Life With Clients

How to ace the blame game. 8 questions you need to know. 

My daughter trips and drops her lego on the floor. The lego that she just spent 2 hours creating. Immediately she is in a rage and her rage is directed at me. She’s yelling at me because it is my fault that she dropped her lego. She’s in full-on blame mode and her little 7-year-old brain can’t cope with any of the feelings that she is having and so it goes straight to blame as a coping mechanism.  It is an effective coping mechanism because as long as she is raging at me she isn’t feeling bad at herself for dropping it. She isn’t feeling shame that she made a mistake. She isn’t doubting herself or questioning her capabilities.  

This is what blame does. It is a shield that prevents us from looking at ourselves or facing our own feelings of inadequacy or failure. It shields us from shame. But it does us a disservice.  

It does us a disservice because as long as we are looking outside of ourselves for something to change, for something to be fixed, for someone else to do or be, act or say something different, we are powerless. And it is victimhood and helplessness at its finest. Everywhere I look on social media these days I see it. Veterinarians venting about this client or that client followed by words of support and stories of commiseration.  

Look, I get it. Clients are behaving badly in crazy and unexpected ways and it is so easy to blame them for your crappy day but I need to tell you, the blame game is a trap and it isn’t helping you. It is time we stopped using blame in our relationships. And I’m not just talking about our intimate relationships, I’m talking about our relationships with our friends, our family, our co-workers and our clients. 

The reason this is so important is that when you go through life needing your clients, your boss, your mom, your partner or your children to act a certain way in order for YOU to be OK or happy, you are setting yourself up for failure. 

Sure, everyone may play by your set of rules in your head sometimes. Maybe even most of the time. But when it doesn’t, unless you have some other strategy in play, the hurt and the pain will be too much to bear and you will resort to the flimsy shield of blame to protect yourself. And in doing so you will give up your power. 

Is it nice when our clients are sweet as pie, have unending patience, and do everything we ask of them? Yes of course it is. But I don’t need every client to be that way in order for me to have a good day. 

Bad things are going to happen. People will get upset, people will say mean things, people will be curt and rude because they are having a hard time. I can’t control them. 

What I can control is myself. I can control my thoughts. I can choose to keep my power in the situation and avoid laying blame. I can choose to respond to who they are instead of reacting to what they are doing. 

If someone is upset I’m going to look at the situation and see if I can figure out where my personal responsibility in the situation lies by asking myself the following questions: 

1. Am I being clear with my communication? 
2. Am I holding unrealistic expectations of them? 
3. Have I been unclear as to communicating what their expectations of me are?
4. Am I holding judgment of them and acting as such? 
5. Do I need to adjust a policy or procedure? 
6. Is this a time for me to practice compassion without understanding? 
7. Where in this mess is the gift, the learning point FOR ME?  
8. What can I do to make amends or do better next time? 

Because as long as we are willing to shift the blame onto someone else, we will not grow. We will not learn to be resilient. We will not take the lesson from the situation and so we will be destined to repeat the unpleasantness. Over and over again. Which leads to a pretty crappy life experience. 

The key is learning how to master yourself, your thoughts and your emotions so that no matter how the other person is acting, no matter what they are doing, you are ok. This is a skill and here is your first lesson. 

This is important work we do. 

You got this. 

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of the DrAndyRoark.com editorial team.

Yesterday I received a client’s email that was as interesting as it was disturbing. 

I became a life coach for veterinarians because the people in our profession are stressed out, overworked and underpaid. They have many daily stresses that “normal” people, like our clients, do not understand.  They are peed on, pooped on, bitten, scratched, and disrespected by pets and people alike. They are yelled at by clients who wait 30 minutes to be seen because the person in front of them waited a week to bring in their pet that now is in an emergent situation.   

Veterinarians are yelled at by people who want them to schedule a last-minute appointment 10 minutes before closing so they do not have to go to an emergency clinic on a Friday evening. If the receptionists try to send them to an emergency clinic (the equivalent of urgent care for people) they get angry and demand to be seen. Veterinarians stay after hours most evenings to return phone calls to clients who often either don’t answer the phone or yell at them because they didn’t call earlier. They have friends and family call or text on their days off asking for free advice when the veterinarian should be spending time with their families. Veterinarians drive into the clinic to check on pets late at night or on the weekends if clients refuse to take their pets to a more appropriate 24-hour center because you want to save them money. 

