that up front and build it in, we’re going to move through that recommendation in a much more smooth and probably efficient manner in relation to that. So I think, you know, the thing I would suggest is first off, just don’t rush the recommendation, understand where your client’s coming from. Have a conversation to understand the animal, their environment, what’s important to that individual client, and then use that to help inform and move into the recommendation, which you might find actually changes once you know a little bit more about the client as to what your recommendation is, because it’s about understanding where that common ground is and really partnering with the client and moving forward.
Once you’ve got the client sort of on board with that recommendation, then we can move into other areas of conversation as well.
Dr. Andy Roark: Jason, that’s fantastic. This has been, it’s been absolutely wonderful chatting with you about this. I really appreciate your time. Are there any resources that you really like? I mean, you’re, you’re publishing all over the place. I see, I see you, I see your articles in, in sort of veterinary magazines. Are there, are there any any resources out there for people who are like, man, this, this sort of exam room communication stuff is my jam.
Where would you, where would you send people?
Dr. Jason Coe: That’s a great question. So I’m going to answer 1st specific to nutrition. And so I was very fortunate to have the opportunity to be invited to be co-author on the 2020 AAHA nutrition guidelines. And in there, there was an opportunity for me to really craft, the evidence we’ve developed around nutrition and how we can craft that into a conversation.
So I would encourage people to, to look at that literature in terms of the AAHA guidelines, because I provide what I call an anatomy of a nutrition recommendation, which really takes what we’ve talked about and breaks it down even more. And so I would point people to there. Generally around communications training, I mean, I think it’s just, it’s something that you build over time.
And I really feel like there’s never going to be an expert. We all have opportunities to kind of learn and grow in this area. And so do look for offerings at different conferences that will help feed some of that curiosity. There’s also a book by Suzanne Kurtz and Cindy Adams, Skills for Communicating in Veterinary Medicine, that has got all of the evidence that’s been developed in human medicine pulled together into a framework.
So someone who’s really keen. That would be a great resource. And then there’s also other opportunities such as training. So I know Colorado State, Jane Shaw there has a pretty intensive training that if people are really interested in honing their skills as it relates to communication in the exam room would be something to explore there as well.
Dr. Andy Roark: I will put links to all that stuff, the AAHA nutrition guidelines, the skills for communication, vet medicine. I’ll see if I can run down the the Jane Shaw program as well. I’ve heard really good things about it as well. Awesome. Jason, where can people find you online?
Dr. Jason Coe: Yeah, I appreciate that. So in the last year we’ve established a research program, relationship centered veterinary medicine at the Ontario veterinary college. And so again, If you don’t mind putting a link or having people Google that, that’s the best way to get in touch with the things that we’re working on right now.
We also list out our publications, many of them of which are open access. So if people want to dig more into some of the things I’ve talked about today, they’ll be able to access the articles and read it for themselves and kind of pull the things that they can take back and utilize in practice. We’re also very active on LinkedIn in terms of new things we’re putting out all the time.
And so those are probably the. Easiest and best ways to stay in touch with what we’re doing and the things that we’re contributing to the veterinary profession.
Dr. Andy Roark: That sounds great. I’ll put links to all that stuff in the show notes. Thanks so much for being here. Gang, thanks for tuning in and listening today. Take care of yourselves, everybody.
Dr. Jason Coe: Thanks, Andy.
Dr. Andy Roark: And that’s it, guys. That’s what I got for you. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you got something out of it. Thanks to Jason Coe for being here. Man, I’m gonna have him back. He was really great.
Thanks to Purina Institute for making this episode possible. Guys, take care of yourselves out there. Be well, everybody. I’ll talk to you soon.
