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Perspective

Imposter Syndrome and Finding Our Place in Vet Medicine

August 22, 2022 by Andy Roark DVM MS

Dr. Cherie Buisson joins the podcast to discuss the idea that, deep down, none of us think we belong here. We think we’re not moving fast enough, that we’re not smart enough, and that we’re not accomplishing what we should be accomplishing (or what others are accomplishing). Why do we have these thoughts, and more importantly, what do we do about them?

Cone Of Shame Veterinary Podcast · COS – 156 – Imposter Syndrome And Finding Our Place In Vet Medicine

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

LINKS

A Happy Vet: https://ahappyvet.com/

Helping Hands Pet Hospice: https://helpinghandspethospice.com/

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

What’s on my Scrubs?! Card Game: https://drandyroark.com/training-tools/

Dr. Andy Roark Swag: drandyroark.com/shop

All Links: linktr.ee/DrAndyRoark

ABOUT OUR GUEST

Dr. Buisson wasn’t (and isn’t!) always A Happy Vet. In fact, for many years, she was An Unhappy Vet. Despite working in wonderful practices with compassionate mentors, she always felt she didn’t fit in. She found private practice draining and felt like a failure for her inability to be “a real vet”. She learned the hard way for two decades, and her mission is to provide veterinary professionals with the tools to find their happiness and to help them be comfortable if they take a nontraditional approach. She believes it’s never too late to find your place, but there’s nothing wrong with starting early!


EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

This podcast transcript is made possible thanks to a generous gift from Banfield Pet Hospital, which is striving to increase accessibility and inclusivity across the veterinary profession. Click here to learn more about Equity, Inclusion & Diversity at Banfield.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Hey, guys. If you’ve listened to this podcast for any time at all, you know how much I care about keeping pet care accessible to pet owners, and how much I hate when people don’t have the resources they need to take care of their pets or staff included. Guys, if you are here, you are probably pretty hardcore about pet healthcare. Figo Pet Insurance helps you and your clients prepare for the unexpected so that you never have to make the tough choice between your pet’s health and your wallet. Whether these pets are eating out of the trash or diving off of furniture, pets don’t always make the best decisions, we know that. But with Figo you can, and pet owners can. Designed for pets and their people, Figo allows you to worry less and play more with customizable coverage for accidents, illness, and routine wellness. To get a quick and easy quote, visit figopet.com/coneofshame, that’s F-I-G-O-P-E-T.com/coneofshame. Figo’s policies are underwritten by Independence American Insurance Company.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Welcome everybody to the Cone of Shame Veterinary podcast. I am your host, Dr. Andy Roark. I am here with my friend today, the one and only Dr. Cherie Buisson. She was highly requested when I put out a call to say, “Hey, what was the best lecture you ever saw and who gave it? Because I’d like to talk to him on the podcast.” She was on the list and got a number of little up votes. And I know Cherie and I agree that she does a heck of a lecture, and she is awesome to listen to. And so she’s on today talking about imposter syndrome and finding her place in vet medicine. This is a fun conversation. We get into a lot of different stuff. It’s sprawling, there’s lots of stories being told. Lots of laughs. I think the world of her guys. I hope you are going to enjoy this one. Let’s get into it.

Kelsey Beth Carpenter:
(Singing).

Dr. Andy Roark:
Welcome to the podcast, Dr. Cherie Buisson. Thanks for being here.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Hey, thanks for having me. It’s exciting to be here and I’m so glad to see you again. It’s been forever.

Dr. Andy Roark:
It’s been a minute.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
It’s been a minute.

Dr. Andy Roark:
It’s been pre-pandemic since you and I got to hang out. Yeah.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Oh gosh.

Dr. Andy Roark:
I know. I haven’t seen you since then. Yeah.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Wow. That’s a long time.

Dr. Andy Roark:
It was 2020 and then it’s 2022 and here we are.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Yeah. All right.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. For those who don’t know you, Dr. Cherie Buisson is a practicing veterinarian. She is a hospice veterinarian in Largo, Florida. She is certified hospice and palliative care specialist, and she is the brains behind A Happy Vet, which is a website online with a lot of mental health and wellness resources for vet professionals. And so that is Cherie. We met back in the day when I was running the Dr. Andy Roark website, and she just submitted an article out of the blue. And I was like, “This is amazing.” And then she started writing more and more. And then she started getting asked to speak and present on the things that she had written, which were amazing. And then I got to see her just take off like a rocket in our profession, and she is an outstanding presenter and speaker. And if you get the chance to see her in the post-COVID world, you should totally do that. And so Cherie, welcome and thanks for being here.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Thanks so much. I really appreciate it.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Oh man.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Gosh, it has been a really long time. That was 2017 when I submitted that article and I thought, “Wouldn’t it be cool if somebody like Andy Roark picked this up?” And then all of a sudden I had messages from you on every platform. And I was like, “Wow.” Talk about asking the universe for something. That was awesome.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, you were writing a lot of fascinating stuff. I think one of the things that you have really contributed to this profession, more than anybody, I will go that far.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Oh wow.

Dr. Andy Roark:
And say I think one of the things that you really put a stamp on, and that you said before anybody else was talking about it, you talked about imposter syndrome. And I think that was one of the first things that I really remember you writing about was imposter syndrome. And you were writing about euthanasia and hospice care early on as well. But I think, and correct me if I’m wrong, I think the thing that’s probably resonated the most with people, I think was your writings specifically on imposter syndrome. I hadn’t heard a lot about it back when you started, and then that’s where your career came from.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Yes. And the term imposter syndrome has been around since the seventies, so it’s nothing new and it’s nothing I came up with. But man, when you’re struggling in the vet profession and you feel like you don’t belong here, if you’re a geek, you start looking stuff up and you’re like, “There’s got to be an explanation for this.” And I don’t even remember where I heard it first or if I just came upon it on the internet, but I was like, “Oh, this explains so much.” And I thought this is something the students need to hear, because if I had known that as a student, that most of the people in my class felt that way … Because I think there’s this bravado that we all put on, like we know what we’re doing and we’re confident, and we’re freaking out completely on the inside. And I think there wasn’t a push for vulnerability back then. So everybody was just like, “Oh, everyone is so much smarter than me and I don’t belong here.”

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
And I felt that way, I still feel that way sometimes and it’s been 22 years since I graduated. I think it’s just something, if we can start and let the students know it’s a thing, then I think … I watch their faces light up in an audience. It cracks me up, because I can always tell who the students are, because their jaw drops and their eyes get big. And then they’re like, “Oh yeah. Okay. That’s me.” So it makes me so happy to see them go, “Oh, okay. I’m not alone. Everything is fine.” I do think that we’ve gotten … Everybody found out about it and now it’s this cliche thing. “Oh, there’s my imposter syndrome.” And I think there’s more being said about how maybe it’s not so much imposter syndrome in a lot of places that it’s more toxic workplaces and discrimination, that you don’t feel this way because something’s wrong with you.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
There’s something wrong with the world.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Right.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
I do think we’ve put it on individuals, “Well, if you feel this way, you need to fix it.” And I think that’s something we need to lean away from. We need to take responsibility for ourselves, but we also need to address the fact that systemically there are problems that cause people who are marginalized to feel even more marginalized.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Sure.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
And we need to address that. So hopefully we’re working on that, but it’s not a small problem for sure.

Dr. Andy Roark:
I just want to make sure I understand this too. So it’s funny, I don’t think of imposter syndrome as being a vet student thing at all. To me, I look around at everyone else that I know, and I guess I’m at a place in my career where I am fortunate, humble brag, I get to visit with the people in the C-suites and CEOs of big vet companies. You know what I mean? And I know people who own seven vet practices and I know that they still have imposter syndrome. They probably more so because they’re like, “There’s 300 people that work for me, that they have no idea who I am. They clearly don’t know that I was not supposed to get this job.” And it’s funny. So that’s the mindset that I have is in high performing people, whether they’re associate doctors or whether they’re people who own practice groups being affected by this. And it’s just funny to me that you see it on the faces of the vet students, which totally makes sense, but it’s not at all the lens that I was looking at it through.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
And it’s just because as a vet I remember feeling that way, like I was the dumbest one in my class. I graduated third in my class. Okay. So I wasn’t …

Dr. Andy Roark:
You weren’t quite the dumbest.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
No.

Dr. Andy Roark:
You weren’t quite the dumbest.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
And not that the last person that graduated at our class was the dumbest, because not everybody’s good at school, but that was always my thing is that I’m good at school. So I was like, “How am I going to be a veterinarian when school stops? Because I’m good at school. That’s what I do.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
That’s funny.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
And so I was like, “If somebody had just told me, or if I had shared that and maybe they do better in vet school now and the students share, “Hey, I feel really worried about this,” or, “I’m upset about this.” But I was just in this room full of geniuses and I was like, “How did I get here?” And I talked to another veterinarian who I just love. And he was telling me that when he graduated, he didn’t know they didn’t put your diploma in the envelope or cardboard thing that they hand you.

Dr. Andy Roark:
In the tube, in the tube that they give you.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
In the tube.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
So when he opened it, he thought, “Oh my God, they just didn’t want to embarrass me in front of my family. I didn’t graduate.” And it made me laugh, but it didn’t even surprise me. I was like, “Yeah, I can see that. Totally.” They handed us a cardboard folder, whatever a pleather folder. And we knew our diplomas weren’t going to be in there. And then funnily enough, they misspelled our graduation date on the things. We all had to give our diplomas back and get them back. Yeah. It’s just the more people I talk to the more I hear it, “I don’t know what I’m doing here. I just feel like I don’t belong here.”

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
So if everybody feels that way, maybe that means we all belong here? I think that’s where we need to come from. I had great mentors and they respected students and young veterinarians and were very supportive and like, “Hey, take it easy on yourself. You’re learning.” But I think for new vets too, it gets really hard because in a lot of practices everybody’s real supportive in the beginning, and then once they feel like you should have your feet under you, they’re like, “You’re not going fast enough.” And then it just goes downhill from there. You’re just like, “I can’t keep up and I can’t do this.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
Do you think that is a failing in our profession? So you say if none of us feel like we are supposed to be here, I think it’s always hard to speak in generalizations, but I definitely get the impression that a lot of us feel like we’re not supposed to be here especially early in our career. Is that a failing in our training you think? Or is that an inevitable part of being a human being?

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Well, I think part of it is the selection process for veterinary school is that they tend to select for lack of better terms, anal retentive, perfectionists.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. They’re going for the people who are third in their class and think that they’re not supposed to be there. That’s who they go for.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Right, right. If it’s not perfect, we didn’t accomplish it, I think is how a lot of us feel. And so when we have cases that go wrong, we’re like, “Oh it must be me,” instead of, “Oh, it must be nature.” Because this is how this works.” Sometimes perfectly healthy things just pass away and we don’t know why or sometimes anesthesia problems happen and we don’t know why. Although I’m sure the anesthesia nerds have an explanation for that and that’s why I love them.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Oh yeah. They’re great.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
They’re fantastic. But I think it’s not realistic. Our whole thing of, “I love animals, but I don’t maybe so much love people so I should be a veterinarian.” I think there’s just, we start off on the wrong foot with, “I need to be perfect. I need to get straight. I need to get it right all the time.” And there’s no way for that to happen ever.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
You’re going to screw up. You’re going to have patients that die for no reason. You’re going to have patients that die because of you. And if you’re like me, all of them do because that’s what I do for a living now.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Right, yeah. It’s different when you’re hospice. Yeah.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
I never, never would have thought that that’s what I wanted to do. And so I just think we need change in that we just need to let everybody know it’s okay. I feel like all vet students need a letter that’s like, “Here, you’re going to feel like you suck and you don’t belong here. That’s crap. Here, you’re not going to get everything right, and that’s expected.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
I think our expectations are so far from what reality really is. And a lot of us, this is what we wanted to be since we were kids and kids don’t have logical, smart ways to look at the world. So we’re just like, “Oh, I want to play with puppies and kittens all day.” And that’s not what it is.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. I had this theory. I wrote about it in a article that came out just last month. So it came out I think in the July Today’s Vet Business, but I’ve got this idea, Cherie, that we need more graduations. And my theory is this. Okay. When we talk about graduations, the point of a graduation is supposed to be end one chapter of the life and move on to the next chapter. So it’s based on these rituals of adulthood, where you no longer a child and now you are a grown up and now you’re a member of the tribe and things like that.

Dr. Andy Roark:
And so I think that we don’t do a good job of ending college and beginning vet school and saying, “This is not college anymore. This is different and you’re going to learn differently and the expectations are going to be different.” And then I think we really don’t do a good job, and I don’t think it’s on anyone at the schools don’t get me wrong, but I think that we have trained ourselves so that we do the thing and we sit through the ceremony at the end and then we go on and we don’t really think about it. I’ll say, I don’t remember the graduation being a transformational moment for me at all. It was a scheduling challenge that I had to fit on my day and I had to go and do the thing. And I was like, “Oh, I got to make sure I eat before I go, because I don’t want to be angry for photos afterwards.” Then that was as much as I had, I just went on.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Because I was like, “I’m going to graduate. It’s going to happen.” And I think that we need more graduations, which are like, “Hey, you are not in school anymore. You are not meant to get everything and you’re going to work with people and that you can’t get everything right with people because they don’t work that way. And people are not going to have the money that you need to do the things that you want to do. And you are going to be doing your best with a pile of unfortunate circumstances, things that are beyond your control and that’s not failure. That’s what you’re doing now.” You know what I mean?

