Life With Clients

Dr. Chris Pachel joins us to discuss the complexities of integrating behavior health into veterinary practice. In this episode of the Cone of Shame Veterinary Podcast, Dr. Andy Roark and Dr. Chris Pachel dive into the challenges veterinarians face when addressing behavioral issues within the constraints of typical appointment times. Dr. Pachel shares insights on effective communication strategies, the importance of proper training for veterinary staff in handling behavioral consultations, and the potential benefits of leveraging telehealth for behavioral management. The conversation highlights the need for practical approaches to behavioral health in veterinary settings, emphasizing efficient client education and the strategic use of support staff.

You can also listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Soundcloud, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts!

LINKS

Dr. Chris Pachel: www.drpachel.com

Uncharted Team Leads Summit: www.unchartedvet.com/tls2024

Dr. Andy Roark Exam Room Communication Tool Box Team Training Course: https://drandyroark.com/on-demand-staff-training/

Dr. Andy Roark Charming the Angry Client Team Training Course: https://drandyroark.com/charming-the-angry-client/

Dr. Andy Roark Swag: drandyroark.com/shop

All Links: linktr.ee/DrAndyRoark

ABOUT OUR GUEST

Dr. Chris Pachel is a board-certified veterinary behaviorist and is the owner and lead clinician at the Animal Behavior Clinic in Portland, Oregon. Dr. Pachel lectures extensively worldwide, teaches courses at multiple veterinary schools in the United States, and has authored numerous articles and book chapters for veterinarians and pet owners. He is a sought-after expert witness for legal cases and serves on the Editorial Advisory Board for dvm360. He is also a Vice-president of Veterinary Behavior for Instinct Dog Behavior and Training, as well as co-owner of Instinct Portland, which opened in the fall of 2020.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Dr. Andy Roark: Welcome everybody to the Cone of Same Veterinary Podcast. I am your host, Dr. Andy Roark. Guys, I am here with veterinary behaviorist Dr. Chris Pachel, and we are talking about actually getting behavior appointments done in vet practice.

Look, we all know that doing behavior in our appointments is important. Pet owners are interested in behavior, and they have tons of behavior questions and challenges. And, if you’ve done any work in behavior, you know that it takes time. It is not a magic wand.

You can’t give a behavior pill and just script it out and send it home. It is a process of working with people and giving them our time and focus and attention. And guys, a lot of us are shorthanded. A lot of us are really busy. We are trying to juggle a lot of things. So, oftentimes, People bring their pets in for one thing, and then, oh, surprise, here’s a big behavior issue right on top of it.

And I expect you to deal with both of them in this 20 minute appointment that we have. . This is going to be a good one. Let’s get into it.

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. Christopher Pachel how are you?

Dr. Chris Pachel: I am doing fantastic, Andy. Thanks for having me on.

Dr. Andy Roark: I always enjoy having you on. I really, I’m glad you made it. For those who don’t know you, you are a Veterinary Behaviorist in Portland, Oregon. You are, you’re a busy guy. You have a lot of things going on. A couple of the things I will pull from the pile are you were at the Animal Behavior Clinic. You were also at Instinct Dog Training.

You have done a number of podcasts with me. You were lecturing. You were just, you were very, very busy. And so I appreciate you making time for me.

Dr. Chris Pachel: No, absolutely. The opportunity like this to really have a conversation with someone like yourself, to get into some of these meaty topics that we can cover in these little bite sized snippets. Ah, man, I’ll make time for that in my schedule every day.

Dr. Andy Roark: I always appreciate your perspective. I think you do a really good job. You’re, you’re a thinker. You, you are philosophic in your views and then also you take that philosophy and you translate it into very pragmatic action steps of what people can do or, or what we can say or how conversations can go smoothly.

And so I, I, I love to think about the implications of things and then, okay, what are we going to do about it? And I think you do that really well. And so that’s, that’s what I want to kind of come to you today with. I want to talk to you about behavior, animal behavior, behavior training in veterinary practices.

I love having you on the podcast. You and I have talked through a number of different cases at this point, I will tell you when I am out in the world and I’m sure other people in the vet profession will agree to this. The number one behavior, or the number one thing I get asked about, you know, when people are like, Hey, can I ask you a question?

Behavior is number, is number one. How do I get my pet to stop doing this? How do I get my pet to start, stop jumping up on the countertop, stealing food, barking at the window, yanking me down when we go for walks? It’s the, the percentage of behavior. It’s probably 50 50 behavior and everything else.

Really? And people, they want to talk about their pets. They want to get into behavior. Where the rubber meets the road in practice is, you know, we have 20 minute appointments often. And people, we are shorthanded. There’s a labor shortage. We are trying to go fast and get things done. And so there’s great demand for behavior and behavior services from the pet owners.

We also know that keeping pets out of shelter oftentimes depending, depends on, you know, having having some behavior services and helping them And at the same time, I think a lot of veterinarians and vet professionals wonder, do we have time to have these conversations and how do we do this?

It’s, it’s, it seems like it’s challenging to bill for, you know, clients want to come and have an appointment. And they want to talk to us for an hour and a half, but they don’t want to pay for an hour and a half Of veterinary in time. And so anyway, I just kind of just dumped a lot on you here. Chris, can you just speak at a high level?

Do you see this stress as someone in the veterinary behavior world? Do you see the conflict between vets trying to support people and then also? Let’s be honest some challenging logistics in getting behavior done in the way We were taught in vet school that behavior needs to be done

Dr. Chris Pachel: yeah, it’s absolutely one of the most common questions that I get when I am lecturing at veterinary conferences or I’m doing vet to vet consults with practitioners who are trying to get advice on how to handle a particular case. There’s that sort of that underlying theme of, but how do I actually put this information into common practice?

It’s going to take me forever. I can’t block my schedule. You know, I, you know, I can wait, make way more revenue for myself and my team if I’m doing dentistry procedures or surgeries or other diagnostics. And so how do I, how do I do that? And I think sometimes we, we kind of, if it’s still appropriate to say, throw the baby out with the bath water to some degree, right?

Where we’re, we’re, we’re trying to say, you know, gosh, if I can’t do a two hour behavior consult, then I just can’t do behavior. And, you know, in some ways I think about it almost the same way as saying, you know what, I was in general practice for a number of years. I didn’t do a TPLO myself. I, I didn’t do total hip replacements.

I, I didn’t do intradermal allergy testing of dogs. I, there were a lot of advanced procedures that I didn’t do, but I still had to have a basic understanding of when and if those procedures were appropriate. How to talk to a client about how to choose between their available options. And even from the standpoint of saying, if I, you know, saw that dog let’s say it’s a hind limb lameness, for example, cruciate until proven otherwise sort of an idea.

And I don’t have time to evaluate that dog today. It’s not an acute injury. I can say, cool, we’re going to schedule you to come back on Tuesday. It’s going to take about two hours for the sedation and the radiographs. We do it all the time where we delay the diagnostic or the conversation until we have a window to actually perform the service.

And I think sometimes one of the easiest things to do if we have an interest in really diving into that conversation is say, that’s a great question. It’s gonna take more time than I have available. So let’s see you back on Tuesday. Let’s do it. It’ll take us about an hour to run through the details.

I’ll have some questions. I’ll share my perspective. We can troubleshoot and figure out what’s the best option for going forward. I’ll see you at nine a. m. You know, we can do that in that little snippet that we have at the end of an appointment and still provide that service for the client.

Dr. Andy Roark: I I tell this story sometimes. I went to a physical therapist one time because my my foot was, was bothering me. But also my shoulder was bothering me because I am a master’s athlete. And so, so I, I go in and the person’s like, Great, you’re here for your foot? And I was like, Yeah, my shoulder also hurts.

And she just didn’t miss a beat. And she said, Which one do you want to work on today? And I thought, wow! You could do that? You could just ask which one of these do you want to do? And so, I picked one, but I just, I’ve always remembered that in the vet world I’ve been like, oh well we better go fast then.

And that just did not seem to cross her mind. She was like no. Which, what’s the focus for today? And we can work on the other one next week or make another appointment and I just when you say that it’s so funny I think a lot of us don’t really feel like we have permission to just punt somebody until later in the week.,

Dr. Chris Pachel: Yes, and what I love about that is for that individual who responded in that way to you, they heard your concern and they provided you with a solution and the power of choice and agency to choose your own adventure.

Dr. Andy Roark: It was, it was, it was really well done. It was just, and it was so casual too. It wasn’t like, Hey, look, I’m really sorry about this. It was just great. Which one? So I, I, I think that there’s a, I do think that there’s a lot to that. I, I think that feeling empowered to say, this is gonna take, I really like the wording that you used.

This is gonna take more time than what we have for today, let’s get back in. It’s probably going to take about an hour, but let’s really go through this. I think that you can, I think that you can communicate real value there. I think if the doctor says to you, I, I want to spend enough time with you to really get this problem worked out, and I would not be helping you if I don’t give you that, that amount of time.

I think it makes them feel seen and taken seriously, and, and I, I suspect it conveys value to them. I, I really like that a lot. You know, I, I’m always I’m a big advocate for technician and technician utilization. I, I really, I I think we can use our technicians more than we do. What I see in technicians and support staff really is a desire to learn and develop, you know, not, not everybody, but there is, there’s a hunger for, for knowledge and to be valuable and useful to the pets and the pet owners.

And so I, I look at this and I, and I wonder about technician and support staff. Utilization in these cases. Now, I, I know that there’s, there’s different degrees where we have, you know, some behavioral cases may be pretty complicated. They may have medical components wrapped into them, things like that.

But the vast majority of behavioral questions that we get about, you know, litter boxes, things like that. I feel like that’s things that, that can be delegated whether, whether it’s done by the technician in the appointment or whether we allow technicians to have technician appointments to address things like this.

I know I’m starting to see a move in our profession towards more technician appointments, more technicians working independently. What do you think of when you hear that, Chris? Do you think that things like that are possible? Have you seen technicians taking the lead on behavior cases in practices in a way that makes sense?

Dr. Chris Pachel: Absolutely. And especially in the general practice setting around behavior, the ability to go in and to learn how and to practice taking a good history, where we can ask those questions. Where, you know, let’s say it’s the cat that’s eliminating outside of the litter box. There’s a list of pretty standard questions

that we should know the answers to before we recommend a particular treatment. Simply saying, oh your cat’s peeing outside the box, add a box. Or try a different litter. It’s sort of like saying, oh I’ve got a cat who’s, you know, peeing excessively, here’s some insulin, try that first. We would never do that.

We need the diagnostic information to actually know what the solution to the identified problem is, even at a working diagnosis level and a technician who’s been trained in that area who has a, you know, a foundational knowledge and behavior can do a lot of that heavy lifting and in some of those cases do all of the lifting to really help those clients understand, you know, again, is this something that needs to be approached from a medical side of things?

And, you know, maybe they get that history for that cat who’s peeing outside the box. And in asking some of the routine questions, we also identify the fact that the cat is not jumping up on the furniture the way that it used to. And it’s a nine year old and this is a new onset problem. And awesome.

That dog or that cat likely needs to be evaluated by the veterinary team and there’s probably some diagnostics. Awesome. That didn’t necessarily need the veterinarian to spend 20 minutes gathering the history to be able to determine that that’s the next step. The technician is going to be able to say, okay, I can identify what is quote unquote behavior only and what needs the veterinary lens.

Go for it.

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah, I, I, I really like that idea of, of the, the history leading into the conversations that we, that we want to have and having my technicians train so that they have the history and then, I don’t want to make it into a, into a, into an algorithm necessarily, but if the answer to this question is yes, then this is kind of the path that we start to go down.

Do you have favorite training resources? So, you know, I think a lot of times. A lot of times we throw our assistants and our technicians kind of into the room and we’re like, here’s the history. Anything that’s weird, just ask them more questions. do you, how do you get your staff up to the point where they can have these conversations?

I’ve seen, I’ll be honest with you, I’ve seen a lot of practices where where everybody’s kind of freestyling, you know what I mean? And you’re getting markedly different behavioral information from the different people that you see in the practice. I don’t want that. How do you, how do I get my people on the same page?

What does that sort of training and support of the team look like?

Dr. Chris Pachel: Yeah, I think one of the easiest places to start is to use a hand, a standardized history form, you know, and those are available through out, you know, and essentially any of the, the textbooks that we have, the, the handbooks that we have for behavior problems of companion animals, they include a history form that you can use to start with in, in the back of that.

And I think the reason I often start with one of those standardized forms is if you’re just on the early side of learning how to do this. You’re going to miss stuff. Of course you are. Unless we have that standardized checklist to follow and whether that’s something that we’re working through with the client in real time or whether it’s something that we’re asking them to fill out before they come in, it’s something that, for example, even when I look at a history form that for my practices, I think it’s five or six pages long by the time it spits all that data, not six pages of text.

But but but looking all that I can review that efficiently, usually in about 6 to 8 minutes. and verbalize my diagnostic plan, the additional questions that I need answered. I can verbalize that over and include, you know, if this, then this, or if we see this, this is going to redirect them to medical, or these are the things that we can recommend from a training standpoint.

So from a doctor, I could do six of those in an hour with a skilled training team and technician team who can implement a lot of that. Now, I say that knowing that the general practice cases, at least there are more of the straightforward cases that would apply for something like that. By the time we get to the point where they’re being referred over to a veterinary behaviors, there’s probably more layers that require the clinician to be involved.

But at an intake level of basically saying, is there something that we can do here before we consider referral to a veterinary behaviorist, or as a way of setting them up with the right trainer who’s going to be able to coach them on the implementation of skills knowing that if we’re going down, let’s say, a separation anxiety pathway versus a leash reactive dog pathway, we may have different trainers that we use based on their skill set and the actual problems that they like to work on.

