Vicky Ograin, RVT and VTS in Nutrition, joins us to discuss the evolving role of veterinary technicians. In this episode of The Cone of Shame Veterinary Podcast, Dr. Andy Roark and Vicky explore how vet techs are being increasingly empowered and better utilized in clinics, supported by organizations like NAVTA and social media. They also highlight the Veterinary Nutritional Advocate Certificate, a free program that enhances nutrition knowledge and patient care. Listen in to learn how veterinary technicians can use these tools to advance their careers and make a bigger impact in the clinic!
This episode is brought to you by Hill’s Pet Nutrition!
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LINKS
Hill’s Veterinary Academy: https://na.hillsvna.com/
Academy of Veterinary Nutrition Techs: https://nutritiontechs.com/
Charming the Angry Client Course: https://drandyroark.com/charming-the-angry-client/
Dr. Andy Roark Swag: drandyroark.com/shop
All Links: linktr.ee/DrAndyRoark
ABOUT OUR GUEST
Vicky received her technician degree from Los Angeles Pierce College. She served in private practice for many years in California, and then 22 years ago began a career with Hill’s Pet Nutrition, where she is a Scientific Communication Senior Specialist, in the US Professional Veterinary Affairs department. She focuses on education for technicians and the health care team as well as strategy for veterinary technicians in tech schools and graduates.
In 2007, she completed a Bachelor of Science and in 2008, she completed a Masters, both in Business Administration. Vicky obtained her Veterinary Technician Specialty (VTS) in nutrition in June 2013. Vicky speaks nationally and internationally and is a published author.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Dr. Andy Roark: This episode is made possible ad free by Hills Pet Nutrition. Welcome everybody to the Cone of Shame Veterinary Podcast. I am your host, Dr. Andy Roark. Guys, I got a fan-freaking-tastic, technician-tastic, episode for you today. I am here with the one and only Vicky O’Grain and we are talking about all, well, honestly, we’re talking about all things technician.
We’re talking about technician utilization. We talk about where the technician job is going, what the future of being a technician maybe looks like. If you are a tech or a vet assistant this is going to be a super uplifting make you smile sort of episode and also we talk about the
Veterinary nutritional advocate certificate. Guys, this is free training program is made possible by hills pet nutrition. It is an excellent resource for our support staff and we’re going to talk all about that as well. So we got some educational opportunities. We’ve got some really cool stuff in the growth and development frame of practice and we’re just talking generally about our love for technicians and we talk a little bit about what tech week means to us at the end.
So, I think a lot of people are going to love this episode. Let’s get into it.
Kelsey Beth Carpenter: (singing) This is your show. We’re glad you’re here. We want to help you in your veterinary career. Welcome to the Cone of Shame with Dr. Andy Roark.
Dr. Andy Roark: Welcome to the podcast, Vicki O’Grain, how are you?
Vicky Ograin: I am awesome. How are you today?
Dr. Andy Roark: Oh man, I am so good. I am so good. I’m just gonna, I’m not gonna hold it together very long. I’m just gonna stop and gush at you for a moment. I am so glad that you’re here. I am honored to have you here. For those who don’t know you, you are a champion, you are a torchbearer,
for veterinary technicians and you make my heart glad you have been a veterinary technician for four years for a while you are an RVT. You are a veterinary technician specialist, a VTS in nutrition. You also went ahead and got your MBA. You have been ride or die with NAVTA the North American Veterinary Technician Association group for a long time. You were the president I think 20 2013 2015 somewhere in there.
You’ve had some past president duties. You’re the chair of the CE committee there now. Like, you are ride or die Veterinary technician and you have been an educator and a supporter for so long and I am just so grateful for what you do. And I just I think the world of you. I’m so glad you’re here.