Dr. Andy Roark:
But I think that a lot of us never really put school behind us and the idea that we needed to get the A and we needed to get it right. And everybody needed to like us and be happy. And so that’s my idea with imposter syndrome is I wish that we could really put people through a graduation that would say, “You’re no longer a student. You are a professional with a CVT or a DVM. And this is what you do for a living, which means you make recommendations. You make hard choices. Some people don’t like what you have to tell them. You’re not going to have all the answers. You can’t fix all the things, welcome aboard because this is what you do now.” And so I don’t know. Does that make any sense when I say it?

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Yes. I love it. Because I read that article. Now that you’re saying it, I’m like, “Oh yeah, I remember reading that,” and I agree. The difference for me, I went from not being able to do anything without direct supervision, to being able to do whatever I wanted with no supervision in 15 minutes. And I was just like, “How is that? Yesterday I didn’t know anything and today I’m supposed to know everything.” And I think that’s perfectly said, you graduate and it’s a graduation but there’s no handbook.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
You can’t even get Dr. Spock’s How to Survive Your First Year of Med School. Although there are books now that cover that, or your first year as a veterinarian. But yeah, I think we don’t give that the credit it deserves for how hard it is to do that. I remember seeing a case of flea allergy and I live in Florida, everything’s a case of flea allergy. And I didn’t know what to do with it because I didn’t … How do I work this up? What do we do? And my boss was like, “It’s flea allergy, put some advantage on him and give him a shot of steroids and let’s go on his way.” And I was just like, “Yeah, they didn’t teach me that in school.”

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
And I was involved in the advantage clinical trials. So I knew, but it wasn’t practical for what I needed. And it just wasn’t something that I was used to seeing. Apparently I didn’t get any flea infested dogs in Mississippi when I was on community practice. It was probably wintertime. It might have been wintertime. So I don’t know, but it was just so odd to me and I felt so stupid. I was like, “He’s going to fire me now.” And I think that’s another big component to imposter syndrome is people, if you have good mentors, they will tell you. My boss went to the ends of the earth to tell me how much he appreciated me, how great a job I was doing. And I was like, “Oh my God, I’m going to get fired.” What?

Dr. Andy Roark:
As soon as he started saying nice things, you were like, “This is it. He’s setting it up.”

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Yeah. I’m like, “This is it. He’s going to fire me.” And then I was lucky. Some graduates get bosses who gaslight them and are mean to them.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
I can’t even imagine how you get through that. So yeah, I think there’s a whole host of mess that we all have to get through to do this. And we are just thrown in the deep end and it’s like pin a $20 bill to your collar and wish you the best of luck, have at it.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Hey everybody, I’m just jumping in with two lightning, fast updates. Number one, if you have not gotten signed up for the Get (censored) Done shorthanded virtual conference in October, it’s October 6th through the 8th, you need to do that. If you are feeling overwhelmed in your practice, that you want things to go smoother and faster. If you do not want to watch webinars, you want to actually talk about your practice. You want to do some discussion groups. You want to do some workshops where you actually make things and work on things and ask questions as we go along and have round table discussions and things like that, that’s really going to energize you and help you figure out actionable solutions that you can immediately put into practice to make your life simpler and more relaxed. I got you covered buddy, but you don’t want to miss it. Go ahead and get registered.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Mark yourself off at the clinic for the time so that you can be here and be present and really take advantage of this. I don’t want it to sneak up on you. I know October seems like a long way away. It’s not, but go ahead. I’m going to put a link down below and then when registration opens, we’ll let you know it’s open and you can grab your spot. But you do not want to sneak up on you. Check out our Get (censored) Done shorthanded conference. It’s going to be a great one. The second thing I’m going to tell you about is Banfield. Thank you to Banfield the Pet Hospital for making transcripts of this podcast available. You can find them at drandyroark.com. They are totally free and open to the public and Banfield supports us increase accessibility and inclusion in our profession. It’s a wonderful thing that they do. Guys, that’s all I got. Let’s get back into this episode.

Dr. Andy Roark:
I want to just switch to conversation here a little bit, because you’re going right into a really interesting place. You’ve had a very non-traditional sort of career. And so you started off when we talk about imposter syndrome and I think it’s interesting that you come out of vet school and you’re third in your class and you’re like, “I’m not meant to be here,” and this sort of experience. Talk to me a bit about finding your way in vet medicine and because that’s something that you speak a lot about and it’s something that you’re known for. Yeah. Walk me through what your path was as you explored vet medicine coming out of this training out this training program that we all go through.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
I started very traditional in a private practice, dogs, cats and exotics. Not a lot of exotics, but some. It was a two practice, so I went back and forth between two practices. I had fantastic mentors, fantastic. The doctors placed me in the hands of my CVTs and they were like, “Ask them anything.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
I love those. I love those techs.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Yeah.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Oh man.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
And then they had to pull me in the office and say, “Ask them anything but not where the client can hear you.” So I had that happen one time and I was like, “Oh my god, they’re going to fire me.” And then I realized that I have a little … We didn’t have … I’m sure it was around, but training fear free and low stress handling were not a thing. Back then we did the wrestle, WrestleMania and I got beaten up by way too many big dogs, which god helped me was not their fault at all. It was all me not knowing what to do with them.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
And I had an affinity for feline medicine, so I actually moved to a feline only practice. Again, fantastic mentor. A woman, so someone who looked like me in VetMed, which was something I had seen, I had female professors at the university, but my first job I worked for two men. And so she was just amazing and so the kind of boss that I still try to be today, just fantastic. And we’re still really close friends. And so I did feline medicine for a while and I was going to buy her practice and that plan fell through.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
And I had already acknowledged and decided the things I was going to change that were making my life stressful. And when it turned out that she was going to stay my boss and I was going to stay the associate, I was like, “Okay, I can’t do this anymore. Because I now want things to be my way.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
And for whatever reason, then I transferred to shelter medicine where things are never your way.

Dr. Andy Roark:
I was going to say, cause that’s where you get things your way. Yeah.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Yeah. I was my own boss and it was cool. I did get to plan out, really design the medical department that hadn’t been updated in years and years and that kind of thing. So I did shelter medicine. I loved spays and neuters and I loved being able to take care of pets without owners involved, which at the time I really burned out in practice because of owners, partially because I had no training in how to communicate with them. I took everything personally and felt like a failure every time things didn’t go perfectly with a client, which how often do they really?

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
So I did shelter medicine and was able to help these pets. I had financial constraints and I had a board of directors to answer to, but I felt more brave. I tried surgeries that would save a life because there were no consequences if it went wrong. I knew I had tried, whereas on a client’s animal, I would’ve been much more stressed about that. And it really rounded out my professional life. The politics of being in a shelter was again too much for me, and I ended up with compassion fatigue, and burnout all at the same time, which is a special kind of hell.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
And so I decided I really did need to be my own boss. I need to make my own rules. And I don’t know why I didn’t know that because I’ve been that way my entire life. I don’t like people telling me what to do. I like to do my own thing. I’m very obedient when I have a boss, but I don’t like it. So I moved on to relief work, which was shelter stuff, high quality, high volume spay/neuter. And then that, I did that for a while. Totally beat myself up doing way too many surgeries and had wrist and hand problems.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
And I had a colleague ask me to do some relief work for a home euthanasia practice. And I really didn’t want to. I was like, “This sounds like the worst job ever.” But I had lost a big client, I needed the money and I was like, “All right. I’m going to give this a try. I can always back out.” Which I think is something else that vet professionals, we feel like we have to marry something every time it comes up. I’ve been committed to vet medicine since I was 13, and so I have a hard time just trying things. If I’m not going to succeed at it and I’m not going to love it, I will stick with it even if it’s not good for me. So I think that’s another thing that we do is we feel like we have to commit to everything forever.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
I was like, “I’ll try it and see if I like it.” And the first one that I went to, I was like, “Oh my gosh, this is what I’m supposed to be doing.” I was observing so I’m terrible at that, so I cried through the whole thing and then the client hands me the Rainbow Bridge Poem and asked me to read it, which I can’t read without crying in my office.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Oh yeah.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
I know what’s coming. I know, but it’s like Steel Magnolia’s level ugly crying that I do if I have to. So I had to read this whole poem out loud through my tears crying. I was like, “Oh this is so embarrassing.” And I got out the door and the other veterinarian put her arm around me and she’s like, “You are going to be so good at this.” And I was like, “Okay, if you say so.”

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
And so then yeah, it went from there. I worked for her for a few years and then went back to regular relief for a while and then opened my own practice back in 2015 now. We just had our seventh anniversary and it’s just been a ride, but I’ve learned a lot about trying new things, especially with my practice because the wellness portion of my career is really important to me and I needed wellness and I wanted my team to have wellness. And veterinary medicine tells you that’s not possible, and I won’t say we do it great all the time, but we really try and I try to be open. I’m like, “All right, we’ll try this for three weeks. And then if we don’t like or if I don’t like it, we’re going to go back.” Because I’m the boss and I say so.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Have a fancy name for that. We call that pilot programs and it makes me sound smart.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Yes.

Dr. Andy Roark:
And it’s the same thing.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Oh.

Dr. Andy Roark:
It’s like you say, Cherie, you say to the team, “We’re going to do a pilot program.”

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
That sounds so much better.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. We’re going to roll this out for three weeks and then we’re going to see if we want to expand the program. And that’s how you say basically I’m going to try it. And if I don’t like it, we’re going to stop. But you don’t say it that way.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
I love pilot program.

Dr. Andy Roark:
You say it in business speak. Yeah.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
And especially now with Top Gun being out, you sound Tom Cruise level cool. We’re going to have this pilot. I feel like I could have the glasses and leather jacket.

Dr. Andy Roark:
I wear Ray-Bans when I say it. Yeah.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Oh man, I have Ray-Bans in the car. I’m going to have to put them on.

Dr. Andy Roark:
There you go. That’s what you do.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Oh, I love it. I love it. Yeah. It’s given me that kind of freedom to try new things and see what I like and what I don’t like and not be afraid to say, “That didn’t work at all.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
“We’re not doing that again.” And I just had one of those moments this morning. My other doctor and I, and our receptionist were scrambling to try to help a family. And we were trying to figure things out and we’re texting and it was crazy. And we called the lady and she had found help elsewhere or she had gone to the vet in the middle of the night or something. And I was like, “Okay, this is the thousandth time we’ve done this.” And like you always say on your Uncharted podcast, “This is now practice policy.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. It’s a surprise.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
So we need to change it.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
I was like, “Okay, why don’t we instead call people and see where they are and what they need. And then we’ll figure out how to help them if they actually need help.” And it’s just something as simple as that. Whereas before I would keep doing this and keep doing this and beating my head against the wall. And so we changed our hours multiple times. We used to be open 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM as far as answering phones. Now it’s eight to four because that’s what my team needed for their family life.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
And I hired people I wanted and they were like, “Hey, we got to be out of here by four to take care of kids or whatever they need to do.” And I was like, all well, we’ll try closing at four and I’ll keep an eye on how many things we’re missing between four and 5:30, which is where we had gotten back down to. And then we just changed that if people are having a problem with something I’m like, “Okay, well let’s try something. Let’s see what,” instead of that whole, we do it this way and that’s the only way and like it or leave it. I just feel like that doesn’t get us anywhere.

Dr. Andy Roark:
I love that so much. And I think that there are these maxims in vet medicine, the sacred cows that are not to be touched, that people grab onto what I mean? And this sounds so simple, but there’s so much of our careers that we have more power over than we think. So I remember during the pandemic, I run an Uncharted veterinary community for those who are not familiar with that, but it’s a leadership development community for veterinarians and vet leaders. And anyway, during the pandemic we had people burning out left and center and their staff was leaving and things.

Dr. Andy Roark:
And the idea came up, this, “We need to close another day a week.” And at first when that was said, it was like, “This is heresy.” You know what I mean? There are so many people who are like, “We can’t just take Wednesday off.” And the truth is you can.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Yeah, you can.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, you can. It takes some planning, but it’s not written down anywhere that vet clinics shall be open on Wednesdays or even that clinic shall be open on Saturdays. And we’ve had a lot of clinics that Uncharted that were like, “Hey, we’re small staff and our people are burning out and we’re taking the weekends off. We’re not working on Saturdays.”