But we can do all of that intake efficiently in the veterinary practice.

Dr. Andy Roark: Talk to me about the potential in telemedicine that you see. Do you think it’s going to be possible that we’re going to be able to have our, our, you know, our, our our behavior specialists in our, in our practice, whoever that, that may be. I mean, are they going to be able to just do a Zoom call with this client instead of having them come in repeatedly?

Is that, is that way more limited than people think? Help me, help me see what you see in your crystal ball.

Dr. Chris Pachel: I. Love. I love telehealth for behavior. I really, really do. And especially when we’re working with a veterinary team that does have hands on to the limit of safety with or without sedation, but we have that team that has the ability to have that established veterinary patient client relationship. I love coming into that conversation as a consulting specialist to say, let me ask a few of the questions that maybe you just didn’t know to ask.

And then let’s give you some some more guidance as to what we can do next and how that works and in real time, then be able to talk through medication options, perhaps even some of the diagnostic testing that we can do to really tease out some of those differentials that might not have been ruled out yet.

I love being able to do that. Truthfully, it’s one of my favorite things on my schedule most days. Not only from the standpoint of being able to reach patients that I otherwise wouldn’t reach, but more importantly for me, if I’m working through that primary care veterinarian, part of my education is to the veterinarian themselves to try to expand their knowledge base.

So the next time around they can perhaps get just a little bit farther with that case before they need to reach for me. So I’m trying to on board a more robust toolbox for them in the process of helping this single patient that’s in front of them so that they don’t have that same level of dependence on me for every single case that comes through.

Dr. Andy Roark: How do you differentiate behavior and training, Chris? I find myself using them largely interchangeably, but I feel like behavior is sort of very much in the veterinary medicine realm, and training may be a bit different. You know, there’s just a huge amount of overlap there. When I think of training, I think of puppy classes at Petco, or people out in a field really working with schutzendogs.

Not to, make it negative, but that feels different than hey, I’m the veterinary and let’s, let’s do a behavior appointment. Those feel very different to me, but do you, do you see them as being different? If so, how, how do you separate them?

Dr. Chris Pachel: So it the lines are blurry. That’s the short answer to that question, because it’s really hard sometimes to know kind of where one begins and one ends. Even we could go as far as to say that almost everything that we see is behavior, right? Movement patterns, ingestive behaviors, where the animal is looking or what they’re responding to.

It’s all behavior. What we do about it and the tools that are in our toolbox to really tease out why behavior is showing up the way that it that it is or how we’re going to modify that, that’s where those roles really start to differentiate themselves. Meaning if I’ve got a naive puppy or a dog that is

newly out of the shelter and doesn’t have its basic cues of sit, come, down, stay you know, things like that. Training is perfect for that. Those dogs don’t necessarily need a behavior assessment or a veterinarian to be involved. However, when we’re doing an assessment where there’s a behavior change, or where there’s any level of suspicion that there might be an underlying medical component.

And whether that’s gastrointestinal sensitivity, whether that’s recurrent itch issues that’s creating a level of irritability, whether it’s airway problems that’s impacting a dog’s ability to sleep restfully overnight, or whether we’re looking at actually prescribing for behavioral interventions, those are all within the purview of the veterinarian and absolutely need that medical lens and that medical knowledge.

The behavior modification piece kind of straddles between there where we’re saying I’ve got a dog who’s doing one thing or a cat who’s behaving in a certain way, assuming that we’ve ruled out or addressed any underlying medical issues, how can I apply the science of behavior change to manage that environment to coach the owner on how to utilize reinforcement based training to modify that and to build a better set of coping skills for that animal who’s doing the best they can, but they might be acting in an unsafe or unproductive way.

And that’s where the behavior consultants and a lot of the behavior professionals come into play. Not in isolation, but in my opinion, in collaboration with the veterinary team. So I don’t have to coach the veterinarian on how to do all the little micromanagement of individual training or behavior modification sessions, but that I also have that veterinary team who understands what underlying medical issues may be showing up with a change in appetite,

or a difference in behavior or a new onset aggression or a disruption in sleep wake cycle. That’s where the differentiation really comes into play for me.

Dr. Andy Roark: No, that, that makes sense. The last question I have for you, when you look into your crystal ball, And you look five years into the future and you’re thinking about artificial intelligence and you’re thinking about, you know, cloud based practice management software and corporate consolidation, all these kinds of things.

What changes do you see coming down the pipeline in the way that we engage with behavior cases?

Dr. Chris Pachel: Yeah, I think there’s a, there’s a couple of intersections here that are really meaningful for me. I personally don’t want to give up any of my client time to AI. I really don’t. I love being able to spend that time to really observe the animal, to ask the questions that I need answered, to be able to do that.

And I like looking at the history data in real time and assimilating my own thoughts about what that, what that might mean. Where I really struggle and where a lot of my colleagues who practice behavior really struggle is getting it all documented efficiently in a way that actually then makes a meaningful list of recommendations to clients.

And that’s truthfully where I use AI in my practice is not necessarily to generate my differential lists. I’m not asking it to assess my history forms. I’m basically saying, Hey, distill this down in my brain. Let me run through the education. But if there’s a little recording playing in the background that can pair that down into an actionable bullet point list.

Oh, man, I’m a happy camper. That is exactly what I’m looking for. So capture my words, put them on paper and assimilated into action items. That’s where I use AI. And that’s where I think, you know, if I could wave my magic wand. getting that dialed in so that I can walk out of an hour long appointment and just check the box and say, yep, captured it.

That’s what I want.

Dr. Andy Roark: It’s done and they’ve got good resources to go home with. I like it. I like where your head’s at. That’s wonderful. Dr. Chris Pachel thank you so much for being here. Where can people find you online? Where can they keep up with all of the adventures you’re having?

Dr. Chris Pachel: Yeah, the easiest place to find me is on my website, which is drpachel.Com, so d r p a c h e l. com. And if you go to that main landing page, there’ll be links there to all of the different projects, the things we’re doing at Animal Behavior Clinic, the things we’re doing at Instinct Dog Behavior and Training.

There’s a link there to my media pages, which will take you to podcast recordings like this one, as well as any other things that I’m involved with. You can keep tabs on me there. It also takes you to my socials on the business side, too. So everything is linked from drpachel.com

Dr. Andy Roark: Outstanding. Thanks for being here, Chris. Thanks for being here, everybody. Take care of yourselves, gang. See you later.

And that’s what I got. Guys, thanks for being here. Thanks to Chris Pachel for being here. Take care of yourselves, everybody. Be well. I’ll talk to you later on.

Dr. Peter Weinstein explores the feasibility of implementing a production-based compensation model for veterinary support staff with Cone of Shame host, Dr. Andy Roark. They touch on the potential benefits and drawbacks of this approach, discussing how it might improve job satisfaction, retention, and appreciation for technicians, assistants, and other support roles. Dr. Weinstein argues that while veterinarians benefit directly from production-based pay, the staff executing the bulk of the work often remain on fixed salaries, creating a disconnect in compensation fairness. The conversation also touches on broader topics such as profit-sharing and the overall drive to enhance workplace morale and productivity. They examine whether tying wages to service delivery could equitably distribute earnings and reflect individual contributions more accurately, potentially revolutionizing compensation structures in veterinary practices.

You can also listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Soundcloud, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts!

LINKS

Dr. Peter Weinstein on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pawdr/

Veterinary Ownership Advocates: veterinaryownershipadvocates.com

Dr. Andy Roark Exam Room Communication Tool Box Team Training Course: https://drandyroark.com/on-demand-staff-training/

Dr. Andy Roark Charming the Angry Client Team Training Course: https://drandyroark.com/charming-the-angry-client/

Dr. Andy Roark Swag: drandyroark.com/shop

All Links: linktr.ee/DrAndyRoark

ABOUT OUR GUEST

Dr Peter Weinstein is a husband, father, pet parent, veterinarian and leader. He has been involved with virtually all aspects of veterinary practice from a 15-year-old kennel kid to a hospital owner.  Organized veterinary medicine has been a passion as well with various roles and leadership and presidencies of Southern California VMA, California VMA, and Vet Partners. He is a published author, most notably of the E-Myth Veterinarian-Why Most Veterinary Practices Don’t Work and What to Do About It. Currently, he is teaching business and finance at the Veterinary College of Western University of Health Sciences. He likes to think of himself as a free-thinking change agent and disruptor who, because he has a daughter who is a recent graduate from  veterinary school, is working for an even better veterinary profession in the future. 

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Dr. Andy Roark: Welcome, everybody, to the Cone of Shame veterinary podcast. I am your host, Dr. Andy Roark. I am here with my good friend, Dr. Peter Weinstein. And we are talking about the question of should veterinary support staff be paid on some sort of a production model like a lot of veterinarians are? What are the benefits?

What are the drawbacks? Is that the future for vet medicine? Would that motivate a change in behaviors? Would it show appreciation to our support staff? Would it help us keep technicians, assistants, front desk people, kennel techs, would it help us keep them in the profession longer? Anyway, this is a great idea discussion.

We kind of sprawl all over the place. I really hope you guys will enjoy it. 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. 

Dr. Andy Roark: Welcome to the podcast. Dr. Peter Weinstein. Thanks for being here.

Dr. Peter Weinstein: Dr. Roark, always a pleasure to be with you, my son.

Dr. Andy Roark: I’m my son My son. Peter, what advice do you have for me? I, you know, it’s funny. Whenever we, I should start blocking more time on my schedule to do our podcast because we, we talk for hours around the podcast that we actually record. And you and I, you even had a sprawling conversation about the profession so far and what the future looks like.

And I think we sort of naturally in our conversation came to what I want to talk to you about today. But first, let me say, for those who don’t know you, you are a, a failed retiree. You really have not retired very well at all. You are an entrepreneur coach. You’re an educator and advocate for the vet profession.

You have worn many, many hats. You were just running the practice management program at the AVMA convention when I saw you last. You just do many, many things. And. You are one of the main people that I go to when I when I start thinking about the future and looking at my crystal ball and kind of trying to figure out where is this crazy profession going and and you and I have a lot of of philosophies that line up really well and we care about a lot of the same things and so I I came to you recently and I was sort of saying hey look you know Peter we’re looking at We’re looking at changes in profession.

We’ve got corporatization. We’ve got a lot of private equity things coming in. I’m looking at a push to raise the the salaries of our support staff, especially. We know that that’s a big a big factor of stress for our, for our staff members. And I was trying to talk about how do we do this? Like, how do we, how do we make life better for our support staff?

How do, how do we, how do we pay them better? And so, you and I have gone back and forth. We’ve had different conversations about production based pay. We’ve talked about how we pay doctors. And I’m always kind of interested in how those things sort of come together in your mind. And so, the question that I, you and I have sort of kicked around, and you sort of posed this question to me is, Does production based pay in veterinary medicine accurately or adequately recognize and reward the support staff who are doing the work that gets the patient taken care of.

And so I want to go ahead and start to unpack this because you and I have talked before about production based pay for for veterinarians. I’ve had a number of guests on the podcast talking about The benefits and and then the drawbacks and also like is this the culture that we want to foster in our profession?

So I’m fairly neutral on production based pay. But i’m definitely open to change. I am very interested in growing the income of our support staff and keeping them our profession longer and making this a more attractive profession for people to be in. So let me sort of bring that to a close and sort of start, stop talking there.

Yes or no, our current system of production based compensation for most veterinarians totally takes care of support staff in an adequate way. Do you believe it?

Dr. Peter Weinstein: No I think production based pay rewards the doctor for the services that they feel the pet is needed, has needed. However, the individuals who, in many, many, many cases, actually deliver those services are the health care team.

Dr. Andy Roark: Mm hmm.

Dr. Peter Weinstein: So the doctor gets rewarded by salary, and in many cases a percentage of what they put on the health care plan, treatment plan, estimate, whatever you want to call it. They hand it off for somebody else to do the work, who is paid a salary. So no matter how hard they work, per hour, or don’t work, they’re going to get paid the same amount.

Dr. Andy Roark: Right.

Dr. Peter Weinstein: But in many ways, the doctor keeps pushing the work, they keep making more money as the doctor, But the staff isn’t recognized for how much work they’re doing.

And that’s why I think that there’s a disconnect. And if we’re going to look at team based healthcare delivery, where everybody is working together from the person who answers the phone, Oh, and by the way, doctors who are on production, you don’t see clients unless somebody makes those appointments. Oh, by the way, doctors who are on production, you can’t see more people if you’re the one in the treatment area taking radiographs, pulling blood samples, and putting in catheters.

Oh, and by the way, doctor, you’re not the one cleaning the cage for that pet that was in the cage. But you are the one getting paid for all those services that you do. So that’s why I think there’s a disconnect in, and, and I, we have to figure out a way that rewards everybody on the team for all the work that the team does in a collaborative fashion.

Dr. Andy Roark: Is this idea, are you looking at this, if we could magic wand, you know, make it so that the, the revenue of the hospital went to the team based on how much they did or how much, you know, what they, what they generated, that would come back in sort of a, almost like a profit sharing. Are you imagining that as the team should be rewarded?

Or, Are you willing to go a step further? I have long maintained, one of my sort of core values is work ethic. I like, I like working with people who work hard. And I like to work hard. We have set up a lot of pay scales in vet practices, which I think are generally a good thing. But they’re almost entirely, the ones that I’ve seen, built on skill acquisition.

Or knowledge acquisition. The pay scales are not generally, they don’t reflect this person busts her hump and takes back twice as many patients in a day as the average, you know, say technician in our practice does. And I would say, this person might not be the most technically skilled person in your practice, but she has her hands on way more pets than any of your other technicians.