Back to the interesting email. It said, “I am extremely disappointed in your charges for service. We are seniors living on a fixed income.” The client then listed the three charges that he incurred for his very ill parrot when the couple visited the hospital three times in the last four months. He listed each visit, and the charges that he paid, then listed the total. The last line of the email said, “please look into this and adjust payment to a reasonable amount.”

So, this begs the question, “what is a reasonable amount?”  

What should you pay for a veterinarian’s services who studied eight years in college and spent $40,000 to $50,000 per year to learn everything they need to know to treat your pet? What do veterinarians deserve to be paid in order to eat, live and have the money to pay back their $100,000s of student loan debt? When that veterinarian attends continuing education each year, often paying for it out of pocket – to get special training in exotic medicine, what should they charge? How much to learn to interpret the blood tests and treat the disease that they see in your parrot?  

What should the veterinary hospital charge to purchase the supplies that are used to draw and process the blood? What should they charge for the $30,000 blood machines and $60,000 radiograph machines that are in hospital so you can get quick results? What about the building rent, the $500 per month electric bills, and the heat and air conditioning that you enjoy when you are in our office?  

What should we charge to pay the 28 employees? To provide their medical insurance, payroll taxes, vacation pay, sick leave, uniforms and medical training? How much is reasonable to charge to pay the people that answer your calls, return your emails, pay bills, schedule appointments, clean the office, mow the lawn, scoop the dog poop that your pets leave in our garden? How much is reasonable to pay the people that clean the bathrooms that are provided for you to use when you are in our office?  

How much is reasonable? 

I will answer this email in a kind professional manner because I know that this person does not understand anything about veterinary medicine. I will, however, ask him what he thinks is reasonable and will be very interested in his answer. 

Veterinarians and the people that work for us are underpaid and overworked.   

What is a reasonable amount? A lot more than we actually charge.  

Perhaps tomorrow, I should raise prices.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of the DrAndyRoark.com editorial team.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Cappel works as a small animal and exotic pet veterinarian, certified leadership and life coach. She has been a practice owner for over 20 years running a five doctor veterinary practice in Warren, Michigan.  She authors a weekly blog, “The Veterinary Life with Dr. Julie Cappel” and a weekly Podcast, “The Veterinary Life Coach Podcast.” She has works published in DVM 360, Firstline and The Michigan Veterinarian. She has served on multiple veterinary committees, school boards and was an executive committee member for the Southeastern Michigan Veterinary Medical Association serving as their president in 2006. She has also served on the Michigan Veterinary Medical Association executive board serving as their president in 2015 and continues to work as an advisor for the MVMA “A team,” MVMA Power of Ten group and on several other committees.

The charts keep piling up, the ever ringing phone is a reminder of more patients to help than available hands. Technicians bump shoulders as they quickly pass by in the hallway, rushing to the lab. The vibe inside the clinic spins along with the centrifuge, tossing those out who don’t sync in balance with the others. Exam rooms and surgery suites are dressed up each day to treat uniquely different patients, but all with the same underlying constants.

Beep, beep, beep the sound of the ECG leads gripped tightly to the patient’s skin. You can hear the humming begin, as the pump kicks on and the blood pressure cuff tightens securely around a furry leg. A trying alarm sounds, as you try adjusting the spo2 clamp for the third time, although the consistency of inaccuracy brings smirks and a laugh amongst tired staff.    This is a typical day in the back of the clinic, yet we still love veterinary medicine and here’s why.

We work in a field of measurable results and emotional connection. 

A patient comes in with a limp, we X-ray and diagnose. A patient comes in with a cough, we listen and prescribe. We work in a climate that requires puzzle-solving, as we link symptoms to lab work results and microscopic findings to samples. This, while constantly challenging ourselves to do more and be more. The eight-year-old Schnauzer who tries to bite you during every nail trim is the same one you comfort during his painful pancreatitis diagnosis. Our patient connection drives us into an unexitable roundabout of URIs And UTIs. Each patient matters the same as the last one, and as much as the next one.   