You are also right now working as the The Scientific communication Senior specialist at Hills Pet Nutrition. And yeah. And so again, using that educational muscle to
make that profession better. I wanted you to come in and I wanted to talk to you. I saw, you’ve sort of been involved in the Veterinary Nutritional Advocate Certificate this is a new program that’s coming out, but I wanted to stop and before I get into that, I want to zoom out a little bit and just get your perspective on the landscape here.
It is my impression that Veterinary Technicians and Veterinary Assistants. I’m very optimistic about the future for vet techs and vet assistants. My impression is that over the last couple of years things have been improving in a lot of ways for vet techs and vet assistants. I feel like they’re being more empowered.
I feel like they’re being better utilized. I feel like they’re being paid better and again, I know I’m speaking in broad generalities. There’s people out there who are like, nope. Nope. Nope, but across the board my impression is that this this profession is quite really starting to come up. I think that there’s a lot of room for growth in the future.
Do you share this positive impression that I have that things are moving in the right direction in a way that they didn’t for a long time?
Vicky Ograin: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for that question. And you’re right. I’ve been around a long time and, way back in the day, we were told things were going to get better, but I do feel that they are getting better now and when we got our veterinary technician specialist, NAVTA has our certified vet assistants.
There’s other programs that have vet assistant programs. So I do think that things are better. I think that we’re doing a better job of advocating for ourselves. Certainly, we got in this profession because we love animals, whether we’re a vet tech or a veterinarian. But for us, vet techs, we got in this profession because we love animals and we want to help them and so to me that’s one of the things that’s always been so important to me is really advocating for my patient and putting myself out there and saying Hey, I want to learn more.
I want to do more. I want to help my patients and luckily, I worked at a clinic where they were open to me doing that. And now with Hills it’s even more impactful because I’m able to influence so many more technicians, healthcare teams to really make sure that they feel empowered and have an understanding.
So I do hope I’m optimistic that things will get better.
Dr. Andy Roark: Where do you think that empowerment comes from? Because I get that impression as well, is that the technician voice is much bigger than it used to be. I think NAVTA has had a hand in that. I think having an organization that people are a part of is definitely beneficial. I’m looking a lot at social media.
I really think social media opened up a lot of pathways for people to have a voice when they wouldn’t have necessarily had a voice before. I don’t, do you agree with that? Are there other things you think that have made that voice more prominent for technicians?
Vicky Ograin: Yeah, I think you’re absolutely right. When I started just a few years ago, there really was no social media. it was word of mouth. You talk to other technicians in your clinic, you went to conferences, that was really your only avenue. But now that we have social media and we have some amazing technicians out there who really are advocating for us.
And it’s, I think that’s helping us feel more empowered because, you know, we’re able to talk to each other in a social media aspect, and tell our stories and then someone else will come along and go, my gosh that’s resonating with me. That’s exactly how I feel. And I think we feel seen more.
I mean, I worked in a clinic where, you know, I was the only credential technician at the time that I was working there. And I worked with, some amazing assistants, but I was the only credential tech. And so for me, I didn’t have really any other credential techs to really talk to and get feedback from and know what I’m going through.
That’s one of the things I love at Hills. We employ so many credential vet techs, and I have this amazing group of people now that I can talk to and we can, commiserate, so to speak, and realize that, oh, wait a minute, you’re going through the same thing. How can we help each other? So I think that community.
But social media apps, I agreed, absolutely has helped things so much more, and it’s allowed us to be seen, empowered, and feel that we have a voice and coming up with solutions.
Dr. Andy Roark: I think for a long time people struggled with knowing how to utilize credential technicians. I don’t know if you agree with that, but I also think when social media, when people are able to talk across practices and say, well this is what I get to do and this is what I get to do. I think that’s, I think that’s eye opening in a lot of ways.
I saw, it was funny, I saw a conversation recently a practice owner brought it up to me and there are practices out there that have decided that they are, they don’t want to do nail trims anymore. And that’s what they have decided. And they say, we don’t, we don’t want to do this.