And I think that those, I think those truths are often unrecognized in practice. Do you, do you agree with that?

Dr. Peter Weinstein: Absolutely. But what you’re talking about is a subjective measure and we are an objective profession. In other words, we can measure now, unless we start to measure the number animals that an individual. Team member touches, then we’re making a judgment that says, well, they’re working harder than anybody else.

Maybe they should make more money. And then somebody complains and says, why are they making more money? So what we’re dealing with as well is an environment that’s somewhat competitive at all levels. And how do we create an objective measure of how hard people are working?

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah. I mean, yeah, I agree with that. And I think that it gets tricky when you say, well, we’ve got one technician in the lab, and we have one technicians at the treatment room tech, and their names don’t really get put on the cases. I definitely get that. I have always thought that there was great value in recognizing, say, the technicians who are doing more senior blood work

than the other technicians. And maybe that’s because the doctor they’re working with is better at recommending senior blood work. But I’m finding more and more that’s not really true, you know. When we have well leveraged technicians and they know what the plan is and they know what our wellness protocols are, they’re in there talking about heartworm testing, you know, senior blood work.

They’re talking about, in some cases, they’re talking about dentistry. They’re talking about a lot of services that can be objectively measured. I think it’s, it’s a little bit challenging to tie those services to the individual technician or support staff, but that’s kind of my holy grail. I think Peter is, I really would, the way we track services for doctors, I would love to try to figure out some way, and it’s going to be sloppy because it’s because of how, how the team works together.

I really think that there’s great value in that. I think that there are some support staff members who just absolutely crush it. And I think that they could. share best practices with the rest of the team. And, and also I think they should be compensated for their skills and their effort in a way that, that, I don’t think we’ve done that very well so far.

Dr. Peter Weinstein: Well, let’s put it this way. When you, as a Dr. Roark schedule my pet, Bruce, for a dentistry, the invoice gets processed

Dr. Andy Roark: Mm hmm.

Dr. Peter Weinstein: the end of the day and everything on the line items associated with that dentistry goes to Dr. Roark 

Dr. Andy Roark: Mm hmm. 

Dr. Peter Weinstein: in most cases, but Dr. Roark never touched the teeth. except to check and make sure that they were clean.

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah, I looked at them. I looked at them.

Dr. Peter Weinstein: Yes, but you didn’t touch them. So what if that invoice said your dental hygienist today was Susie, her assistant today was Judy, and the animal caretaker who took care of your pet’s cage was Jane. We are not giving, oh and by the way your receptionist today was Crystal. We’re not using our invoices to identify and recognize the team

for the work that they’re doing. And I would suggest that every dentistry should be linked to probably a credential technician and an assistant. Every surgery should be linked to a credential technician, an assistant, and a doctor. Because I think it’s time to start recognizing them in the same way that we don’t, we have started to do more and more, quote unquote, tech exams.

But does it give credit to the technician by name who did the tech exam? So now we’re going to make it even more complex and we have a hard enough time getting invoices right in veterinary medicine And especially if you’re on production based pay where every line item could determine what your paycheck is think about now we have to give credit to the technicians now I’m not taking away from the doctor But I am wanting to give credit to the technician who was tasked to do the work And we have to leverage it.

I think, you know, you’re talking about giving more credit to the techs. I think we need to give more credit to the CSRs because they’re the ones who are making the appointments. And they’re the ones who check, in many cases, checking clients out. And they’re the ones, in many cases, who are dealing with the really difficult clients from an emotional standpoint.

Dr. Andy Roark: Well, it’s,

Dr. Peter Weinstein: It’s a team based effort. We can’t get the rowboat down the lake unless everybody is stroking at the same cadence.

Dr. Andy Roark: I, I, I do, I completely agree with that. 

 Hey guys, national veterinary technician week is coming at ya. And if you’re someone who wants to do something nice for your technicians and you haven’t thought about what yet. Don’t worry. I got ya, but you need to add now my new card game, Dr. Know-It-All is out. This is a veterinary specific card game. 

It is vet trivia. It is fun for the whole team. You can play with the whole team. It is fast. It is funny. You will have a really great time. Anyway. it is geared up here. Ready? I’ve got it at my house. I will send it. Directly to you or to your practice. All you gotta do is buy a copy. 

I’ll put a link in the show notes, head over to drandyroark.com. Grab a copy grab a copy for everybody. This is something that the techs are gonna really love. The trivia questions are meant to be at the level of the veterinary technician licensing exam. And so they are a little bit spicy in their questioning. 

We have a hard mode that you can use with the doctors. We can make this much more challenging. We can also make it much more easy for onboarding new people in there. You know, they’re new to the vet medicine. They just want to learn. So anyway, got you covered from an education standpoint. Gotcha 

covered from a fund standpoint. Gotcha covered from a gift standpoint. I really, I think I got you covered all the ways. All you gotta do is get yourself a copy of Dr. Know-It-All and get it wrapped up for the technician that you want to say thank you to anyway, that’s what I got. Link in the show notes. 

Let’s get back into this episode. 

Dr. Andy Roark: I have been a big proponent for a long time. I think the front desk is the most underrated position in the practice and they have for a long time. That’s not taking anything away from anybody, but because they’re up front, most of us don’t see them and think about them and what they deal with.

And so I, I don’t think that they get necessarily the recognition they should. I had this thought. I’m just curious if you’re going to bite on this. I yeah. So, we was at the AVMA convention and we were in Austin, Texas, and I went up to a restaurant and I ordered myself, like on the screen, I punched in my, well I put in my phone number, I punched in my order, and then after I had ordered self checkout on the screen.

It then asked me for a tip. It asked me if I would like to tip. And, I mean, I swiped my own credit card. I did the whole thing. And I just kind of looked at it like, I guess this is where we are in that I am not tipping. And first of all, it asked me for a tip before I got my food. It wasn’t even like, didn’t you like your food?

Would you like to tip? And I just thought, this strange idea of tipping has become so ubiquitous. I mentioned it. I wrote an article and said, Are We Ready for Tipping? And I got a lot of flack for even I don’t know, asking the question of whether or not Vet Medicine was ready for this. Would you be open to tipping the staff at a vet clinic or do you think that’s totally gauche?

Dr. Peter Weinstein: would not be adverse to tipping the staff at a vet clinic if it is done by the leadership, management, and ownership of the clinic, which of course doesn’t make it a tip.

Dr. Andy Roark: That’s not a tip, that’s a bonus!

Dr. Peter Weinstein: Yes. I would have a problem somebody individually giving a tip to the technician who did the profi, for example. And I, and I think we’ve seen tipping quote, unquote, occur

when house calls are made or other things, and probably not even being reported. In those situations where everything is pretty much automated and you get that request for a tip, the reason I might give a low end tip, maybe not the 20 percent I normally give, but 12 to 15%, is because there is still somebody putting the coffee in the cup, putting the lid on the coffee cup, making the latte, and doing the work there.

Now whether that gets bundled into the cost of the coffee, I don’t know. In in many restaurants the tips are all brought together so that the busboys, who do the heavy lifting. The busboys in a restaurant are the equivalent to the technicians in many cases. Maybe they’re the assistants, because the waiters and waitresses would probably be the technicians.

But then who’s the doctor? Anyhow, the chef, the chef would be the doctor.

Dr. Andy Roark:  Okay, okay, 

Dr. Peter Weinstein: And then you have a sous, you have sous chefs who doing a lot of the line work that you never get credit for. I mean the, Chef Ramsay gets all the attention, but who’s actually doing all the work?

Dr. Andy Roark: No, I, I like it. I think, I think that may, I, I’m not even, I’m not even advocating. I like to bring it up. I’m just when I see tipping like that, it just, in my mind, it’s interesting. Clearly, this is a, this is a strategy that other businesses and other industries have employed to try to increase the income of people who are working there without raising the actual prices.

And so, I think that’s why it pops into my mind. I’m not, I don’t know that I feel good about it. I think. I think there’s probably lots of ways it can go badly, but I just, as we start to talk about recognizing the team, things like that, it just, it occurs to me that, that that is something we see in other, in other industries.

And I like your analogy too, of the way, my understanding is the way those tips work is, they go into a pool, and it gets split amongst every, the people who are there. And I think that that’s a fair way. Of kind of compensating across the board again. I don’t know that we’re ready for tips or that we want that, but it’s just that you should always be looking at other industries and sort of seeing seeing what they what they do.

Dr. Peter Weinstein: I’m sitting here and you know, you know I’m in Los Angeles and I’m sitting here and I’m thinking of all the plastic surgeons in LA, you know, do you think that they get a tip for doing a perfect nose job? Do you think they get a tip for, you know, we don’t tip in human healthcare in most cases, even if it’s the elective procedures? We don’t tip our dentists.

And I mean, as much as, and, and I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, as much as veterinary medicine is a service industry that provides healthcare, we don’t tip on the healthcare side of things. It just seems to be a it, it’s, it’s, it just doesn’t fit in being a healthcare professional from that standpoint.

On the other hand, you all read All Creatures Great and Small, and let’s just say that James Herriot got tipped with bacon and eggs and sides of beef but that was a different era. And so, it’s really, I mean, if you want to look at tipping, it goes back to something you, you superficially talked about earlier, which is profit sharing.

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah,

Dr. Peter Weinstein: And, and I, I really do think, that that’s in the sense, essentially, that’s what production based pay is, but let’s look at profit sharing for the entire team and not just for the doctors, although the doctors do deserve to be rewarded for the work that they do. We can’t do this if we don’t have a team to support us.

We cannot make as much money for the practice without a team to support us. And Unless the doctors start to take some of their production based pay and give it to their team. Hey, Andy, you want to give some of your production base to your team? 

Dr. Andy Roark: I mean, 

Dr. Peter Weinstein: I put you in a corner there.

Dr. Andy Roark: yeah, ooh yeah, no, that’s I think that that’s the, that’s the question that comes into everybody’s mind, right? Is, is we say, well, should we play the team on production? And then the doctors kind of go, well, I’m, you know, I’m, I’m, I’m not interested in giving up what, what I’m earning and this is how I’m getting paid and again, I, I think that that’s very, I don’t think anyone expects that level of altruism from the average veterinarian across the board of let me, let me reduce my salary and hand it over to the support staff.

I think that that would, I think that’d be a lovely thing, but we also know from the Merck 2023 well being study that student debt is one of the main stressors, especially for young vets, and like, so people have got, they, they’ve got their own sort of burdens that they’re, that they’re carrying.

Dr. Peter Weinstein: Well, and again, ladies and gentlemen, veterinary medicine, although you may think it’s a not for profit business, is a for profit business. 

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah. 

Dr. Peter Weinstein: 50 percent of the hospitals out there probably aren’t making a profit when it comes down to it, but we’re a for profit business. Which means, theoretically, we should have a budget.

Theoretically, we should be looking at the numbers that, from which that budget feeds. Whether it’s income or whether it’s expense. And, when it’s all is said and done, as the practice does better, the team that helps the practice do better, if you are an, an above board owner, we’ll turn around and say, Thank you for helping us get us to where we are.

Dr. Andy Roark: Mm hmm.

Dr. Peter Weinstein: Because that profit, let’s just say we’re at a, a really nice number of 20% profit. What if we took 2% of that profit? So as the owner, I only got 18%. And let’s say that’s $2 million. Now Andy, get your abacus out and tell me what 2% of $2 million is

Dr. Andy Roark: Fast math!

Dr. Peter Weinstein: So $40 million, $40,000. What if we took that amongst our team of 20? And spread it out in some fashion that represents both subjective and objective work and maybe longevity. And if one member of that team got a thousand bucks, maybe even a quarter or at the end of the year, maybe they got 250 a quarter.

How big would that be for somebody who’s only making 18 an hour?

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah.

Dr. Peter Weinstein: I mean, that’s, you think about the motivation there that doesn’t necessarily impact the doctors. Because they’re still doing production based upon their budget and everything else. It’s really looking at an owner and saying, I want to keep my team.

I want to recognize my team, those who work hard, and I want to reward them for the work that they’re doing.

Dr. Andy Roark: You know, I’ve heard, I’ve heard of practices talk about this a number of times. I’ve talked to practitioners about profit sharing and things in the past. And I think that you’re probably understanding. I like the way you’re looking at it as a, as a way of rewarding and showing appreciation. I think that a lot of people in vet medicine have tried this as a motivational tool.

And, and generally it doesn’t work that well to motivate. You know, they say, Oh, we’re going to do a profit share. I think people very much appreciate it, but I don’t think a lot of our support staff is not, they’re not super money motivated driven or the frequency that we’re making sort of payouts and things like that doesn’t, doesn’t, it doesn’t click the, you know, the box for them the way that people sometimes think that it will.

And so I, yeah, I, I, I like this as a, as a way of rewarding and, and and showing appreciation. I think that makes a lot of sense.

Dr. Peter Weinstein: Here’s, here it is in a nutshell, for lack of a cliche. If we run our businesses so that passion drives profit, we will have a successful business. But if we run our businesses where profit tries to motivate passion, you’ll fall on your face.

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah, that’s I think that’s I think you’re spot on. I think that’s a really good way to summarize what I have seen with profit sharing that that totally makes sense. 

Dr. Peter Weinstein: Keep the passion, because passion is really, and, and maybe it’s overused, maybe it’s trite, but we’re not in this field, you know, you do, Andy, do a, do a survey sometime of your, of your followers and see how many people entered veterinary medicine to get rich.

Dr. Andy Roark: Right.

Dr. Peter Weinstein: You know, we’re in it because we have a focus, we have a direction, we have a desire to make a difference.

That’s passion. And reward passion. And I think we’ll all be in a much better position.