Veterinary medicine combines the two worlds of science and emotion. 

Science is dependable, consistent and measurable. Emotion is undependable, inconsistent and not measurable. This sounds like a bunch of fecal sample, right? Well, stay with me here. This could be the very reason why we stay in this stressful environment. 

Medical science is at the very core of what we do day in and day out. We can always depend on the fact that our patients will get sick. We can always depend on the fact that certain diseases present with a set of common symptoms. What we can’t count on is how the crying widow tugs at our heartstrings, as she says she can’t lose the Dachshund or deciding to sit an extra minute by the whimpering English Setter who just woke up from a spay. We can master our skills as veterinarians and technicians, but the emotion is what makes us human. 

Emotion in the clinic can lead to late hours in aged, dusty textbooks and varied VIN searches. We are driven to find the results for our patients because of our compassion and sometimes a little bit of our ego. It is always science that saves us though. Those who have forged down this road before us with groundbreaking treatments and who have created life-saving medications are our guiding lights. Our job is to bring all the pieces of the puzzle together and make them fit the mold of each patient. It is a pleasure and a privilege when all cogs click together and a treatment plan is formed.

We still love veterinary medicine because it allows us to be superheroes for our clients and satisfies our individual desire to conquer. 

We still love veterinary medicine because every day we walk through those doors, we can change someone’s life. 

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of the DrAndyRoark.com editorial team.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tasha Larsen is the technician manager at a small animal clinic in Utah. She joined the veterinary world after selling her Crossfit gym to pursue her passion in veterinary medicine. It was the best decision she ever made and she wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.

“I wasn’t satisfied with my visit, I want a refund.”

“The bloodwork was normal, so I can get my money back, right?”

“The treatment didn’t help. I want my money back.”

For anyone in the veterinary field, we hear this a lot. It seems like owners believe that if they complain enough they will get money back. I can understand why. With the current trends, many companies offer money-back guarantees on their products. Didn’t like the food? Here is a coupon for a free meal. Product was defective? Here is your money back and a discount on your next purchase. We are used to getting it our way but owners sometimes forget that medicine is not an exact science and there isn’t going to be a money-back guarantee.  

Examinations and laboratory work take time and money to complete. When the results are not favorable people tend to demand their money back. They forgot that they aren’t paying for a good outcome but they are paying for an expert to help them get to the bottom of their pet’s issue. This can be as easy as one appointment or as difficult as a long-term ailment. Sometimes it’s a bit of a trial and error concept when treating certain diseases. It doesn’t mean that if one treatment doesn’t work you get a refund though. Yet unfortunately, a lot of people will demand money back or a discount because they are frustrated.

A few examples of this are exploratory surgeries. Veterinarians are often faced with the decision to urge an owner into exploring an abdomen or waiting to see how they do on fluids. An exploratory surgery can give us a quick answer but it can also be an expensive answer if there is a negative explore. I have had owners ask if we will give them money back if the explore turns out to be negative when in fact it was a diagnostic test giving us a lot of information. The same goes for cases of parvovirus.  We can put an animal on every treatment imaginable but in the end, if the dog’s own immune system doesn’t respond we are going to recommend euthanasia or the patient may also pass away on its own. In those cases, I have had people complain they spent 2000 dollars for nothing. We understand the situation is frustrating but medicine is not black and white. 

Sometimes client frustration leads to blackmail. Yes, daily veterinarians deal with clients blackmailing them into discounts, payment plans, and writing off a balance because they threaten us with bad reviews. Many of those bad reviews aren’t valid – see my prior article on how to decode them. But unfortunately, people are so used to complaining to get their way that they use it to blackmail veterinarians into cutting corners or the bill. This doesn’t help the pet and leads to more frustration and anger.

There is a reason we don’t offer money-back guarantees. We aren’t god. Some animals don’t play by the book. Some animals respond adversely to medications. Some animals don’t show symptoms until its too late. Sometimes we can do everything correctly and the outcome is poor. Medicine is not an exact science. As clients, we hope that you understand this and realize we are doing our best to help you. We aren’t a restaurant where you can complain about the cut of meat or lack of salt in the sauce. 

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of the DrAndyRoark.com editorial team.