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
I’ve worked for two of those practices in my hometown. The cat practices that were open Monday through Friday and one of them closes a half day on Wednesday. And you know what? They are so busy, they don’t know what to do with themselves.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Exactly.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
And I remember my first boss, when the cat hospital, when she decided to close on weekends, she was like, “I don’t know if I can do this.” And her doctor told her because she had gotten shingles, she was like, “You’re either going to see less of the clinic or more of me. Take your pick.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
And she was like, “Yes, ma’am.” And she shut it and she said there were probably three people out of all of her clients that left the practice because they could not be seen on the weekend.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Three. And I think we underestimate how many people see us on Saturdays because it’s convenient as opposed to that they absolutely can’t. And no matter what you do, you’re going to lose people. I’ve heard practices that are like, “We just need to be open 24 hours.” And I’m like, “Okay. Well, no.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
If you can find the people who want to do that great. And for emergency clinics obviously, but we even have an emergency clinic that they’re open specified hours. They’re 24 hours on the weekends and holidays, but not during the week. They close and they refer to other places and it takes some shuffling around and it’s hard but if we have a shortage of team members, largely our own fault because we work people to death for very little pay. And I worry about that all the time and I pay quite a bit more for my team than most of the local practices. And they work from home.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
They deal with clients on the phone. They’re not in person. People tell, “We just can’t afford that.” And I’m like, “I make way less money than you do and I can afford it.” I make sure to, and yes, I have to make sacrifices for that. And sometimes I’m like, “Why am I doing this?” But I have wonderful team members who are here with us and say it’s the best job that they’ve ever had, which means the world to me and people are looking for something different. And I don’t think anybody likes the grind. And when work becomes a grind, especially something like this, that’s a passion for you, having it become a grind is just the key to burnout and being miserable.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Right.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
And I will say, I burned out completely during the pandemic too. Because when you work until you get sick and then you don’t get sick, that’s a really stupid plan.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. That was the plan.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
That was the plan. I was like, “We’ll be sick. Between my husband and I, we’ll probably not be able to go out into the world for a month.” Because back in the beginning it was two weeks for each person that got sick and I was like, “Plan to be out of work for a month. I’m going to work my butt off and then take a month in bed with COVID,” and that didn’t happen. I caught COVID this past April for the first time that I know of.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Oh man.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Best laid plans of veterinarians.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, there you go.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
And stuff.

Dr. Andy Roark:
My favorite piece of career advice, which is so dumb, but it’s true, it’s figure out how to do more of what you like and figure out how to do less of what you don’t like.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Yes.

Dr. Andy Roark:
And then just repeat it and repeat it and repeat it. That blows some people’s minds and it sounds so simple, but it’s true. And it’s just what do you like to do? I remember when I was working full time as a veterinarian and I had little kids and I was just writing at night and on the weekends and I was going some to some conferences to present. As long as I could get there after work on Friday so I could get speak on Saturday, then I would do the job. But I was doing all this stuff and finally I was like, “I’m not going to work full time anymore in the clinic.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
And that just felt, I don’t know, like some taboo thing to be like, “I’m not going to work four days a week and every other Saturday. I’m going to work three days a week and every other Saturday and I’m going to take Fridays off.” And I told my boss that I was like, “This is what I need.” And I think so many people just can’t imagine themselves saying, “Well, this is what I’m going to do.” You can do that. It’s allowed. And of course I did not go. I don’t want to just sound like I unilaterally said to my boss, “This is how it is.” No. I went and I said, “I have an idea and this is what I would like to do. And I can see how it could work here as well.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
And at that point it was back when things were slow sometimes and she was happy to not pay me 18% of my salary or whatever it worked out to be for me to cut down to that. So she was happy to get the cost off the books and I was happy to get the free time and it worked out. But yeah, it’s funny how much control you have and I think your story’s great. Moving around through the rooms of vet medicine, it’s a big house. There’s a lot of rooms.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Yes, I love that.

Dr. Andy Roark:
I think it’s also [inaudible 00:34:31] to try that. So if you could go back knowing what now, just in regard to finding your place in the profession, what advice would you give to young Cherie, if you could?

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Ooh, I did a whole lecture on this. I post it every year at graduation.

Dr. Andy Roark:
I need about a three-minute answer here.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
They told me 10 minutes and I pushed it to 20, so I’ll try to be good. Yeah. I think just to do what makes you happy and to speak up. I think there’s a lot of … I know, I was raised in Louisiana and Florida. I’m a good Southern girl. We don’t like to make people uncomfortable. We don’t like to have uncomfortable conversations. We are just pretty and we sit nice and we do the things to make everyone happy and comfortable so no one’s uncomfortable. And then you are uncomfortable all the time.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, then you live your life uncomfortable. Yeah.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Yeah. And I’m 47 now. I’m still uncomfortable having uncomfortable conversations. But I think getting comfortable with that and I think take a communications course for the love of God. Please take a communications course and learn how to talk to people and learn how to not take what they say personally. But yeah, I think those things, now I look and I’m like, “Yeah, get therapy because it’s super helpful. Meditate.” If I could go back and make myself meditate. I think that would’ve been great. But sometimes you just got to find things when it’s your time to find things.

Dr. Andy Roark:
I’ve had that thought a lot recently just of there are so many things that I do now in my forties that I’m like, “God, why didn’t I start doing this when I was 30?”

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Right?

Dr. Andy Roark:
And I don’t know that you could’ve talked me into it when I was 30.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Yes.

Dr. Andy Roark:
So meditating or I don’t know, I’m trying to think of the other stuff that I do. I have a-

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Saving money.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Saving money, yeah. All those sorts of things where I go, “Why didn’t I pick this up earlier?” I’ve got been cooking a lot recently and I really enjoy it. And I’m like, “All of the money I could have saved in my twenties cooking for myself instead of eating out every meal,” just basic stuff like that.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Yeah.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Also just the enjoyment I would’ve had of doing a hobby that I didn’t find until much later on. But I think you find it when you find it.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Oh yeah, for sure. And I think lost myself. Cherie the vet became my entire persona and Cherie the person didn’t really matter. We just ran her to death until she was like, “Okay, that’s it. I’m sick now. And now we have to be Cherie the person in bed with a thermometer in your mouth because you overdid it.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Just that balance and that it’s not a balance of work is 50% and your personal life is 50%. It’s a constant shift and it’s like yoga. You’ve just got to keep your balance. You’re going to sway one way or the other. And I really just wish I could have told myself, “Just sit back and enjoy it,” because it’s such a great ride. And 22 years later looking back and I’m like, “Oh my gosh, I’ve had such an exciting career and such a diverse career.” And I’m so glad I tried the things that I did because being an anxious person, I have a lot of problems trying new things and potentially failing at them, to just try stuff if it interests me and just to go for it and see. Good luck. My whole career is based on something I didn’t want to even try.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
And I was forced to by circumstances and look how great it turned out. And now I’m doing what I want to do. And I think too, just not being so hung up on what vet medicine is right now and how you have to run a practice. There are practices that run a bit like mine, but I’ve never seen one that’s so schedule friendly. It’s a lot of work on me when somebody says, “Hey, I’m taking vacation,” and somebody else goes, “Oh, I’m going too.” And it’s like, “Oh, why did I do this? Why don’t I have those rules where new one goes on vacation without my permission.” But then I look at how people want to stay and want to work and it’s worth it. It’s fine.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
And I just love everybody of being their own boss and they have to work within the confines of my practice, but there’s not that I am the boss and you must do what I say or else. We are a co-op I think of people. And so far I like it, but I’m glad I had the experiences that I had, otherwise I might not have been brave enough to try this. And I still, at times I’m like, “Am I doing the right thing? Is this that imposter syndrome?” It’s like, “Oh gosh, am I qualified to be somebody’s boss? I can’t even manage my own life.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
I’ll bet, yeah.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
“Could I really run this business?” And then my accountant’s like, “Hell yeah, you can look at these numbers. You’re doing great.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
It’s like, “Okay. All right. All right, I’ll believe it.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
All right.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
“Now that you’re showing it to me in black and white, I can do it.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
I know. Talking to a guy who owns a veterinary conference.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Yeah.

Dr. Andy Roark:
I can’t believe there’s not some ruling body that has to sign off on that, but they don’t.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
I love that.

Dr. Andy Roark:
I waited for three years for the AVMA to show up and shut me down. I’m like, “I don’t know if they have that power, but I feel like they should.” But no, they don’t. They don’t.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
You just go for it.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Yeah.

Dr. Andy Roark:
You just do it and it works out. Dr. Cherie Buisson, you are amazing. Thank you so much for being here. Where can people find you online? Where can they read your stuff and get more of your wisdom?

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
They can find me ahappyvet.com, which is my website for wellness in the vet profession. We’re very active on Facebook. I’ve been neglecting it a bit lately because Helping Hands, which is my hospice practice has been busy. If you are interested in hospice and palliative care, helpinghandspethospice.com is my website for my mobile practice. So you can reach me at either of those places and my email address and my phone number are on there so you can contact me if you’re interested. But I’m so happy that you contacted me to come do this, because I’ve been missing the camaraderie and seeing your face and talking to you. It’s been great.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Do you want to tell a story about where this came from? Where this podcast came from?

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Okay, I will.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Because I [inaudible 00:41:01] when you told me this. Okay.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
I will. Okay.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Okay. Tell it, because this is great.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Andy had a post asking for people’s favorite lectures. And I think it even said that you were looking for people to interview for your podcast.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, it did.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
But you were just like, “I want to know your favorite lectures” and it came across and I was afraid to read the comments because I really wanted somebody to mention me. And I was, “Oh, the irony of that.” And what’s hilarious is that the person that mentioned me actually specifically mentioned imposter syndrome, which cracks me up because I was like all imposter-y, like, “Everyone else is going to get loved and I am not going to get loved ever.” I watched it for a couple of days. This is so embarrassing. And finally somebody did post and said something about me. And my thought that ran through my head completely some subconsciously, but it came up was, “Oh, thank God. I’m for real.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
Thank god, I needed that.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
That was what came up. Yes. Thank God. I am actually a human being who got some recognition, so that’s all good.

Dr. Andy Roark:
I needed that validation. Someone in the comments.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Yeah. I needed that validation. Someone in the comments on Facebook validated me.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Oh yeah. So true.

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
So my career is meaningful and I was like, “Okay.” Yeah. And I think I actually talked to my therapist about it that week. I was like, “You are not going to believe how worried I was about this.” And she just cracked up and shook her head.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Humans are strange animals, aren’t we?

Dr. Cherie Buisson:
Yeah. That’s why I don’t work on them.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Oh man. Yeah. That’s a good call. All right, I think that’s the last word of wisdom on this side. I think that’s great insight. All right. Thanks Cherie. Hey everybody, take care of yourselves. I’ll talk to you next week.

Dr. Andy Roark:
And that is our episode guys. I hope you enjoyed it. Thanks so much to Cherie Buisson she’s incredible. Gang, take care of yourselves. Be well, I’ll talk to you later on. Bye.

Filed Under: Podcast Tagged With: Perspective, Wellness

The Vet At Noah’s Ark: Stories of Survival from an Inner-City Animal Hospital

July 14, 2022 by Andy Roark DVM MS

Dr. Doug Mader joins Dr. Andy Roark to talk about his new book, The Vet at Noah’s Ark: Stories of Survival from an Inner-City Animal Hospital. They discuss Dr. Mader’s career in inner-city LA during and immediately after the Rodney King trial in the early 1990s, Dr. Mader’s evolution as both writer and veterinarian, and Dr. Mader’s view of where veterinary medicine is going in the future.

From the publisher:

From renowned veterinarian Dr. Doug Mader comes a stirring account of his fight to protect his animal patients and human staff amid the dangerous realities of inner-city life and the Los Angeles riots—and a celebration of the remarkable human-animal bond.

The life of a veterinarian is challenging: keeping up with advances in medical care, making difficult decisions about people’s beloved companions, and, in Dr. Doug Mader’s case, navigating the social unrest in Los Angeles in the early 1990s. As one of the few exotic animal experts in California, he was just as likely to be treating a lion as a house cat.

The Vet at Noah’s Ark: Stories of Survival from an Inner-City Animal Hospital follows Dr. Mader and his staff over the course of a year at Noah’s Ark Veterinary Hospital, an inner-city LA area veterinary hospital where Dr. Mader treats not only dogs and cats, but also emus, skunks, snakes, foxes, monkeys, and a host of other exotic animals. This real life drama is set against the backdrop of the trial of four police officers in the Rodney King case, as well as the violent aftermath following their acquittal.

Cone Of Shame Veterinary Podcast · COS – 149 – The Vet At Noah’s Ark: Stories Of Survival From An Inner – City Animal Hospital

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


LINKS

The Vet at Noah’s Ark: https://www.amazon.com/Vet-Noahs-Ark-Survival-Inner-City/dp/1954641044/

Dr. Doug Mader’s Wedsite: https://www.dougmader.com/

Dr. Doug Mader on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/douglas.mader.9

NEW Dr. Andy Roark Exam Room Communication Tool Box Course: https://drandyroark.com/store/

What’s on my Scrubs?! Card Game: https://drandyroark.com/training-tools/

Dr. Andy Roark Swag: drandyroark.com/shop

All Links: linktr.ee/DrAndyRoark


ABOUT OUR GUEST

Douglas R. Mader, MS, DVM, Diplomate ABVP (Canine/Feline), Diplomate, ABVP (Reptile/Amphibian), Diplomate, ECZM (Herpetology), Fellow, Royal Society of Medicine

Dr. Mader received his DVM from the University of California, Davis in 1986. In addition, he completed a Residency in Primate and Zoo animal medicine. He is the consulting veterinarian for the Monroe County Sheriff’s Zoo, the Key West Aquarium, Dynasty Marine, the Sea Turtle Hospital, the Everglades Alligator Farm and the Theater of the Sea. Previously Dr. Mader owned the Marathon Veterinary Hospital, a double AAHA accredited 24 hr emergency/referral hospital. Dr. Mader is an internationally acclaimed lecturer and is on the review boards of several scientific journals. He has published numerous articles in scientific and veterinary journals, national magazines, and, is the author/editor and co-editor of three textbooks on Reptile Medicine and Surgery.­­ Dr. Mader’s latest project is his new book “The Vet at Noah’s Ark – Stories of Survival from an Inner-city Animal Hospital.”


EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

This podcast transcript is made possible thanks to a generous gift from Banfield Pet Hospital, which is striving to increase accessibility and inclusivity across the veterinary profession. Click Here to learn more about Equity, Inclusion & Diversity at Banfield.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Welcome everybody to the Cone of Shame veterinarian podcast. I am your host, Dr. Andy Rourke. Guys, I am here today with the one and only Dr. Doug Mader. We are talking about his new book, The Vet at Noah’s Ark: Stories of Survival from an Inner-City Animal Hospital.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Guys, this is a fun episode. It’s an interesting episode. Dr. Mader is such a wealth of information, obviously, on exotic animals. He’s written three textbooks. This book is stories. It’s stories from his life and career. It’s a one year time in his practice life. Man, he’s a smart guy. He also gives fantastic life advice. I just love hearing his insights on our profession. We get into all that today.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Guys, 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 and your veterinary career. Welcome to the Cone of Shame, with Dr. Andy Roark.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Welcome to the podcast, Dr. Doug Mader. Thanks for being back.

Dr. Doug Mader:
Dr. Rourke, thanks so much. Always appreciate it. It’s always fun talking with you.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Oh, you as well. I love having you on the episodes. You and I talked. Recently, we’ve done a couple exotic medical episodes. We talked about a [socotta 00:01:24] that got attacked in a dog attack. That was one of our recent episodes. I wanted to talk to you about things that you have going on that are not clinical cases, though. You are a prolific writer. You are someone that I have read their stuff for years and years and years.

Dr. Andy Roark:
You write medical pieces. You write opinion pieces. You write news. You have a regular newspaper column, and have for a number of years. Now, you have a new book. It is called The Vet at Noah’s Ark: Stories of Survival from an Inner-City Animal Hospital. Let me start off, why don’t you lay down your writing resume and origin story for me? How did you get started writing, and what has that been like?

Dr. Doug Mader:
I’ve always liked to write. I’ve always liked to read. I started writing creative writing back in high school. Been kind of a closet writer ever since. When I got to college, I wrote columns for the student newspaper. After college, I started doing newspaper or magazine articles, and continued with actual newspaper articles. I’ve written three textbooks, medical textbooks, and countless peer reviewed articles.

Dr. Doug Mader:
Well over 2,000 magazine and newspaper articles. Then under a pseudonym, I’ve written several short stories, but I’ve always wanted to write the great American novel, so to speak.

Dr. Andy Roark:
That’s amazing. I love when people are highly accomplished in vet medicine, and they have a hobby on the side. That’s something they do. The fact that you write under a pseudonym and write shirt stories, I think is awesome. I think more of us should have things that we’d get away from our regular day to day practice life and do like that.

Dr. Doug Mader:
Well, I tried to write this book under my pseudonym and the publisher said, “No, no, no, no, no, no, no. You have to use your real name.” My hero, and probably yours, and everybody in veterinary medicine, probably at some point read the James Harriet series, All Creatures Great and Small. For those of your listeners that aren’t familiar with him, he was a veterinarian in England, and he practiced back in the fifties and sixties. Then when he retired in the seventies, he penned a series of books.

Dr. Doug Mader:
Started out with All Creatures Great and Small, and then he had three sequels to that. He was a veterinarian in the countryside of Yorkshire, England. It was beautiful, rolling green hills, and friendly farmers baking him apple pies. His stories, he was an incredible writer. Just amazing. His stories were engrossing. You really felt like you were riding shotgun with him, as he drove in his old car through the countryside.

Dr. Doug Mader:
I probably read all of his books two or three times each, just because they were just so well written, and all about human and animal bond. It just was the magnet that took me into veterinary medicine, as I’m sure a lot of people, at least in my generation, felt the same way.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. I completely agree. I think one of the things that you have in your writings that are particularly interesting is you are, at least during the time of the writing here, you’re writing about the early 1990s. You were a general practice veterinarian, but your expertise in exotics is enormous. You were seeing a lot of exotic cases at the same time. I think that breadth of different types of cases that you see, I always think that’s really interesting.

Dr. Andy Roark:
I think this book is particularly interesting, in that it’s set in inner city LA in the early nineties in the backdrop of the Rodney King trial, and the social unrest that’s going on there as you and your staff navigate cases, and also the social unrest that’s going on at the time and in the area. Can you talk a little bit just about, sort of set the scene for me. What was going on at the time that you were telling these stories?

Dr. Doug Mader:
Sadly, Andy, the social unrest hasn’t really changed. We still see the same issues all around the country today. Back in the early nineties, for those not familiar with it, there was horrible, horrible situation, where a black motorist was pulled over and severely beaten by a group of police officers. It was probably one of the first times that something like this had been videotaped, because it was videotaped by somebody standing on their porch with an old video camcorder.

Dr. Doug Mader:
Then it got taken to the news stations. Of course, needless to say, once people found out about it, it caused quite a bit of rage, and just sadness. Really, people were upset about the way the whole thing went down. There was a lot of tension in the city. There were also some other high profile cases going on at the same time. The city was reaching this boiling point, right about that time that the book was written. The book takes place over one year. I wrote it in the first person. Technically it’s a memoir, but it actually reads more like a medical drama. It’s written in the first person, but it’s really about the human animal bond.

Dr. Doug Mader:
I like to make the analogy that I wanted to tell a story in a fashion similar to the James Harriet stories back in England. The difference though, of course, is where he drove a car through the beautiful rolling green, grassy hills and countryside. My situation was inner city, concrete, gangs, graffiti, drive by shootings, hookers, drugs, you name it. The common glue was that human animal bond.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Dr. Doug Mader:
Living in a situation like that and trying to do the best you possibly can to take care of people on their pets and prolong that bond. There’s some very trying circumstances. It was a challenge, hence the name of the book is The Vet at Noah’s Ark: Stories of Survival from an Inner-City Animal Hospital. There were some scenes, there were some episodes that were pretty hairy.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Dr. Doug Mader:
So far, the only criticism I received and everybody that’s read it, all the reviews of an extremely positive, but one person said they, they thought it was sad because of the whole situation with what was going on in the city and everything else at the time, which is true. It’s still sad today.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, no, I agree. I always love stories that have a backdrop that is interesting, and it can be poignant, and it can be challenging. I think as a lot of people look at the book today, and they think about where our world is now, and there’s a lot of existential anxiety, I think that a lot of us have, I think in a way, it’s nice to see that times have been hard in the past, and that the human animal bond rises above, and that we have a role to play and we can do things that are meaningful and important.

Dr. Doug Mader:
Yeah. I definitely agree with that.

Dr. Andy Roark:
You follow a number of different clients and a number of different cases as you sort of go through having the style of James Harriet. That was always my favorite thing is he would talk about the clients that he has. It was always amazing to me that I would read this set in 1800s, England. I would say, “I know those people.” Those people walk into our clinic today. People are people, wherever you are. Are there stories, are there individuals that you talked about in the book that still stand out in your mind? Do you have favorites?

Dr. Doug Mader:
Oh yeah. I’ve been a veterinarian, I’ve been in this profession for almost four decades. Sadly, we remember some of our success stories, and we remember some of the clients that are more colorful, so to speak. For me, a lot of the things that I remember are the cases that didn’t go well, because those are the ones that haunt me. Those are the ones that I lost sleep over.

Dr. Doug Mader:
There are some cases just like in human medicine, you do everything you possibly can. Face it, it’s a hospital, and animals come in, people come into hospitals, and they don’t always go home. That can be difficult. It’s one of those things that does lead to burnout. I think surrounding yourself with a great support group, and that would include staff, family, and friends, it helps you get through the bad days. Do I have favorites? Yes, I have favorites.

Dr. Doug Mader:
There’s some cases, this one’s not in the book, but I had to do a house call. It was a little old lady. She had to be in her mid to late seventies. She had a pet Congo fire eel that she kept in her bathtub. She’d had it there for 20 something years. Now, I don’t know how long Congo fire eels normally live, but it was actually in heart failure. This woman loved that eel. She had it there in her bathtub. Granted, it’s probably not the most natural place to keep a fire eel, but she fed it every day, and she was devastated.

Dr. Doug Mader:
It did eventually pass because it was in heart failure. Especially way back then, I don’t know about you, but I don’t have a ton of experience treating cardiac disease in Congo fire eels.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Nope.

Dr. Doug Mader:
We use what we learn in our dog and cat medicine. Then we try and apply it across species to some of these unusual animals. Yeah, there’s definitely, you hear about the young kids going into veterinary medicine. Like, oh, I don’t be a doctor. I don’t like people. The animal part is the easy part. It’s dealing with the clients is where the challenge can really come in. The animals want you to help them. Oftentimes, you have to get past that stonewall of a client to get them to allow you to treat the pet the way it needs to be treated.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Hey guys, I just want to jump in with a couple of quick announcements. I have got to thank Banfield the Pet Hospital for making transcripts of this podcast possible. Guys, in an effort to increase inclusivity and accessibility in our profession, to get people the information and to make sure everyone is included, Banfield has stepped up and made transcripts possible. You can find them at DrAndyRourke.com. Thank you to them. This is something I wouldn’t be able to do without their help.

Dr. Andy Roark:
God, it makes me so good to be able to offer this. Over at the Uncharted Podcast this week, me and Stephanie Goss are talking about, are you toxic? We got a letter in our mailbag from a veterinarian who is not happy at work. They are giving suggestions, and feeling shut down. They’re kind of resentful of it. They’re saying, “Am I a toxic person here? I’m starting to feel kind of toxic.” If you’ve ever been in this situation, this is a great episode to check out. Get it wherever you get podcasts. That is Uncharted Veterinary Podcast. It is this week. It came out yesterday, July the 13th.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Hey, gang. Let me ask you a question. If you could make clients easier to handle for your veterinary team, would you do it? Would you make clients, the client experience better for yourself and the people that you work with? Well, if your answer is yes, I just want you to know that I have worked really hard to help make this happen. I have two online on demand courses in the Doctor Andy Rourke store. One of them is all about charming angry clients. The other one is all about building trust and relationships with pet owners.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Guys, I worked really hard on these. This is the culmination of over a decade of lecture that I have done around the world, and working on these topics. It is my best stuff broken up into five to 10 minute modules, that you can just drop into staff meetings. You can put them wherever you want. It doesn’t have to be a big deal. You can use them in morning huddles. It is a way that you can keep giving your people tools, just to make their lives easier. That’s what they’re all about. If you’re interested, head over to DrAndyRourke.com, and just click on the store button. You can see what’s there.

Dr. Andy Roark:
I’ve also got What’s on My Scrubs card game, which is just something fun, little team building educational activity that might make your people laugh. Anyway, I want you guys to know that’s there. I hope that you will check it out. In the Uncharted Veterinary community, guys, we’re doing a workshop that I’m super proud of. It is my friend, the one and only Doctor Amanda Doran. She’s doing a workshop called Mavigating Neurodiversity, your clients’ coworkers and self.

Dr. Andy Roark:
This is all about navigating interactions with different people, and creating a culture that is supportive of neurodiversity in the workplace. Guys, this is not a workshop that I have seen before. I am super excited to have it. I think these are conversations we need to be having. I’m really proud to be a part of the Uncharted veterinary community, and being able to help bring out workshops like this.

Dr. Andy Roark:
As always, this workshop is free to our Uncharted members. It is $99 to the public. I will put a link down in the show notes. Now, let’s get back into this episode. If you could go back and talk to yourself in the early nineties, is there advice that you would give yourself as you were going into this period?

Dr. Doug Mader:
Yeah, I know probably most people don’t make mistakes, but I certainly made more than my fair share of them. I wish I had the knowledge back then that I have now. I probably wouldn’t make the same mistakes, or if I did, I’d have a better ability to handle them.

Dr. Doug Mader:
One of the biggest things I could tell young doctors is know your limits, and don’t overstep your limits, and don’t be afraid to reach out for help. If you have a case that’s difficult, call an expert. Get a second opinion, refer it out. It’s nothing wrong with that.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Okay. I want you to unpack that a little bit, because when I look at you, I know you didn’t have formal training in the areas of expertise that you excel in today. You are, in my mind, the picture of the doctor who tries things, who educates himself, and steps out, and does these unique things. Your breadth of experience is just amazing.

Dr. Andy Roark:
How do you balance that, know your limits with what seems, when I look at you and the impression I have of you is someone who continues to push and grow, and who’s not afraid to do new things, and try new things, and educate yourself. How do you square those two things? How would you say that to a doctor?

Dr. Doug Mader:
Well, it’s different. In the last 35 years, things have changed quite a bit. I did, just to set the record right, my residency was in primate and zoo medicine. We didn’t do a lot of reptiles back then, but I also became very good friends with a veterinarian named Dr. Fred Fry. He was probably the grandfather of reptile medicine. He wrote the first two books on it. We met at a bookstore. I didn’t know who he was. We became friends before I knew who he was.

Dr. Doug Mader:
Then he took me under his wing. I was very fortunate in that although I didn’t have formal reptile training, I did have a friend who was probably one of the best reptile veterinarians in the whole world. To answer your question specifically, there will be crossroads in your career, where you have a case, whether it’s a dog, a cat, buggy, or a reptile that it needs help. You may never have done it before. You say, “Okay, I’m going to refer this to a board certified avian specialist.” The owners go, “I can’t afford it, or it’s too far away. I can’t take six hours and drive to the vet school or to the nearest specialist.”