Dr. Andy Roark: No, I agree. Dr. Peter Weinstein. Thanks so much for being here. Where can people find you online? Tell us tell us a little bit about your entrepreneurship program that you’re doing right now.

Dr. Peter Weinstein: Thank you, Andy. We just released a a program that’s focused on helping create the next generation of veterinary entrepreneurs. You can find that at www.veterinaryownershipadvocates.com. And it’s an online course. We have 24 hours of race approved CE with a monthly, what we call a mastermind call to talk about how you can be successful, the problems that you’re having in running your practice.

And so we’re really hoping to build a community of entrepreneurs to keep veterinary medicine independent And to build this next generation of hospital owners So that’s one of my passions and the best place to find me is probably on linkedin and you’ll find some of my thoughts and opinions and sharings there and you know It’s hard not to find me at most of these meetings, too.

I’m the one walking behind andy in great awe

Dr. Andy Roark: Right. Thank you so much for being here, guys. Thanks for tuning in, everybody. Take care of yourselves.

 And that’s what I got for you guys. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you got something out of it. Thanks to Peter for being with me. I always enjoy kicking ideas around with him. It always affects my thinking. I’m gonna definitely have to meditate on this episode a little bit for a while. I think there’s a lot here.

So anyway, guys take care of yourselves. Be well. I’ll talk to you soon. Bye. 

Have you noticed the online backlash against veterinarians seems to be growing? In this episode of the Cone of Shame Veterinary Podcast, host Dr. Andy Roark and Kelsey Beth Carpenter discuss the challenges veterinarians face with online vilification, particularly related to the rising costs of veterinary care. They explore the impact of social media on public perceptions and debate whether engaging with negative comments is beneficial for the veterinary profession. The discussion also touches on how veterinary professionals can better manage online criticism through education and by maintaining a positive digital presence to build trust with their clients.

You can also listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Soundcloud, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts!

LINKS

Leadership Essentials Certificate: https://unchartedvet.com/certificates/

Uncharted Podcast: https://unchartedvet.com/uncharted-veterinary-podcast/

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

Kelsey Beth Carpenter is a Registered Veterinary Technician with over a decade of experience working in emergency hospitals across California. She currently works as the Social Media Manager for DrAndyRoark.com and a Content Specialist for the Uncharted Veterinary Conference. Some of Kelsey’s passions include the open hospital concept, the power of creativity and humor, the overlap of science and art, and sharing lessons learned from living life with chronic illness. Kelsey is probably most known for two of her favorite hobbies: writing and performing comedic songs about veterinary medicine and acting as a full time stage mom for her Chihuahua mix, Birdie.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Dr. Andy Roark: Welcome everybody to the Cone of Shame veterinary podcast. I am your host, Dr. Andy Wirt. Guys, I’m here with the one and only Vet Tech Kelsey. Kelsey Beth Carpenter, and we are talking about a recent sort of string of veterinarians and vet medicine getting vilified online. There definitely seems to be increased animosity online towards veterinarians.

There’s a lot of people who are understandably upset about the rising cost of medicine, and that may be taking it a little bit far. I asked the question with Kelsey Should we just accept this? Is this just where we’re going? Is it worth even engaging with these people? I don’t know, guys. I, I wonder if some people are gonna be bound and determined to vilify those of us in the vet profession because they’re frustrated about about the cost of care.

And I don’t know if we can talk those people out of that, and I don’t know if we should if we should take it personally or not. So, anyway, those are the type of things that we get into and discuss. It is a really fun episode. I hope you guys will enjoy it. 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 back to the podcast Kelsey Beth Carpenter RVT. How are you? I’m pretty excited. I think this might be my third time on the podcast.

Dr. Andy Roark: It’s yeah, we have a special we have a special jacket that we give to people who have been on the podcast three times.

Kelsey Carpenter: like a robe or something, you

Dr. Andy Roark: It’s it is it is a robe. It’s it. It’s actually one of those, it’s actually an isolation gown. It’s it’s a disposal one. Don’t tell the clinic, I take them and I give them to our three time guests.

And that’s, that’s what you get.

Kelsey Carpenter: I can’t wait.

Dr. Andy Roark: Congratulations. So just put this on now and just turn and turn and turn. And I’m going to hand you the tab. It’s that. Alright. thanks for being here. being here. You know, for those who don’t know you, you are a you’ve been in a social media presence.

You write music for Vet Medicine, which I love. You are the social media manager for drandyroark.com or Dr. Andy Roark..

Kelsey Carpenter: Yeah, I was gonna say. 

Dr. Andy Roark: You’re a social media manager. You work for me is what I’m trying to get at.

Kelsey Carpenter: We’re talking in third person now.

Dr. Andy Roark: exactly. You know, your podcast is successful when you talk about yourself in the third person, that’s, that’s the prime measurement of success, I think, and that’s how I tell when people are making it.

Anyway, I had something that I wrote a couple of weeks back, and you all that stuff, sort of, you know, go through you and you see it all. And you just specifically, you reached back out and you said, I think we should talk about, about this, this newsletter that you wrote. And what it was, was it was around the time that that guy was on TikTok and he was just ranting about the vet marking up the blood work and just really vitriolic.

And he was talking about, it was a scam and, and what, what the prices were and stuff, and, and, and there was just tons and tons of people. that were online, and this was just a huge debate, was this angry person saying that vets were, were horrible and they were gouging peddlers. And, and I wrote about mentioning it to my brother, and so I, I was talking to my brother, and I sort of mentioned, yeah, there’s this guy, and he’s, Raging and my brother was laughing and he started laughing because he said, Andy, I, I’m a lawyer.

The idea that people saying bad things about your profession on the internet is upsetting to you is just a foreign concept to me. And I thought about that because my brother is like the nicest guy that I know. he does wills and trusts. And so he talks to people about the end of their life and what really matters to them, you know, all day, all day long.

And he’s a lovely, wonderful person, and I’m sure he does not get down about what people say about lawyers on the internet. And so anyway, that was sort of what I had written about, and you sort of reached out and, and were sort of saying that, that it was, it was something of interest. And so, you and I, the last time you were on the podcast, we talked a bit about you were kind of sort of stepping back a little bit from social media.

And, and, yeah, so. Let me, let me sort of start there and kind of open it up. Are you still sort of having that stepping away from social media kind of vibe? Or are you are you drifting back into being a part of that sort of community?

Kelsey Carpenter: I will say I drifted back in simply for the fact that I had a plant recently, that the leaves were turning brown, and I really needed plant advice.

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah.

Kelsey Carpenter: That’s the extent to which I’ve used social media recently. I’ve still been kind of staying away a little bit. It’s still, I don’t know, the vibes are off.

My vibes are off. I don’t know how much of it is me and how much of it is social media I suspect it’s a little of both and I feel like you’ve had some similar feelings about social media recently, too, I think.

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah. Well, I mean, I, I have, some of it’s about social media. And honestly, a lot of it is about our industry as a whole. And so, like, I went to the AVMA convention recently, and it was great. It was a lovely convention. They did a great job. But, Kelsey, you know, I, I feel like our industry is, is changed in some fundamental ways.

There’s There’s a lot of money that has come into our industry and you can sort of see it in the exhibit halls where there are There’s not as many small companies as they used to be like definitely like there’s a bunch of small companies But there’s not many mid sized companies like there used to be or they’re not big enough to have a exhibit, exhibition space and things like that But there are some really big companies, and they’re publicly traded companies, and it feels like we’re hearing more and more about a focus on the bottom line and generating revenue in these companies and stuff like that.

And it wasn’t that that medicine in the past didn’t care about being profitable, they did, but it did not feel to me as profit driven as a lot of companies feel today. And again, I just have a sort of interesting perspective, I guess, because, you know, these people, I get asked to speak and prevent present for people.

And with Uncharted, you know, we’re always sort of talking about conference sponsors and, and, and things like that. And there is definitely a focus on return on investment that I have not seen in the last 15 years before of just this directness of we’re here to basically we’re here to generate money and and I, I know I’m getting that vibe sort of inside of our profession and this is the same time that there’s sort of been a string of articles in the New York Times coming out talking about people not being able to afford their pets care and why is the cost of that medicine going up so much?

And anyway, it’s just, it’s kind of, it kind of feels like this sort of storm of there’s outside attention. Yeah, there’s outside attention about the cost of medicine again medicine is getting more expensive like in it’s just part of its inflationary, but the cost of medicine is much more than inflation And, and I’m sort of rambling here, but, you know, the other part of that that I look at is, you know, we’re at the convention, I’m looking around, and this is not tied to the profit driven companies or anything, but I’m looking around, and outside the convention hall, there are these big advertisements for Librela which is an amazing product.

I mean, it’s a game, it’s a game changing product. It’s, it’s, I mean, again, and people have their emotions, I’m not, there’s not a, Promotion for that product specifically, but just the idea of Librela is it’s amazing this injectable pain control that works this novel way and Elanco’s got their monoclonal antibody antiparvo virus drug that again game changer like this is it’s it’s So, from what I’ve heard, it’s fairly magical in the impacts on some of these Parvo cases.

And then you’ve got Ceva’s got panoquell is an anti pancreatitis medication that works in this novel way, this anti neutrophilic inflammation control. The point in all this is not to plug products at all, but just to go, there’s just these new things that are rolling out that are amazing and just things we didn’t have in the past.

And so, Yes, the cost of medicine is going up. The capabilities of medicine are also increasing, and so I don’t think this idea that vets are gouging people, I don’t buy into that, but anyway, I’m, I’m sort of concerned that public sentiment is turning against veterinarians in a way that it hasn’t in the past.

And so, I don’t know, from, from what you sort of see online, do you, do you agree with that?

Kelsey Carpenter: Yes, painfully so. You know, I th Think gosh, there’s just so many so many things that go into what you just said But I think you know, we saw this beautiful change this gradual change over time where people are Seeing their pets as such a bigger part of their lives, right? And taking their health a lot more seriously and being willing to invest a lot more How many people 50 years ago were willing to drop thousands of dollars on

a bloat surgery? You know, like, who, who knows? It was a lot different of a market. And then we’re also seeing, you know, education and things expanding like crazy because of technology and our ability to communicate and all these things. And so things are growing in this beautiful way, but at the same time, the way housing and the economy and inflation and everything is happening is also making that a very ugly thing.

So it’s just, I think one of the things that’s difficult for us as veterinary professionals is that, at least for many of us, like myself, probably for you as well, when we went to get into medicine, social media was not yet, A thing, or it was not yet as big of a thing as it was, right?

And so, the only thing we had to go off of in terms of reputation for veterinary medicine was, what did society see it as? And I grew up seeing medicine as this beautiful, admired, heroic thing, right? Like every show you watch, every movie you watch, every advertisement you see was about these people being absolute heroes, and that’s how we saw them.

The introduction I think of social media and technology and things has allowed more people to have a voice and contribute to then the public perception of who we are and so I went into this field thinking You know, my mom was a neonatal intensive care unit nurse I thought she was an absolute hero and I thought I want to be in medicine I want to do that kind of stuff like she did And and now I find myself in a field that people are seeing a lot differently than when I first got into it.

And I think social media contributes to that in a large way. I’ll stop there. What are your thoughts so far?

Dr. Andy Roark: Well, so, okay, so, so, yeah, I, I think one of the things that I wonder about is what is the perception that we see online and then is that what people actually hold in their minds? And so, Up until about 2016, I kind of thought that social media was a, a fairly accurate reflection of what people in the U.S. were thinking. So if you heard a sentiment on social media, it was kind of a mirror of what people actually thought. And I think that that was much more true back then than it is now. And a big part of that was when social media started out, there was no algorithm. It was, everything was chronological. A lot of people have, you’ve followed your friends.

And then when they posted things, it was in chronological order. So you’re seeing people that you knew. And they weren’t, I mean, they were trying to get attention, but it was not playing to an algorithm trying to get a ton of attention. It was generally, hey, these are people that I know, and this is what I think, and I’m sharing my thoughts.

And then the algorithm changed everything, because the ability to reach huge numbers of people was there. If you could make this algorithm happy, it wasn’t about reflecting what you actually thought, it was about playing this, this sorting game to get the biggest audience. And so I saw some research that came out, this was a couple of years ago, but I’ve, I’ve memorized it because I think it’s so valuable.

But, but this guy was doing research on, on sort of social media and what made posts get a big reach. And there was four driving factors. And so negativity drives engagement. People tend to respond to things that are, that are bad or that are scary or that are terrible. bashing something else. They like that.

It, it, it gets them to engage. Number two is extremism. People don’t respond to ideas where I say, I think ice cream is okay. That’s not, ice cream either has to be the best thing ever, or ice cream should be bad. And those are the two positions that will actually get, get some, some attention. There’s emotional and moral language, which is anything that pulls on your emotions or that talks about this is wrong.

That’s a big one. And then the last one is in group, out group differentiators of we need to come together and punish those people over there. Those, those are the four big drivers, and when I think about the guy ranting on TikTok about the cost of that medicine, it was all it was definitely negativity, but it was all emotional and moral language, and there was a bit of extremism there about it wasn’t, I’m unhappy, it was, these people are the worst, and so all, all those things sort of combine, and so anyway, if you buy that those are the big drivers of social media, you can see that what we’re going to see on social is not representative of the average person, and so I see I see a lot of negativity around the vet profession online, especially, you know, New York Times puts an article out that says prices of vet medicine are going up.

Like, don’t read the comments. Just don’t. You’re not going to see a biased response or a fair response. There is going to be highly biased. And so, I don’t know. That’s why I say I’m looking at it. I’m still a little bit, I’m still a little bit wary of drawing parallels between what I see online and what actual clients seem to think.