We feel like it’s stressful for our staff or they’re too shorthanded. Whatever the reasons are. And I’m not saying we should do them or not do nail trims. However, I saw a conversation from so many different clinics and people say, well, we also made this choice. And other people said, we talked about it and we decided not to do this.
But that type of just having the conversation and saying, Hey, did you know, it’s not illegal to not do nail trims? I thought that was, I thought that was something that never used to happen. And so my position on technicians and vet assistants is I see a bright future for them. I think that the future has to come from them being utilized and empowered.
Like we, they have to have tangible skills. They have to be able to help deliver services to the pets and to the pet owners. I think that they and the rest of us need to work on a sort of I want to make sure they get the respect that they deserve. I think having pet owners believe the veterinarian is the only one who knows what’s going on and these other people are helpers.
I, that’s not accurate. It’s not honest and it undermines our technicians to really help us and to wanting to take burdens off of the veterinarians if people see value in the text. They’re more willing to have the phone call with the technicians. And then it also helps the pet owners feel better about the services they’re delivering.
And it also feels good to be appreciated and to feel valued. And so anyway, I, I’m looking at those types of skills and that kind of brings us around to the certificate that I kind of wanted to talk about a little bit today, the Veterinary Nutrition Advocate Certificate. And so that’s for me, I look at things like that and I’m like, yes, that is the type of tangible knowledge that can make my techs and my assistants better in the exam room.
It can make a more value to my practice and to my patients. And so can you talk at a high level, just start out high level about what is the certificate? Tell, just get me started on what the nuts and bolts sort of look like.
Vicky Ograin: Yeah. So first off, just to let you know this was a program that was around a while ago and the decision was made to discontinue it. And so I, after talking to a lot of technicians and educators, realized that it needed to come back. And so, I kind of became the champion for it. And it’s been great that Hills was like, very supportive in saying, No, actually, you’re right.
We do need to bring this back. And so what it is, it’s a multi level, certificate program. So it’s level one wellness. So you learn about basic nutrition and then it goes into level one, two and three therapeutic, where you learn about disease processes. Now, originally we were going to do words like, bronze, platinum, whatever, right?
Well what we realized is this is actually an evergreen program and that the plan is to add more. So the hope is we’ll add more modules for wellness. So then there’ll be level two wellness and level four therapeutic. Okay. So the hope is that as technicians and really anybody, veterinarians, healthcare team, really anyone can take this program.
It’s a free program. And so anyone’s welcome to take it as you complete each of the modules within that level, you get your certificate. And then hopefully, I’ll see out on social media where people like, well, I’m level two, I’m level three. Ooh, we’ve got level four now, I’m really excited about that part of it because I know us technicians, we like having that extra credential.
And so this gives them that opportunity. I know vets and vet assistants like that as well. But the good thing is it’s really teaching them sort of a foundation of nutrition and then helping them. I think when you have that foundation, it’s going to help you have those conversations with the pet parent.
Because if we’re not talking to the pet parent, they’re going to go to the internet, and the internet is not going to give them necessarily accurate information, and ultimately, which is what I always go back to, the one that’s going to suffer in this situation if they get the wrong information is the pet.
And so if we can educate and get the right information out there, we’re going to help our patients, and to me that’s what it’s all about.
Dr. Andy Roark: One of the questions I always ask when I start to look at programs or I’m thinking about investing into training or things like that is, what does success look like? And so, Vicki, when you think about this and you think about someone in the practice whether it’s a sister or a tech or even a doctor taking this, what does success look like in this program?
What is this person able to come out and do? What is the impact that they’re able to have in the practice?
Vicky Ograin: I want to use myself as an example because I did do this program, a similar version of this program through Hills many years ago when I was in practice. And it allowed me to understand more about nutrition to form my love for nutrition, realizing that really every patient, every pet can really benefit from good nutrition.
And by having that understanding, I really felt empowered to be able to then go to the owner, the veterinarian that I was working for at the time and say, I’ve learned all this really amazing information. I feel I can bring value to the clinic. I’d like, I literally named myself the nutritional counselor, which was the name of the program at that time.
