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Perspective

Reflections and Predictions

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As the year wraps up, I have been looking back at my goals and predictions from previous years. I found this piece from last year and thought it was worth sharing again. I hope you’ll enjoy it!

I’m not a New Year’s Resolution person. I have never been able to keep any resolutions past February, and when I drop them I just feel bad about myself. I also feel like the resolutions I make are often pulled out of the air based on what I feel like I “should” want, but not what really matters to me. 

When I’ve made resolutions, I’ve chosen the same generic stuff as everyone else. “I want to unplug more,” “I want to lose some weight,” “I want to read more books.” There’s nothing wrong with any of these resolutions. They just feel like they’ve been plucked off a list of resolutions everyone makes (and breaks). They aren’t personal or particularly motivating, so they go nowhere.

Anyway, if resolutions are your jam, I’m not trying to talk you out of them. Please ignore my opinion and continue to ratchet up your personal performance every January. If, however, you’re kind of done with resolutions and want something else to mark the end of the calendar year, might I recommend a nice reflection on what has already happened? How about a fun exercise of trying to predict the future?

I’ve been doing these two exercises for the last four years and really love them. The first is a reflection exercise. I’ve gotten a lot of enjoyment and clarity from thinking deeply about what has happened in the last 12 months and deciding what I want to hold on to.

Some of the questions I ask myself to reflect back are:

  • What do I want to remember forever about 2024? What were the achievements, surprises, and really great moments?
  • What relationships got stronger this year? Who am I most grateful for?
  • What relationships got weaker? Do I want to do anything about that?
  • What life lessons did I learn?
  • Where/when did I have my best experiences in 2024? 
  • Who was there? What can I do to increase the likelihood that I’ll have more experiences like these?

I’ve found that the insight I get from thinking back on what has really helped and mattered to me is deeply motivating when I look ahead into the coming year. The things that made last year great will probably be things I want to focus on going forward. The hard lessons I learned are usually things I want to remember to avoid pain and frustration in the future. The exercise, overall, is worth the time.

The second exercise is about predicting the future. At the end of each year, I create a document and make guesses about what will be true at the end of the coming year. I try to make my predictions short and clear so it will be obvious if they are correct or not. In some cases, I even jot down the percent certainty I have about a prediction (e.g. I will get back into watching TV and will be actively watching at least 2 shows at the end of 2025 – 66% certainty).

It helps me to break my life into parts and then think about each area. I make predictions about: Family, Hobbies, Fitness, Job, Personal Life/Goals.

If you want to try this, just make sections that make sense for you and start writing down what you suspect will be different one year from now. Ask yourself things like:

  • Will you be healthy? How about your parents?
  • Will you have a new best friend?
  • Will you be at a new job? Will you get that promotion?
  • Will you have a new hobby? Will you have stopped doing one of your current hobbies?
  • Will your spouse still be doing yoga daily?
  • Will you still be stopping at Starbucks 3 days a week?
  • Who will win the 2025 Superbowl or NBA Finals or World Series?
  • Where will you go on vacation? 

At the end of each year, I get to look back and see where I thought my life would be at this moment. It’s always fascinating to see how much has changed and how much or little we actually knew about the future. 

If you’ve never done these exercises before, maybe give them a try. If you’re worried about forgetting what you predicted or set out to do, I like to attach what I wrote to a calendar event I schedule for the end of the year so I’ll be sure to see it when the time comes.

I hope these little rituals might help and that you might enjoy them as much as I do. Please take care of yourself as we head to the new year, and have a fantastic 2025!

Best always,

   Andy

Are you standing in the pantry?

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I love to eat. It’s probably my favorite thing to do. Deep down, I believe there are few situations that can’t be improved by a snack. Celebrating? Mourning? Nervous? Bored? Let’s get a menu! For me, food is a social and emotional swiss army knife.

Obviously, this has some drawbacks that I have to manage. I’ve learned that I can’t eat mindlessly or even “listen to my body” (because my body is similar to that of a pug’s and believes it could die of starvation at any moment). I have to be intentional about how often I snack.

Not snacking, it turns out, is HARD. Especially during the holidays when there is food everywhere. To make matters worse, I have a food-driven autopilot mode that gets me into trouble.

Have you ever been lost in your thoughts and found yourself standing in front of the open refrigerator? I have. Much more frequently though, I find myself standing in the pantry. I will be talking on the phone and feeling nervous, or looking for my keys and stressing, or watching commercials on TV and battling boredom and then, all of the sudden… I’m standing in the pantry looking at the granola bar shelf.

Our minds are amazing things. They care about us, but they are pretty simple machines. Our brains notice how we are feeling, and respond in simple ways that have previously been positively received. They recognize a stimulus and immediately react in whatever way has brought us relief in the past. For this reason, I imagine my brain regularly saying things like:

  • “Oh, you’re bored? You won’t feel bored with ice cream!”
  • “Hey buddy, I hate to see you sad. We should have some chocolate.”
  • “Congratulations!!! This is a huge accomplishment! TREAT YO SELF!”

And before I know it… I’m standing in the pantry (except for the ice cream).

Recently, it’s come to my attention that the pantry is not the only place that my mind takes me. In fact, my brain keeps a running list of “pantries” that it can walk me into whenever I have an unmet need (or simply find myself unengaged in any way). I bet your brain has a list like this as well.

Think about it. What are the ideas or imaginary scenarios that your brain automatically turns on when it notices you are stressed or bored? Do you find yourself thinking about the nastiest client encounter you ever had, the time you felt betrayed by a friend, or some future scenario that may or may not happen?

If you find yourself unintentionally returning to a stressful or painful idea again and again, your mind is walking you into the pantry. You might imagine your mind saying something like:

  • “Oh, are you bored? You won’t be when you think about the medical board complaint that client made against you 6 years ago.”
  • “It looks like you’re anxious because you had too much coffee? Let’s imagine the most horrible version of what might happen if the vet clinic where you work decides to be open on Sundays!”
  • “Hey, I know you want to spend your time doing whatever is most important. Well, nothing seems to get your attention more than thinking about the kid who might be bullying your child at school.”

My point here is not to tell you that you shouldn’t work through issues or make hard choices. It’s that you and I should recognize when our minds are walking us into the pantry over and over again. We should notice when our brains are “helping us” by triggering thought or behavior patterns that we find interesting (but that are not good for us).

When we catch our mind slipping into these engaging but destructive patterns, we need to recognize that we are in the pantry and get out of there!

About the photo: A recent photo I took of a frigid morning at Bradley Airport in Connecticut. A much better view than the pantry or freezer!

Good decisions are underappreciated

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It’s not hard to appreciate a bad decision. 

“I should not have given that client my cell phone number” 
“I should not have used the cheapest electrician I could possibly find” 
“I should not have eaten that shrimp appetizer”

Bad decisions stand out because of the obvious and painful consequences they bring. Good decisions, by contrast, are often invisible and unappreciated.

No one thanks you for spaying their dog when they don’t get a pyometra. None of us will ever celebrate the pain and drama you avoided by having a hard conversation other people would have shied away from. Pet owners will never know how much shorter their pets’ lives would have been or how many more health problems their pets would have had if you hadn’t pushed them to be vigilant about weight control. 

Be careful about evaluating yourself based only on the things that have gone wrong or on mistakes you have made. Remember that good decisions almost always lead to silence instead of celebration. This is why the true mark of experience is a quiet life. 

About the photo: If you don’t have deviled eggs at Thanksgiving, did you really have Thanksgiving? Not eating all three platters of deviled eggs was my good decision that seemed underappreciated last weekend…

Changing Veterinary Paths When You’re So Invested

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Dr. Sam Morello joins us for a conversation on changing lanes in veterinary medicine. Sam shares the mic with Dr. Andy Roark on this episode of the Cone of Shame Veterinary Podcast to discuss her career reinvention, transitioning from a tenured equine surgeon to her current leadership. Dr. Morello shares her personal journey and insights on the importance of self-reflection, identifying personal and professional goals, and the courage required to step outside of one’s comfort zone. She emphasizes the value of focusing on what you’re moving towards rather than what you’re leaving behind, and offers practical advice for veterinarians considering a career change. Gang, let’s get into this episode!

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

LINKS

AAVMC Competency-Based Veterinary Education – https://www.aavmc.org/programs/cbve/

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. Sam Morello obtained her DVM from Cornell University in 2006, followed by a residency in large animal surgery at the University of Pennsylvania, and became board certified by the ACVS in 2010.  Dr. Morello spent over a decade in academia as a large animal surgeon and has been a Courtesy Associate Professor at Cornell’s Center for Veterinary Business and Entrepreneurship.  In addition to her clinical research on musculoskeletal disease, she became heavily focused on research related to organizational topics including gender and diversity, career pipelines, compensation, faculty experience, and work-life integration with a goal of directing data-driven strategy for leaders.  She has published extensively and lectured nationally and internationally on these topics.  In 2022, her work on postgraduate trainee compensation and living wages helped to catalyze a scaled national overhaul, resulting in program salary increases averaging 44% and 25% for interns and residents, respectively.  She has served as Assistant Director of Continuing Education for the ACVS, a member of the Board of Directors of the Women’s Veterinary Leadership Development Initiative (WVLDI), an advisor to blendVETâ, a member of the President’s Council of Cornell Women, and as a faculty member of AOVet, where she led a global analysis of organizational demographics and climate to help launch the international AO Access program, dedicated to improving diversity, opportunity, and mentorship in a global community of human and veterinary orthopedic surgeons.  Sam joined the AVMA in 2023 as Assistant Director of Education & Research where, as part of her role, she supports the Council on Education as the programmatic accreditors for veterinary medical training programs.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Dr. Andy Roark: Welcome everybody to the Cone of  Shame Veterinary Podcast. I am your host, Dr. Andrew Roark. Guys, I am here today with my friend, Dr. Sam Morello. This is a really good episode. Guys, this is good. This is a personal episode where I got to talk to Sam. I’ve been really interested in this idea of what it means to reinvent yourself or recreate yourself.

What happens when you’re far down the career path and you think, I don’t think I want to do this anymore, or this isn’t how I want to spend the rest of my career, or I’m, I feel like I’m done here. What do you do with that? And I have a lot of people ask me that. And so when I sat down and said, well, who would I, who would I talk to about this?

