Dr. Peter Weinstein and his daughter Brooke Weinstein, a current veterinary student at Oregon State’s College of Veterinary Medicine, join Dr. Andy Roark to talk about how veterinary medicine has changed over the last 20-30 years, and how it’s going to change in the future. Our guests talk about how the education of veterinarians today differs from the past, and what these changes will mean for how the profession evolves going forward.
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ABOUT OUR GUESTS
Dr. Peter Weinstein attended Cornell Universityundergraduate and the University of Illinois to receive his DVM. After graduation, he worked as an associatefor three years before opening his practice.
As he was running his practice, he identified the need for increasedbusiness acumen to make his practice successful. Thus, while managing andpracticing full time, he attended University of Redlands to receive his MBA. As a result of the MBA, he was able to relocate, expand andsell his practice to a corporate consolidator.
Politically, he served as President of the SouthernCalifornia Veterinary Medical Association and the California Veterinary MedicalAssociation and President for VetPartners, the national consultantsassociation. He just completed three years as the Chair of the Veterinary EconomicStrategy Committee of the AVMA’s Veterinary Economics Division
In the veterinary industry, he acted as Medical Directoroverseeing the Claims Department for Veterinary Pet Insurance.
Dr. Weinstein has provided small business and corporateconsulting via his company, PAW Consulting
After 14 years, Dr. Weinstein retired from his role as theExecutive Director for the Southern California Veterinary Medical Associationto pursue other interests including teaching at Western University
He was the 2018 Speaker of the Year for the Western VeterinaryConference Practice Management Section. Andin 2021 for the VMX Practice Management section.
He co-authored with Michael E Gerber, “The EMyth Veterinarian-Why Most Veterinary Practices Don’t Work and What to Do About It”.
Dr. Weinstein has spoken and written extensively on practice management, team building, leadership, collegiality, marketing, and other topics focused on making the veterinary profession better for all those affiliated with it.
Dr Weinstein lives in Orange County, California with hiswife Sharon, two daughters (one a veterinary student at Oregon State), two dogs, and Bazinga, a Senegal parrot.
Brooke Weinstein is finishing her third year of veterinary school at Oregon State University Carlson College of Veterinary Medicine. During her time there, she has loved working with her community through free wellness clinics for the houseless community as well as conducting research on tick-borne diseases in the underserved community. Outside of school , Brooke spends time hiking, snowboarding, and exploring Oregon.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Andy Roark:
Welcome everybody to The Cone of Shame Veterinary Podcast. I am your host, Dr. Andy Roark. I got a fun episode today. I am interviewing Dr. Peter Weinstein and soon to be Dr. Brooke Weinstein. Peter is a Brooke’s father, and we are talking about generational differences in veterinary medicine, basically, where are we going? And how do we feel about the future? And should we be comfortable with our kids going to veterinary school and coming into this profession? Should we be more than comfortable? Peter and I, and Brooke, all talk about where education is today and where it’s going for veterinarians.
Andy Roark:
We talk about what the future of the profession looks like. There is really good conversation here about the future of recession. Are we looking right down the barrel of the next recession? What does that look like? What’s that going to do to the salaries that we’re seeing for veterinarians and for support staff? Is it going to change the way that we practice? Is it going to change pet owners’ ability to pay for our services? And how do we adapt to that? How do we keep that medicine accessible? Wide ranging conversation topics, really fun episode. Guys, I hope you’ll enjoy it. I’m going to stop here and say, thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. This episode is ad free. Thanks to the support of my friends at CareCredit. Guys, 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.
Andy Roark:
Welcome to the podcast, Dr. Peter Weinstein, and soon to be Dr. Brooke Weinstein. How are you guys doing?
Peter Weinstein:
Great, Andy. Good to see you. Oh, Dr. Roark.
Andy Roark:
You call me Andy, please. Yeah, let’s do first names. Let’s all do first names, so Peter and Brooke and Andy. That’s what we’ll go with this time. Brooke, how are you doing?
Brooke Weinstein:
I’m good. Having some break from midterm, so thanks for inviting me on your podcast.