I’d like to be the official nutritional counselor. The old ask for what you want. So that’s what I did. And the owner who was a businessman was like, fine. Okay. If she wants to go be the nutritional counselor. He didn’t care by doing that. I helped my patients, but I also, we saw the value of the revenue that was coming in was going up because we were doing a lot more nutrition. For me,
it empowered me to feel like I was being more utilized as a technician because now I was having extra special things that I was doing. I started training other people in the clinic to also be nutritional counselors because I’m not there every minute, right? And so that gave the other technicians or the other assistants, I was the only credential tech, but the other assistants in the practice, it gave them a feeling of worth that they were now providing great services for the patients, but also for the practice, job security.
That also ended up becoming my true love of nutrition, which is when I wanted to get my VTS and nutrition. So I actually helped start The Academy because by now I’ve got this absolute passion for nutrition. And as I was transitioning and thinking what was the next step in my career, that was when In my mind, I thought working for a pet food company would be an amazing opportunity.
Hills was a company I always had worked with and thought they were an amazing science based company. And so I applied and as a good, I’m just a vet tech mentality, I thought they would never hire me. But they did, because they saw the value and the enthusiasm that I brought to the table. And I’m now in an education role, which, and so when you think about it, that isn’t going to happen for everyone, right?
But to me, I think it allows you to really feel more empowered in the clinic, be able to be more utilized. And then maybe you could be like me and, and end up getting a VTS in nutrition, end up doing some really amazing things. So to me I think it’s. It’s all about career development, personal development, but also helping your patients.
Dr. Andy Roark: I think from a career standpoint, one of the things that we see with the high turnover rate that we have for support staff in vet medicine is stagnation is the enemy. Having people who feel like they’re stuck, they’re doing the same thing that they’ve been doing, they don’t see a path forward.
I think, it’s funny, I had a conversation about this recently with Stephanie Goss, who’s a practice manager. I think that. In the past, the pathway that was laid down was, you’re gonna be an assistant, and then you’re gonna be a technician, and then if you’re really good, you’ll be a manager. Which makes no sense at all!
If you’re really good at this, we’re gonna make you stop doing it, and let you manage other people, which is a totally different job. But it was like, It was this path that led from the floor into management, which, and there’s so many really good people who say, I, pardon me, I never said that I wanted to be a manager.
That has never been something I’ve asked for. All of my effort has gone into patient care. This assumption that I would be excited to move up to management is ridiculous. How do we keep those people on the floor? We have to continue to let them learn and grow and develop. And it just, I think these things are really important.
I love the way that you talk about, about, these, the modules and wellness and therapeutic splitting them apart. Because as I think about this, recently I’ve worked with technicians that had a real impact on the way that I was talking to pet owners. And so it was last week I had a diabetic cat and I was going through and we were talking about glucose levels and things like that, and where this is on four units of insulin.
And, we’re working through this and everything. And it was my technician who was like, Dr. Roark, she’s not on a diabetic diet. And I was like, oh, and she had picked that up from the history and again, I’ve got three cases going and again, I’ll just be honest, I’m a human being and you don’t, I’d like to say I never miss anything.
I miss stuff all the time. I’m very happy for my techs to help me not drop balls. And it was just one of those things where she had the knowledge, she was paying attention. She saw an opportunity and said, we’re not doing anything nutritionally for this pet. And we were able to go back in and talk about
patient care and hopefully, get this dose of insulin down, which is going to save the pet owner most likely money and effort and time and get some weight off the cat and all of these sort of benefits. But like she brought that, that therapeutic part to the table. The other part, is in the wellness part,
and we talk about keeping pets healthy. I think we’re seeing a shift in human medicine from in the past, human medicine has really been focused on, you know, fixing broken people and I’m hoping that we’re seeing a shift towards a focus on wellness and maintaining people so that we’re not fixing them after they’re broken, but we’re laying down patterns that keep them healthy. And I just think that there’s so much opportunity there people love their pets.