Dr. Doug Mader:
You may have to try it, but I think the important thing is you need to be really upfront with the client and say, “Mrs. Smith, Fluffy here has got a kidney tumor. We need to go in and try and remove part of the kidney. I’ve never done this before. If you want me to try it, I’m willing to try it, but be aware that I’m straight up with you. This is new to me.” Now legally, if things go wrong, you’re still held potentially liable, even if you tell them that. Whenever possible, you always want to try and reach out.

Dr. Doug Mader:
Andy, the beauty of today is people like you. You’ve got a podcast. You help teach people. The internet is amazing. I didn’t have that in the early nineties. I couldn’t quickly look something up on the internet. You dig out the books, and you hope that you could find it in a journal or book someplace. Now, you can pick up the phone, and there are so many services available, where you can consult with experts in any different specialty area and come up with a plan.

Dr. Doug Mader:
Maybe I can’t refer Fluffy up to the University of Florida, which is eight hours away, but I can talk to one of the experts there, and they can kind of walk me through it. We do have a lot more available to us, the tools now that we didn’t have back then. You’re right. Sometimes you had to do things for the first time.

Dr. Andy Roark:
What’s your perspective of where vet medicines going today? You tell stories about the past, and you’re still very involved in our profession. Are you optimistic about the future of practice? Do you see this continuing on as a wonderful profession? Do you have concerns? As you look at the landscape and reflect back on the stories from your own career, what are your thoughts on the future?

Dr. Doug Mader:
Well, let me rephrase your question. If I had a chance to do it all over again, would I? Absolutely, I would. I love what I do. I love waking up in the morning. My goal is to do what I can to help the human animal bond. Let me expand on that, just to finish answering your question.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Dr. Doug Mader:
The human animal bond is the little kid with their pet kitten, or it’s the old man walking his dog in the park, or it’s the guy with the leather jacket and the snake around his neck. It could also be you and I going up and doing photography, and taking pictures of a bald eagle. That’s still a bond, or it could be the family going to the local zoo, and looking at the animals at the zoo. That’s still a bond. The human animal bond is really a broad category.

Dr. Doug Mader:
Whether I’m helping the woman with her bird that’s got the kidney tumor, or I’m working with fish and wildlife, and fixing a wing on a bald eagle that’s been shot, I’m still doing something to help that human animal bond. Then you and I can go back out there in two or three months, and see that eagle flying by again and take our pictures. That’s just what keeps me going. To answer your question, because I know I’m talking in circles, would I do it again? Absolutely. I love what I do. I love the people. I love working with the animals. I love the technical challenge. I love surgery, endoscopy, ultrasound. I love all of that.

Dr. Doug Mader:
Now, where is it going? That human animal bond’s not going away. People will always have pets. Even people that don’t have a lot of money still have that desire for companionship. It could be a goldfish. I know you’ve had bad days. We’ve all had bad days. How many times have you come home and you picked up the cat and you just hold it until it purrs? What does that do? Drops your blood pressure, centers you. Makes you find your zen. I used to have pet fish before the hurricane. My aquarium was six feet long, and it ran the length of the wall by my front door.

Dr. Doug Mader:
When I’d get home at night, all my fish would be waiting in the corner of the tank by the front door. As I walk past them, I’d say hello, and they’d all swim down to the other end of the tank, waiting for me to put my backpack down or whatever I had to do, so I could come back and feed them.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Dr. Doug Mader:
Now, of course, did they love me? I would like to say yes.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, sure. Of course.

Dr. Doug Mader:
I’m the guy with food. Absolutely. The bottom line is, those fish depended on me, and it always made me happy to be able to feed them and watch them enjoy their meals. To answer your question, I think the profession is here to stay. It’s changed. We have a lot more specialists now. You have a lot of people out there that can help you get through difficult, challenging cases that you had to struggle through before, sometimes trip and fall. Would I do it again? Absolutely. Absolutely. I would highly recommend to any young student coming through, or technician, that if you want to do this, pursue your passion. It’s good.

Dr. Andy Roark:
That’s great advice. I love that answer. The last question I have for you is, do you have any advice you would give to someone who has always dreamed about writing? They’ve always, kind of like you, they had an interest from the beginning. I think a lot of people struggle with fear of putting themselves out there, or thinking that why would anyone want to read what I have to say? Do you have advice for someone who thinks that they might enjoy it, but has not picked up the pen?

Dr. Doug Mader:
I think if you like write, the key is you should write at least a page day. I learned that years and years and years ago. I keep a journal. The story, by the way, just happen to have a copy right here.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Nice.

Dr. Doug Mader:
The story is true. It’s a true story. Everything in there comes out in my journal that I kept. The dates, the timelines, the people, the pets, they’re all real. I changed the names of most of the people in the book out of privacy reasons, people that were in the news, like Rodney King, and lot of the people that were in the news back then, the public figures, their names are all real. Write. That’s all, you just have to write. They say you’re not a writer until you’ve written at least a million words. To put that in perspective: one typed page is 250 words. Do the math.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Okay.

Dr. Doug Mader:
I have long since passed that. I’m probably up well over two million words by now. The thing is, you can always get better. It wasn’t that long ago I signed up for an adult education night course on creative writing. You can always learn, just like in veterinary medicine. You think that, oh, I know it all, but then you go to a conference, and you’re always learning new things.

Dr. Doug Mader:
If you like to write, and you want to write, just start writing. Keep a journal, keep a diary. Doesn’t mean you have to publish it, but the more you write, A: you’re going to have good memories. You’ll have stuff you can go back and reference. Then down the road, sometime when you get old like me, if you want to turn it into a book, you’ve got all that stuff already there. You just have to reword it so that it’s in a story fashion.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. Yeah, that’s it. I love that advice. Dr. Doug Mader, your new book is The Vet at Noah’s Ark: Stories of Survival from an Inner-City Animal Hospital. It is available in hardback and on Kindle. I will put links in the show notes. Where can people find you online?

Dr. Doug Mader:
DougMader.com. If you go to my website, and there’s links there right to the book, and you can actually purchase the book through my website via the publisher, or any number of online book sellers. All the major brick and mortar book sellers like Barnes and Noble are carrying it. It’s fairly easy to get.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Awesome.

Dr. Doug Mader:
Barnes and Noble has it out right now. It just came out last week. For some reason, Amazon, it’s going to be out on July 12th, but it is out there and it is available. So far, like I said, people seem to like it. The New York Post listed it as required reading, which was quite humbling and quite an honor. I never expected that. I was pretty flabbergasted, because right next to me was James Patterson. I’m thinking …

Dr. Andy Roark:
Oh wow.

Dr. Doug Mader:
That’s good company.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. Yeah. That’s fantastic. Well, congratulations. I am super excited for you. I’m super excited about the book. Guys, I’ll put links to all these things in the show notes. I hope you guys will check it out. Everybody, take care of yourselves.

Dr. Doug Mader:
Thanks, Andy. I appreciate it a lot.

Dr. Andy Roark:
That is our episode. Guys, I hope you enjoyed it. Thanks to Dr. Doug Mader for being here, again, and I put links to his book in the show notes. I hope you guys will check it out. Gang, take care of yourselves. Be well, see you soon. Bye.

Filed Under: Podcast Tagged With: Life With Clients, Medicine, Perspective

Advice For and From the Next Generation of Vet Medicine

July 13, 2022 by Andy Roark DVM MS

Dr. Peter Weinstein and his daughter Brooke Weinstein, a current veterinary student at Oregon State’s College of Veterinary Medicine, join Dr. Andy Roark to talk about how veterinary medicine has changed over the last 20-30 years, and how it’s going to change in the future. Our guests talk about how the education of veterinarians today differs from the past, and what these changes will mean for how the profession evolves going forward.

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Cone Of Shame Veterinary Podcast · COS 148 Advice For From The Next Generation Of Vet Medicine

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ABOUT OUR GUESTS

Dr. Peter Weinstein attended Cornell Universityundergraduate and the University of Illinois to receive his DVM. After graduation, he worked as an associatefor three years before opening his practice.

As he was running his practice, he identified the need for increasedbusiness acumen to make his practice successful. Thus, while managing andpracticing full time, he attended University of Redlands to receive his MBA. As a result of the MBA, he was able to relocate, expand andsell his practice to a corporate consolidator.

Politically, he served as President of the SouthernCalifornia Veterinary Medical Association and the California Veterinary MedicalAssociation and President for VetPartners, the national consultantsassociation. He just completed three years as the Chair of the Veterinary EconomicStrategy Committee of the AVMA’s Veterinary Economics Division

In the veterinary industry, he acted as Medical Directoroverseeing the Claims Department for Veterinary Pet Insurance.

Dr. Weinstein has provided small business and corporateconsulting via his company, PAW Consulting

After 14 years, Dr. Weinstein retired from his role as theExecutive Director for the Southern California Veterinary Medical Associationto pursue other interests including teaching at Western University

He was the 2018 Speaker of the Year for the Western VeterinaryConference Practice Management Section. Andin 2021 for the VMX Practice Management section.

He co-authored with Michael E Gerber, “The EMyth Veterinarian-Why Most Veterinary Practices Don’t Work and What to Do About It”.

Dr. Weinstein has spoken and written extensively on practice management, team building, leadership, collegiality, marketing, and other topics focused on making the veterinary profession better for all those affiliated with it.

Dr Weinstein lives in Orange County, California with hiswife Sharon, two daughters (one a veterinary student at Oregon State), two dogs, and Bazinga, a Senegal parrot.

Brooke Weinstein is finishing her third year of veterinary school at Oregon State University Carlson College of Veterinary Medicine. During her time there, she has loved working with her community through free wellness clinics for the houseless community as well as conducting research on tick-borne diseases in the underserved community. Outside of school , Brooke spends time hiking, snowboarding, and exploring Oregon.


EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Andy Roark:
Welcome everybody to The Cone of Shame Veterinary Podcast. I am your host, Dr. Andy Roark. I got a fun episode today. I am interviewing Dr. Peter Weinstein and soon to be Dr. Brooke Weinstein. Peter is a Brooke’s father, and we are talking about generational differences in veterinary medicine, basically, where are we going? And how do we feel about the future? And should we be comfortable with our kids going to veterinary school and coming into this profession? Should we be more than comfortable? Peter and I, and Brooke, all talk about where education is today and where it’s going for veterinarians.

Andy Roark:
We talk about what the future of the profession looks like. There is really good conversation here about the future of recession. Are we looking right down the barrel of the next recession? What does that look like? What’s that going to do to the salaries that we’re seeing for veterinarians and for support staff? Is it going to change the way that we practice? Is it going to change pet owners’ ability to pay for our services? And how do we adapt to that? How do we keep that medicine accessible? Wide ranging conversation topics, really fun episode. Guys, I hope you’ll enjoy it. I’m going to stop here and say, thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. This episode is ad free. Thanks to the support of my friends at CareCredit. Guys, let’s get into this episode.

Kelsey Beth Carpenter:
(Singing) This is your show. We’re glad you’re here. We want to help you in your veterinary career. Welcome to The Cone of Shame with Dr. Andy Roark.

Andy Roark:
Welcome to the podcast, Dr. Peter Weinstein, and soon to be Dr. Brooke Weinstein. How are you guys doing?

Peter Weinstein:
Great, Andy. Good to see you. Oh, Dr. Roark.

Andy Roark:
You call me Andy, please. Yeah, let’s do first names. Let’s all do first names, so Peter and Brooke and Andy. That’s what we’ll go with this time. Brooke, how are you doing?

Brooke Weinstein:
I’m good. Having some break from midterm, so thanks for inviting me on your podcast.

Andy Roark:
My pleasure. Thanks for making time. Guys, I want to have you guys on the podcast and talk a little bit about generational differences in vet medicine. Honestly, I’m thinking a lot about the future of vet medicine and what it looks like as it’s changing, because we’re going to a rapid period of change. Then also I’m kind of looking at the future of vet medicine and I have a daughter, she’s 14 and she has decided that she wants to be a veterinarian. I’m going to be honest and say, I have some mixed emotions about that. I want to talk with you guys a little bit about sort of your experiences and perspectives on what the future kind of looks like and sort of your experience as Brooke has gone through her training and just generally overall your perspective on life in the profession and that sort of evolution as well. Is that Okay?

Peter Weinstein:
Absolutely.

Andy Roark:
Awesome. Well, cool. Let’s go ahead and start. Let’s do some quick bios. Peter, I’ve known you for a long, long time. You have been a mentor of mine since I blew my own mind this morning. I woke up this morning for whatever reason and I’ll be honest. I had school dreams last night and I wondered, do you guys have? I’m sure Brooke does. The exams coming, and I forgot I had a class. I, a 100%, had those dreams last night and I had exams coming up and I woke up and thought, oh my God, I’m not in school anymore. Then I thought I graduated in 2008 and then I did some math and I’m like, that’s 14 years ago, which blows my own mind. It’s been a minute since I was in school. Peter Weinstein, do you ever have dreams of exams or classes that you forgot?

Peter Weinstein:
No. It’s funny when you had school dreams, all I could remember was the dream of showing up to school naked when you were a kid and having to go. You never had that dream?