Sam Morello was at the top of the list. And so I, I, brought her in. This is someone who was at the top as far as she’s an equine surgeon. She was on the faculty at Wisconsin’s College of Vet Medicine when I met her and she decided to put that, she was tenured. She decided to put that down and go do something different in the vet industry that wasn’t even a job, but she was like, I, this is what I want to go do.

And she, and she sort of made that for herself. And, oh man, she’s so thoughtful and she’s so insightful. And just the advice that she sort of gives in the lessons that she kind of pulled out of her own journey, they’re absolutely worth listening to. And so if you are interested, someone who has ever considered that you might want to do something radically different with the next phase of your career or the next chapter of your life.

This is an episode there’s a hundred percent worth listening to. So anyway, guys, I’m really proud of this one for your listening pleasure. The interview with Dr. Sam Morello

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. Sam Morello. Thanks for being here.

Dr. Sam Morello: Hi, Andy. Thanks for having me back.

Dr. Andy Roark: Always. You are always welcome here. You are one of the people that I always have conversations with and then walk away and think about what you said for like a week and it was funny. I got you back on to record this. And I said, before we start this new podcast, I have to ask you more questions about the last time that you were on, because I’ve been thinking about them ever since then.

And so you I just, you were such a gift to me in that I like to have, I like pick ideas, I like rolling. Concepts around in my head and trying to look at them from different angles. And you were just, you were so good at that. And you just, you, you bring up all these really interesting questions just about a profession and, and it’s really kind of why I want to have you on today.

And so I want to change gears from the things we’ve talked about in the past. And so for those who don’t know you, you are the Assistant Director of Education and research for the AVMA, which I think is really interesting. I think education is, is, is really interesting. I’ve written a ton about it and I 

talk to a lot of people about how we’re educating doctors and techs. And, but, but, but the real reason I want to talk to you about today is I’ve had some people pose questions to me recently about sort of what they say, what they call reinventing themselves. And so they’ll say, I’m at this place in my career and I feel stagnant or I’ve, I feel like I’ve done what I can do here.

And I just, I want to do something different. And so, so I get requests about, you know, what’s your perspective on this or, or how do you do this? Because I’ve, you know, I’ve changed paths a couple of times. But I started thinking about the people that I know who I feel like have truly sort of reinvented themselves.

And you’re, you’re really up there at the top of my list, because when I met you, you were an equine surgeon, you were at the University of Wisconsin’s College of Veterinary Medicine on the faculty there. And now, you’re full time AVMA, and we talk about vet schools and accreditation, and I don’t think you’ve talked to me about surgery in years and years.

And so to me, you are this complete reinvention of who you were earlier, and it’s even more interesting to me because you were a boarded specialist, like Sam, you were all the way in, like you hit. I don’t mean to make you feel bad, you were, you were way down that path and then you were like I’m out and you like smoke bomb and you’re out and then you reappear on a different path really far down that path and you’re going, so let me, let me just start there and sort of say, when I say that, do you think that that’s a fair representation of kind of the transformation that you made in your career or am I being am I exaggerating?

Dr. Sam Morello: Well, while you were, while you were giving me that very generous intro, I was doing the mental gymnastics to think of the last time I scrubbed into surgery and put on sterile gloves.

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah, I was gonna ask you

Dr. Sam Morello: Yeah, I think it was August of 2021. So yeah, it was pretty cold turkey. So I think that everything you said is pretty accurate. I’ve had a couple people who have introduced me as, Oh, this is Sam. She used to be a surgeon.

Dr. Andy Roark: She used to be a surgeon.

Dr. Sam Morello: And, and I, I laugh. I take a little internal offense, but I never get mad. I’d like to think I’m still a surgeon. You know courses through my body and who I am and what I do in so many ways and we can talk about that but no, I, I have not actively done surgery or or practice surgery. Yeah, since late 2021. So, so you’re right.

Dr. Andy Roark: When you left surgery, and we’ll get into kind of where you went, but when you left surgery, did you really go cold turkey? Did you really like to be just, alright that’s my fourth one of the day, and I’m out. And just like clattering clamps and, and

Dr. Sam Morello: Mic drop moment with my gloves, took them off and walked out. I don’t think I knew at the time that that would be, you know, like the last time I would be in an OR. If I knew, I certainly didn’t think about it actively that way, because I’m not sure I would have been able to digest that in like a way that made me happy.

But but yeah, I guess, I guess, I guess I was ready for that at the time, and I wasn’t really, I think my mental framework around it wasn’t about what I was leaving behind, it was what I was moving towards, and I think that thought encapsulates a lot of, of what I talk about, or, or, or think about, or even give advice to people about when they’re thinking about a career shift, or a career re navigation.

That it’s always about it shouldn’t be about what you’re leaving or what you’re running away from. It should always be about what you’re moving towards. And I think that has really been sort of the objective that was always the driving force around my change. It was about what I was moving towards.

And so that wasn’t the thought in my mind, I guess, when I walked out of that OR.

Dr. Andy Roark: It reminds me of when my dad retired, he was a general surgeon on the human side and he retired and he was done and I was like, do you want to do like doctors without borders or something, don’t you want to keep your license up? And he was like, no, I did it. And I’m done with it and now I’m ready for retirement and he like retired hard, you know. He’s got he had lots of projects lined up, but it was funny But I I have always i’ve always still rolled that around of like here’s a person who for my dad He was a surgeon for 30 years and then one day he put the scalpel down and he was like I’m out and that’s that’s it’s interesting.

I think your insight on this, I was thinking about what I was moving towards. I think that that’s really important. When I met you, I didn’t meet you through the context of medicine or surgery. I met you because you were lecturing on the gender wage gap in vet medicine at a summit that I was at, and you crushed it.

Like you were just, I was so immediately impressed with you. It was the first, obviously now that I know you and I said, you inspire me with these ideas. You’re such an interesting thinker. That, but that was the first time that I saw you doing this lecture. And I just thought I was just. Like, wow, she’s, she’s, she’s great.

I have to talk to her. How did you start to move from equine surgery towards sort of gender wage gap? And when I met you, where were you kind of in this transition? Was this still like a hobby that you were doing in your mind? Or did you see this going somewhere? How did you start to put those pieces together as far as, I don’t know, how you, how you saw yourself?

Dr. Sam Morello: Yeah. That’s a really good question. So first of all, I loved surgery. I still love surgery. And that had been the focus of my sort of career path in life for long before I had even gone to vet school. That’s why I wanted to go to vet school. I wanted to be an equine surgeon and I was well into it by the point I met you.

And, and I think that research and that just sort of knowledge development and that, that path was a function of, I had been on this path of being a surgeon and, and meeting that goal. For so long that I was already starting to look for the next challenge and what, you know, what I was gonna, I guess, re navigate myself towards next.

Although I’m not entirely sure that that was conscious. I think that was just subconsciously the way my brain was sort of pushing me. And that research had been born out of, I guess, a confluence of things. I had a lot of students. I had a lot of I guess, you know, I was in the Midwest.

I grew up on the East coast, but I had, I had executed most of my academic career in the Midwest. And I, a lot of younger mostly women, of course, in veterinary school students who were who were married, I think, younger than what I had experienced mostly out in the East Coast and who had, who felt comfortable coming into my office, probably because I was a younger woman and talking to me about their career goals and how they would intersect with their personal lives, particularly as they were planning, you know, planning marriage, starting families, all of that.

And for those that were looking towards a career in equine medicine, equine surgery ambulatory, all of that, in large animal in general, I looked around at the landscape and, and, and didn’t see a lot of, you know, women, young women who had, who had families. And I didn’t feel particularly comfortable giving advice to women or men about how to live their lives and careers based on heuristics, right?

Based on just my observations and, and I didn’t want to, I didn’t want them to make huge decisions that weren’t based on evidence. And so that was really what had started that research for me. I didn’t want it to be based on stereotypes or biases. I wanted to be based on firm knowledge. And, and so, and so that was what drove me.

But, it was also the collection of evidence from what ended up being hundreds and hundreds, ultimately thousands of people as I continued to do some of those studies. And so, that just helped me to learn about people in our profession, right? In a lot of different areas and in academia and private practice, women and men, various generations, people with children, people without children, people who were sort of trying to navigate their careers and their lives.

And it, it just sort of like, I guess, awoke this I guess passion for just understanding how to support people in the veterinary profession, not just women, just people in our, in the veterinary profession. And I think that that was, I guess, what was the, the first trigger towards, okay, well, how, how do I want to live the rest of my career?

And there, there had been a point where I had thought about, okay, well, well, what else do I want to do? Like, do I want to go back to school, get another degree, but I wasn’t really sure what it was. And I did recognize the need for, if you’re going to make a big change, you need to know what you’re going towards, or at least you need to go towards something.

You can’t just be bored of what you’re doing. You need to, you know, you need to have a sort of direction. And, and actually that that meeting that you and I met at was, I think that the first really big forum where I was outside my typical sphere of being with surgeons or just being within the academic community, where I really got to interact with people from a much broader community within veterinary medicine that, that I hadn’t really been tapped into before that, that I started to see what a, a future sort of interacting with

a larger portion of our profession could look like and, and supporting and listening to and working with that broader group in our profession could look like. And it didn’t, it didn’t crystallize yet into what that was going to be, but it just helped sort of continue to push me in that direction and to, to help me acknowledge that that I was going in the right, you know, on the right path.

Dr. Andy Roark: So this brings us to the inflection point that I’m really interested in. And so what I hear in your story is, I was, I was going along, I was doing my thing, and then I kind of found this other area of interest, a need that I wanted to meet, you know, a group I wanted to serve, and so I started to do that work, and I enjoyed it, and I saw a path for it.

And so this brings us to the inflection point. And so here you are, you’re, you’re, were you tenured? You were tenured at this point, right? Right.

Dr. Sam Morello: Yeah, I think I was already promoted or I was just at promotion and a lot of my promotion was contingent upon research, but I had done a lot of other research in the clinical space. And so this research that I was doing was largely unfunded. And it ultimately probably supported my academic advancement, but, but me maybe wasn’t the most central part of my academic advancement because it wasn’t research that was,

you know, classically academic and classically people and funded and all that. So,

Dr. Andy Roark: so, yeah, I hear that. I guess my, my point here is you have, you have a prestigious job, you have a stable job, like you were not an adjunct faculty who wasn’t expected to be there more than another year or two, like you had, you had a lot of stability, you were recognized for your knowledge and your skill.