They want their cats to live to be 25 years old. I’m not convinced we can’t make that happen.
Vicky Ograin: I hope so.
Dr. Andy Roark: So, what, how do you find people doing learnings like this? How, how does that work? Are most people sitting down? Are they doing it as an intensive download? Is it an ongoing approach that people take and they do a certain module every X amount of time?
Do you have thoughts on, as I’m trying to get my staff trained and get them up to be maximally effective, what is, what does training and implementation look like in your mind?
Vicky Ograin: I think it’s going to be different for everyone, but one of the things that’s really great, and I realize you’re in a clinic and you already have your technicians, but this is a great opportunity for vet tech students. And so they’re in that point where they’re learning, they need to understand nutrition for the VTNE, things like that.
My hope is for them, it would be an immersive experience where they really immerse themselves, do the modules in succession. Some of the instructors may even be assigning certain modules to them if, if that’s something the school has embraced. But I think for technicians out in practice, we’re so busy.
And so to me, I’m the type that I get excited about something and you might as well, just the weekend’s over. I’m just going to sit
here and read modules because I’m not that crazy person that loves CE but some others it may be more important, they’ve got family and the kids and it’s ball games and things.
So maybe they could do a module on their phone while they’re at the ball game, watching the kids. They’re pretty easy to do. They’re mobile friendly. So you can do them on an iPad or a tablet, a phone, certainly a computer. And so they really can be done at your convenience. You don’t necessarily have to just be like the crazy person I am and basically put myself into a room for the weekend and completely immerse myself.
But you can if you want. And certainly there’s going to be certain people that are going to do that. We’ve already seen I mean this program has actually only been up and running at this point for three weeks And we’ve already seen over a hundred. I think it’s 130 people have already completed the different levels which is pretty amazing when you think that it we really haven’t done a lot of advertising of it yet Because it’s still very new. It’s been out on social media, and it’s been a lot of word of mouth. And so, it just shows me that this really was needed. And, to me, those are the people like me who just sat down and did the modules because they were so excited about it. But certainly could be either way.
Dr. Andy Roark: So I’m going to switch gears here for a second. I want to go back to sort of the optimism at the beginning of seeing a sort of a bright future for technicians. And I really want to pick up on what you’re talking about, the education and things like that. And you’re so involved with technicians.
I always like to ask people like you and say, tell me what you see as far as technician utilization that you’re excited about. Like, how are practices using technicians, how are technicians using these skills in a way that you think might spread that we might see in practices across the country in the future?
Vicky Ograin: I mean, we could certainly do better, but I do think that a lot of the clinics are utilizing their technicians more, but I think sometimes for us as well, we need to speak up. I think sometimes we sit in the back and we think that they’re going to let us do stuff. We need to advocate for ourselves.
And I think that’s something that a lot of technicians of today are doing, which I think is why we’re seeing more technician utilization. Also working with amazing veterinarians like you. I mean, you’re such a great technician advocate. We, and that’s, I think something that makes us feel really great as technicians, because ultimately at the end of the day, we are a team.
And that’s the way I always think about it, I can’t do my job without you, but I feel you shouldn’t do your job without me. And so when we’re working as a team, you’re doing your doctoring, I’m doing my technician type stuff. That’s when you really have a great cohesive clinic and you’re able to get the tests done, bring in the revenue, which of course always makes everybody happy.
But honestly, I think that’s what we need to be doing more of. Maybe more team building, maybe getting the vets and the techs together, getting us to realize that we really do need each other. And then I do think that we need to, I mean, that’s, I think why I was able to do so much and became the nutritional counselor at my clinic because I asked for it.