Andy Roark:
My pleasure. Thanks for making time. Guys, I want to have you guys on the podcast and talk a little bit about generational differences in vet medicine. Honestly, I’m thinking a lot about the future of vet medicine and what it looks like as it’s changing, because we’re going to a rapid period of change. Then also I’m kind of looking at the future of vet medicine and I have a daughter, she’s 14 and she has decided that she wants to be a veterinarian. I’m going to be honest and say, I have some mixed emotions about that. I want to talk with you guys a little bit about sort of your experiences and perspectives on what the future kind of looks like and sort of your experience as Brooke has gone through her training and just generally overall your perspective on life in the profession and that sort of evolution as well. Is that Okay?
Peter Weinstein:
Absolutely.
Andy Roark:
Awesome. Well, cool. Let’s go ahead and start. Let’s do some quick bios. Peter, I’ve known you for a long, long time. You have been a mentor of mine since I blew my own mind this morning. I woke up this morning for whatever reason and I’ll be honest. I had school dreams last night and I wondered, do you guys have? I’m sure Brooke does. The exams coming, and I forgot I had a class. I, a 100%, had those dreams last night and I had exams coming up and I woke up and thought, oh my God, I’m not in school anymore. Then I thought I graduated in 2008 and then I did some math and I’m like, that’s 14 years ago, which blows my own mind. It’s been a minute since I was in school. Peter Weinstein, do you ever have dreams of exams or classes that you forgot?
Peter Weinstein:
No. It’s funny when you had school dreams, all I could remember was the dream of showing up to school naked when you were a kid and having to go. You never had that dream?
Andy Roark:
Oh, no, I did. Yeah, I totally did. Yeah, I still have those dreams. That’s funny. Brooke, do you wake up having panic dreams about your exams?
Brooke Weinstein:
Not often, if I do, it’s like, I completely did not make it to the test and everything from my car ride, from leaving home to class, everything went wrong and I just didn’t make it.
Andy Roark:
Oh yeah, you guys are much more balanced than me. All right. Back on topic. Peter, I’ve known you since vet school. You’ve been a mentor mine for a long, long time. You gave me some of the first advice that I ever got on being a presenter and speaker. I said to you, “Hey, how do you get to do more presenting and speaking?” You said, “You need to write more.” I still remember you telling me that, and we were on a bus at the AVMA convention. I was like, “Huh, that sounds like good advice.” It’s advice that I still remember you giving to me today and it turned out to be pretty good. It’s worked out pretty well for me, so thank you for that. You are also the author of the E-Myth Veterinarian. You have been the president of the Southern California Veterinary Medical Association. I’m just going off the top of my head right now. I don’t have anything written down. What else? You are the owner of PAW Consulting. What else am I missing or forgetting in your bio?
Peter Weinstein:
Andy, I have known you since you were Brooke’s age, when you were president of the VBMA at University of Florida. That’s when we first connected, and so this is almost like déjà vu.
Andy Roark:
Yeah.
Peter Weinstein:
Now, I mean, for the past, I just got done teaching my first year of the business and finance class at Western University so I’m giving back to the students by teaching at the vet school here in Los Angeles. I’ve done a whole bunch of different things within the profession, but now as I head into the twilight years, it’s really more focused on education and growing the profession and really disrupting it and creating a better future for Brooke and others, because I feel like I have an investment that will be maturing in about a year and a month. I’m hoping to get a very good return on my investment, but it’s not just Brooke, it’s 4,000 other veterinary students that are graduating this year, next year and all the years down the road.
Andy Roark:
Oh yeah, no. Yeah. Well, I know the students appreciate you being involved, and like I said, you’ve been a mentor for me. It’s funny before we even started recording, I was talking to you about my business and things that I’m doing and being like, “Hey, Peter, how do you look at this? Because you wrote that you met veterinarian, and you always have excellent insight to give. Brooke, you are in your third year at Oregon State, is that correct?
Brooke Weinstein:
Yeah, I have about a month left of my third year.
Andy Roark:
Oh yeah. And so, have you started clinical rotations yet?