Kelsey Carpenter: Well,

Dr. Andy Roark: I think that’s kind of where my head’s at in that

Kelsey Carpenter: I, I actually, I’ve never thought about it that way. That maybe It’s not the reality of what people are thinking. I think maybe the people posting It’s not always the reality of what they’re thinking because you’re right a lot of people play into what we mean That 10 years ago. We didn’t have the term clickbait at least that I remember now half the content on instagram is clickbait, the people posting the clickbait stuff, maybe that’s not how they truly believe.

But then the people receiving that clickbait stuff, I think often times those people commenting are truly feeling emotions around it. And what’s funny is when you list off those four drivers of engagement at least when we’re talking about more negatively influenced posts, they’re all fear based. It doesn’t matter if it’s the emotional strings, or if it’s the polarization, all of it is fear based.

And so, Wow, that post that we were originally talking about from this human doctor you know, I can absolutely acknowledge it was frustrating, it made me immediately feel defensive it was just nasty, it was not cool. So, as a pet owner, I can absolutely see why. People would watch that video, feel intense fear about the ability to pay for their own pet’s medical care, and believe it, right?

And I think one of the things that I’ve noticed that we may be lacking in our industry we have very little, at least that I’m aware of client facing social media presence in the veterinary medicine industry.

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah.

Kelsey Carpenter: I’m gonna get canceled for this. But we, you know I’m wearing my Ninja Turtle shirt, I’m feeling rowdy today.

We have plenty of people posting their fig scrubs. Those are very, you know, very industry facing influencers, right? Which we need industry facing influencers. I’m not negating that. Like people posting fantastic, you know, I was watching Toothy Thompson and Dr. Sue Cancer Vet. I love their content.

I learned so much from it. So those are important, important accounts. But what we’re really lack is we don’t have a lot of client facing social media accounts or the ones that we do are simply based on cute videos of look at this vet who went over the scared dog. You know, they’re not education based, right?

And so I think part of the problem we run into is we’ve got this human doctor you know, talking negatively about our industry and yet where’s, where’s the other side of it? Where’s our side? What? We don’t have the proactive side. We have the reactive side where I really liked Dr. Peter Weinstein’s take on your on an episode of the Cone of Shame recently where he was saying he actually really liked the way that.

Things like that bring our Vet Med community together. The way we come together in those moments when we are being attacked actually is extremely powerful and I do admire that. At the same time what I wish we had was more proactive content going out there. So I love that people did react to that and tried to put out more content to let clients know, actually here’s the reality of how it works.

But imagine if we could get that out before people. We’re claiming otherwise right that would change the game for us

Dr. Andy Roark: I don’t know if that’s possible. Do you think it’s possible? So okay So here’s the the analogy that popped into my head is if you and I were to go online and make a video about how The earth is round and we’re like look guys This the earth is round and this is how it’s round It’s like it seems pretty boring to me But if we went on and made a video about how the earth is flat we could get some attention there’s a, there’s a certain group of people who would be like, Yes!

Finally, somebody’s saying it. And so, I, I, but it’s, it’s real, it’s, but it is, it’s really hard to make positive educational content. There’s ways to do it. I think we’ve, we’ve, you and I have worked together on those stuff as far as making some, you know, funny, positive videos It’s about, about enjoying the profession, but it’s, it’s much harder to do that than it is to just find something, call it evil, and try to, you know, tear, tear it apart.

I just think that’s the easy

Kelsey Carpenter: I do agree with you And I also feel you know you speak about our trust bank in veterinary medicine, and I do feel that If we had more of that kind of proactive content going out, it does build trust to some level. I also think we’re speaking to a very different audience now. There are a lot more intense very helicopter parent, pet parents now.

I speak, I say that lovingly, because I am one. But there are a lot more people out there who, They want to know what’s going on with their pets and they want to better understand it so that they can come into the vet more prepared. So you picture, how well would a video do if someone sat there and said, Let me tell you one of the most common things we see at the vet.

I have seen at least 500 times in my career people bring their dog in with a tick and it turns out to be a nipple, okay? How well would that do on social media? And then people could explain, here’s why it’s confusing, here’s what you can do, etc., right? That builds our trust bank already so that then when someone does say something negative about us and we can come back and say, hey, I want to break down and show you how these markups work for our bill, that trust bank is already set up.

starting to build and so they’re going to believe us rather than us coming at it from a defensive perspective and they’ve never heard from us before, right? Like I think that’s where. It could be helpful. I do agree with you the negative content’s always gonna Uh kind of try to outshine us in the algorithm, but I still think there’s Potential there if I was not in the vet industry I would for sure be following if there were some vets out there some veterinary technicians some vet tech Specialists and they had accounts that were doing education on dogs and I have a pet dog.

I’d be following those accounts for sure

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah, I think, I think there’s something to that. I think it’s a, I think it’s a harder, it’s kind of like, It’s kind of like in Harry Potter, where if you’re on, if you’re on the, on the bad guy team, you get, you get more spells. You get to, you get to do the unforbo, unforgivable curses. you know what I mean?

And if you’re in the good guy’s team, team, you don’t get to do that. You don’t get to just Avada Kedavra someone and they’re dead. Like, super easy shortcut, but you’re not allowed to take it. But the bad guys can do it. And I feel like that’s sort of true in vet medicine because there’s an easy button of just being negative, being extreme, you know, leaning into moral and emotional language, things like that.

And when you’re trying to positively educate, you don’t get to use those tools that are so successful. But I do really like your idea of, if you make things and you put them out there, especially if If you can get your clients to consume that content, I think it’s a possibility. I think you sort of swung me a little bit.

I really, I think that my take with this has been recently. I think that veterinarians in practice probably need to start tightening their focus down on who they’re looking at. I can’t. Do anything about some guy in Arkansas, I don’t know where he was, but some guy in Arkansas losing his mind over his vet bill, like I’m in South Carolina, he’s not my client, even if he was my client, I don’t know that I could make him see the world differently, but he’s definitely, but he’s not my client, and so, and the people in the comments section generally are not my clients, my clients who know me I think, to your point about Trust Bank, I think that they trust me and trust the practice.

And again, that’s the only thing that I can control, right? So going back to my brother, he goes out every day and he helps people and helps them with their family and making the plan for the end of their life. And he doesn’t sit around and read. What people are putting on social media about lawyers. And I just, I think that we are so compassionate and we care so much and we worry so much that people are not going to take care of their pets if they get bad information.

I don’t know that it’s viable to, to hold that type of anxiety. And we, I don’t think we can continue to take these things personally. Yeah, I think this is sort of a new experience of being sort of vilified, and I think, I think we have to let it go, but I, I think you, you have affected me, and you know, I, I tend to focus a lot on what can we actually control, and so I do think taking some time and saying this is, This is how it is, or these are the things that we’re trying to do, or these are the things that we think is important and not doing it in an emotional reactive space that just spins the whole, you know, debacle up and gets more views for the angry people making, you know, extreme content.

I, I think that that’s probably the way to go, but I don’t know. 

 Hey guys, I just want to jump in real quick. The Team Lead Summit is coming from Uncharted Veterinary Conference. Guys, the Veterinary Team Lead Summit, it is for your veterinary team leaders. This is your lead technician. It’s your lead CSR front desk person. It’s your kennel lead. It’s your office lead.

It is anybody who is managing people on the ground, in the trenches, on the floor, those, you know, your team leads. That’s what it is. This is a one day, it is virtual event. It’s, it super accessible, super affordable, super available, super practical. Kelsey Beth Carpenter, who’s on this episode that you’re listening to right now, is going to be speaking at the Team Lead Summit and It is kicking off on September the 18th.

That means registration is going to be closing soon. You have got less than two weeks to get registered for the team lead summit. Jump on that. Take a look at it. Head over to unchartedvet. com. Put a direct link in the show notes. You don’t want to miss out on this. If you’re like, I don’t know if this is for me.

Jump over there and take a look. I love it when practices send multiple team leads. It is something great for them to do together. They get inspired together. They share ideas together. This is super interactive. They’re gonna get to see what other practices are doing and help bring it back to your practice. Anyway, it is a wonderful use of time effort and energy.

I promise that I do everything in my power to help make it that So anyway registration closes in less than two weeks. Don’t miss out. I’d love to see you at the Team Lead Summit on September 18th. All right You Let’s get back into this episode.

Dr. Andy Roark: I, I’ve asked a lot of people, do you think veterinarians should get thicker skin? And I’ve gotten mixed results. Some people just sort of say, yeah, I think we should just ignore a lot of crap. And I’ve had other very persuasive people say, no, I don’t think we should.

I think that we’re compassionate people and we should try to educate and we should, you know, engage where we can to just to keep, you know, to keep making people feel supported and to keep, to your point, trying to build a trust bank. And so let me let me ask you that question. Are you more on team thicker skin or are you more on team, no, this is, we should, we should protect ourselves, but we should continue to kind of engage in the battle for truth.

Where do you, where do you fall?

Kelsey Beth Carpenter: Right down the middle Right the middle just to make it complicated, you know,

Dr. Andy Roark: No, I think that’s the right answer. I mean, you know, the middle path is usually the right one. 

Kelsey Carpenter: I absolutely agree with you. We we can’t take things so personally. We can’t. We have to recognize. That this is all of this is part of some ridiculous social media algorithm followers game which we’re not interested in anyways, right?

Dr. Andy Roark: We shouldn’t It’s funny how much people get sucked into that and they’re like, Oh, I’ve got get more followers. And I’m like, these people are not coming into your practice. They’re not supporting you. They’re fighting with you. They’re taking your time and your emotional energy, but they are not bringing their pet to you.

Kelsey Beth Carpenter: But I, I think the other thing too is for myself, something I’ve been working on is that space in between You know my gut reaction to something and then a more logical less emotion based reaction to something. Here’s the problem in social media is that social media moves quick So the second that doctor that video it goes viral within a matter of hours, right?

And you’ve got about 24 hour window to respond before people have forgotten about it entirely. So that’s the problem. However, I I I do wish you that was something we could all work on, which is how do we respond to things in a way that’s less emotionally based and more factually based? And I say that with, again, a lot of heart because it’s something I struggle with as well.

But I think we come off a lot differently when we react defensively rather than reacting from an educational standpoint. Because here’s what I see is this. Angry doctor posting this negative content attacking another industry, right? If i’m a logical person on the internet I’m going to take what he says with a grain of salt because I can already see who this person is But if I then see let’s say a vet tech respond and say well actually I called this guy’s practice and here’s how he marks up his stuff. Are we not just doing the same thing?

Dr. Andy Roark: Exactly right. Yeah. Yes.

Kelsey Carpenter: I just want to be very clear that i’m saying this with so much heart. It’s exactly what I wanted to do in the moment, right? When I saw it. Okay, 1000%. But again, if I’m a pet owner on the internet and I see this video from this guy, I’m going to take it with a grain of salt, but I’m still going to be like, wow, those are some heavy markups.

That’s a little rough. How am I going to afford that when it comes to it? And now I see this vet tech posting. Well, what about this guy? Doctors don’t have, human doctors don’t have the best reputation right now either. So, I’m just gonna lump you all into one class and say all medical professionals 

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah. 

Kelsey Carpenter: are dramatic and crazy and they’re all marking it up and they’re all screwing us over and I can’t trust any of them.

Versus if I’ve got, Dr. Andrew Roark comes over here on the internet and he goes, Hey, I saw this video go viral recently and if I was a pet owner watching it, I’d be really concerned. I really want to break this down for you guys so you can better understand what’s going on. Why your vet bills look the way they are.

And how they work. That’s gonna change my view completely. I’m gonna say, wow, that guy was really angry and trying to start some stuff on the internet. Look at this Dr. Andy Roark guy, like, I feel like I can trust this guy. I’m gonna listen to what he says a little bit better, you know?

Dr. Andy Roark: I, I, I like your, I like your perspective here. I think that it’s funny when you sort of say, you know, human medicine, you say, oh, these people are, are the worst. My idea, my idea is about human healthcare. You and I have talked about this before. We, we, this is one of the podcasts that we did was talking about being a patient and what, and what we sort of learned.

Human healthcare in this country is broken, in my mind. I love my general practice doctor. Her, she is, she is great. Like, I like her, I trust her. I’m so glad that I found her. I think that that’s probably the duality that we’re probably heading for. I think we can try to fight the good fight, and it’s worth it.

But ultimately, I think you framed it up really nicely. In my mind, I don’t have great feelings about human health care right now. But I do really, really like my general practice doctor, and I do listen to her, and I do trust her, and ask for her advice, and I expect that when I ask her things, she tells me the truth, and she helps me in the best way that she can.

And so anyway, I think that that’s, that may be That may be the future and kind of where we’re going. So anyway, Kelsey. Thank you for coming on and talking through this with me I really appreciate it. I really appreciate the opportunity Always just to kind of flesh ideas out with us with you and always love your thoughts on what’s going on online and just sort Of I don’t know on life in general.

So where can people find you online?

Kelsey Carpenter: I’m hiding in the depths of Instagram watching funny dog videos.

Dr. Andy Roark: Ha, ha, ha,

Kelsey Carpenter: No, I’m a Kelsey Beth Carpenter

Dr. Andy Roark: Send a self addressed stamped envelope to the P. O. Box.

Kelsey Carpenter: You can fax me at- No, I’m Kelsey Beth Carpenter. I’m mostly Instagram and a little bit on Facebook these days.

Dr. Andy Roark: You’re so old. 