And I never really, I’m always in all these years, I’ve still been very enthusiastic for this profession. I think it’s an amazing profession, whether you’re a vet tech or a veterinarian, obviously as a vet tech. I think being a vet tech is such an amazing profession. But I do think that sometimes we need to kind of advocate for ourselves.
I know that can be hard, continuing education, making sure that we’re keeping up bringing in those new skills. I used to meet with my vet every year and tell them, this is what I’ve done this year, this is what I proposed to do. And then I would check in with them the next year and say, this is what I did of these things, that we talked about, and this was, this wasn’t like a formal review.
I just put it together. It’s funny. Now that I work in corporate America, we have official reviews, but back then we didn’t. But I knew enough to know that if I was going to advocate for myself, if I was going to be able to take on more skills, I needed to show him what I was doing, how I was accomplishing that, the CE that I was doing to learn more, all those kind of things, I think.
And I think a lot of our technicians these days are really doing that. And the vet assistants that decide to go on and become, I’m hearing so many more that do decide to go on and become a vet tech because they’ve got those great skills, but they need the knowledge. And then they’re in a great position because they also can advocate for themselves as well.
Dr. Andy Roark: I love your point about sort of team building. There’s research on the human side of medicine when they look at nurses for humans. And a lot of job satisfaction, a lot of feeling utilized and meaningful in their work comes down to, do you know the doctors, do the doctors know you, do you trust the doctors, do the doctors trust you?
And it really is that, and I really think that it’s been damaging to some degree to have these silos of the doctors. Talk to the doctors, and the techs talk to the techs, and the doctors have a medical director, and the techs have a manager, and I understand why it’s that way, and I understand there’s logistical challenges.
I think that you can definitely segment those groups in a way that prevents them from working collaboratively, from the doctors not knowing the techs as well as they should, and that makes trust building harder for the technicians. I think that you’re so right in that there are things that we should be doing as far as giving techs opportunity.
And I always say to technicians like, if you get a chance to run the staff meeting, to do some training for the other team, jump on it, because part of that is your ability to show your knowledge and to build trust in the doctors and in the organization. I just, I, I don’t know. I think that you’re spot on.
I also just, I really want to agree with you here on the advocacy part because there’s this thing that I’ve seen. I’ve seen it again and again in the last couple of years. It’s almost this problem with your really competent people is that the doctors and the managers, they tend to be focused on the people on the team who are struggling.
You know what I mean? People that, I don’t mean struggling in a bad way, but they’re brand new, they’re being onboarded. The new people, they need support, they need help, and so they get a lot of attention. And at some point, you can be so competent that you just get ignored. It’s because they’re like, everyone’s, they’re completely comfortable, they’re like, they know you got your stuff locked down.
But the downside of that is you honestly get ignored. It doesn’t come out of a bad place. It’s not that people don’t appreciate you. The analogy I use, and I don’t mean to be disrespectful, I remember when I, when my kids were younger and I had an older kid who knew what she was doing and she could put her own shoes on and stuff like that.
And I have a younger kid and my older kid at some point would get frustrated and be like, Why aren’t you engaging with me? And I’m like, because you’re the big kid, and you can do these things, I just need you to handle your own stuff, and let me deal with the little kid. And, that’s okay in the short term, that shouldn’t be how the relationship goes.
And so I really do think that, especially if you’re bumping up against the top of what you’re allowed to do. I think reminding people that you’re there, showing interest in wanting to grow and wanting to develop, being clear about where you want to go. I think that’s another thing that technicians have not done traditionally, which is why I think a lot of them get fast tracked into management of we don’t know what else to do with you, but we’re going to, we trust you and so we’re going to move you up.
I think if people had a little bit more insight into these are the types of opportunities that I’m looking for. I think that they could, I think a lot of, savvy doctors and managers and owners who want to keep the techs would be happy to try to support them and where they want to go. But I think it does put some of that ownership back on the tech stuff. Where do you want to go and what do you want to do?
Vicky Ograin: Exactly. It needs to be your passion. to me, it’s no different than going to tech school or veterinary school, it’s, it’s another level and it’s absolutely worth it.