Brooke Weinstein:
No, I get to start June 11th, I think.
Andy Roark:
All right, so coming up very, very… When people hear this, then you’ll be in your rotations.
Brooke Weinstein:
It should.
Andy Roark:
All right. Exactly. It’s been a long time coming. All right. Brooke, when did you decide that you wanted to go to vet school? Did you know from a really young age, or is it something you came to later sort of in your education?
Brooke Weinstein:
I’ve been asked this question a lot and I really can’t pinpoint anything. I feel like it was junior or senior year of high school when I kind of had to start thinking about college and I think it was just something I knew about. And so, my dad kind of shoved me into a hospital, obviously not his because he didn’t have one. It was like, well, if you can survive surgery and you’re still standing, then maybe it’ll work. And so then yeah, I survived that and I was like, might as well see if I like this and kind of applied to colleges with veterinary school in mind and I stuck with it, so yeah.
Andy Roark:
Peter, were you excited about that from the beginning when your daughter was going into college and starting to talk about pre-vet? What was your emotional experience at that time?
Peter Weinstein:
Woo.
Andy Roark:
All right. You were fired up?
Peter Weinstein:
I was fired up. I really was because I had sold my practice when Brooke was three or four or five or something like that. And so, she really wasn’t raised in a stainless steel cage, like most veterinarians babies are. And so, when Brooke was showed interest in becoming a veterinarian and I think some of it was nature, some of it was nurture and she would go to the zoo with my wife and help out at the zoo as well. I think she had some different exposures that maybe pushed her to that level. But when Brooke said she wanted to become a veterinarian, all I said is, Brooke, I’ll do whatever you want to do to help, but I’m not going to… I don’t feel that I formally pushed her one way or the other except open doors and give her opportunities.
Andy Roark:
Yeah. I think that there’s a difference in saying I’ll be supportive versus, hey, I’m sort of driving the bus. Brooke, did you feel pressured to go towards vet medicine because your dad was so involved in it?
Brooke Weinstein:
No, I don’t think he made a single decision for me, besides me just asking him where do I go? Then he was like, here’s this clinic, go there.
Andy Roark:
Oh, that’s fine.
Brooke Weinstein:
Yeah, no, vet school wise, he was like, wherever you get in.
Andy Roark:
Right. Peter, did you ever rethink that emotional response? Was there ever a time when you have thought in the last eight years when you have thought, maybe this isn’t the best place for my child to go?
Peter Weinstein:
Absolutely not.
Andy Roark:
No? Yours a hardcore no.
Peter Weinstein:
No, I was very much supportive. If I’m going to have the roles that I’ve had in the profession, as an advocate, as an educator, even as a disruptor, then it would be wrong for me to have any second guessings from that standpoint. I really have to feel that being an advocate for the profession as I am, that being an advocate for what my daughter wants is the right thing as well.
Andy Roark:
That’s interesting. I don’t know if I am sold on that. Here’s why, so you and I both love that medicine and we worked hard on it. There’s definitely things about that medicine that I look at and I go, I don’t know about this, or where does that go? And so, it’s funny that you say no, as an advocate, I’m sort of all in. I go as an advocate, I still have questions and things. Again, like I said, I’m honestly wrestling with these things, looking at my own kids, for example, the change in practice ownership in our profession, and we’ve got corporation and things like that. Where I came from is a little bit different in that, I thought that I was going to be a physician for most of my life.
Andy Roark:
Because my dad was a small town surgeon, and that’s kind of where I wanted to go. I had the experience, I got to be about my junior year in college and my dad, I was talking to him and I was getting ready to take the MCAT. And he said to me, he was like, “Son, I’m not sure I would do this if I were starting over now.” This is about human medicine. Man, I was kind of thunderstruck by that. And so, I ended up not going to med school and I have never regretted not going to medical school like that, but it was still that jarring thing at the time.
Andy Roark:
And so, I’ve had that experience of having this idea of something that I thought was great and then had it sort of rocked and then going, wow, well, this has fundamentally changed. And so, I kind of went through that. I look at that medicine and I’m still very positive and optimistic, but it has radically changed in the last 10 years and I see it continuing to change and so, I don’t know. When we look at things, when we gaze into our crystal ball and think about what the life of a veterinarian is going to look like in 20 years, do you think that looks significantly different from what it looks like now?