Andy Roark:
Oh, no, I did. Yeah, I totally did. Yeah, I still have those dreams. That’s funny. Brooke, do you wake up having panic dreams about your exams?

Brooke Weinstein:
Not often, if I do, it’s like, I completely did not make it to the test and everything from my car ride, from leaving home to class, everything went wrong and I just didn’t make it.

Andy Roark:
Oh yeah, you guys are much more balanced than me. All right. Back on topic. Peter, I’ve known you since vet school. You’ve been a mentor mine for a long, long time. You gave me some of the first advice that I ever got on being a presenter and speaker. I said to you, “Hey, how do you get to do more presenting and speaking?” You said, “You need to write more.” I still remember you telling me that, and we were on a bus at the AVMA convention. I was like, “Huh, that sounds like good advice.” It’s advice that I still remember you giving to me today and it turned out to be pretty good. It’s worked out pretty well for me, so thank you for that. You are also the author of the E-Myth Veterinarian. You have been the president of the Southern California Veterinary Medical Association. I’m just going off the top of my head right now. I don’t have anything written down. What else? You are the owner of PAW Consulting. What else am I missing or forgetting in your bio?

Peter Weinstein:
Andy, I have known you since you were Brooke’s age, when you were president of the VBMA at University of Florida. That’s when we first connected, and so this is almost like déjà vu.

Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Peter Weinstein:
Now, I mean, for the past, I just got done teaching my first year of the business and finance class at Western University so I’m giving back to the students by teaching at the vet school here in Los Angeles. I’ve done a whole bunch of different things within the profession, but now as I head into the twilight years, it’s really more focused on education and growing the profession and really disrupting it and creating a better future for Brooke and others, because I feel like I have an investment that will be maturing in about a year and a month. I’m hoping to get a very good return on my investment, but it’s not just Brooke, it’s 4,000 other veterinary students that are graduating this year, next year and all the years down the road.

Andy Roark:
Oh yeah, no. Yeah. Well, I know the students appreciate you being involved, and like I said, you’ve been a mentor for me. It’s funny before we even started recording, I was talking to you about my business and things that I’m doing and being like, “Hey, Peter, how do you look at this? Because you wrote that you met veterinarian, and you always have excellent insight to give. Brooke, you are in your third year at Oregon State, is that correct?

Brooke Weinstein:
Yeah, I have about a month left of my third year.

Andy Roark:
Oh yeah. And so, have you started clinical rotations yet?

Brooke Weinstein:
No, I get to start June 11th, I think.

Andy Roark:
All right, so coming up very, very… When people hear this, then you’ll be in your rotations.

Brooke Weinstein:
It should.

Andy Roark:
All right. Exactly. It’s been a long time coming. All right. Brooke, when did you decide that you wanted to go to vet school? Did you know from a really young age, or is it something you came to later sort of in your education?

Brooke Weinstein:
I’ve been asked this question a lot and I really can’t pinpoint anything. I feel like it was junior or senior year of high school when I kind of had to start thinking about college and I think it was just something I knew about. And so, my dad kind of shoved me into a hospital, obviously not his because he didn’t have one. It was like, well, if you can survive surgery and you’re still standing, then maybe it’ll work. And so then yeah, I survived that and I was like, might as well see if I like this and kind of applied to colleges with veterinary school in mind and I stuck with it, so yeah.

Andy Roark:
Peter, were you excited about that from the beginning when your daughter was going into college and starting to talk about pre-vet? What was your emotional experience at that time?

Peter Weinstein:
Woo.

Andy Roark:
All right. You were fired up?

Peter Weinstein:
I was fired up. I really was because I had sold my practice when Brooke was three or four or five or something like that. And so, she really wasn’t raised in a stainless steel cage, like most veterinarians babies are. And so, when Brooke was showed interest in becoming a veterinarian and I think some of it was nature, some of it was nurture and she would go to the zoo with my wife and help out at the zoo as well. I think she had some different exposures that maybe pushed her to that level. But when Brooke said she wanted to become a veterinarian, all I said is, Brooke, I’ll do whatever you want to do to help, but I’m not going to… I don’t feel that I formally pushed her one way or the other except open doors and give her opportunities.

Andy Roark:
Yeah. I think that there’s a difference in saying I’ll be supportive versus, hey, I’m sort of driving the bus. Brooke, did you feel pressured to go towards vet medicine because your dad was so involved in it?

Brooke Weinstein:
No, I don’t think he made a single decision for me, besides me just asking him where do I go? Then he was like, here’s this clinic, go there.

Andy Roark:
Oh, that’s fine.

Brooke Weinstein:
Yeah, no, vet school wise, he was like, wherever you get in.

Andy Roark:
Right. Peter, did you ever rethink that emotional response? Was there ever a time when you have thought in the last eight years when you have thought, maybe this isn’t the best place for my child to go?

Peter Weinstein:
Absolutely not.

Andy Roark:
No? Yours a hardcore no.

Peter Weinstein:
No, I was very much supportive. If I’m going to have the roles that I’ve had in the profession, as an advocate, as an educator, even as a disruptor, then it would be wrong for me to have any second guessings from that standpoint. I really have to feel that being an advocate for the profession as I am, that being an advocate for what my daughter wants is the right thing as well.

Andy Roark:
That’s interesting. I don’t know if I am sold on that. Here’s why, so you and I both love that medicine and we worked hard on it. There’s definitely things about that medicine that I look at and I go, I don’t know about this, or where does that go? And so, it’s funny that you say no, as an advocate, I’m sort of all in. I go as an advocate, I still have questions and things. Again, like I said, I’m honestly wrestling with these things, looking at my own kids, for example, the change in practice ownership in our profession, and we’ve got corporation and things like that. Where I came from is a little bit different in that, I thought that I was going to be a physician for most of my life.

Andy Roark:
Because my dad was a small town surgeon, and that’s kind of where I wanted to go. I had the experience, I got to be about my junior year in college and my dad, I was talking to him and I was getting ready to take the MCAT. And he said to me, he was like, “Son, I’m not sure I would do this if I were starting over now.” This is about human medicine. Man, I was kind of thunderstruck by that. And so, I ended up not going to med school and I have never regretted not going to medical school like that, but it was still that jarring thing at the time.

Andy Roark:
And so, I’ve had that experience of having this idea of something that I thought was great and then had it sort of rocked and then going, wow, well, this has fundamentally changed. And so, I kind of went through that. I look at that medicine and I’m still very positive and optimistic, but it has radically changed in the last 10 years and I see it continuing to change and so, I don’t know. When we look at things, when we gaze into our crystal ball and think about what the life of a veterinarian is going to look like in 20 years, do you think that looks significantly different from what it looks like now?

Peter Weinstein:
I probably would throw that on Brooke.

Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Peter Weinstein:
Where does she see her job and her future? I mean, she knows that I’m a workaholic, but I think it’d be interesting to see what Brooke thinks about her future and the future of the profession.

Brooke Weinstein:
I do think it will be different. I guess as a third year, going into fourth year, people are starting to think, or a lot of my classmates are starting to think about, where are they going to work? Are they going to go corporate? Are they going to go private? How many practices they’re looking at that they think are private, but are actually corporate? I think the increasing amount of corporate practices is going to just change the profession and how veterinarians or what your job as a veterinarian’s going to be, because people will have the opportunities to work three or four day weeks instead of the five day weeks for 12 hours a day. I think the work life balance will get better. I also see the push towards like referring in specialty practices over just the GPs doing everything, kind of how human medicine is a little bit, I guess. I think that’s going to continue to go that way is what it looks like, at least from where I am.

Andy Roark:
Yeah. Are you considering specialization doing a residency, things like that, or are you still interested in being a GP given that you perceive a shift in that direction?

Brooke Weinstein:
At this point, I don’t want to do more school.

Andy Roark:
Yeah, I get that.

Brooke Weinstein:
But yeah, I’m also at the point where I have no idea what I want to do right now.

Andy Roark:
Gotcha. Understand. Okay. Talking about this, so you sort of mentioned work life balance as something that you see coming in the future in vet medicine, and I do agree. I think that’s been a huge move from where we have been in the past and a big cultural shift. Brooke, when you start to look at the priorities that you have as a third year vet student, and then also the priorities that your classmates have, rank out for me, what do you think people care the most about?

Andy Roark:
I think a lot of people say, what do young doctors want? Or what do people coming out of that school want in their career? Or what are they looking for in a practice? I know with a very competitive hiring environment, a lot of people kind of want to know that. You mentioned the hours and work life balance off the top. What do you think are the main drivers for you and your classmates, as you start to think about where you’re going to go next and what jobs you would take?

Brooke Weinstein:
Well, I think after vet school, lot of my classmates just want some time to breathe. I feel like I’ve heard a lot of people looking for a four day work week, the longer hours, but less days of working. Honestly, I feel like at least with the people that I talk to the most, we haven’t talked about what we want from our jobs. I think we’re just kind of so excited to start fourth year that haven’t even thought about after that.

Andy Roark:
Oh, really? That was sort of a question I was kind of leading up to, do you feel, because I’ve sort of heard rumors that vet students seem to be making employment decisions earlier and earlier in their school time than they did in the past. That’s always just kind of been a rumor and I’ve never really been able to pin that down. Is that your impression that you think that people are making decisions about where they’re going to go? Are they taking jobs in their second year and in their third year, that then the way that I hear or is that fairly uncommon?

Brooke Weinstein:
I’ve heard the rumors. I know very few people who have, I wouldn’t say the majority or even half the class is like that. I think I only specifically know one person who has considered or has interviewed for a job in her third year. Maybe it’s different at other schools or maybe that’s just not this, I just don’t know who they are.

Andy Roark:
Interesting. Oh no, when I talk to vet students, I kind of get a similar answer of. I haven’t met a lot of vet students who actually are seeing that trend, but I do hear a lot of excited whispers. Peter, you’re teaching at Western, I mean, do you have a similar perspective? Do you think the timing of people taking jobs is changing?

Peter Weinstein:
We actually talked about this yesterday, it was the final class of the year, and I just had what I call AMA, Ask Me Anything. We talked about, I suggested that they’re a year from graduating and that they should be looking now. I would suggest there’s probably five to eight people in the class of 105 that have probably got hard job offers already, contracts. We started her talking about the economy as well because there’s this threat of a recession in the next 12 months and what impact that might have on the business of veterinary medicine and some of these highly inflated salaries, maybe I shouldn’t say highly inflated salaries, some of the growth in salaries over the past two years and what impact the recession may have.

Peter Weinstein:
I don’t think it’s too early now to be looking for a position a year from now. Especially if we look at Economics 101 that says supply and demand. Right now, there’s a huge demand and a small supply. If you can find someplace that you want to work in a location that you want to work, that gives you a life balance and mentoring and all of those other keywords, take it now, get the contract, get it signed, sealed and delivered, get a signing bonus or whatever you can from that standpoint and spend the entire of your senior year learning and not worrying.

Andy Roark:
Yeah. Where are you when you look into your crystal ball on the finances in the next 12 to 16 months? And what I mean when I say that is, we’re seeing rising, staff salaries, we’re seeing rising, doctor salaries, we’re seeing, quote unquote signing bonuses, which are actually retention bonuses for the most part to encourage people to stay on for multiple years. If there is a recession, right, we’re seeing we’re seeing rising inflation is the number one things that people are upset about. We’re hearing the fed talk about the economy running hot and taking active steps to clamp that back down.

Andy Roark:
If we move in a recessionary direction, are you of the mindset that medicine is a recession resistant industry and demand for doctors is so high because supply is so low that veterinarians will be fairly insulated from that? Or do you think that there’s a recession coming and we have a lot of exposure because of the private equity and the high multiples that people are paying and the upward trend in salaries where we’re going to see a significant pullback in the money being spent in medicine? Where are you in that? In between those two kind of think of it as a spectrum.

Peter Weinstein:
Dr. Roark, Andy, when you were a baby doctor between 2008 and 2012, we had the great recession.

Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Peter Weinstein:
Now, depending upon where you were in the country, there was a shortage of jobs, an overabundance of relief doctors, and some tremendous anxiety on the case of general practitioners in their ability to pay their bills, pay their staff. We had doctors getting laid off, et cetera. I don’t think we’re going to get to that point in the current situation. I think a lot of the escalation of salaries has been a response to the inability to find doctors for positions, especially at the corporate level, because they have an investment in a business that without doctors, no business.

Andy Roark:
Right.

Peter Weinstein:
And so, they’ve used money as a retention as opposed to culture. And so, I think what we’re going to start to see, and if you look at the trends economically in the profession right now, transactions are down. I mean, same period last year, we’re not seeing nearly as many people. Revenue is up about 4%, which is essentially fee increases. We’re busy because of our inefficiencies as a profession, but we’re not busy because people are… We’re not busy because we have a shortage of doctors, we’re busy because of the inefficient business model, the failure to leverage our staff, the failure to pay and keep our staff and a high turnover. There’s so many variables from that standpoint that we don’t have time to get into today. But what I do anticipate is we’re going to start to see a flattening out.

Peter Weinstein:
I think we had a perfect storm economically during the first two years of the pandemic where people had money, they weren’t going anywhere, they weren’t spending money on travel and then big screen TVs, they were sitting next to their pet and the pet had a hiccup and they thought it had brain cancer. And so, they would bring it in and have it seen and they would spend money because they actually had liquid income. But I think as we see this great retirement or whatever it’s being called, resignation, and we see less money being pumped into the people by the government, I think that spending is going to slow down.