Dr. Andy Roark: This episode is coming out on national veterinary technician week. And I just wanted to pause for a second and say to you, what does tech week mean to you?
Vicky Ograin: It’s so funny to me and I really, I love this question because to me, it’s the week to celebrate vet techs. You know, there’s so much that we do. You’re on the floor, you’re saving animals. There’s times that you forget all the things that we really do for this profession. And other members of the healthcare team are just as valuable.
Our veterinarians, our assistants our, CSRs, to me, this is our one week where we really get a focus on vet techs and all the things that we bring to the practice. And so to me, it’s the week to celebrate us. And to me, as simple as just saying, thank you. This doesn’t have to be about big parties.
We love that, right? Don’t get me wrong. But, to me, I always love that tech week when I have anybody, a family member, friends, family, veterinarians that I work with, other technicians, we love saying it to each other, that just thank me for being a tech and for all the patients that I’ve helped. It just, it fuels my heart.
And makes me feel so good. I’m so happy that NAVTA started this. And so it’s the 31st year this year. And so we’ve had 31 years of really celebrating vet techs. And so I really hope that all the vet techs out there really are feeling proud of all the things that they do and all the patients that they’ve helped and hopefully that will fuel you as you are helping those patients and making them giving them a better life.
Dr. Andy Roark: Thank you. Thank you so much for being here. I’ll put a link in the show notes to the Veterinary Nutritional Advocate Certificate. Again, it’s a free program. It’s a great resource. I will link that up. Vicki, what are your favorite resources for technician support staff that just that love to learn and that want to make sure that they’re continuing to grow?
Vicky Ograin: Absolutely. And one thing if I could mention that I forgot to mention before, is the Veterinary Nutritional Advocate Program is RACE approved. So they will get race CE, which is obviously important for our credential tax. But I also think another really great resource is NAVTA. So, as you mentioned, I’m the CE chair, so I must
shout out to NAVTA we’ve got some really great resources. We are doing webinars monthly. They’re free for members, not too expensive if you’re not a member, but obviously there’s benefits to being a member. There are also some really great certificate programs that are on the NAVTA website as well. So I think that those are really good.
A lot of those are free resources as well. And then when we look at Hills, we have our VNA program, but on our Hills Veterinary Academy, we also have some other CE opportunities. And so I always encourage everyone to look at all the different offerings that we have. They’re all free, most of them are RACE CE.
So those are really great resources. And then for anyone who might be interested in getting a VTS in nutrition, the Academy of Veterinary Nutrition Technicians, or nutritiontechs.com is a really great resource to find out more about that. It’s not for everyone. We’re a small group, but we’re a mighty group and we all love nutrition.
So if you have an interest in, In another academy, certainly the NAVTA website, has all the links to all the different academies so you can find out more which ones are offered and find out more about them.
Obviously, I think nutrition is the best, but all of them are really important and as we say in nutrition, all the academies for the most part include nutrition because we feed all the patients. So it always comes back to nutrition, right? So I think those are some great resources.
Dr. Andy Roark: Well, I will put links to all that stuff in this show notes. Thank you, Vicki, for being here. Guys, thanks for tuning in. Happy Vet Tech Week, everybody. Take care of yourselves.
Vicky Ograin: you. Happy Vet Tech Week. Thank you.
Dr. Andy Roark: And that’s what we got. Guys, thanks for being here. Thanks to Hills Pet Nutrition for making this episode possible, ad free. Thanks so much to Vicki O’Grain for, one, for just being a wonderful person to talk to. Two, for being a torchbearer for veterinary technicians for many, many years. For just advocating continuously.
For being positive about being a technician and and that role. And just, tirelessly working to make make life for vet techs better. And anyway, she is an absolute joy. She is a gift to our profession. So I was so happy she was here. Gang, take care of yourselves, everybody. I will talk to you later on.