Peter Weinstein:
I probably would throw that on Brooke.
Andy Roark:
Yeah.
Peter Weinstein:
Where does she see her job and her future? I mean, she knows that I’m a workaholic, but I think it’d be interesting to see what Brooke thinks about her future and the future of the profession.
Brooke Weinstein:
I do think it will be different. I guess as a third year, going into fourth year, people are starting to think, or a lot of my classmates are starting to think about, where are they going to work? Are they going to go corporate? Are they going to go private? How many practices they’re looking at that they think are private, but are actually corporate? I think the increasing amount of corporate practices is going to just change the profession and how veterinarians or what your job as a veterinarian’s going to be, because people will have the opportunities to work three or four day weeks instead of the five day weeks for 12 hours a day. I think the work life balance will get better. I also see the push towards like referring in specialty practices over just the GPs doing everything, kind of how human medicine is a little bit, I guess. I think that’s going to continue to go that way is what it looks like, at least from where I am.
Andy Roark:
Yeah. Are you considering specialization doing a residency, things like that, or are you still interested in being a GP given that you perceive a shift in that direction?
Brooke Weinstein:
At this point, I don’t want to do more school.
Andy Roark:
Yeah, I get that.
Brooke Weinstein:
But yeah, I’m also at the point where I have no idea what I want to do right now.
Andy Roark:
Gotcha. Understand. Okay. Talking about this, so you sort of mentioned work life balance as something that you see coming in the future in vet medicine, and I do agree. I think that’s been a huge move from where we have been in the past and a big cultural shift. Brooke, when you start to look at the priorities that you have as a third year vet student, and then also the priorities that your classmates have, rank out for me, what do you think people care the most about?
Andy Roark:
I think a lot of people say, what do young doctors want? Or what do people coming out of that school want in their career? Or what are they looking for in a practice? I know with a very competitive hiring environment, a lot of people kind of want to know that. You mentioned the hours and work life balance off the top. What do you think are the main drivers for you and your classmates, as you start to think about where you’re going to go next and what jobs you would take?
Brooke Weinstein:
Well, I think after vet school, lot of my classmates just want some time to breathe. I feel like I’ve heard a lot of people looking for a four day work week, the longer hours, but less days of working. Honestly, I feel like at least with the people that I talk to the most, we haven’t talked about what we want from our jobs. I think we’re just kind of so excited to start fourth year that haven’t even thought about after that.
Andy Roark:
Oh, really? That was sort of a question I was kind of leading up to, do you feel, because I’ve sort of heard rumors that vet students seem to be making employment decisions earlier and earlier in their school time than they did in the past. That’s always just kind of been a rumor and I’ve never really been able to pin that down. Is that your impression that you think that people are making decisions about where they’re going to go? Are they taking jobs in their second year and in their third year, that then the way that I hear or is that fairly uncommon?
Brooke Weinstein:
I’ve heard the rumors. I know very few people who have, I wouldn’t say the majority or even half the class is like that. I think I only specifically know one person who has considered or has interviewed for a job in her third year. Maybe it’s different at other schools or maybe that’s just not this, I just don’t know who they are.
Andy Roark:
Interesting. Oh no, when I talk to vet students, I kind of get a similar answer of. I haven’t met a lot of vet students who actually are seeing that trend, but I do hear a lot of excited whispers. Peter, you’re teaching at Western, I mean, do you have a similar perspective? Do you think the timing of people taking jobs is changing?
Peter Weinstein:
We actually talked about this yesterday, it was the final class of the year, and I just had what I call AMA, Ask Me Anything. We talked about, I suggested that they’re a year from graduating and that they should be looking now. I would suggest there’s probably five to eight people in the class of 105 that have probably got hard job offers already, contracts. We started her talking about the economy as well because there’s this threat of a recession in the next 12 months and what impact that might have on the business of veterinary medicine and some of these highly inflated salaries, maybe I shouldn’t say highly inflated salaries, some of the growth in salaries over the past two years and what impact the recession may have.