Kelsey Carpenter: I’m so old, but can I tell you real quick? My favorite thing on Facebook is this Facebook group. It’s huge It’s got thousands of members in it. It’s called the dull men’s club and it’s literally it’s not just for men It’s all people but it’s just

Dr. Andy Roark: That was not remotely where I thought you were going with

Kelsey Carpenter: It’s literally just people posting the most dull moments of their life that that make them so happy. So like someone posted the other day you guys I finally finished my chapstick And it’s like how often do you finish a chat a whole chapstick, you know, it is like what an accomplishment man. That’s really made my day It’s like that’s my

Dr. Andy Roark: The Dull Man’s Group.

Kelsey Carpenter: Anyways, Kelsey Beth Carpenter on facebook and instagram I’m pretty quiet on there these days, but i’m just kind of lurking in the background

Dr. Andy Roark: Alright, well, I, I know what I’m gonna go check out on Facebook, so. Anyway. Alright, thank you for being here. Guys, thanks for tuning in and listening. Take care of yourselves, everybody.

And that’s what I got for you guys.

Thank you for being here. Thanks to Kelsey Carpenter for coming along and being my co pilot on the episode. Guys, if you’re enjoying the podcast, please leave me a review wherever you get your podcasts. It’s how people find the show and it means a lot to me. So, anyway, thank you very, very much. You guys take care of yourselves.

I’ll talk to you later.

Ron Sosa, a Certified Veterinary Practice Manager and advocate for neurodiversity, dives deep into the operational challenges and management strategies that can help create an inclusive environment. On this episode of the Cone of Shame Podcast, Dr. Andy Roark and Ron Sosa explore practical ways to manage workload effectively while being cognizant of the unique needs of neurodivergent staff. This episode is invaluable for anyone looking to enhance team dynamics and understand the nuances of neurodiversity in the workplace. Don’t miss these insights that aim to foster a supportive and efficient practice environment.

You can also listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Soundcloud, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts!

LINKS

Ron Sosa on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronald-sosa-cvpm-53453797/

Synaptic Neuro-inclusive Leadership: https://ronsosa84.wixsite.com/synaptic-leadership

Dr. Know-It-All Card Game: https://drandyroark.com/in-the-know/

Dr. Andy Roark Exam Room Communication Tool Box Team Training Course: https://drandyroark.com/on-demand-staff-training/

Dr. Andy Roark Charming the Angry Client Team Training Course: https://drandyroark.com/charming-the-angry-client/

Dr. Andy Roark Swag: drandyroark.com/shop

All Links: linktr.ee/DrAndyRoark

ABOUT OUR GUEST

Ron is a Certified Veterinary Practice Manager and a former practice owner and business director for multisite animal hospitals. He also hold certificates in Neurodiversity, compassion fatigue, veterinary business leadership, and the human animal bond. He currently serves as the Executive Director for the Uncharted Veterinary Conference., Dr. Andy Roark is a practicing veterinarian in Greenville SC and the founder of the Uncharted Veterinary Conference. He has received the NAVC Practice Management Speaker of the Year Award three times, the WVC Practice Management Educator of the Year Award, the Outstanding Young Alumni Award from the University of Florida’s College of Veterinary Medicine, and the Veterinarian of the Year Award from the South Carolina Association of Veterinarians.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Dr. Andy Roark: Welcome everybody to the cone of shame veterinary podcast. I am your host, Dr. Andy Roark. Guys, I am here today with my good friend Ron Sosa. Ron is a Certified Vet Practice Manager and an educator and advocate on Neurodiversity in veterinary medicine and I give him kind of hard question. I think I talked to him about wanting to support neurodivergent team members and also being honest about the workload that we have in practices And the fact that people in practice might not even know this person is neurodivergent and can get frustrated with behaviors or struggles that they don’t understand.

How do we do those two things? How do we support and also manage the individual and the rest of the team as far as their expectations so that everybody gets along and feels good and the work that we have gets done.

And so anyway, we, we get pretty deep into some of the management struggles around neurodiversity and Ron is fantastic. So anyway, if you have someone on your team who you think might be neurodivergent or who has disclosed that they are neurodivergent, this is going to be a phenomenal episode just for helping you get your head around you know, how to be a good supporter and how to work effectively with these people.

And so anyway, it just. Great conversation. Ron is so wonderful and positive and helpful. And just, I feel like I took a lot away from this episode. I hope you will too. 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, Ron Sosa, how are you, my friend?

Ron Sosa: I’m good. How are you, Andy?

Dr. Andy Roark: I am really good. For those who don’t know you, you are the Executive Director of the Uncharted Veterinary Conference. You are a certified veterinary practice manager, and your career has taken an interesting turn in the last year or two.

Because you’ve been doing a lot of writing on neurodivergence and neurodiversity in veterinary medicine and you write about it from a management perspective, which of course aligns with the Uncharted focus of running smooth teams and practices. And it’s just been really fascinating to watch you grow.

You’re doing workshops in this space and things like that. And so yours has been a career that I just creatively has really blossomed and I’m just glad, you know, as a, as the founder of Uncharted to, to get to watch it up close, but but I’ve got. I’ve got something that I’ve been kind of rolling around and I thought that you were the perfect person to talk to about it.

And so let me, let me set the stage and then kind of, kind of bring you in here. So, you know, I read a lot about running effective teams in vet medicine, something I care a lot about and, you know, for a long time. I, you know, I’ve taught SMART goals as a tool in our toolbox. For those who aren’t familiar with SMART goals it’s just making goals that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound, meaning they have a deadline on them. And so it’s, it’s a, it’s a good way to sort of format your thoughts and make a structured goal that you can then check yourself against and make sure you’re actually doing what you intended to do and that you’re moving forward in the way that you set out to move.

And so anyway, this is sort of something that I’ve talked about for years and And kind of had it and used it. And then I saw a post from one of my friends. So Dr. Kate Boatwright is she’s writing a lot these days as well. And I think she’s, she’s pretty smart. I do enjoy her. I, she’s been on the podcast before.

And so she had this post recently about the fact that she had been teaching smart goals and someone really pushed back against her and said, boy, I really, I hate SMART goals. And she said, SMART goals the way it was put to her was, SMART goals don’t often work or don’t tend to work for people who are neurodiverse.

They just the, the format doesn’t, doesn’t make sense to them and there are better ways to format information and work with people who are neurodiverse. I know neurodiverse is a big bucket. But really, it was interesting to see this strong pushback against sort of a, a format that seemed pretty sort of common sense to me at this point.

And so I was thinking about that and I was thinking back to something that you wrote recently about time blindness and you talked about people who are neurodivergent in some instances might struggle with deadlines and just being sort of time unaware. And I thought, Hey, you know, I would like to know more about this.

And so I’ve talked a lot here, sort of setting up, setting up the the reason that we’re sort of talking. Ron, let me kind of hand this over to you. Can you talk to me a little bit about let’s start at a high level. As a CVPM, as someone who is focused on efficiency and operations, and someone who is really interested in being supportive of neurodivergence in our practices, can you talk to me a little bit about the challenges that neurodivergent people face from an operations standpoint in practice?

Ron Sosa: Yeah. I think the number one thing that gets spotted probably the most is just what you said. We talk about time blindness and time blindness is basically the inability to tell how long things take what time of day it is, how long you’ve been spending. Like think about our exam room common problems where you send a technician in and they’ve taken 30 minutes of the appointment getting a history, Any one of us can experience time blindness. So it’s like, I didn’t even realize it was in there or think of time. You drove home from work and had no idea how you got home. You know, it was that autopilot moment, right? That is time blindness where we just, our mind goes on the auto drive. We have no idea, a sense of time, how long things are taking, how long things are not taking.

We’re just doing the thing right in front of us.

Dr. Andy Roark: it’s just it’s to me. I always look at that. It’s kind of a good thing in practice, right? It means you’re fully engaged with with what you’re doing. So if I’m working on a team with someone who’s neurodiverse is How often is is things like time dialing this? How does that come into play?

Is this is this someone who is constantly? Unaware of time or like what does that look like in in in day to day practice and how I’m working with this person

Ron Sosa: Yeah. I would say that, you know, the neurotypical person, it probably happens to, you know, a few times a month, maybe, but for the neurodivergent person, we’ve got to be really, really careful. And so I would say that being somebody who didn’t, was late diagnosed, didn’t really understand myself. I would say I had been late.

Torn to the other side where I’ve been extremely overly conscious of my time. And so when I’m in an exam room, I’m going to get in and get out and getting a history, but for others, if they may not recognize how much 10 minutes is or five minutes, I do a lot for that. And so it happens all at the time.

They have no idea how long they’ve been shooting an x ray for, or taking care of a treatment on a pet or, you know, educating a client. It’s just. They have no concept of what 10 minutes feels like, because 10 minutes will feel like an eternity in one moment, and it’ll also feel like two seconds have gone by in another moment.

So there’s no consistency of what it feels like.

Dr. Andy Roark: I think a lot of people Probably feel a little bit, I don’t know, a little bit torn or a little bit trapped when we start talking about colleagues with neurodivergence because we have a very compassionate profession and I want to be compassionate and I want to set people up to succeed. And at the same time, nobody wants to be buried under work and not having appointments get seen and things like that.

Hey guys, communication is key to creating amazing experiences in the clinic. From the phones to the front desk, to the exam room. The way our teams interact with pet owners makes a difference. The team training bundle I have Dr. Andy wrote.com brings together my charming, the angry client and exam room communication toolkit courses to provide flexible on demand communication training for your veterinary practice. Check them out. 

These courses are made to be taken. in groups, they have discussion questions. They are all about taking these trainings and getting them to apply to your practice, your culture. And your clients, whether it’s handling angry clients. Or being effective in the exam room. We’ve got some great training resources that you can grab and drop and use pieces of. 

They’re all broken up into five minute modules to make it super easy for you to use what you want and skip over what you don’t want. Tag them onto the end of staff meetings, or just make a whole staff meeting out of the trainings. Anyway, super flexible. It’s Dr. Andy Roark.com/team training gang. 

Let’s get back into this episode. And so it’s funny when I look at this post about SMART goals and, and, and my friend is getting this pushback that says, you know, this, this doesn’t work, this doesn’t help. And then I see things about like time blindness and I go, okay, I see that and I want to be compassionate. And also I don’t know how, how we run an effective team if we can’t pay attention to time or set, you know, actionable goals and hold people accountable.

Dr. Andy Roark: And, and, and, and also I would never want to have a profession that wasn’t open to everyone. And there are neurodivergent people that, that we work with who are, who’ve been absolutely, absolutely wonderful to be around. And so let me, let me sort of give you that little bit of conundrum because I know it’s something that you.

that you think about and write about a lot is, Ronic, start to unpack for me a little bit about what it looks like to provide a supportive environment and to be open and I don’t know, welcoming of neurodivergent people in our teams and also not have the rest of the staff get frustrated because we say, well this person, we’ve told them what the goal is and they, they don’t, they don’t work to it or we’ve, you know, we’ve told them what our constraints are and they’re not being met.

How do you manage those things?

Ron Sosa: Yeah, I think first we’ve got to recognize the fact that we’ve built society around the average brain chemistry, right? So, When we think about, Oh, we’re frustrated because somebody hasn’t achieved their goals. It’s because we’re, we’re being very rigid and not thoughtful about how different brain brain chemistries work.

And so, you know, I think about the smart goal and there’s something called a demand avoid, avoidance. So once you tell me I have to do a thing, it is much harder for me to want to do the thing. Whereas if I was already going to do it and I was already committed myself to doing the thing, I could, I can easily get it done.

Also with ADHD, you have the. It’s either now or not now. And so I’m either going to do it right this moment, or I’m going to forget about it until the deadline comes. And I’m going to do it in the last 10 minutes. so I think that’s part of the issue with, with smart goals is it does not unnecessarily allow for the followup needed or consistency of followup needed or the understanding of sensory needs that would preclude from being able to achieve the smart goals.

Dr. Andy Roark: Talk, talk to me more about sensory needs to achieve a SMART goal. What do you mean when you say that?

Ron Sosa: Yeah. So sensory, obviously we have our five senses, you know, we’ve got sight, smell, taste, touch and hearing. And so with neurodivergent individuals, we have a heightened or desensitized sensory system. And so, you know, fluorescent lighting, I think affects most of us, but think about that lighting situation, how that flickering fluorescent ball would bother the normal person now times that by 10 or a hundred, and that’s overly affecting that person.

And so I have a sensory hypersensitivity. You know, like this, some people have the hypersensitivity to a certain smell or I always equate this with allergies when you talk about the allergy pet who has a threshold, right? They’re allergic to trees, grasses, molds, weeds, and something tips them over the edge and they have an allergy flare up, right?

So they could be allergic to 10 things, but that 11th thing pushes them over the edge. That’s how I think of sensory. We can be fine with some of our sensory inputs until you hit that 11 thing and it completely pours over and you get breakdowns. You get emotional dysregulation. You get the inability to effectively do a task.

You get all of that. Just kind of breakdown and shame kind of. Sets in because you can’t do the thing.

Dr. Andy Roark: Do you think that that usually presents in a way that people recognize it and say, Oh, well, this is sort of sensory overload, or does it present generally as this is this is a team member who’s struggling this person? I don’t understand why he’s so upset about having to work in the isolation room. And the reality is, this is a really hard environment for him.

Let’s just say. But I don’t, I mean, most of us, we’re busy, you know what I mean? And we try to, we try to pay attention to other people, but we’re generally focused on ourselves and what we’re doing. And so, yeah, talk to me a little bit about that, about, about the presentation to management or in the team where you say, okay, how do I, how do I recognize when a team member is struggling say from a conflict with neurodivergence, from sensory input overload, things like that.

Or do I, or do I just. Do I just approach this person as an individual who’s struggling and help me, help me sort of start to put one foot in front of the other to, to trying to, to, to work with this person effectively.