I mean, you had made it. In a lot of people’s vision of what making it looks like. Yet, here you are standing at the precipice of, I have this thing I’m interested in. Surely you didn’t know that there was a life for you, you know, further down this path. I didn’t, I didn’t know there was a life for someone further down that path.

And so talk to me about letting go. Of the stability of where you were and stepping out into the myths of where you thought you could go

Dr. Sam Morello: So in his book, The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway talks about how people go bankrupt, they go bankrupt very slowly and then all at once. And I think that’s how I came to this. It was very slowly and then all at once. So I think I met you in 2019 and I can actually remember the moment that I knew I needed help.

To, to, to change and it was in early 2021 and I, I had just gone through some, some changes in my own life and I, I was busy thinking about those and, and I was like what, you know, why do I feel so unsettled right now? What, what am I, what am I struggling with? And I sat up and I was like, Oh, I need to change.

I need to make a career change. It’s time for me to leave academia. It’s time for me to do something different. And, and truly, I remember sitting on my couch in my home. I remember exactly where I was and it happened in a moment. And I was like, and I’ve known this for a while and I’ve known this for a couple of years and it’s just been, it’s just been additive.

And it, and it, and it was a confluence of many things. It was about career. It was about, a lot of different, you know, changes I, I wanted to make and, and, but, but it, but it was like a moment of clarity that, that I was finally able to sort of, I guess, say, say that to myself, right? You’ve talked about the changing or being able to step away from being a surgeon.

It’s stepping away from an entire identity, right? What had been close to 30 years on a path of wanting to do this and you’re right a successful, a very successful career and, and respect in a community that I had worked very hard for and really not entirely having any knowledge of what the next thing would be, but knowing that if I was going If there was going to be a next thing that I was gonna have to take a very difficult step to, to try to get to it.

And so it was, yeah, it, it, it happened very, very, very slowly, cumulatively. And then I, I think I just realized it all at once. And, and it was in that decision that I decided to kind of figure out what it was gonna take to make that change.

Dr. Andy Roark: How did you feel when you had that realization? So I’ve had that experience before where I say something out loud to myself, if that makes sense, where it’s like, I, I’ve been, I know this has been percolating in my mind, but it has not formed into actual words where I said, I need to leave. You know what I mean?

And then once those words come into my mind. I know that they’re true and then it’s interesting. What is their emotional reaction when you hear those words in your own mind? Were you, were you sad? Were you elated? Were you excited? Like what, what was your, how did you feel when you’re like, I guess, I guess I’m going to go, like, how did that feel?

Dr. Sam Morello: I mean, many things, but mostly liberated, right? Like mostly liberated, whatever the truth sets you free. And, and I, and I realized that that was like, that was definitely what was the most true for me. And of course it was going to be hard and scary. And I would, you know, nothing, nothing comes without a cost and you have to give something up to get something else and all of those things, and those come with their own emotions, but, but mostly I felt liberated because I.

I tend to have a pretty, I don’t know, gut reaction to most things. And I, and I deep down knew just, yep, you’re right. This is what’s right for you. And, and I felt pretty confident in that. I have got some huge news. My new card game is out. That’s right. If you are a fan of the last card game that me and my team made it was called what’s on my scrubs. You’re going to love our brand new card game. It’s called Dr. Know It All. It is a trivia game meant to be played in teams. It’s a mixture of trivia and BS and it is guaranteed to make your team laugh. 

All of the questions are meant to be challenging for your whole team. They are based on the difficulty level of the VTNE exam. So this is the veterinary technician national examination. It is great to play with your veterinarians. It doesn’t need your veterinarians. It can be toned up and down in difficulty. We have a number of different ways to play the game so that if you have a newer team or a team that is learning we can tone the game down very quickly and make it fun and engaging and educational for them. 

And if you have got a bunch of vets that want to go hard in the paint, we can go hard in the paint game has made to turn up to that level. It’s really flexible that way. 

it is going to be fun and your people are going to enjoy it. It is made to be played in small teams That’s the team building part, 

just like regular trivia. When you go to the restaurant or the bar and so it is perfect to be played in five minute bursts. 

You can put it at the beginning of your staff meetings just to make people laugh. You could do a couple of rounds of trivia and then get into your business. Or You can just say, Hey guys, we’re going to have a team meeting. We’re just going to do some trivia. 

And then everybody’s going to leave with a smile on their face. I wanted to make that for you. I had such a great time with our first game. 

I think this game is going to be really fantastic. I think people are going to really love it. Head over to drandyroark.com right now to learn all about it and get your copy sent to either you or your practice, Let’s get get back into this episode. 

Dr. Andy Roark: The other reason I think that you’re so interesting in your career and why I really want to talk to you about reinventing yourself is that you did not have this realization and then go to Indeed.com. And take a job that was posted, like surely you had questions about what this next phase was going to be like, what you were actually going to do, what that experience is going to be like, where did you go?

Like once you had this sort of realization, you’re like, yeah, I need, I need to do this, I need to go somewhere else. What does that look? I think a lot of people. Or maybe even, maybe even having that thought of, I need, I need to do something different. And then they’re just kind of paralyzed and like, they don’t know where to get started.

How did you turn that from this idea into a plan or a path that you were going to follow?

Dr. Sam Morello: Yeah. Well, once I, once I left my, once I left the program that I was at and I, you know, I was trying to finish out some training for residents that I had and, and, and just leaving them in a leaving the program and a stable place where, where they had been put in. Where they were done. I had a little bit of an off ramp.

I had organized some consulting work that I’d be able to do to sort of keep me afloat as I tried to search out What that next thing would be because I did not have a solid You know a solid Job or plan for what the next role would be. I didn’t step immediately into the job that I have now I just knew that I needed to go and find you know what that what that next job would be or what 

Dr. Andy Roark: You left, you left before you had the next thing you had. Like, so you had, like I said, an off ramp. I think that’s good. You got some stuff lined up, but, but you were like, no, I’m, I’m going to go out into the world and then find the path.

Dr. Sam Morello: Yeah. And I knew I wanted a little bit of, you know, time sort of, outside academia out in the world to just I did a bit of consulting I worked in some different spaces. I continued to do some research and, and really I was very focused on whatever it was I was looking for.

And and so that’s the big thing, right? So first was really distilling down what it was I was looking for. And I and I knew I had a sense of what it was, but being able to focus down on what the big objectives were and some of those, you know, had to do with my own life, right? Some of those were very focused on what I wanted professionally.

Objectives for how I wanted to work, but also what I wanted to accomplish in work. Again, getting back to some of what we talked about that I had learned through doing that research, goals to be able to support people in the profession and to be able to have some impact on the profession at scale.

And that’s, that’s vague, right? And that’s not what most jobs are like. So I knew that that wasn’t going to just appear out of nowhere. Although in some ways it did eventually, but not immediately. And so that was, that was a guiding goal. And then I, and then I, I, I took, I took time and really tried to distill down some other not too many because if that list is too long, you’re never going to, you know, you’re never going to meet it, but some things that were extremely important to me as far as work environment or, or how I was going to work and, and, and the type of work it would be, but then also things about my own You know, life and quality of life.

I had, I had spent many years moving around for resident internship, residency, and then my academic career, I was far away from family and had been for a long time you know, with, with family getting, getting quite a bit older. And, and I had some goals for my own personal life as well that I, I prioritize very specific ones and that, and so I had a couple real non negotiables and there were very few, because again, you have to be careful when you do that, but, but creating that list of priorities and, deciding, okay, you’re going to stick to them.

And so as there, there would be opportunities that came my way. And I would, even in times that I was starting to feel stressed and nervous about, well, what’s the next thing going to be, when is it going to come? Should I, should I just sort of like cut my losses and, and do this or that? I just kind of thought back to, no, I, I have some real objectives.

I have some real goals and, and, and I know what it is that I, I’m after. This is about, again, not running away, but running towards something. I had spent really many years crafting skills and objectives and, and, and really understanding what I wanted around. And the other thing that I did is, you know, I spent some time looking at my own CV, which was an academic CV, which can be really, really obnoxious, honestly.

Most people don’t want to look at those things, but two of my, one of my dearest friends from college had gone from being a PhD to working in startups. And, and then my brother actually had gone from being a, being a PhD and postdoc to working in business. And so they were both really great at looking at resumes from, or in CVs, even academic CVs from a skill based perspective and learning how to see, you know, where I wrote.

Like, you know, I took care of ponies for the last 20 years, right? And, and seeing, seeing what, what the skills were in some of the things that I was doing where I had begun to see myself as in some places very narrowly skilled, right? Or that, that, that I only had a few things that I was able to do as an equine surgeon.

And they really helped me to identify some great strengths and areas that I could showcase myself. And that was, that was really game changing for me. Actually. I rewrote my resume and, and I also sort of rewrote my own concept of myself and what I had to offer. And when I actually did. I didn’t go on Indeed, but when I actually did even look outside the veterinary profession at some point and found an opportunity that really met all my criteria, it was in an entirely non veterinary space at a, at a big global really high level consulting company.

And I, I, I interviewed and got offered a really competitive job because of some of the support they had given me and the way I had been able to navigate some of, you know, the research that you saw me do and some of the other skills that had helped me show how to showcase into, you know, what ended up being a great back and forth and, and, and, and interview.

And so I learned a lot about myself and what we can actually show other people we can do as veterinarians and the skills that we learn and we grow in our hospitals and in our clinics. And even as we organize and demonstrate leadership and demonstrate some of that entrepreneurial skill where we need to learn new things because we need to solve problems that we, you know, that, that arise in, in our everyday

lives as practitioners, as researchers, as administrators in our hospitals and our schools. and people can see us for things beyond what we think we are. And that was massively helpful for me.

Dr. Andy Roark: If I was telling this story, I think, I think the symbolism of you rewriting your resume is, is, is important. I think that’d be a thing I would lean into in telling the story in that I, it, I’ve seen this before in that, you know, when you’re in vet medicine, you look at yourself in a certain way and you judge yourself based on how your colleagues judge you.