Peter Weinstein:
I don’t think it’s too early now to be looking for a position a year from now. Especially if we look at Economics 101 that says supply and demand. Right now, there’s a huge demand and a small supply. If you can find someplace that you want to work in a location that you want to work, that gives you a life balance and mentoring and all of those other keywords, take it now, get the contract, get it signed, sealed and delivered, get a signing bonus or whatever you can from that standpoint and spend the entire of your senior year learning and not worrying.
Andy Roark:
Yeah. Where are you when you look into your crystal ball on the finances in the next 12 to 16 months? And what I mean when I say that is, we’re seeing rising, staff salaries, we’re seeing rising, doctor salaries, we’re seeing, quote unquote signing bonuses, which are actually retention bonuses for the most part to encourage people to stay on for multiple years. If there is a recession, right, we’re seeing we’re seeing rising inflation is the number one things that people are upset about. We’re hearing the fed talk about the economy running hot and taking active steps to clamp that back down.
Andy Roark:
If we move in a recessionary direction, are you of the mindset that medicine is a recession resistant industry and demand for doctors is so high because supply is so low that veterinarians will be fairly insulated from that? Or do you think that there’s a recession coming and we have a lot of exposure because of the private equity and the high multiples that people are paying and the upward trend in salaries where we’re going to see a significant pullback in the money being spent in medicine? Where are you in that? In between those two kind of think of it as a spectrum.
Peter Weinstein:
Dr. Roark, Andy, when you were a baby doctor between 2008 and 2012, we had the great recession.
Andy Roark:
Yeah.
Peter Weinstein:
Now, depending upon where you were in the country, there was a shortage of jobs, an overabundance of relief doctors, and some tremendous anxiety on the case of general practitioners in their ability to pay their bills, pay their staff. We had doctors getting laid off, et cetera. I don’t think we’re going to get to that point in the current situation. I think a lot of the escalation of salaries has been a response to the inability to find doctors for positions, especially at the corporate level, because they have an investment in a business that without doctors, no business.
Andy Roark:
Right.
Peter Weinstein:
And so, they’ve used money as a retention as opposed to culture. And so, I think what we’re going to start to see, and if you look at the trends economically in the profession right now, transactions are down. I mean, same period last year, we’re not seeing nearly as many people. Revenue is up about 4%, which is essentially fee increases. We’re busy because of our inefficiencies as a profession, but we’re not busy because people are… We’re not busy because we have a shortage of doctors, we’re busy because of the inefficient business model, the failure to leverage our staff, the failure to pay and keep our staff and a high turnover. There’s so many variables from that standpoint that we don’t have time to get into today. But what I do anticipate is we’re going to start to see a flattening out.
Peter Weinstein:
I think we had a perfect storm economically during the first two years of the pandemic where people had money, they weren’t going anywhere, they weren’t spending money on travel and then big screen TVs, they were sitting next to their pet and the pet had a hiccup and they thought it had brain cancer. And so, they would bring it in and have it seen and they would spend money because they actually had liquid income. But I think as we see this great retirement or whatever it’s being called, resignation, and we see less money being pumped into the people by the government, I think that spending is going to slow down.
Peter Weinstein:
I think [inaudible 00:22:01]. I think travel has increased in everything else, especially if you’ve been on an airplane, as I know you have. I think what we’re going to start to see is a normalization getting back to where we were to a degree in 2019, 2020, but then it’s going to be, how do we deliver veterinary medicine at that point in time? What’s it going to look like in terms of increasing our efficiency levels? Bottom line is I think we’re going to see a normalization and I think we’re going to see a flattening out, but I think we’re not going to see salaries drop. I just think we’re going to see a slow down in the growth of those salaries from that standpoint.
Andy Roark:
Yeah. That makes sense. Let’s talk about the impact of recessionary forces on pet owners and on spending because I think that you point that out rather astutely, are we going to see pet owners pulling back in their spending on pets? And if so, are we set up to deal with more cash strapped clients than we have been in the past? What does that look like?