Ron Sosa: And I think as a leader, I want to treat, treat the person like a human being, but I want to be aware of the possibility of what they’re going through. And so, and the other problem is most people born in our age group are underdiagnosed, like. I wasn’t diagnosed with ADHD until I was in my late 20s. I got an autism diagnosis in my mid thirties, and so I had no clue I had these quote unquote sensory problems until I was more aware and educated myself as to what was going on.

So I think that just seeing someone struggling is. The leader’s job is to like, Hey, what’s going on? And they may have no clue that it’s today. It’s the, you know, the Parvo dog smell and the block cat smell, plus the lighting, plus the, the kennel saw or whatever the smells that are going on. They just don’t have a clue as why they’re necessarily overwhelmed.

And I think a lot of people can relate to that. Like, I just feel overwhelmed today and I have no idea why. I can do the same job yesterday and be completely fine. But today is overwhelming me and the caseload is not as high.

Dr. Andy Roark: That, that, okay. So that totally makes sense. And it also, it makes it easier for me to sort of approach people because you just approach them as, as people and say, okay, I see this person is struggling. Imagine, imagine for a sec, Ron, that you were coaching someone who was a manager in a hospital or a veterinarian, who was, who was a rule following person, you know what I mean, who is very much a process version of this is how we do it, and this is how we do it, and this is how we do it, and everyone, you need to get your job done, and again, I, I, those people can be really, really valuable in a, in a hospital.

I, I can imagine a situation where people who are process people or rule sort of following people might particularly struggle with working with someone who’s neurodiverse and who maybe struggles with this structure or this, I don’t you know, just, just, Has a, has a hard day for reasons that aren’t obvious to, to someone outside.

Co, coach this manager, this leader for me a little bit to help them get their head into the right place where they can start to, instead of saying, well, she’s not following the rules. She’s not, she didn’t, she didn’t do this thing. We had this clearly stated objective and she didn’t get to it. How do you, how do you start to change that person’s mindset?

And then how do you, how do you help them? To be more successful and also be more comfortable.

Ron Sosa: sure. I think, the answer I’ll give to anyone is I really feel like we need to go through some neurodiverse sensitivity training. And even if we don’t call it that, we need to just be able to understand that everybody’s brain chemistry works different. In fact, I would probably say the person who is your you know, High justice, you know, seeking person is probably on the neurodivergent spectrum themselves because most autistics need to follow the rules and neurodivergent as a whole have justice sensitivity where they have a complete sensitivity to Need to follow the rules, need to be fair.

We need to have the same setting applied to each person. And it’s just not the case. Like every individual is a person, every individual has their own strengths and weaknesses, and we just need to treat people like people. And that’s what I would probably talk to, you know, this leader or this person who is coming up to me about the need for justice, so to speak.

It’s be like, you know, I don’t treat everybody equally. I treat everybody fairly. And I think that really goes down to what is their strengths? What is their weaknesses? How can I help them? What supports have they already received? What supports can I already, can I give them next? You know, what are they, what do they think they need versus what do I think they need?

I think there’s a lot of questions to answer.

Dr. Andy Roark: yeah, I, I, I agree with that. So if you’re working with someone who’s a neurodiverse team member, are there questions that you can ask Ron that you think help to open that conversation up? You know, it’s, I’m imagining things like are there, are there Are there days that you have noticed that you particularly struggle?

Are there tasks that are I, you know, I, I’m, I’m kind of digging at, at those types of things. I want to ask some open ended questions to have this person sort of tell me how they’re feeling or, or what their struggles are or where they feel like they get lost or bogged down. 

Because if I don’t have that conversation, I don’t understand what the challenges are I can’t really support them. Have you heard questions that help sort of open those conversations up in a nonjudgmental way that allows us to support neurodivergent team members?

Ron Sosa: Yeah. I it’s, it’s hard because number one, I would say most don’t disclose their neurodivergence because of shame of their past or, you know, Shame of, will I even get the job if I do this or will I get fired if I, they think I can’t do my job. So there’s a lot of non disclosure that happens. And then what I don’t want to do is have leaders out in the vet clinics trying to diagnose their, their team.

Right. And so if we have somebody who has disclosed, then we can start to talk to them about their specifics. You know, what sensory things. have you had problems with what, what sensory things have you not had problems with? Like, I think we can very, we can ask very specific questions once we know that there’s disclosure, but if not, and we have those who have no idea that they are neurodivergent.

And so I think I have to try to go back to like treating the person like a person. And you and I have done the whole, you know, let’s just sit down and talk and see what’s bothering you. I see you’re struggling. I look, we go right to the behavior and not the person. Like this is what I’m seeing. You know, how can we work best together to achieve what it is we’re trying to achieve over here?

Dr. Andy Roark: No, that, that totally makes sense. Ron, thanks so much for just talking through this with me. I mean, this is I think you, You put this in great perspective. This is really helpful. It’s not, you know, it’s a lot of it’s just sort of a mindset change. And a lot of it’s just sort of trying to understand and go, Oh, people’s brains work very differently than mine.

And and we’re just gonna have to talk to people and try to meet them where they are and figure out you know, it’s not about right or wrong. It’s just about different and sort of come up with a solution that kind of works for everybody. Ron, you’re writing a lot on LinkedIn. Is there other places that people can find your work or should they be following you there?

Ron Sosa: Yeah. I just started writing on LinkedIn. I’ve never considered myself a writer. And then I just, Decided to write an article that I was feeling really passionate about and it’s kind of taken off. And so I will say I’m hopefully going to have a book published in the next year is the timeline, is my smart goal, so to speak. So maybe we’ll have it out by next April is the goal. But yeah, all my writing right now is usually two to five minute blog articles on LinkedIn.

Dr. Andy Roark: That’s outstanding. Thank you so much for being here, my friend. Guys, thanks for tuning in and listening. Take care of yourselves, everybody.

Ron Sosa: Yeah. 

Dr. Andy Roark: And that’s it guys. That’s what I got for you. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you took something out of it. Thanks again to Ron for being here. Guys. If you enjoyed the episode, please leave me an honest review wherever you get your podcasts. It means the world to me. It’s how people find the show. Anyway, take care of yourselves, everybody.

I’ll talk to you later. Bye. 

Beloved influencer and LVT, Sarah Parsons joins us to talk about her journey building a brand online. Join Dr. Andy Roark and Sarah Parsons, LVT, on the Cone of Shame Veterinary Podcast as they dive into the world of brand building in veterinary medicine. Sarah, the creative force behind the popular @Wat_Really_Happens_at_The_Vet social media channels, shares her journey and insights on leveraging platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook to engage with veterinary professionals. This episode explores the importance of creating content that resonates with a professional audience, the dynamics of social media growth, and tips for veterinary technicians aspiring to establish their own unique brand.

You can also listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Soundcloud, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts!

LINKS

Sarah Parsons on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/watreallyhappensatthevet/

Sarah Parsons: www.vettechsarahparsons.com

Team Leads Summit: www.unchartedvet.com/tls2024

Dr. Andy Roark Exam Room Communication Tool Box Team Training Course: https://drandyroark.com/on-demand-staff-training/

Dr. Andy Roark Charming the Angry Client Team Training Course: https://drandyroark.com/charming-the-angry-client/

Dr. Andy Roark Swag: drandyroark.com/shop

All Links: linktr.ee/DrAndyRoark

ABOUT OUR GUEST

Sarah Parsons, LVT, is a distinguished social media Influencer within the veterinary community, renowned for her engaging portrayal as the “silly vet tech” Through vibrant videos showcasing life in Vet Med, Sarah inspires laughter and learning among Veterinary Professionals. She is deeply passionate about fostering a joyful and fulfilling workplace environment. Her dedication has led to being one of the co-founders of Camp VetMed. In addition to her impactful career, Sarah is a devoted mother to two boys. She resides on a ranch in Houston, Texas, where she cherishes outdoor activities, sports, and quality time with friends.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Dr. Andy Roark: Welcome everybody to the Cone of Shame Veterinary Podcast.I am your host. Dr. Andy Roark guys. I am here with Sarah Parsons, LVT. For those you do not know her. Sarah is the creative force behind the What Really Happens at The Vet Instagram TikTok young person social media outlet that she runs. She’s an LVT and she makes really funny videos and content. We talked about in one of her videos about getting 48 million views and like she’s got a string of hits . If you want to find some stuff that is positive and funny check her stuff out. She’s really I– she she makes me laugh.

And so yeah, I was really glad that she was here. We were talking about brand building today. We’re gonna talk about what it means to build a brand in modern social media. And that’s really her interest is in video creation and in putting stuff out online and starting to build a following. And so I know a lot of people are interested in what it means to build a brand as a vet professional. Maybe specifically a veterinary technician and we, we get into that. And so she’s got some good advice. It’s been, it’s fun talking to her sort of about her journey. I think you guys will enjoy it. 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. 

Dr. Andy Roark: Welcome to the podcast, Sarah Parsons. Thanks for being here.

Sarah Parsons: Hello! Thank you for having me! Super excited! Aaaahhh!

Dr. Andy Roark: It’s my pleasure. For those who do not know you, you are the create, you are an LVT and the creative force behind the what really happens at the vet Instagram and TikTok channels. You are very funny. I genuinely really enjoy. I really enjoy your work.

Yeah, you have got, you have amassed a massive following. You are one of the most popular veterinary influencers that I see out there. I, you are definitely one of my favorites for reasons that we’ll talk about here in a moment when we get going. You are going to be speaking at the Uncharted Team Lead Summit with me in in September, September 17th.

Tickets are going to go on sale in July. It’s a virtual summit for Head technicians, head CSRs, things like that. Yeah, so, yeah, let’s go ahead. I want to go ahead and just sort of start off. I want to talk today about brand building, and it’s something that I think a lot of people are really interested in.

It’s sort of an interesting topic. I want to talk to you. Honestly, I sat down and I was, I was, you and I were going to do some work together in some other ways. And so I had a couple things I kind of wanted to do with you, but, but then I started, I was like, what is the one thing that I would honestly like to talk to Sarah about?

And it’s this. Yeah. So this is, this is my, my, my real topic about, I want to kind of look at, I want to look at building a brand. I want to look at building a brand as a technician or support staff member. I want to talk a little bit about modern social media. I want to talk about vets, the vet world on modern social media and stuff like that.

So let me, let’s go ahead and start off with your resume. Can you kind of lay down Where do you publish your content? You know, how long have you been doing it? Just give me a, give me a picture of the what really happens at the vet empire.

Sarah Parsons: Of course. So it’s, you know, I feel like it’s a lot more simple than really, you know, how it’s being portrayed. But I do post on I know.

Dr. Andy Roark: Roll with it. Just act you’re like as one influencer to another, like take yourself very seriously and with it and roll with.

Sarah Parsons: No, there’s really a lot more that actually goes on behind the scenes and what looks at it. Cause I think a lot of people say like, oh, she posts funny videos and like, and what?

That’s, you know, and basically that’s it. But there’s a whole lot more that goes into it. I do post videos. That’s, you know, my main platform, of course, is posting my social media videos. I post on TikTok and Instagram and Facebook, you know, cross, cross posts on most of those platforms and and everything.

And I post funny, silly, relatable videos about veterinary medicine. My handle is what really happens at the vet. I honestly thought that my main audience was going to be pet owners. So whenever I started that, that is kind of why the handle was what it was.

And that’s just kind of how I started and how my thought process was starting off. But I realized very quickly that my audience was mainly veterinary medicine, veterinary professionals. I’m talking veterinarians, vet techs, veterinary assistants, CSRs, practice managers, anyone in the veterinary professional field.

And the reason, you know, I think people resignated with these videos is because they’re so relatable to veterinary medicine. You know, if you know, you know, whenever I post my videos, I think pet owners, you know, You know, realize what’s going on in the videos, but veterinary professors are like, Oh my gosh.

Yes. That’s so true And I love posting those videos But it basically became this, you know, platform where I would be talking to other veterinary professionals and so it kind of grew from there and I, and I’ve wanted to expand and do more things other than just videos.

I started doing Project Golden Vet, which was me going and gifting these gifting free things to other, you know, hardworking, deserving clinics or, you know, in Vet Tech Week doing the same thing, you know, gifting things to other vet techs.

Dr. Andy Roark: So one of the things I think I like the most about you is when, when I look at a lot of your work, it a lot with me. Because I, I have had that same journey of talking to vet professionals. Cause I also, my original plan was to talk to pet owners. I just, it never sparked the same enjoyment for me as talking to other vet professionals. And no, no shade on, on pet owners. You know what I mean? But like, and, and again, I see a lot of people who really love talking directly to pet owners. And there are some great Adam Christman is, is an example.

Oh, he’s fabulous. He does great work owners. And there’s just, there’s, there’s lots of others, but he’s the first one that pops into my mind. And like, but he clearly loves it. And I just, I never got that excited about making pet education videos. I, did it, and I went through a phase where I alright, I’m gonna really try this.

And it just, it never lit my fire. Like talking to other vet professionals who get it and like having those sort of inside jokes. And so I I really love it. Talk to me about about the Golden Vet Program So I love this idea that that you that you sort of show up and you do something nice. What like what did that how did you get that idea that like you were gonna?

Presumably you just, this is always a fear that I have is I, I think, I think about half the vet clinics in America, probably someone in there knows who I am. Like that’s, but that’s it. Like tops like.

Sarah Parsons: Oh yeah, I could just say Andy Roark and immediately people would know who I’m talking about.

Dr. Andy Roark: but I, but I never, never that for granted or anything. And so it would, the idea of me walking into a vet clinic, like I’d have to be primed.