But when you step outside, that’s not how the rest of the world judges you. And the skills that we don’t even think about, they can be really meaningful to other people. And so, I, to me, it’s sort of the hero’s journey, that sort of seems like the recreation step right there is when you say, I had to learn to look at myself in a way that was not the way that I had previously done.

And then the act of rewriting the resume in that way was really kind of the reinvention, if you will, in that way, I think it’s, it’s important. I fully believe that the first time, the first time I would have rewritten my resume. Academic CV, it would have just been a different version of my academic CV.

I would have written it repeatedly using the same words, and it would have taken something significant to shake me and make me say, look, none of this is usable. Like you have got to step away and get fresh perspective and eyes and look at this. What do you wish you knew? If you could whisper something back to yourself as you were kind of leaving Your faculty job and going out.

Is there anything that you wish you knew at the beginning? I said, I think it was interesting. I was sure that you had times that you questioned if this was the right decision and you spoke to that a little bit. And so knowing that you’re going to go into that, what, like, what would you, what advice would you have given to yourself?

Dr. Sam Morello: Honestly, I think that I would have told myself that There’s not going to be a misstep here that you just need to, I took my own advice already, even though I didn’t know it back then, which is just keep, you know, keep, keep believing in why you did this and keep, keep moving towards that.

I have to say. That one benefit I have that I, that I, that I don’t think everybody will have is that I didn’t have the responsibility of having like young children who were reliant on me. Right. I, I, I actually had quite a, quite a reasonable income through all this from the consulting work I was doing.

It was fine. It was not what my income had been before or after, but it was entirely reasonable. But there were, you know, you don’t know when you’re doing consulting work, what it’s going to be from month to month, right. Or, or, or, or, or sometimes even more acutely. And there are people that can’t take risks like that.

And it was a risk for me. It was very much a risk. And I lit, you know, I, between my, between the, my risk tolerance and being able to live off some savings. I was able to do that and not everybody can do that. And so the pieces of advice are know your risk tolerance and also know who the friends you have are going to be that you can talk to at your worst moments, because there were a couple, there were a couple of really, really wonderful people who I wasn’t sure, you know, in my professional life who I wasn’t sure

what they were going to say when I said, I’m quitting surgery, right? I’m not quitting is the wrong word when I’m moving away from surgery and It was a little intimidating talking to my surgeon friends and some of them ended up being just the most wonderful parts of that experience. They were the most supportive. They talked the most about how you know, how many times they had thought about making a change acknowledging how hard it was and how, you know, brave they thought I was for doing it.

And it was that sort of support and being able to talk to them and making sure that you can identify those people and, you know, and know who they’re going to be for you that, that was, that was huge. And, and the fact that I, at any moment. Had been hesitant to, to talk to them about it is now, you know, crazy to me cause they were, you know, they, they, they, they, they were all just spectacular.

And I’m, I’m lucky to have had, you know, so many friends and colleagues like that.

Dr. Andy Roark: Dr. Sam Morrell, thanks so much for being here. Where can people find you online?

Dr. Sam Morello: Oh, my, my LinkedIn profile. I’m, I’m, I’m pretty boring on social media, but my LinkedIn profile is the best to probably get me. So yeah, find me

Dr. Andy Roark: I will put a link there for those who want to track you down and say, hello. Thank you for being here, guys. Thanks for tuning in. Listen, everybody take care of yourselves.

and that’s what I got for you guys. Thanks for being here. Thanks to Dr Sam Morello guys, if you enjoyed this episode share with your friends or leave me an honest review wherever you get your podcast. It’s how people find us. It always means a lot to me. Anyway, gang take care of yourselves. Be well. I’ll talk to you later on. 

Why you’re not getting opportunities

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If you think you’re not getting opportunities in your career or life, this might be the reason why.

For those of you who have never worked inside a veterinary clinic, let me tell you how appointments work. First, a pet owner requests an appointment by phone or online. Then, they tell the clinic WHY they want an appointment. This piece of information is known as the “presenting complaint.” Presenting complaints can look like anything from “Needs vaccines” to “Shaking head and crying,” to “Scared of holiday decorations.” Honestly, I can’t overstate the variety of presenting complaints most of us in the clinics have seen.

Anyway, once the presenting complaint is taken, it’s put into our scheduling program so that everyone on the staff can know what pets are coming in, when, and why. At this point, at least half the staff (usually the least senior half) will begin trying to predict what the presenting complaint actually means and what will need to be done to address the problem when it arrives.

Sure, “shaking head and crying” is most likely your standard ear infection, but what does “Not acting right” mean? How about “Won’t stop moving his mouth,” or “attacking own foot”? The mental gymnastics that young vet professionals go through before these appointments arrive is something to behold.

I have personally tied myself in knots trying to guess what I am about to encounter inside an exam room. I have also created countless detailed treatment plans in my head that were immediately discarded upon seeing the actual patient. Believe me when I say that your chances of accurately guessing why a patient is “attacking own foot” are much lower than you would imagine. Also, the biggest medical disasters I have seen in my career have had presenting complaints like “needs vaccines” and “just has quick question.” 

Even when we clearly ask what an encounter is going to be about, we still usually have no real idea until we walk into the room. This is how most opportunities in life present as well. We get some kind of vague message about an opportunity and what it might be, but that initial message rarely matches up to what we will find if we go investigate.

Whether we are about to see an appointment, go on a first date, or interview for a job we don’t know much about, we should beware trying to predict what we will find before we get there. Sometimes jobs we don’t initially think we are qualified for or interested in turn out to be fantastic opportunities. Occasionally the blind date your mom sets up turns out to be a soul mate. Maybe the vet practice your one friend worked at and didn’t like is actually the perfect place for you to be. 

Just like a medical appointment, we do everyone a disservice if we don’t walk into possible opportunities with an open mind. Worrying, telling ourselves stories, and jumping to conclusions is never helpful and these behaviors hold us back. 

What stories are you telling yourself about an opportunity you haven’t actually examined yet? Maybe it’s time you quit guessing about what is true, confidently opened the door, and performed a proper examination. You may be pleasantly surprised by what you find.

About the photo: I did a keynote in Manhattan City, CA a few weeks ago. This was the view from outside the venue. Saying yes to this opportunity gave me the unexpected gift of this incredible view!

300th Episode – Ask Andy Anything

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This time, you the audience, got to Ask Andy Anything! In this special 300th episode of the Cone of Shame veterinary podcast, host Kelsey Beth Carpenter turns the tables on Dr. Andy Roark, interviewing him about his journey from general practice veterinarian to renowned author, speaker, and conference founder. Dr. Roark shares insights into his career evolution, work-life balance strategies, and the importance of a strong team. He also reflects on memorable moments and guests from past episodes, offering a glimpse into the heart and soul of this beloved veterinary podcast. If you’re a veterinarian, technician, or other veterinary professional seeking inspiration and practical advice, this episode is a must-listen.

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

LINKS

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

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. Andy Roark is a practicing veterinarian, international speaker, author, and media personality. He is the founder of the Uncharted Veterinary Conference and DrAndyRoark.com. He has been an award-winning columnist for DVM360 and the magazine Today’s Veterinary Business. His social media, website, podcast and YouTube show reach millions of people every month.

Dr. Roark 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. His greatest achievement however involves marrying a bad-ass scientist and raising 2 kind and wonderful daughters.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Andy Roark:  Welcome everybody to the Cone of Shame veterinary podcast. I am your host Dr. Andy Roark. I’m not your host Dr. Andy Roark. I have the tables turned on me. My team came to me and said for the 300th episode, we’re gonna interview you for the podcast and so the one and only Kelsey Carpenter is taking over this interview in just a moment and She’s got some list listener questions for me and we have a really good.

I hope it’s a really good conversation. I’m always fascinated at what my team is interested in knowing from me and, and what people who listen to the podcast are interested in knowing. And so we talk a lot about work life balance. We talk about getting everything done. We talk a lot about what it means to actually work for me and, and what the, the Uncharted, Dr.Andy Roark team does and things like that. It’s, um, I, I, I don’t know. I hope you guys find it interesting. It’s, it’s, it’s kind of a look into my life, and kind of what happens behind the scenes over here. But, um, anyway. Thanks a lot guys for listening to 300 episodes. I can’t believe we got here and, and the support has just been absolutely incredible.

And so anyway, man, that’s enough for me. 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. 

Welcome, everybody, to the Cone of Shame podcast. I’m your host, not Dr. Andy Roark I’m Kelsey Carpenter, and we’re here today for the, drumroll please, 300th episode of the Cone of Shame podcast. This is a very, very special episode, and why is that, Dr. Andy Roark? 

Dr. Andy Roark: I was informed by my team that I would not be hosting this episode. I would be answering questions.

Kelsey Beth Carpenter: Absolutely. So we have a very special guest on the episode today named Dr. Andy Roark. Don’t know if you’ve heard about him. You may have heard his name in that jingle you just listened to. And today what we did is we went to the Dr. Andy Roark social media and newsletter and we asked all of you out there in the audience, what do you want to ask Dr. Andy Roark for the 300th episode of the Cone of Shame? And I’ve gathered these questions and yeah, we’re going to turn the mic over to Dr. Andy Roark to you this time and ask you some questions, Andy, here on the receiving end this time.

Dr. Andy Roark: I, I am ready.

Kelsey Beth Carpenter: And so, for people who don’t know you you’re a practicing veterinarian. You’re the founder and owner of the Uncharted Veterinary Conference. You host the Cone of Shame podcast and co host with Stephanie Goss, the Uncharted Veterinary Podcast. You just recently completed your first successful as our team has called it, get up, which is also known in the athletic world as a muscle up?

Is it a muscle up?

Dr. Andy Roark: Muscle up. Yeah, yeah.

Kelsey Beth Carpenter: Proud of myself for even getting that far with that.

Dr. Andy Roark: Good job. That was good.

Kelsey Beth Carpenter: Is that a pretty, is that a pretty decent bio for you? What’s a fun fact people should know about you as part of your bio?

Dr. Andy Roark: As far as my bio let’s see, I have, I have a lot of hobbies. Yeah, I, I like to try new things and I have a lot of hobbies and my wife is a college professor and she’s brilliant and definitely the more impressive of the duo. And I, I, I mentioned that cause I talk about her a lot on the podcast and then I have two wonderful teenage daughters and you’re like, teenage daughters are not wonderful.

And I will say for their dad, they are.