Peter Weinstein:
It’s a great question because I think what we’re starting to see is almost a haves and have not economy.
Andy Roark:
Yeah. I hate it, but I think you’re right.
Peter Weinstein:
I asked it a couple of the meetings where I was speaking at, in the last 12 months, how many of you used fee increases as a barrier to access to care, to slow down the funnel of people coming in? 30 to 35% of the room said, “Yeah, we raised our fees with the hope that it would slow down people coming in.” The next question is, well, what did it? The answer was no.
Andy Roark:
Right.
Peter Weinstein:
Now, we have these fees that are up there, but we have people who don’t have the cash flow to make it happen. I think what we’re going to start to see is as happened in 2008 to 2012 delays of people coming in, so now, they come in a more critical stage. Pets ending up in the shelters because people couldn’t afford what they invested in and I think we’re going to have to look at some sort of normalization of fee schedules because we have really started to create a rift between what people can afford and what we’re charging.
Peter Weinstein:
Some of the communities that we do some work within LA, where people can’t afford veterinary care, it’s going to become even harder for them to be able to access veterinary care. And so, we’ve got to start to look at some of these spectrums of care and all sorts of different things that we’ve talked about to make veterinary services accessible, because I don’t think we’re underpaid and I don’t think we’re undercharging. I think we just haven’t created that whole value proposition for the client experience that people put a value in what we do yet.
Andy Roark:
Brooke, do you feel like vet students are getting some, or at least in your experience at Oregon State, do you feel like there’s part of the curriculum that’s focusing on talking to clients about money or accessibility to care? Is that something that’s kind of front and center in training today? Or is it something that’s kind of put off until after we get the medicine learned?
Brooke Weinstein:
Yeah. Well, we have one business course. I think maybe only my dad or maybe a few speakers did talk about finances and people’s ability to pay, but otherwise, no, it’s mostly just the medicine.
Andy Roark:
Yeah. I get that. You should always learn how to do the medicine first. It’s just one of those things where I guess, and this is the passion point of mine as well is, how do we communicate with pet owners and just sort of meet them where they are. I feel like there’s sort of growing interest and emphasis there, but it’s still, there’s so much to fit into a curriculum, but I still, I don’t know, I’d personally like to see more education in those type of hard conversations, just because I think that they’re coming.
Peter Weinstein:
Well, I think, Brooke worked with me in LA at some of the clinics and has been running clinics for underserved communities in Oregon. I think when you start to do that, you see how important pets are in people’s lives and how eager they are to take care of them, but they also have to feed their kids and put shoes on themselves.
Andy Roark:
Sure.
Peter Weinstein:
I think part of the curriculum really does need to be enhanced understanding of the entire population. They don’t need to take a course in economics. They need to take a course in understanding people and pets and communication and the human animal bond. I think that’s why Brooke has been involved with the Shelter Medicine Club, and I don’t mean to put words in Brooke’s mouth, but I’m happy for her.
Brooke Weinstein:
I mean, I could continue this if you want.
Andy Roark:
[Inaudible 00:26:38].
Brooke Weinstein:
Yeah, I kind of have a little bit different experience than probably a lot of people in my class. Also, last term, I worked at a wellness clinic that only gave vaccines, dewormers, preventatives, and stuff. A lot of people were coming in either because they couldn’t get an appointment at their primary veterinarian or just like the prices keep going up, and they’re like, I can’t afford that. Also, I guess going back to like where’s vet med going to be in 10 years? These pop-ups of wellness clinics, I think are also going to change why people go to general practitioners?
Brooke Weinstein:
Because I see a lot of people going to wellness clinics for their vaccines and preventatives to get them at lower costs. But then, the wellness clinics can’t provide any more care than that. Then they’ll start going to their GPs for when they actually have the ear problems and the eye problems and the skin problems. That’s also been really interesting for me to see because I’ve never actually seen a wellness clinic before, besides the ones that we do for the communities that are for free for the low income population, which I’ve also been a part of. It’s been really interesting seeing all of that from like kind of different levels of income.