I would have to know that someone there knows me and, not going to just look like a weirdo. Like, like, how did this become a thing in your life? So it’s imagine coming being like, sir, I, you have an appointment, sir? I’m like, I would,

Sarah Parsons: I was afraid of that happening too, but I, I made it, there’s a, again, a whole lot of behind the scenes that went on to make sure that that didn’t happen because not everybody knows who I am. So yes, whenever I did Project Golden Vet and I think a lot of people thought I was crazy when I was like, yeah, I’m just going to go give free stuff to these clinics and just really contest.

And they’re like, okay, Sarah, great. Great. Like. How does this benefit you in any way? And I’m like, it doesn’t so what I would do, and I would work with like, I would get, donated items or sponsors and stuff. And I would I’m, I get this big basket of just stuff, gift cards and just stuff that veterinary professionals can use, like those little clippers off of Amazon and just a whole bunch of different items.

that veterinary professionals would use, and I made sure I said, to all these, you know, companies that I would work with, I said, I want everyone to have one. I’m talking from the veterinarians and practice managers all the way down to the janitor a clipper. 

Andy Roark: You get a clipper! You get a clipper.

Sarah Parsons: Exactly, you get a TV! And so, what I would do, and this is a kind of, you know, sneak peek as far as behind the scenes, what people don’t know what happens, is the way I would surprise them because it’s actually all those were genuine surprises Whenever I would go and I would film their actual responses actual reactions I would contact the practice manager first And I you know, I would honestly get on the phone call the clinic and pretend i’m someone else And I would like 

Dr. Andy Roark: Hello, I’m calling for Cheryl.

Sarah Parsons: Yeah. I would be like I just I had to get the practice manager on the phone somehow and then tell when I was like And I would tell them, I’d say, okay, is anyone else listening?

And they’d be like, no. And I’d be like, okay, not on speaker, like, and everything. And they’d be so weirded out until they found out why. And I’d be like, okay, cool. I’m actually Sarah. This is the reason I’m calling. And we would schedule a time, you know, the practice manager would help me schedule time, you know, for like a, quote, fake staff meeting.

And that’s whenever I would go and I would, you know, we’d provide lunch and I would go and surprise them during that time. The practice manager would be in on it. I would have another person come help me film and whatnot. And so that’s how I kind of, you know, got all that done. But it’s also when, you know, a lot of the clinics were nominated.

and the whole point of it was to also make sure that we feel appreciated in veterinary medicine and it’s important to get that on film, in my opinion, so that Everybody else knows that like, oh my gosh, we are appreciated as an industry.

like we’ve said, you know, before, it’s so hard in veterinary medicine. You get in this headspace of just, oh my gosh, depression, compassion fatigue, burnout. It’s just out the wazoo. So I think, movements like that and, you know, in videos and everything, anything I can is just so, so important to show veterinary medicine that, you know, it’s possible.

Yeah, 

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Dr. Andy Roark: What do you think are the to sort of starting to build a brand as a technician? So let’s sort of talk about that a little bit because you’ve you kind of started into this and you were you enjoyed making videos and then my impression you for a bit in the past has been that it kind of um, I don’t think that you expected exactly what you got.

Talk to me a little bit about that. What is, what is, if someone came up to you and said I’m a technician, I’m interested in building my brand. First of all, what does that, what does that even mean to you? 

Sarah Parsons: Building a brand, in my opinion, this is just me personally building a brand is, I think having something that is unique to, something that’s unique that you can give people and you can show people and something that, exemplifies yourself. So in building a brand, I think you do have to find something that is unique.

And you know this as well with Uncharted. Uncharted is a very unique program. A lot of what you do, there’s uniqueness behind it. And whenever people say, Oh, I want to do social media videos. I want to make my own brand. I’m like, okay, well. What is it going to be? Oh, well, it’s just going to be some funny videos, maybe some educational videos and whatnot.

And I think you really have to narrow down your niche. And whenever you are building that brand to who you want your audience to be and who you are talking to, because if it’s just, again, you know, I thought it would be pet owners, but then it turned out to be veterinary professionals. Once I found that out, I kind of zeroed in on that and I was like, okay, there’s so much I could do with this.

And so those are my videos. I make silly, funny, relatable videos. No, they’re not really educational, but people can kind of understand that I know what I’m talking about whenever it comes to the industry, I guess. And building your brand, there’s, it’s not just making the videos.

It’s going out of your way to do what other people really haven’t done or figuring, I don’t know, it’s figuring out your own style, I guess, think 

Dr. Andy Roark: I think your own style is a big part of it. I i’m curious if this is true with you. I I never had a big plan And I think people ask me about like how i’m making a brand and like they’re scaffolding And it’s funny. Um You know, we had a huge discussion with, the team today about Game of Thrones, and we were, I don’t know, it totally got in talking about Game of Thrones.

we’re talking about George, George Martin who wrote Game of Thrones. He has this quote that I really like, though. He’s talking about other people writing books, and he said, he said, there’s two kinds of authors. architects And the architects are the people who scaffold everything. They have an, they have a plan.

They know what they’re building and they go in the building. And he said, I’m more of a gardener where I just plant things. And then, you know, see it see what grows here and I water it. And the other stuff just kind of dies. And I just kind of go, Oh, I just kind of go on. And I, I was much more of a gardener of

You’re just, and what I mean, I feel like that’s probably the path with you as well, at least, especially talking to vet professionals is like I cast some seeds talk to pet owners and like, it’s not that they didn’t grow, it’s just that they didn’t spark joy in my heart, you know what I mean?

And so I like, kind of, kind of let them wither in the sun and then kind of, kind kept watering the part that brought me joy. And it kind of, I don’t know, it went there. I think, I think a lot of it too. So I sort of look at your, your career and then, and then my own is like, you know, when I came, When I came up, really, started building a brand and things like that, Facebook was the only game, it was Facebook and Twitter.

And that like the only game in town, and, and I, I liked Facebook at the time, and kind of what it was, and, and it worked for me, and I liked to tell jokes, and Facebook was good for like, at the time, letting me, letting me do some, some writing in paragraph kind of format and things like that. And then now now the world has kind of changed and it’s just it’s not the same and that path isn’t necessarily open. But then here you come and you’re kind of making these these short 60 second videos And and they and they they work really well and you found you’ve sort of found this medium that works for you and it’s funny.

I I think it’s because of how sort of what i’ve done in the past I struggle to make things in 60 seconds that are really funny and sort of punchy. It’s just it’s not it’s not my art. And so when you’re saying you should You Find the thing, you know, find the thing that’s your thing or find your style. I think that that’s really true.

And and I think that, you know, sometimes your style matches up with platforms that are available really well. And sometimes I think it doesn’t. I think there’s probably some really amazing writers out there, but I think it’s probably much harder. to really build your brand. There’s just not as many opportunities and people just don’t read like they did 10, 20 years ago, you know?

Sarah Parsons: I can say that because my sister’s an author and she’s trying social media and it is a lot more of a struggle because she’s, you know, because again, people don’t read as many books as I think they used to. There’s still a, there’s still a niche for that. There’s still, you know, area, you know, for growth there.

But it, I think it’s a lot more difficult for her. And I think honestly, luck was on my side as well. Like, I don’t, I don’t chalk it up to like, Oh yes, this was a plan all the time. And I made myself the way it is. Like, I think a lot of it, like you said, was luck and just like, once something worked, then you zero in on that.

So I definitely agree with that.

Dr. Andy Roark: Well, it was definitely luck for me. I tell people that all the time, like I, you know, we, my wife and I had our first child in 2008 and that’s when I graduated from vet school. So I was a brand new vet with just wide eyes. And I got on Facebook to share pictures of my baby with my family and like all of these, and Facebook was just taking off and they were like, sure You’re come on.

And it was was no, like there was no money driving it. It was, there was no algorithm. It was just like, got. Whoever, posted in order it was there. And it was just, but it was, it was kind of this, this right place, right time. But I think that the opportunities keep opening up for people, but I, I don’t know.

I think you have to find your art. I think you have to find your style. I think that was, that was part of the thing for me. And I just kind of wanted to see how you feel at this is for, for me, I think one of the mistakes that I think a lot of people make in sort of Working online or trying to sort of build a brand or something like that.

Is that they, they really focus on trying to go viral. And I think what I did that worked well was I, I put that out of my mind. And I tried to find people who liked my specific goofy self. And, and tried to talk to them again and again and again. You know what I mean? And, and you, you, you zoom in on those people who go, Oh, I think she’s really funny.

And if, If someone likes your different types of dogs on the scale video, they’re probably going to like your you know, I don’t know Everyone Finds Underwear and Dogs like whatever, whatever the other, the things are, but like, I don’t know, I, I’m curious if you, I’m curious if you agree with that.

I’m curious if you have found that kind of zeroing in on what you enjoy and what you get feedback on has been beneficial over continuing just things. I don’t know. What do you think?

Sarah Parsons: Yes. No, I actually wholeheartedly agree with that because if your channel, whatever it is, for me, it was my, Tik mainly, for me, it was my channels. If you don’t have a purpose or something that you are adding value to your followers, your viewers, so if you’re just basing it off of like, I just want the video to go viral, then yes, I don’t think it’s going to work out very well if you’re just like, I want this one to go viral.

Like then if that’s the whole point, then it’s not going to, your, your channel has to have some sort of value to your viewers. So whether that, you know, means they’re coming to me because they are a self conscious veterinary technician that, you know, just needs those laughs or you’re a veterinarian that just, you know, wants to.

You know, find happiness at the end of the day, whatever, you know, those are, you know, the people that you’re finding. So you have to really focus on that and adding value to other people’s lives. 

I still actually remember one of your older videos and this is one of the ones that inspired me to do my channel. It was a technician talking to a pet owner and the technician says, you know, okay, so what’s wrong with, you know, Max today? And the owner says, Oh, you know, nothing that can, or sorry. No, he says, is there anything Max could have eaten or gotten into that you could think of? And the owner’s like, no, I really can’t think of anything.

Dr. Roark comes in. Okay. I hear, you know, Max hasn’t been eating. Oh, he ate an entire meatloaf. It I died because we all know that’s so relatable the vet techs go in and we’re like anything and then the veterinarian comes in and they Give you the life story and you’re like, well great I just you know, I look like I can’t get a history and everything But just the fact that it’s so relatable and so and I also love that You know, one of your ways your brand got built up is also, you know, advocating for the veterinary technicians and for education and everything.

So the fact that you add that value to people’s lives and that you have these all these other things to offer, people are curious. People click on your profile and they say, oh, what is Dr. Rourke about? Like, I like this video. What else do they have? So, yeah. In that, once that starts happening, then I feel like people have developed their own brand whenever they’re like, What else do you have?

Oh my gosh, I love their stuff. Let me follow them. Let me keep up with them.

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah. Do you still think that consistency is the key in posting? So so let me so let me me give you a hard choice here. from like one to ten, ten is a maximum number Output of videos or content is maximum content output That’s low quality and one is minimum content output, but high, high, high quality.

Like you have really worked hard on this. Where are you on this, on this spectrum? Are you, are you team just fire, fire, fire, fire something will be good? Are you team don’t let it go until it’s perfect? Where are you in that spectrum?

Sarah Parsons: I’m more on the end of the higher quality, but also it’s important to be consistent. So, it is, I, there’s a both, but I would say let’s say a four. Because I’m more on the end of higher quality. If I don’t love a video that I, I’m about to post. I don’t post it. I’ve gone through and I’ve deleted drafts and I’ve been like, nope I’m not gonna post that one just cuz like if I haven’t posted it in like a week and it’s just still sitting there Then I’m like, I don’t and then it’s not gonna do well in my mind, you know And sometimes you know ones that you think are gonna go well, you know don’t and sometimes one that you’re like Okay, like the the black tongue bit video that I had talked to you about earlier the one that has 47 million views on Instagram, you know, was just like a, okay, you know, not one that I just, not one that I didn’t think would do well, but I’m like, okay, know, I’ll just post this one.

Dr. Andy Roark: I never would have thought that, you know what I mean? That, I was like, I would have been like, this is a fun little afternoon thing that I’m doing. But again, if you said to me, Andy, true or false, this video is going to get 47 million views. I would be like the odds are astronomically small but here we are. I’m with you like I I could never have looked at that and been like, yep this is viral sensation like I

Sarah Parsons: Right. I’m never that, you know, I’m never that way. I love to post videos and I’m never like, Oh, this one’s going to do so well. Like, but you never know, man. The algorithm works in mysterious ways sometimes.

Dr. Andy Roark: The more I love something, the more it is to die a horrible algorithm That’s what I’ve found. If I’m like, yeah, is it, it’s If I’m like, no, no, no, we’ll see what happens. 

Sarah Parsons, thanks so much for being here. Where can people find you online if they haven’t seen your 47 million view black tongue video. 

Sarah Parsons: I’m on TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook, my social media videos and my handle is at what really happens at the vet with what spelled W A T, so what really happens at the vet. And then my website’s vettechsarahparsons.com, so you can find me on any of those platforms.

Dr. Andy Roark: Awesome. Sarah, thanks for being here. Guys, thanks for tuning in and listening. Take care of yourselves, everybody.

And That’s it. That’s what we got guys. Thanks for tuning in Sarah. Thanks for being here Sarah will be speaking at the uncharted team lead summit on September the 18th. That is a virtual summit for team lead so if you’re a head technician if you are a head kennel technician if you are a If you are a lead CSR lead receptionist, check it out.

It’s a one day leadership communication summit. I think you’ll really enjoy it. Sarah will be there putting on a workshop. I’ll be there as well doing some stuff. It’ll be a good time. Anyway, take care of yourselves everybody. I’ll talk to you later.