Kelsey Beth Carpenter: Yep, yours are pretty wonderful. Yours put a special touch..

Dr. Andy Roark: I feel really lucky. I feel

Kelsey Beth Carpenter: You are, and we especially love your daughters because they are responsible for sending out all our new Dr. Know It All games that people have been ordering and they are so on top of it. I love it. They’re 

Dr. Andy Roark: awesome.

They take, they take shipping the Dr. Know It All card games to people very, very seriously, and they really on the ball. And so I yes, it is, it is a job that they are very proud to have. I love that they can be teenagers and have a job in like packing and shipping, and that they, they do a good job.

But I was, you know, of course you’re worried like, are my kids gonna take this seriously? And people, you know, people want their games and I want them to have a great experience. And boy, they, they really have shown up and just a way to make me proud. And so if you got a Dr. Know It All Card game in the mail, you know, that my daughter’s packed that for you with love and sent it to you.

Kelsey Beth Carpenter: Yep. I’ve got mine sitting right here on my desk, so. Well, let’s jump into it. We are uh, asking you questions again that came from the Dr. Andy Roark and Cone of Shame audience, which is really exciting. And I have the honor of presenting those questions to you. And so let’s kick it off. With the fact that here we are on the 300th episode of the Cone of Shame podcast.

How did we get here, Dr. Andy Roark? How did you go from a general practice veterinarian to now having hundreds of episodes of podcasts, numerous veterinary conferences, writing, all types of speaking, all types of stuff. How’d we get here? Okay. Okay.

Dr. Andy Roark: I did two episodes earlier this year, one was with Dr. Sarah Boston and one was with Dr. Sam Morello, and they both talk about changes in their career. And they both kind of said the same thing, which was that they are, they’re both perpetual ladder climbers, which means they’re always, they’re not messing around.

They always want to be improving in what they’re doing. And for both of them, they both had radical changes in their career. And I really asked him about like, how did you decide to put this thing down and do this other thing. And they both said they never really decided to put something down. They always found something else that they were excited about, and they kind of went that way.

And when they said that, I saw myself in them very much, which is why I had them on, because I was kind of looking at, you know, how do you sort of reinvent yourself, and how do you grow? And so the best piece of advice I give to vet students is, is, my advice for them is figure out what you like to do and figure out how to do more of it and figure out what you don’t like to do and figure out how to do less of it. And that’s that’s really been my career the whole time.

I never had a master plan I just I knew that I liked to write and I knew after I got invited to do some presentations. I enjoy it. I enjoy telling stories. I really enjoy sharing ideas and trying to help people and encourage them and especially if they have a problem and I can give them some insight from the outside because i’m not so close to the problem. They, their eyes go wide and they’re like, ah, you’re right.

That’s what I should do. And they, they, they know it. I just, I love that. And so it was never this big. I’m going to put down what I’m doing and do that. Everything was incremental for me. And so that’s sort of what I would say to people who are like, you know, I’ve been in a general practice vet or a technician for years, and I want to start doing something else for me.

I never bet the farm on anything. I always. I just started doing other work at night and on the weekends. And I know that’s a lot, but I, it’s work I love and I was excited about it. And then when I was like, okay, I’m convinced that I can keep doing this. Then I went from four and a half days at the clinic down to three and a half days at the clinic and, and I, and I cut my salary, you know, like I told him, like, Hey, I’m going, I’m cutting 18%, you know, of my hours.

And my expectation is that you’ll cut 18 percent of my pay. And, you know, and they were like, okay, well, it’s great. It saves us some money. And they were at a place where they, they were, you know, they weren’t super busy. And, and, you know, they said, it might be if, if you want to come back, we’ll put you back up and if it, will you help us out if we get shorthanded sometimes?

And I was like, sure, you know, yeah, I can short term jump in and cover and, you know, do stuff like that. And I always kept a really good relationship with the practices that I was working at, and they were always supportive of me. And so that, that’s really how it is, but it was never a grand gesture, you know, risk everything.

It was always start, make sure you like doing it, make sure that there’s opportunity. And when you build that up, then gently start turning down some of the other things you do. And I’ve gone through periods where I’ve gone back to practice and practice full time. And I’ve gone back down, you know, down to when I didn’t go to practice for a couple of months, you know, there was probably a year or two back in

2016, 2017, 2018, I probably did a dozen days out of the year in the practice. And then, you know, back up and back up now, I’m probably at 75 days out of the year, a hundred days out of the year or something like that, not that much, probably 75 days a year, something like that.

Kelsey Beth Carpenter: That’s fascinating. It’s funny. That’s one of the best lessons I ever learned from you personally was I’ve had a couple of scenarios that I’ve come to as what come to you as one of my mentors with and you’ve often told me you don’t need a master plan. You need a direction and an idea and some foundation, but you don’t need to know what the plan is two, three, four, five years down the road.

I don’t need to know how the podcast is going to progress for the next decade. You know, you have to have a strong idea and the passion for it. And you always told me what is the worst case scenario. It doesn’t work, and what happens? You go back to what you were doing. If you leave on a, on a good note, or if you step back on a good note, people will take you back.

And that’s definitely been true. That’s one of the best lessons I’ve, I’ve definitely learned from working with you.

Dr. Andy Roark: Good. Yeah. Don’t, don’t burn that bridge, but yeah, you’re spot on. I always say, you know, have something that you’re working on now and know what you want to do next. And beyond that, I’ve never had a plan that’s held up. I’ve had great, grand aspirations that have never, never gone anywhere. I think you should always be making a plan.

I think you should have a plan. I think you should hold onto it really loosely. And I always loved that saying if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans. And it’s just because I had so many plans that just did not. Did not have any chance of actually happening when we got into it, but boy, they sounded great when I said them before the time.

Kelsey Beth Carpenter: Absolutely. Well, and I want to ask you about how you decided on sort of what the Cone of Shame podcast was going to be about because I distinctly remember the years ago when we started it, you started the Uncharted Veterinary Podcast first. And then I remember you coming to our team and saying, gang, don’t freak out.

Dr. Andy Roark: Everybody freak out.

Kelsey Beth Carpenter: I want to start a second podcast

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah.

Kelsey Beth Carpenter: We all lost it. And then we, we calmed down and we thought, okay, maybe this would be a good idea, but what made you start the second podcast?

Dr. Andy Roark: I love the first cat podcast so much. I loved it so much and I wasn’t getting to do exactly what I wanted to do. It was never about any project I take on. It’s not about the project. It’s about what am I trying to do? And so I, I have, I mean, I have imposter syndrome like everybody else. I’ve got a lot of imposter syndrome.

I’m a, I’m a general practice doctor. I’m not the smartest clinician that you’re going to find by far. And that probably comes through in my interviews of the smartest clinicians that you’re going to find. But, you know, I, I had the insecurity too, of like, I don’t, I don’t know. I want to, I wanted to make something that people would enjoy listening to.

And I don’t want to sound dumb and you know, all those sorts of things, but I genuinely want to learn. And also I don’t like podcasts where two people get on and they both act like they’re experts and they’re educating the masses. Like, I don’t, that’s not how I want to learn. I want to, I want to hear somebody who’s struggling his way through it.

Genuinely ask the questions that he wants to know. And so I’m like, I’m just going to take that mantle and lean into, into that. I. I put off a podcast for a long time because I couldn’t imagine it in my head. And that was a mistake that I made. And then I could imagine the Uncharted podcast. I was like, I’m going to have a wingman, which always makes things less scary.

And I think I see a lot of people now who are starting to do speaking and presenting, and they’ll put them in pairs. And I think that’s a good thing because it’s never as scary when you’re, when you’re putting yourself out there with someone else. And so. I got, I got Stephanie Goss to do it with me and she’s such a great conversationalist and, and she’s so fun and funny.

And she’s one of those people who draws humor out of me. Cause she’ll start giggling

Kelsey Beth Carpenter: was gonna

say, it doesn’t hurt that she laughs at your jokes, that’s a good

Dr. Andy Roark: well, she’ll start, yeah. She’ll start laughing at my jokes and she’s got this giggle and I will. Try to make her laugh more like whether it’s not even intentional. I’m like, well, we’re going to keep this going and I will just, and then she’ll giggle more and it just, it’s this positive reinforcement loop that gets me going.

And so we, we have a great time and she’s just so easy to talk to. And so, and the format is. It was and is so people would ask us a management question and then we’d answer their question and then I didn’t have a worry about is this useful? It’s like no they asked a question clearly It’s useful because they want to know and so we’re gonna we’re gonna do this thing And after I did it for a while, I thought this is great.

I understand it. I’ve got confidence now. I always want to make the resources that I want to have. And like I said, I am, I am an, an average clinician. I think, I think I’m very good relationship builder. I think I’m very good with clients. I hope I’m very good with teams. I think I am, but I am an average clinician when it comes down to the medicine.

And I thought about how I like to learn and the way that I wanted to learn is an informal way. I like to laugh. I like to have fun. And I really wanted to mirror the conversations that I have with other people in the doctor’s office when I go, Hey, Kelsey, I got this case and this is kind of what I’m looking at.

And that’s always how I really learned the best in practice. And I really loved learning from my colleagues cause I’m asking them for their advice and their perspective. And some of them I agreed with immediately. And some of them, I just, I don’t look at cases the way that they do. And that’s not bad, but I always learn something.

And so once I figured out, you I would like this podcast to exist and I did not hear anything like that and I had done the thing with Stephanie. I’m like, I know I enjoy this. I know what’s involved in making it. I think I’m going to sort of stick my toe in the water and try it. And so, and so I did. I also had gotten my butt kicked a number of times trying things and it just crashes and burns.

And so my tolerance for failure was pretty high. And I was like, we’re just going to do this. I think I even probably said at the beginning, welcome to season one. Because, because that way if it’s stunk and no one listened, I would just be like and that’s the end of

Kelsey Beth Carpenter: And that’s it!

Dr. Andy Roark: we’re going to take a break and then yeah, and it wasn’t like yeah, I would be like that there, these are the 10 episodes we planned on no failure

Kelsey Beth Carpenter: Limited, it’s a Netflix limited series.

Dr. Andy Roark: as 100%.