Andy Roark:
Yeah. That totally makes sense. I’m fond of the saying right now the future is fragmentation. Meaning I think our profession is really going to split apart and you’re going to see how practice is doing a lot of different things, filling a lot of different niches. I don’t think that there’s going to be a uniform model at practice.
Peter Weinstein:
I know you were talking before that you couldn’t be an advocate. I think you have to be more of an advocate now. Andy, we have a broken profession, education model, association model, business model. Well, we, as doctors want to fix broken things. I think our role, yours and mine, is to identify where things are broken and come up with new solutions, different solutions, unique solutions, reconfigured solutions to help fix these things for the future. That’s why I’m an advocate because it forces me to think differently about how we can create this wellness clinic concept, the CVS clinic concept that the urgent care concept and all of these different things that retool this profession going forward because we ain’t going to get where we want to go by doing what we’ve done in the past.
Andy Roark:
Yeah, I agree with that. I think it’s funny for me, the fact that my daughter seems to be serious about vet school. I feel pressure to fix problems that I didn’t necessarily feel that much pressure to fix in the past. Like, oh, this isn’t going to affect me. I’m going to go on. And now, I’m like, oh crap, there comes [inaudible 00:29:29], we got to work on this. There’s a lot of that in my mind.
Peter Weinstein:
Yeah, welcome to my world.
Andy Roark:
Yeah. Oh totally. Brooke, let me ask you this. Is there advice that you got from your dad, the veterinary business consultant, business teacher, before you went into vet school that you have found to be very useful that other people would wish that they had gotten?
Brooke Weinstein:
Let me see if I can remember this.
Andy Roark:
I was just curious if there was anything that stuck out in your mind of like, “Yeah, my dad sort of told me this or he helped me understand this and it served me well?”
Brooke Weinstein:
I don’t know. I don’t think I can remember any exact words, but I feel like there were concepts in the words that he was telling me, kind of just like watch out for yourself because all you’re going to know is school. The amount of times, he was like, whatever happened in the news between the years that he was in vet school, he didn’t get.
Andy Roark:
Yeah. Yeah.
Brooke Weinstein:
I was like, okay, well, I will be prepared to live in a bubble for four years, but also cognizant of the fact that I need to look after myself when I can remember.
Andy Roark:
Yeah. Well, it’s funny you say that. When Peter was talking about the recession from 2008, 2012, I’m like I missed that. I was head down in my first job, I just learned in medicine and putting one foot in front of the other, but it’s funny. Yeah, I think that there’s a lot of truth to the idea of just putting our heads down and getting done what we needed to get done. I’m thinking a lot about these days about what do I have control over and what do I not have control over? I feel like if we look at modern media, we are bombarded all day every day with terrible things and injustices and hardships. I think that there’s a balance of not blowing those things off.
Andy Roark:
I’m not trying to ignore the problems in our society or not help other people. At the same time, I also don’t think that we can live all day every day, just immersed in challenges and hardships that we really don’t have any control over. You just take, for example, some sort of problems in our government. I know they’re hard to find, but I’m sure that they were there, problems in our government. I get one vote and I can be educated about who I vote for. Beyond that, there’s not a whole lot that I can do and I sort of have to figure out how invested this do I want to be, what is a healthy level of investment versus just me being upset all the time about things that I can’t control?
Andy Roark:
And so, I think about that a lot with vet medicine too, and go, what is in my power and what is not? It’s interesting. I always sort of put this forward to a lot of vets and other practices. I think it’s important to be able to step back and look at the profession as a whole, but I think it’s a lot more useful and probably mentally healthy to be able to dial in and look at where you are and what you need to do and look at your practice and what your practice can do and what is available, in that specific context, because those are the things that you can control. But anyway, I’ve just been thinking a lot about dialing in and dialing out and so when we have these sort conversations about where is the profession going and what can we do for it, I always sort of try to file that away in the back of my mind.