Peter Weinstein:
I think [inaudible 00:22:01]. I think travel has increased in everything else, especially if you’ve been on an airplane, as I know you have. I think what we’re going to start to see is a normalization getting back to where we were to a degree in 2019, 2020, but then it’s going to be, how do we deliver veterinary medicine at that point in time? What’s it going to look like in terms of increasing our efficiency levels? Bottom line is I think we’re going to see a normalization and I think we’re going to see a flattening out, but I think we’re not going to see salaries drop. I just think we’re going to see a slow down in the growth of those salaries from that standpoint.

Andy Roark:
Yeah. That makes sense. Let’s talk about the impact of recessionary forces on pet owners and on spending because I think that you point that out rather astutely, are we going to see pet owners pulling back in their spending on pets? And if so, are we set up to deal with more cash strapped clients than we have been in the past? What does that look like?

Peter Weinstein:
It’s a great question because I think what we’re starting to see is almost a haves and have not economy.

Andy Roark:
Yeah. I hate it, but I think you’re right.

Peter Weinstein:
I asked it a couple of the meetings where I was speaking at, in the last 12 months, how many of you used fee increases as a barrier to access to care, to slow down the funnel of people coming in? 30 to 35% of the room said, “Yeah, we raised our fees with the hope that it would slow down people coming in.” The next question is, well, what did it? The answer was no.

Andy Roark:
Right.

Peter Weinstein:
Now, we have these fees that are up there, but we have people who don’t have the cash flow to make it happen. I think what we’re going to start to see is as happened in 2008 to 2012 delays of people coming in, so now, they come in a more critical stage. Pets ending up in the shelters because people couldn’t afford what they invested in and I think we’re going to have to look at some sort of normalization of fee schedules because we have really started to create a rift between what people can afford and what we’re charging.

Peter Weinstein:
Some of the communities that we do some work within LA, where people can’t afford veterinary care, it’s going to become even harder for them to be able to access veterinary care. And so, we’ve got to start to look at some of these spectrums of care and all sorts of different things that we’ve talked about to make veterinary services accessible, because I don’t think we’re underpaid and I don’t think we’re undercharging. I think we just haven’t created that whole value proposition for the client experience that people put a value in what we do yet.

Andy Roark:
Brooke, do you feel like vet students are getting some, or at least in your experience at Oregon State, do you feel like there’s part of the curriculum that’s focusing on talking to clients about money or accessibility to care? Is that something that’s kind of front and center in training today? Or is it something that’s kind of put off until after we get the medicine learned?

Brooke Weinstein:
Yeah. Well, we have one business course. I think maybe only my dad or maybe a few speakers did talk about finances and people’s ability to pay, but otherwise, no, it’s mostly just the medicine.

Andy Roark:
Yeah. I get that. You should always learn how to do the medicine first. It’s just one of those things where I guess, and this is the passion point of mine as well is, how do we communicate with pet owners and just sort of meet them where they are. I feel like there’s sort of growing interest and emphasis there, but it’s still, there’s so much to fit into a curriculum, but I still, I don’t know, I’d personally like to see more education in those type of hard conversations, just because I think that they’re coming.

Peter Weinstein:
Well, I think, Brooke worked with me in LA at some of the clinics and has been running clinics for underserved communities in Oregon. I think when you start to do that, you see how important pets are in people’s lives and how eager they are to take care of them, but they also have to feed their kids and put shoes on themselves.

Andy Roark:
Sure.

Peter Weinstein:
I think part of the curriculum really does need to be enhanced understanding of the entire population. They don’t need to take a course in economics. They need to take a course in understanding people and pets and communication and the human animal bond. I think that’s why Brooke has been involved with the Shelter Medicine Club, and I don’t mean to put words in Brooke’s mouth, but I’m happy for her.

Brooke Weinstein:
I mean, I could continue this if you want.

Andy Roark:
[Inaudible 00:26:38].

Brooke Weinstein:
Yeah, I kind of have a little bit different experience than probably a lot of people in my class. Also, last term, I worked at a wellness clinic that only gave vaccines, dewormers, preventatives, and stuff. A lot of people were coming in either because they couldn’t get an appointment at their primary veterinarian or just like the prices keep going up, and they’re like, I can’t afford that. Also, I guess going back to like where’s vet med going to be in 10 years? These pop-ups of wellness clinics, I think are also going to change why people go to general practitioners?

Brooke Weinstein:
Because I see a lot of people going to wellness clinics for their vaccines and preventatives to get them at lower costs. But then, the wellness clinics can’t provide any more care than that. Then they’ll start going to their GPs for when they actually have the ear problems and the eye problems and the skin problems. That’s also been really interesting for me to see because I’ve never actually seen a wellness clinic before, besides the ones that we do for the communities that are for free for the low income population, which I’ve also been a part of. It’s been really interesting seeing all of that from like kind of different levels of income.

Andy Roark:
Yeah. That totally makes sense. I’m fond of the saying right now the future is fragmentation. Meaning I think our profession is really going to split apart and you’re going to see how practice is doing a lot of different things, filling a lot of different niches. I don’t think that there’s going to be a uniform model at practice.

Peter Weinstein:
I know you were talking before that you couldn’t be an advocate. I think you have to be more of an advocate now. Andy, we have a broken profession, education model, association model, business model. Well, we, as doctors want to fix broken things. I think our role, yours and mine, is to identify where things are broken and come up with new solutions, different solutions, unique solutions, reconfigured solutions to help fix these things for the future. That’s why I’m an advocate because it forces me to think differently about how we can create this wellness clinic concept, the CVS clinic concept that the urgent care concept and all of these different things that retool this profession going forward because we ain’t going to get where we want to go by doing what we’ve done in the past.

Andy Roark:
Yeah, I agree with that. I think it’s funny for me, the fact that my daughter seems to be serious about vet school. I feel pressure to fix problems that I didn’t necessarily feel that much pressure to fix in the past. Like, oh, this isn’t going to affect me. I’m going to go on. And now, I’m like, oh crap, there comes [inaudible 00:29:29], we got to work on this. There’s a lot of that in my mind.

Peter Weinstein:
Yeah, welcome to my world.

Andy Roark:
Yeah. Oh totally. Brooke, let me ask you this. Is there advice that you got from your dad, the veterinary business consultant, business teacher, before you went into vet school that you have found to be very useful that other people would wish that they had gotten?

Brooke Weinstein:
Let me see if I can remember this.

Andy Roark:
I was just curious if there was anything that stuck out in your mind of like, “Yeah, my dad sort of told me this or he helped me understand this and it served me well?”

Brooke Weinstein:
I don’t know. I don’t think I can remember any exact words, but I feel like there were concepts in the words that he was telling me, kind of just like watch out for yourself because all you’re going to know is school. The amount of times, he was like, whatever happened in the news between the years that he was in vet school, he didn’t get.

Andy Roark:
Yeah. Yeah.

Brooke Weinstein:
I was like, okay, well, I will be prepared to live in a bubble for four years, but also cognizant of the fact that I need to look after myself when I can remember.

Andy Roark:
Yeah. Well, it’s funny you say that. When Peter was talking about the recession from 2008, 2012, I’m like I missed that. I was head down in my first job, I just learned in medicine and putting one foot in front of the other, but it’s funny. Yeah, I think that there’s a lot of truth to the idea of just putting our heads down and getting done what we needed to get done. I’m thinking a lot about these days about what do I have control over and what do I not have control over? I feel like if we look at modern media, we are bombarded all day every day with terrible things and injustices and hardships. I think that there’s a balance of not blowing those things off.

Andy Roark:
I’m not trying to ignore the problems in our society or not help other people. At the same time, I also don’t think that we can live all day every day, just immersed in challenges and hardships that we really don’t have any control over. You just take, for example, some sort of problems in our government. I know they’re hard to find, but I’m sure that they were there, problems in our government. I get one vote and I can be educated about who I vote for. Beyond that, there’s not a whole lot that I can do and I sort of have to figure out how invested this do I want to be, what is a healthy level of investment versus just me being upset all the time about things that I can’t control?

Andy Roark:
And so, I think about that a lot with vet medicine too, and go, what is in my power and what is not? It’s interesting. I always sort of put this forward to a lot of vets and other practices. I think it’s important to be able to step back and look at the profession as a whole, but I think it’s a lot more useful and probably mentally healthy to be able to dial in and look at where you are and what you need to do and look at your practice and what your practice can do and what is available, in that specific context, because those are the things that you can control. But anyway, I’ve just been thinking a lot about dialing in and dialing out and so when we have these sort conversations about where is the profession going and what can we do for it, I always sort of try to file that away in the back of my mind.

Peter Weinstein:
Well, I think what I’ve been most proud of in watching Brooke through the first three years is her finding time for herself, whether it’s snowboarding, whether it is working the clinics and doing the research, but trying to have a balance in what she does. I think that’s something I neglected to do, I neglected to do after I was in practice. I don’t remember any music from the ’80s and early ’90s. Also, not getting sucked into a lot of the news, not getting inundated with what’s going on in the world because the little world is the veterinary school world right now, but you have to get out of that bubble as well. I think if you spend too much time surrounding yourself with your classmates, some of those naysayers, those negative people have an impact on you as well. I think finding that balance and understanding herself and her needs and watching that is very rewarding as a father.

Andy Roark:
Brooke, what is the thing that you’re most looking forward to in veterinary medicine? As you move towards graduation, what are you most looking forward to?

Brooke Weinstein:
Doing what I went to school for, just very basic. Yeah, I’ve been telling people this because we’ve had junior clinics. We’re basically shadowing fourth years during this term. We’ve gone from three years of sitting for 12 hours a day to going into standing for 12 hours a day. Our bodies are kind of hurting just from the four hours of shadowing. But yeah, I’m just excited to just do what I went to school for.

Andy Roark:
Yeah. That’s awesome. Peter, as the parent of a veterinary student, and then also as a lecture and teacher at a veterinary school, what is your number one piece of advice for people who are entering the profession? What is the thing that you think will serve them well going forward?

Peter Weinstein:
I think we need to bring fun back into veterinary medicine.

Andy Roark:
Amen.

Peter Weinstein:
I think that we take ourselves too seriously at times, and it makes it very stressful work environment. I think we create a lot of our own mental health issues and there are external variables as well, but I really do think that hospital owners need to shut down and take people to the movies or bowling or the improv, or just hear Andy Roark, whatever. But I do think we need to take back control of ourselves and I think we need to have some fun and we need to make sure that fun is one of our core values.

Peter Weinstein:
I think we’re so focused on other things that we lose track the fact that we are people too. That if we are not healthy, we can’t take care of our clients and our patients. And so, if I was going to give a message to my colleagues, and if I’m going to give a message to the next generation is, “Yeah, take your job serious, but take life and have some fun with it as well, and make sure you go out and engage in the world and be a contributor in the world, but have fun doing so.”

Andy Roark:
Well, I think I’m going to take what Peter said and then what Brooke said and kind of put it together, I think in my mind, because I think you guys are both right on. I completely agree with putting fun back in what we do. I think that we should, we need to find the fun in just being in practice. I think that’s important for our long term happiness and to Brooke’s point about just being excited about doing the job, I think that we get sucked up into this big picture of what we’re supposed to be and this great meaning and purpose and the truth is we should remember to be happy just seeing appointments. We should be happy just to do vaccines and get to meet a family that’s excited about their new kitten.

Andy Roark:
Just to find enjoyment and fixing a urinary tract infection or lancing abscess, like that stuff is amazing. We get to do that for our job. I think that we have a bad habit, at least I do, is you forget that it’s awesome and we stop looking at it as awesome. We focus on the sort of existential headaches and hardships that we really don’t have any control over. And so, anyway, I just wanted to put those things together. I think that’s my big takeaway from our discussion here is, remember to have fun. And the other thing is, remember that what we do is awesome and people are excited, they would love to do what we do, and they think what we do is fascinating.

Andy Roark:
We should remember to enjoy doing it. When I say we enjoy doing it, I mean, enjoy doing the small things, enjoy seeing the appointments, doing the easy stuff, fixing the coughing dog. Like we should be proud of that and we should enjoy the process of doing it. Guys, thank you both so much for being here. I really, really appreciate your time.

Peter Weinstein:
Andy, thanks for the invitation. It’s not often that Brooke and I are actually together for 30 to 45 minutes and have a chance to talk. Thank you for bringing the family together. It was a nice thing.

Brooke Weinstein:
Yeah, thanks for having me on too.

Andy Roark:
Thanks guys. Thanks everybody. Take care of yourself. And that’s our episode. Guys, I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you got something out of it. Thanks again to CareCredit for making this podcast possible ad free. Gang, take care of yourselves. Be well. I’ll talk to you soon. Bye-bye.

Filed Under: Podcast Tagged With: Medicine, Perspective

When Veterinary Clinics Get Cancelled

July 6, 2022 by Andy Roark DVM MS

What’s it like to have your clinic torn apart online? When thousands of phone calls roll in telling you that you’re awful, what impact does that have on the staff and how do you handle it? Do you respond? What if that just makes things worse?

This week, Dr. Andy Roark is joined by Dr. Meghan Vaught and Sarah Mills from the Maine Veterinary Medical Center. Last month, their clinic found itself on news channels across the country and the front page of reddit. What followed was a harrowing experience no one should have to go through. Along with it, however, can an outpouring of support from clients and the veterinary community as a whole.