It was a limited series the whole time and I’m stopping not because no one listened,

Kelsey Beth Carpenter: I

Dr. Andy Roark: because I wanted to. Exactly. Always set yourself up with an escape hatch like that, like, Ooh, we’ll start with season

Kelsey Beth Carpenter: Perfect. But no, I love what you say about I’m the same way. I often, as a veterinary technician, I saw myself as pretty average medical wise. I thought I was quite good with people. The people side of it and the pets. I’m often the person who’s like, I’ve got this question and I think it might be dumb and it’s in the back of my head, but I’m too scared to ask it.

And then you go and you ask it for me on every episode of the podcast and, and that is helpful. Yeah, but I think that ties me into another question that we got from our audience here. I say are because it is my podcast now.

Dr. Andy Roark: You sing the theme song! Like, we didn’t mention that, you were the It’s you that sings the theme song!

Kelsey Beth Carpenter: Speaking of, that’s one of my most memorable moments of the Cone of Shame podcast was being terrified to write my first jingle, and you put so much faith in me. And then I remember the very end of the jingle, I had to record that, like, I’m not kidding, 27 times I had to say, with Dr. Andy Roark because it’s really hard.

To say your name in a way that like phonetically comes out without sounding dumb and in like a very tight music window, that was a challenge, saying your name perfectly. But oh, sorry, go

Dr. Andy Roark: I hired you, I was like, Kelsey, I have, I have unique challenges for you. Do you, are you sure you want this job? And you were like, I’m up for unique challenges.

Kelsey Beth Carpenter: I was like, how about we do one season of me working with you? We’ll see how it goes.

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah, it goes three. Yeah. Three months

Kelsey Beth Carpenter: Yeah, but that ties me into another question that we had is why is it called the Cone of Shame?

Dr. Andy Roark: Well, I made a YouTube show, which was supposed to be for pet owners, and it was, it was a comedy pet, it was a comedy show. I, I do improv comedy, and I had other comedians that would come over, and I would show them the scripts, and then we would kind of do a read through on the scripts, and they would Good pitch jokes and we would laugh together and and come up with with jokes to go in it. So it’s actually written like a like a sketch show. And I want it to be educational for pet owners and stuff for that and I put it out and it did well I mean some of these Some of these episodes that got 300, 500, 000 views.

It was a ton of work. It was a ton of

work to make it and Yeah, it was it was really hard to write the scripts and then filming the way that we did it was really grueling It just it took a lot out of it and it was one out of me and I was one of those things where I I really after about six months or so.

I was like this is killing me. This is It’s really taken a lot of time and it was not work I really enjoyed. And that’s kind of what I learned about myself is I love pet owners, but the idea of, of making educational content for pet owners, it does not light my fire. The way that making stuff for to support vet teams does. I just vet people are just my people I just I just love them and I just I want to work for them and pet owners are great I do like pet owners, but I’m I they’re just not my people in the same way where i’m like yeah, i’m gonna i’m gonna stay up at night and work on something for you. And so anyway, but I I did love that show and that name was perfect and we had a logo for it with the cone on me and it was just I thought it was really funny. You And so that was, honestly, that was when I learned the thing about seasons because we just started making them.

I really, in hindsight, I wish I’d made season one. I wish we had done 10 episodes and then put it down for three or six months. And then I probably would have picked it back up and done 10 more. And I probably could have kept it going, but I didn’t. I was like, we’re doing this every week and it just burned me.

It just burned me out. And, but boy, I learned, I learned from that. But anyway, I, I just, I love that branding. I love that logo. I love that, that kind of goofy feel. The Cone of Shame for me, I, you know, when I have guests on, especially we have like some of the best guests in the world, as far as like, these 

Kelsey Beth Carpenter: Oh, my God. Yeah.

These people 

Dr. Andy Roark: are credentialed like 87 different ways.

And just, they literally wrote the textbooks that I used in vet school. It is incredible. And. And the nice thing is I want them to come in and know what they’re walking into. And so it’s hard to be like, you’re on the Cone of Shame Podcast. Don’t take yourself too seriously. And you know, they, they, I think they get, I think if I called it like veterinary insights, people would show up with this sort of different attitude.

It’s like, look, buddy, this is the Cone of Shame. Like if, if, yeah, if you want to, if you want to have a margarita while you’re here, you can, it’s, it’s recorded virtually. You just make it yourself.

Kelsey Beth Carpenter: Exactly. No, it’s true that I remember our beloved friend and coworker, Maria, asking at one point, because she does a lot of work on the podcast, talking about, why is it the Cone of Shame? And I remember you kind of phrasing it as, you know, I don’t mind being the one to wear the cone of shame and ask all the questions that, you know, you want to ask but you maybe feel uncomfortable doing.

And I love that, yeah.

Dr. Andy Roark: That is the other part of it, too. And that is true. It goes right back to this thing of, it’s kind of an inside joke for me because I knew at the beginning, I did not want to be on a podcast where I pretended to be an expert talking to other experts to educate the masses. I just, as condescending, I mean, I don’t want to dunk on other people doing it.

And people really don’t like to look dumb. And I get it. Cone of Shame. Part of it’s for me is like, you know what? I will ask the stupid question. Sometimes, I genuinely don’t know and I feel like I should know. And sometimes I’m like, I have a pretty good inkling here, but this feels like the obvious next question to, to be complete.

And so I’ll ask, I’ll ask the dumb question, but it is the cone of shame. And I use that as a reminder to myself to ask, ask the silly question or the question that makes you insecure. And honestly, I’ve, the feedback we’ve gotten has always been wonderful. And I, I am amazed that we, you know, we get like 10, 000 people a week, listen to the podcast.

It’s, it’s insane.

Kelsey Beth Carpenter: I’m not surprised though because I do, I heard this thing recently and it was something along the lines of there are no unique messages. If you think about all the minds in the world, like the messages have, the ideas have all been had. But there are unique messengers, the way you portray the message is unique, and I think that is very true because the things we’re covering on this podcast are not necessarily unique, they’re not necessarily all novel ideas, but it’s the way you ask the questions, and it’s the way the guests are asked.

bottle this incredible information in their minds into such a consumable presentation that it makes it so that I, as a veterinary technician, can listen and learn something a CSR could listen and learn something a pet owner could listen and learn something a fellow veterinarian can listen and learn something.

I think that’s what’s valuable about it. But another big question that we got numerous. This is, this is the one is, okay. You’re doing all this. You’re doing two podcasts. You’re doing numerous conferences. You’re speaking. You’re working in the clinic. You have a whole family. You have a dog. You have all this stuff.

How do you balance it all? What is the Dr. Andy Roark secret to balancing it? And still having a life as well outside of it all.

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah, I if there is a secret, it’s not sexy. It, it is, it really is. It is. It’s being intentional and I, I live out of my calendar and I don’t know how else to live, but if it’s not on my calendar, I generally am not doing it. And, and that’s, that’s not a flex, but that’s just, just true. I am intentional.

And so I was at the clinic this morning. I got up, I set the alarm so that I could get up and walk my dog. And eat my breakfast and see my kids and get to work. And so I did that. And someone else reached out to me yesterday and said, Can you talk? And I said, I can call you from the car when I come home from the clinic.

And I put it on my calendar to call him from the car. And so then I went to the clinic and I did not mess with my other stuff. I was head down. I, when I am on the floor, I want to be on the floor. When I am there, I am not trying to do other stuff. And I think it’s a big thing. I don’t believe in multitasking.

And so I, I am there, I am going to be head down on what I am going to be present with the patients. I’m going to be present with the team. I want them to have my full attention. I just feel I have tried to multitask and it made me miserable and it did not help me. And so I am there and I am head down.

And then I got out, I made the phone call on the way home. I had a one 30 phone call lined up with our team. To plan content for Uncharted in the first quarter of next year. And everybody was there. There was a shared Google documents. People had already put their ideas of what they were excited about for our, for our member community in there.

And we went to work on it. I finished that phone call 10 minutes before I got on to this podcast with you.

Kelsey Beth Carpenter: With me. Yeah.

Dr. Andy Roark: and, and here we are at, yep. I am, I’ve got a podcast after this that I’m doing that I’m excited about. And then I’ll be done at 5 PM at which time I will cook dinner and then at seven o’clock I take my daughter to dance class.

And so that’s like, and again, that’s, that’s how it is. And I am, I am, I am stacked pretty regularly like that. But that, that’s really the thing. The other, the other part I’ll say too, cause this is a thing that, that I just, it’s important for me to say for a long time. I worked, I just, I just worked really hard.

I like to work. I have a strong work ethic. But I, I, I really struggled with, with just working all the time and so anyway, I I put family stuff like I said take my daughter to dance that’s on my calendar So that and and I treat it like I treat being at the vet clinic like those are of equal weight to me. Yeah, like it’s just a big thing.

I, you know, I, I, I go to the gym, I go to the gym at 6 a. m. And it’s just because it fits into my day, but I’m in, I’m in bed. 930 comes around and I’m, I’m, I’m in bed. But, but I scheduled things, I put them in. Here’s the big thing. And I really, if there’s one thing I could make veterinarians here or people in the medicine here, take your vacation time and put it on your calendar now for next year, for 2025.

Go through your calendar and block the time on your calendar you’re planning to be on vacation. And if you’re like, I don’t know where I’m going to go, then start blocking some long weekends. And here’s, here’s the thing. You can move those blocks around on your calendar. If you plan to take a long weekend, the first weekend of March, but then they need you at the clinic, move it to the second weekend of March.

But don’t delete it. And ultimately, your calendar will fill in around these blocks, and then you will have that vacation time on your calendar, and I want you to be just as present on that vacation time, that time for you, as you are when you’re at the clinic. I want people to vacation as hard, meaning as focused, as intentionally, as when they go to the clinic.

And it’s not easy as you think. And this is from a guy who went three years and didn’t take a vacation early in my career, and that was a mistake. That was a mistake. And so anyway, that’s one of the big things for me is that I learned is if you’re going to just keep the hammer down and kind of work, I have to take care of myself and I do that by looking ahead a year, blocking my time off.

And sometimes I’ll block, I’ll block a week off with no plans to do anything. And ultimately, I will, I will go, I’ll go camping that weekend with my family, or I’ll, you know, I’ll, you know, I’ll, I’ll do, or I’ll do a staycation. I’ll, yeah, I’ll do something. I will, I will do I will enter a Kung Fu death

Kelsey Beth Carpenter: There we go.