Peter Weinstein:
Well, I think what I’ve been most proud of in watching Brooke through the first three years is her finding time for herself, whether it’s snowboarding, whether it is working the clinics and doing the research, but trying to have a balance in what she does. I think that’s something I neglected to do, I neglected to do after I was in practice. I don’t remember any music from the ’80s and early ’90s. Also, not getting sucked into a lot of the news, not getting inundated with what’s going on in the world because the little world is the veterinary school world right now, but you have to get out of that bubble as well. I think if you spend too much time surrounding yourself with your classmates, some of those naysayers, those negative people have an impact on you as well. I think finding that balance and understanding herself and her needs and watching that is very rewarding as a father.
Andy Roark:
Brooke, what is the thing that you’re most looking forward to in veterinary medicine? As you move towards graduation, what are you most looking forward to?
Brooke Weinstein:
Doing what I went to school for, just very basic. Yeah, I’ve been telling people this because we’ve had junior clinics. We’re basically shadowing fourth years during this term. We’ve gone from three years of sitting for 12 hours a day to going into standing for 12 hours a day. Our bodies are kind of hurting just from the four hours of shadowing. But yeah, I’m just excited to just do what I went to school for.
Andy Roark:
Yeah. That’s awesome. Peter, as the parent of a veterinary student, and then also as a lecture and teacher at a veterinary school, what is your number one piece of advice for people who are entering the profession? What is the thing that you think will serve them well going forward?
Peter Weinstein:
I think we need to bring fun back into veterinary medicine.
Andy Roark:
Amen.
Peter Weinstein:
I think that we take ourselves too seriously at times, and it makes it very stressful work environment. I think we create a lot of our own mental health issues and there are external variables as well, but I really do think that hospital owners need to shut down and take people to the movies or bowling or the improv, or just hear Andy Roark, whatever. But I do think we need to take back control of ourselves and I think we need to have some fun and we need to make sure that fun is one of our core values.
Peter Weinstein:
I think we’re so focused on other things that we lose track the fact that we are people too. That if we are not healthy, we can’t take care of our clients and our patients. And so, if I was going to give a message to my colleagues, and if I’m going to give a message to the next generation is, “Yeah, take your job serious, but take life and have some fun with it as well, and make sure you go out and engage in the world and be a contributor in the world, but have fun doing so.”
Andy Roark:
Well, I think I’m going to take what Peter said and then what Brooke said and kind of put it together, I think in my mind, because I think you guys are both right on. I completely agree with putting fun back in what we do. I think that we should, we need to find the fun in just being in practice. I think that’s important for our long term happiness and to Brooke’s point about just being excited about doing the job, I think that we get sucked up into this big picture of what we’re supposed to be and this great meaning and purpose and the truth is we should remember to be happy just seeing appointments. We should be happy just to do vaccines and get to meet a family that’s excited about their new kitten.
Andy Roark:
Just to find enjoyment and fixing a urinary tract infection or lancing abscess, like that stuff is amazing. We get to do that for our job. I think that we have a bad habit, at least I do, is you forget that it’s awesome and we stop looking at it as awesome. We focus on the sort of existential headaches and hardships that we really don’t have any control over. And so, anyway, I just wanted to put those things together. I think that’s my big takeaway from our discussion here is, remember to have fun. And the other thing is, remember that what we do is awesome and people are excited, they would love to do what we do, and they think what we do is fascinating.
Andy Roark:
We should remember to enjoy doing it. When I say we enjoy doing it, I mean, enjoy doing the small things, enjoy seeing the appointments, doing the easy stuff, fixing the coughing dog. Like we should be proud of that and we should enjoy the process of doing it. Guys, thank you both so much for being here. I really, really appreciate your time.
Peter Weinstein:
Andy, thanks for the invitation. It’s not often that Brooke and I are actually together for 30 to 45 minutes and have a chance to talk. Thank you for bringing the family together. It was a nice thing.
Brooke Weinstein:
Yeah, thanks for having me on too.
Andy Roark:
Thanks guys. Thanks everybody. Take care of yourself. And that’s our episode. Guys, I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you got something out of it. Thanks again to CareCredit for making this podcast possible ad free. Gang, take care of yourselves. Be well. I’ll talk to you soon. Bye-bye.