Dr. Andy Roark: Or, or I’ll clean the house and do all of the crap that I always say if I had time I would

do this and then I just do it, yeah, so that’s

my best answer. I try. You

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Kelsey Beth Carpenter: You know, I see on your social media comments from people all the time. I wish I could work with you, Dr. Andy Roark and I will say as someone who gets to work with you, not in the clinic, but still what’s beautiful about how you run your own life is as a leader, it sets an example for the rest of us in the team.

And you really respect that for the whole team. You don’t just apply it for yourself. And when we show up to meetings, we are all very present, you know, but we also very much respect each other’s time off and we very much believe, and you have set this culture for us of time off is time off, time on is time on there, you know, they don’t need to overlap.

We can send each other some pictures of our vacations, you know, but we’re not working when we’re off and that being so present and and intentional about that time, I think it has, it has trickled down to all of us, which, which I appreciate.

Dr. Andy Roark: I talked to a young practice owner recently. He’s in Uncharted. And so he was one of the practice owners in Uncharted. And he’s young. He’s got a young family. He’s got a young practice. So it’s about, he’s only been the owner for about a year or two. And he sort of bought it just, just that time ago. And his philosophy on leadership was one that I used to have, which is, I want to set an example.

So he was the first one in the building and the last one to leave, and he saw as many appointments as any other doctor, you know, and then also managed the clinic, and he’s got young kids at home, and he’s a year or two in, and he’s like, this is not sustainable, and I, I, I was so glad he said that because it was, it was, it was like, look at my younger self.

Kelsey, I, I’ve tried to, reimagine for myself what it means to be a good leader in my mind, and I don’t buy anymore the idea that a good leader is the first one is the first one to arrive in the last one to leave. I think the good leader models the behavior that he or she wants to see, and so for me, it’s more important that you

put yourself on the floor and then be fully present on the floor and work the way that you want other people to work. And if you’re on your phone and you’re kind of goofing off or whatever, then that’s the, that’s the, that’s how you want other people to behave on the floor. And so there’s that. And then I think you should model the behavior of blocking yourself off

to step away and do things that the team needs that are not involving you in the exam room. And then you should model the behavior of going home and being present with your family. Because if you’re, if you’re not, then again, it always sort of sends these mixed messages. But to me, that was a way of taking my aspiration of being a quote unquote good leader and putting it into a framework that made me want to be a leader.

Michael Miller, Dr. Michael Miller, who’s been on the podcast before, and he, this is one of the things he said on the podcast. He was like, as leaders, we’ve often done a good job of modeling a job that no one wants to

have. We’re like, look at me sacrificing everything. Don’t you want to be a practice owner?

Don’t you want to be a, someone in a leadership position? The answer is no, we we’re modeling this horrible position. We don’t know what else was to have. And so I tried to be, I tried to get away from that. It’s taken time. And again, I can say that now that I’m older, when I was, when I was young and I was really worried, the wheels were going to fall off.

I’m sure I was harder to work with. You were there the whole time. You, you would know, have I gotten easier to work with as

the years have gone on?

Kelsey Beth Carpenter: I plead the fifth. I’m just kidding. I’m just kidding. No, actually, no, you were really the first person I ever worked with where I saw that you would say, okay, guys, I’ve got a hard stop at the end of this meeting because I need to go to pick up my daughters from school. And I remember that being so shocking because when I joined your team, I was in a place where I was a lead technician at work and I had my email, my work email linked on my phone.

I was checking it 24/7. I was showing up around the clock and then you modeled a completely different way for me, but it very quickly became clear why it worked, which was that when you get to go pick up your daughters from school, it’s it. It charges you back up so that then tomorrow when it’s time to get back into work mode, you’re ready to be a hundred percent there.

And I’ve experienced it myself now where I’ve started having very clear weekends, Saturdays and Sundays, I do not work. And I noticed that when I come back on Monday, I am like feet on the ground, ready to go. And I see now why it works. And so it has helped me a lot. Absolutely.

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah. Well, I’m glad you said that. That is true. And again, when the pandemic hit and everybody’s working themselves to death, I made this video about the troops who are tired. I got a lot of feedback on it. That was very positive, but, but it’s true. I think that’s the way to look at a lot of this.

I want my team to accomplish as much as they can accomplish. But part of accomplishment is working hard and then resting and recovering. And you have got to have that mindset as, as a leader, as a manager of people, if you just bear down on people, you’re going to break them, you’re going to wear them out and you’re going to break them yourself included, but really playing chess instead of checkers is looking at your team and recognizing how to strategically rest them, meaning I set a good culture, I model the work ethic that I want to see And then I cycle off and I rest and I come back so I can model that behavior again. And it’s, it’s, it’s funny. You can see how, how people push themselves and then you’re just, you keep going, you know, you, you’re there, but you’re grinding it out.

And the truth is in, in my experience, I can make up for lost time if I’m rested, if I’ve had a break. I can be efficient and I can be nice. And every time that you’re tired and burned out in practice and you hurt somebody’s feelings, and then you have to go back and sort that out. That sort out time, that’s a penalty for you not being your best earlier.

And so the more I can take care of myself so that I avoid making those types of mistakes that I then have to clean up. The more efficient I can be. And so honestly, for a lot of people, I think that they could be off the floor more than they are and, and make that productivity up.

Kelsey Beth Carpenter: Yeah, and, and use the time off the floor better. I think back to when I was in the clinic and I would take my lunch break and on my lunch break I would check all of the like Dr. Andy Roark and Uncharted social media posts and then I would check like my work email and then I would get on Slack and send some messages and then I’d come back to work.

After my hour lunch break and I’d be like, I’m exhausted, you know, because I didn’t actually take a lunch break But you mentioned the team earlier and that was another question. Who is behind you on this podcast? Project what kind of team do you have supporting you?

Dr. Andy Roark: Again, I have a great team. I do a lot of different things. So we talked about, we have, we have this card game, which is kind of a weird side project that just makes me really happy and I love it. And so I’ve got this card game and then we have uncharted and we do conferences, we do live events, we do lectures and workshops.

We do a lot of consulting. We work with a lot of corporate hospitals on training their leaders, their Medical directors, their practice managers. And then we also do the podcasts and social media and things like that. So we have a bunch of different stuff that’s, that’s going. Our team doesn’t really fall into your traditional jobs.

And that’s by, that’s by design. I’m just, I’m not that way. I’m, I’m, I don’t follow the rules very well. And so people are like, well, Kelsey is in marketing. I’m like, no, Kelsey is in these six things, well, she’s in these six things that she’s really good at, and they don’t all fall under marketing, but we’re, and again, I know that doesn’t work at scale at a big, big company.

We’re not a big company. We’re a company of less than 10. And so I can have people kind of working across our company. We also run what’s called a flat organization, which means aside from me. There’s not a lot of people who are other people’s bosses. We have an executive director, but other than that, I really don’t like people to be other people’s bosses.

I like us to be, we’re colleagues, we’re teammates. I expect you to use your grownup voice and your grownup words to communicate. What you know, what you need and where you are. And then somebody shouldn’t have to be your boss to get you to help them. You should help them because we’re in this together and we’re a team and again. There’s upsides to that approach and there’s downsides to that approach but it’s just philosophically.

It’s always meant a lot to me So anyway in our team i’ve got i’ve got you who designed you designed our cards you made what’s the You did what’s on my scrubs the doctor know it all, game the the the box that it comes in is all kelsey’s beautiful creative art. She sings. She sings the theme song on this podcast she does a lot of my social media stuff And so if you especially that for dr Andy work almost all that stuff is kelsey she and I work together on that stuff But she she’s so wonderfully creative and so kelsey’s kind of got this type of stuff and and then you get tapped for things like interviewing me on the podcast and stuff like that.

Kelsey Beth Carpenter: Here we go. I get to be a podcast host as part of my job. That’s pretty cool.

Dr. Andy Roark: We’ve got Maria Partita who does she’s kind of our podcast coordinator and guru. She involves the scheduling. She handles the sponsored episodes and the advertisements. She comes up with great ideas. It’s hard to explain all of the things she’s done as far as making the podcast and streamlining that process and then like when she’s not doing that, she’s also a CVPM.

She’s a lecturer. She does consulting with me and Stephanie Goss. She is a rising star as far as being a management speaker in vet medicine. And just, so she’s there. Dustin Bays is a friend of mine who does the actual editing and processing of the podcast. And now he’s, he’s basically full time at Uncharted as well.

And he does our video editing and our podcast and so Stephanie Goss was my co host over Uncharted and she helps me over there. And that’s, I’m sure I’m probably forgetting somebody, but that’s, that’s just the, the core group that works on the podcast. Oh, and Tyler Grogan helps us with our marketing and our newsletters and, and things like

Kelsey Beth Carpenter: And she’s got a lot of hands in the Uncharted podcast. And so, yeah, we’re all 

Dr. Andy Roark: She’s more with Uncharted.

Kelsey Beth Carpenter: Now that you really lay it out that way, I realize how abnormal that is. That, like, every member of our team is involved in the podcast in some way or another. But in that way, it makes it such, like, a collaborative project, which is pretty cool that we do that.

Dr. Andy Roark: Super cool. Well, I wanted to work in a really collaborative place when I do that. And I’m also, I’m, I’m a big believer in the simple philosophy that You get the most out of people when you put them in a position to really use their strengths. And if you can, I’ve also come to believe too, that just because something is a weakness of mine doesn’t mean it’s a weakness of other people’s.

And just cause I don’t really enjoy something that doesn’t mean other people don’t enjoy it. You know, I’m, I’m, I don’t like organizational stuff, administrative stuff. And we’ve had other people on our team who just live to put things in order to make sure all the boxes are checked and everything is organized.

And buddy, I, I’ve got, I’ve got work for you. Come, you know, like they, and, but put them in a place to thrive and then, and then they just do. So it is, it’s really that for me, I don’t, it’s funny, the, the. The hard part is, and you guys have all been through this, we continue to try new things. And when we try new things, everybody kind of has to adapt and find their role in those things.

And that’s always a rocky process. And I think everybody wishes I could say, Kelsey, you’re in charge of marketing. Here is this thing. And you would just know what you’re supposed to do

Kelsey Beth Carpenter: Right.

Dr. Andy Roark: This collaborative way. It is slower and it requires slowing down at the beginning. But my belief is that the ultimate outcome is better.

We get a superior product. We get to work in a way that’s energizing for us, where we are collaborating, creating, remembering what we’re doing and why we’re doing it. And so anyway, that’s, that’s how we’ve always run the company. And it’s I don’t regret it.

Kelsey Beth Carpenter: I’m, I’m pretty, I’m pretty happy about it myself. Now a quick fun question for you is, because you do seem to have a lot of projects going on, people want to know, what does Dr. Andy Roark, what kind of coffee do you drink?

Dr. Andy Roark: What kind of coffee drink? Oh, I’ve talked about this. I made videos.

Kelsey Beth Carpenter: What fuels you throughout the day? Yeah.

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah. I made videos. My wife got me an espresso

Kelsey Beth Carpenter: Oh, right.

Dr. Andy Roark: About two years ago. I drink espresso. And I get it from Amazon in big, unground bags. Whole bean bags, baby.

Kelsey Beth Carpenter: I love it. Now, okay, what I’m personally really curious about is like, if I took you to Starbucks, if I was like, let’s go on a walk, let’s go to Starbucks. What’s the Dr. Andy Roark Starbucks order? You’re at Starbucks. What’s the special drink order? I want to know. Like, are you a Pumpkin Spice girl? Tell me the truth. Okay.

Dr. Andy Roark: no, it’s such a letdown. I go, I’m crotchety in weird ways. And I refuse to learn the Starbucks language.

Kelsey Beth Carpenter: So you say, I want a large, and they

Dr. Andy Roark: I want a medium, I said, I want a medium coffee. That’s what I’ll say. And they’ll go, do you want something in it? And I was like, some cream and that’s it. Like, that’s what they get from me. I want a medium coffee with cream

Kelsey Beth Carpenter: Wow. If anything ages you, it’s that.

Dr. Andy Roark: I know. I know of, I have these strange things I rage against and that’s one of them. So dumb. It’s a revolution. No one cares about with me, but yeah, I am super easy to, I have this we joke about Starbucks and I don’t, you’ll remember this one of another thing I rage against is when we put on a conference and I have to buy coffee for the attendees and I buy it by the gallon and it costs me literally a hundred dollars a gallon of coffee.

And my team is like, let’s get Starbucks orders. And I’m like, Just bought 7,000 worth of coffee and they’re like, but it’s not a frappuccino, and I’m like, I just, I can’t, I just can’t, like, they, they have to do it secretly because I just, like, I will crumple to the ground in frustration.

Kelsey Beth Carpenter: One day, I’m just gonna show up and hand you like whatever the most extravagant like Caramel frappuccino with cold whip oat milk Bronze, I don’t know how that works, but I’m gonna get you something with whipped cream on and that’s for sure change your life

Dr. Andy Roark: It will, okay.

Kelsey Beth Carpenter: Okay, so we’ll kind of wrap this up. I could ask you questions for days.

We all could but As we close out this episode, are there any? Especially memorable moments, episode, guests, memories that you have from the past 300 episodes of this podcast. I’m putting you on the spot here. You gotta think through 300 episodes.

Dr. Andy Roark: I’ve had a lot of them in great, but there’s always the first one. And so Dr. Sarah Boston, who is a surgeon, an onco surgeon, talk about brilliant. She’s an onco surgeon and also a standup comedian and a really funny, really good standup comedian. She was my guinea pig for the podcast.

And I, we, I had her on cause she wrote an article about emotional blackmail in vet medicine. And I was like, That’s it. I’m talking to her. And that was the first podcast that we did and we put it out like two months before the next episode would come out, but it was completely recorded on Skype. It was just, it was a disaster.

But, but other than what we talked about, which was great and it got. So much attention and so that was the first thing that I was like, we did one swing and one hit and I was like great.

Kelsey Beth Carpenter: Oh, I remember, was that the episode that I feel like the title was, Are We Bad People? Wasn’t that it?

Dr. Andy Roark: That was it was either that one or or a follow up.

Kelsey Beth Carpenter: Yeah, one of us, 

Dr. Andy Roark: Well, are we bad people also did really well? there’s been some some episodes We’ve done that have been really funny. I when I interviewed Gabe Matthews, the paranormal investigator for Halloween last year.

And, and I read to him I read him real ghost stories from vet clinics that people sent in, and then I got his breakdown. I did like a, how do you treat that case with Gabe Matthews, the paranormal investigator. He sprayed me with I don’t know, some sort of incense that just, it didn’t come out for days.

I stunk. That was funny. I thought the April fool’s episode Cono de Peña when I announced that I had been doing Duolingo and we were going to be switching to Spanish. I thought that was hilarious. It did nothing. I don’t think people got it. 

Kelsey Beth Carpenter: I know, I think we we unintentionally got some people’s hopes up. People really have

Dr. Andy Roark: Oh, exactly. Some people were like, I, yeah, some people were, were really excited.

Then I was like, I feel bad because I’m letting these people down. That was great. The when we were doing the four eyes save lives stuff and we’re talking about that suicide and I got to host Dr. Tracy Whitty who was rolling out this new research on the impact of access to lethal means on suicide. in vet professionals that felt really important to me at like a deep personal level and getting to getting to talk to her and have her talk about her research that was just getting published in a way that I thought was really accessible.

That felt like really important work when I interviewed Dr Julie Levy on the black market cure for fip. This was well before it got conditional approval In the usa and like it people were getting it through a facebook group, but it was saving cats lives That was that was the most popular episode we ever did.

I mean it had You know, it had I mean five figures in place for that episode. You But that that also felt really important in the number of people who who shared it and who said oh man This saved my my pet’s life. That that was big for me. There was There was another one just as a personal one. Dr. Ashley Bourgeois is a–

Kelsey Beth Carpenter: I love her.

Dr. Andy Roark: She’s she’s She’s great. Um, the Derm Vet, she had this experience. She talked about caregiver burden because her young child and I remember what’s happened. She was at a conference and then her young, her young child was diagnosed with leukemia. And suddenly it was, it was It was a fight for life.

And and she talked about that experience and she’s still there. She’s still seeing appointments. She’s making social media content and sort of talking about dermatology and educating, and she’s carrying this burden behind the scenes. And, and so she, she came and she talked about she came and she talked about about sort of her journey.

And that meant a lot. And, and then the last, the last ones I’ll say is I’ve had so many people I can’t list but there are these people who are at the top of their field and they are so smart that their clinical genius has just bled into the way that they think and they talk and I would ask them a question and then they would tell me a story.

And I’m like, why are you telling me this? And then I would realize that they had just given me this huge gift of knowledge. And, and like my, my mind would be Dr. Doug Mater is one of those for me. He’s someone I really, I just admire him. He’s an excellent writer, which I really like. He’s got a book called the Vet at Noah’s Ark.

Which was really cool, but but he. He’ll start answering a question and then he’ll tell you all the history kind of around the question and he’ll tell you who discovered the answer to the question and in what species they were working when they did and it’s just his knowledge is so deep It’s just it blows my mind.

Dr. Tim Evans is a toxicologist parasitologist at University of Missouri. And he, I didn’t know him and, and, and, and someone put me in touch with him. And he did this, like, name that nephrotoxin episode with us.

Kelsey Beth Carpenter: Oh, yeah, that was a great one.

Dr. Andy Roark: He was so funny. He was so funny and his knowledge was so endless. And if I had let him, he would have talked for the rest of the afternoon.

But he was anyway, there’s just people like that of it’s their style and they are so excited about what they know. And you just realize this person could talk to me for a year.

Kelsey Beth Carpenter: Yeah, you could do a whole season on them. 

Dr. Andy Roark: This guy, I mean, they could, you could, you could get your whole, you could throw residency done with this one person, but anyway, and we just had a number of episodes like that that have been absolutely amazing.

Kelsey Beth Carpenter: Yeah. Fabulous. Well, I just want to share with you my own experience has been that an unintended positive from this podcast. As you know, I went through some health issues, which forced me out of the clinic before I was ready to leave the clinic. And I would say the cone of shame podcast is probably the one thing that has made me feel the most involved in veterinary medicine still because I still get to know what are people talking about. What’s the new drug that’s coming out? What’s the specialty that we’re really focusing on right now? What are the issues that people are talking about? What are we seeing coming in the future? Getting to listen to this podcast has made me feel like I still get to be a part of this veterinary community.

And that’s a very special gift. And I, I feel it’s probably safe to say I’m not the only one who it’s had that effect on. So thank you for 300 fabulous episode. Thank you. And thank all of the incredible people who have been part of this podcast. So.

Dr. Andy Roark: Thanks. Thanks to everybody. Who’s listened to 300 episodes. You, you guys are, you guys are amazing. I said, I love this thing. I, I think I would do it if nobody listened, but it’s, but, but listens are really nice.

Kelsey Beth Carpenter: Absolutely Now, to end this on the typical cone of shame podcast style Dr. Andy Roark, where can people find you?

Dr. Andy Roark: You can find me on this very podcast. Yeah. Yeah, you can find me and Kelsey Carpenter collaborating on Facebook even the TikTok these days at Dr. Andy Roark and Yeah, that’s, that’s it. Check out, check out Uncharted Veterinary Podcast. If you are in a leadership position and you enjoy hearing my voice you’ll hear a lot of it over there.

I mean, Stephanie Goss we’ve got, we’ve got 300 episodes over there, just fixing hospitals. And so anyway, I, I do love that.

Kelsey Beth Carpenter: Absolutely. Well, thank you so much, Dr. Andy Roark for being my guest on my podcast, the cone of shame today only. And I thank you all for listening. Thank you all for submitting your questions. This has been a fabulous episode. I hope you all have a wonderful morning, afternoon, evening, whatever time it is where you are and we’ll catch you on the next episode.

Dr. Andy Roark: Hey, thanks everybody.

And that’s what we got guys. Thanks for, thanks for tuning in. Uh, 300 episodes is, again, I feel just so fortunate and grateful and I feel fortunate and grateful to have, uh, people like Kelsey Carpenter and the rest of my team, uh, in my life.

And so anyway, it’s just, uh, it’s been, it’s been a great, it’s been a great run and I’m looking forward to keeping it up. So anyway, guys, take care of everybody. Talk to you later.