Since the incident, Sarah and Dr. Vaught have dedicated their time and energy to raising awareness of the impact that public shaming and “cancel” events can have on veterinary teams, and to creating resources to help others who may end up defending themselves against online retribution.

Cone Of Shame Veterinary Podcast · COS – 147 – When Veterinary Clinics Get Cancelled

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


LINKS

Not One More Vet: https://www.nomv.org/

AVMA Online Reputation Management and Cyberbullying: https://www.avma.org/resources-tools/practice-management/reputation

WORKSHOP: Managing A Negative Team Member: https://unchartedvet.com/product/managing-a-negative-team-member/

NEW Dr. Andy Roark Exam Room Communication Tool Box Course:

https://drandyroark.com/store/

What’s on my Scrubs?! Card Game: https://drandyroark.com/training-tools/

Dr. Andy Roark Swag: drandyroark.com/shop

All Links: linktr.ee/DrAndyRoark


ABOUT OUR GUEST

Dr. Meghan Vaught obtained her doctorate from St. George University in May 2013 after completing her clinical rotations at the University of Pennsylvania. In June 2014, she completed a small animal rotating internship at Tufts Veterinary Emergency Treatment and Specialties hospital. Dr. Vaught completed a three-year Emergency and Critical Care Residency at Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University in 2017. Later that year, she earned board certification as a Diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Emergency and Critical Care.

Dr. Vaught’s clinical and research interests include but are not limited to respiratory disease/mechanical ventilation, sepsis, polytrauma and severe acid/base or electrolyte disorders. Dr Vaught’s priority is to provide the highest quality of care and medicine to each patient and their family. In her free time, Dr. Vaught enjoys spending time with her husband, their young daughter, and their cat.

Sarah Mills has spent her career advocating for accessible wellness care. She is passionate about animal health and helping all pets live their best lives filled with treats, naps in the sun and zoomies. Sarah spent nearly a decade as one of the founding members of Vets First Choice (now Covetrus) before joining the FidoCure mission to bring personalized medicine to dogs with cancer. Her time has been spent in sales, marketing and serving veterinarians.

Sarah holds a BS in psychology from Simmons University and was trained by the Disney Institute in Quality Service. She shares her little farmhouse in Cumberland Center, Maine, with 3 teenagers, a Goldendoodle named Ted, and a smallish bunny.


EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

This podcast transcript is made possible thanks to a generous gift from Banfield Pet Hospital, which is striving to increase accessibility and inclusivity across the veterinary profession Click Here to learn more about Equity, Inclusion & Diversity at Banfield.

Andy Roark:
Welcome everybody to the Cone of Shame Veterinary Podcast. I am your host, Dr. Andy Roark. Guys, we have a good episode today. It is a timely episode. I am talking to Dr. Meg Vaught and Sarah Mills from the Main Veterinary Medical Center, which you may recognize from a recent ER, social media disaster.

Andy Roark:
These guys have been through the ringer of public shaming, canceled culture aimed at veterinarians. They have a lot of perspective right now on cyber bullying. Their staff was really put through a lot. There were death threats, things like that for their hospital.

Andy Roark:
I think that this is something that happens more than we like to admit to veterinarians and veterinary hospitals. And I think that hearing their story is really interesting. And I think it’s valuable for people to recognize that this can happen. It happens to veterinarians. You don’t do anything wrong and who are just trying their best.

Andy Roark:
And one’s a monster here. As far as the pet owners, or the staff, or anything. We deal with emotional crisis and we live in a world where people online can be keyboard warriors and not really forgive, or even try to understand the whole story before they react.

Andy Roark:
And so, anyway, this is super timely, super topical. It is a sad story, but there’s hope at the end. And I hope that sharing this with everybody is going to, maybe help some practices out that have to deal with PR nightmares. And that we’ll also give maybe some pet owners, some perspective on what it looks like from the veterinary inside, when you hear a story that breaks on the news or on the media that paints them in a negative light. So, anyway, guys, let’s get into this episode.

Kelsey Beth Carpenter:
(singing) This is your show. We’re glad you’re here. We want to help you in your veterinary career. Welcome to the Cone of Shame with Dr. Andy Roark.

Andy Roark:
Welcome to the podcast Dr. Megan Vaught and Sarah Mills. How are you guys doing?

Megan Vaught:
We’re great. How are you?

Andy Roark:
I’m doing really well. I’m glad to be able to talk to you. For those who don’t know you, Dr. Vaught, you are an Emergency Critical Care Specialist. You are the ECC Service Director at Main Vet Medical Center. And you were the doctor on the case of a recent ER nightmare that you guys got to deal with. Sarah, you are the Director of Marketing and Communications at Rare Breed or at Main Vet Med Center specifically?

Sarah Mills:
At Rare Breed. But since they’re part of our group, then also at Main…

Andy Roark:
Gotcha. Perfect. Thank you, guys, both for being here. We met just about two weeks ago in the worst of circumstances when Main Vet Medical Center was really, being publicly shamed. I think is probably, the best way to say it from a social media standpoint. You guys had that nightmare situation where the members of the public reacted to a case that you saw in an over the top way, culminating in death threats for you and the staff, and just a general horrible nightmare experience.

Andy Roark:
And Meg, you reached out to me and said, “Hey, we’re going through this and coming out the other side. And we don’t want other people to have to experience this. We want to see what we can do to address this in the future and see what’s possible.” And you guys were already working on things to try to help other practices that might have experiences like this in the future.

Andy Roark:
And I just, I think what you’re doing is wonderful. I want to be super supportive because this is something I’ve seen in the past many, many times. And I’ve reached out to some practices that have been through it to try to give them some support as you weather these storms.

Andy Roark:
But I thought that having you here to talk would be, one, I think it’d be informative for people. But two, these types of things happen. I think they’re going to continue to happen in that medicine. And I want people to know that they’re not alone in the world.

Andy Roark:
And so, I think sometimes, by sharing experiences, we can help people. We can help people later on say, “Oh, well, I’m not the only one. This has happened to others. And they turned out okay.”

Megan Vaught:
Right. For sure. Yeah, thank you so much for having us. And it is so important to take our experience. And hopefully, no one has to go through it again. But we know it happens so often, unfortunately, and hopefully, not to this extent, but to share what we have learned through this terrible episode and try to shift it into something better.

Andy Roark:
Yeah, I agree. I think that is a worthy goal and that’s what we’re going to go for. So, why don’t you guys start. I’m going to just open up to you with this very broad question for anyone who is not familiar, what happened? What are we talking about?

Megan Vaught:
Yeah. So, we recently, had a case here of a dog who unfortunately needed emergency surgery. And unfortunately, wasn’t able to be done with his pet parents. We went through a lot of steps to try to get the best care that we could for him and keep him with his family. And ultimately, certainly, things were progressing. His overall state was progressing, and what he was going through in those moments.

Megan Vaught:
And so, we were posed with the question, as I think a lot of veterinarians are as well as the veterinary support staff of euthanasia. And there isn’t always the option to have a surrender, but that was thankfully, an option for us as well as something that the family was open to.

Megan Vaught:
And so, we did look at those options together as a team. They did elect to move forward with surrendering it to another individual. And then, the dog, thankfully, did have the procedure that he needed to have to continue to recover and heal from what was going on.

Andy Roark:
One of the reasons that I was really struck by this, and I’ve been thinking a lot about it and about you guys is, how common this is. And I’m just going to go ahead and own it and say, it was just a couple of weeks ago. And I had a case came in and a dog that was hit by a car and its front leg was run over. And it had a fractured radius and ulna. And the owner did not have the resources to do the surgery. And then, you’re looking at this 9-month-old dog and going, “What do we do here?”

Andy Roark:
And so, we had that conversation. And the owner made it easy for me because she said to me, “I don’t really want this dog.” She said, “Someone gave me this dog and I didn’t want the dog.” And then, I said, “Well, then, why don’t you surrender the dog? And I can find someone else who will pay for the surgery and do it.”

Andy Roark:
And so, I had just gone through that exact case into some level that you guys went through a couple of weeks ahead of time. And so, I think that’s one of the most important things in this conversation is, having a change of ownership. It is a tool in our toolbox to get pets care when finances are not available. And it has been for generations. It has always been, “Hey, you can’t afford this. I don’t want to put the dog down. You don’t want the dog to be put down. Can we find someone else who would take this path?”

Andy Roark:
Now, I think that’s an interesting ethical conversation. We’ve all wrestled with that. But it has been fairly commonplace in our profession of this is a way to get care. What are the things I think is important about your position, kind of this story, without getting too much into this specific details for obvious reasons, you guys, this was not, and we should be clear. This was not the case where the vet says, “We’ll take the dog and we’ll give it to one of our staff members.”

Andy Roark:
This was a thing where you had someone else who said, “I will pay for this significant surgery and take this pet.” And I really, think that’s important to note. In the past, I have very much wrestled with the trick that I’ve seen many vets do, where they say, “Okay, you can’t afford this. Well, just give us the dog. And then, I’ll give it to one of the staff.” And the pet owner understandably says, “If you’re just going to give the dog, if you’re going to do the surgery for free and give the dog to someone, why don’t you give it back to me who loves it and wants it.”

Megan Vaught:
Exactly.

Andy Roark:
And I just want to make the point very much. That was not the position you guys were in. You had someone else who said, “I will pay for this, but it will be change of ownership.”

Sarah Mills:
Yup, exactly.

Andy Roark:
And so, yeah. So, okay. So, that’s how all of this sets up and we have another person, another party who’s going to come in and pay for ownership. The pet owner went through, signed over all the paperwork and said, “We’re going to do this, and most important to us that we get this surgery done.” And I also want to be clear here, because I think this is an important part of the case as well. We’re not talking about a $900 surgery.

Megan Vaught:
No.

Andy Roark:
We’re talking about, about a five-figure surgery, correct?

Megan Vaught:
Yeah. I mean, at a baseline, based on his injuries, I mean, he had a septic abdomen and a pyothorax and penetrating form material. He was going to need to very easily be a $10,000 at the minimum and a long recovery based on what his injuries were. And then, depending on the extent or the progression there, certainly, we never know like what those complications could look like from underlying sepsis.

Andy Roark:
Yeah. And so, I always think it’s important in these conversations, when we start to unpack this is, to give some empathy to the pet owner.

Megan Vaught:
Of course.

Andy Roark:
You know what I mean? And say, “Hey, most of us don’t have 10 grand in a savings account that we can just bust out. And we know that most pets don’t have pet insurance that like, less than 1% does. And so, I think most of us can at least be understandable and say, “Oh, my gosh, what a horrible situation to be in, when you say, I want to do this, I care about this pet. I don’t have $10,000 minimum that I can just spend on this.”

Andy Roark:
And what a horrible upsetting experience for that person. And I just think that’s important to put on the table and say, “I think that we can all empathize with that.” And so, what happens next is what I think I want to unpack really, and start to think about what does this mean for vet medicine?

Andy Roark:
And so, it sounds like everything is often going as play end. And there, you guys, it sounds to me that when you and I originally talked about it, you dotted all your eyes, you crossed all your Ts, you had a contract that said, “Hey, this is what’s going to happen,” everyone understands, there was very clear expectations. And so, you went through the work, you signed the contracts, you made the transfers, you do the surgery, which honestly, Meg, did you do the surgery?

Megan Vaught:
I did not. No.

Andy Roark:
Okay. So, it prompts to that person, because the septic abdomen, pyothorax just nasty, nasty, horrible thing. And they got a good outcome, which was great. And not at all guaranteed going in. So, successful surgery, but thin things started to go sideways. So, tell me about how that went down.

Megan Vaught:
Yeah. So, like you said, ultimately, the goal of him having a happy and healthy life, he was recovering very well, all of those pieces are super important. Obviously, the family’s goal, our goal. And so, that’s where we were hoping it was going to stay.

Megan Vaught:
Unfortunately, one of the area networks picked up a very one-sided news story, which then very quickly went viral all-over social media and the news, and whatnot, which led to a lot of backlash to the hospital. We had thousands and thousands of phone calls that were threatening and harassing on a single afternoon, which led us to shutting down our phone systems and being creative about how we could still continue to provide the very best care for the patients and clients that do truly, still need to be seen in those moments, while also trying to support each other in this crisis.

Andy Roark:
Yeah, okay. So, to put this in perspective, because this is what really blew my mind. You told me you had 3,200 phone calls in one day. I don’t even know what that looks like. So, tell me that, like honestly, like at the front desk, what did that look like? I mean, just the phones, just as soon as they were hung up, they would ring again, all the lines blown up all day? What does that look like?

Megan Vaught:
Yeah. So, and this was mostly started like midday. So, it’s really, only like in a half a day, but we normally have 10 phone lines. They were running faster than you could pick them up. There were botted phone calls. So, I’ve never really had experience with that prior to this, but it’s programmed to dial as soon as it’s hung up. And it just keeps dialing, which is crazy.

Megan Vaught:
There’s always another person on the other side of the call, but it just kept continuing. And really, the lobby and our client care area, our reception, and the very front of our hospital looked like probably, the best concert you’ve ever been in with the entire staff there to help support and facilitate the movements that we needed to do, which was both get the actual patients that were here in the parking lot, the care that they needed, as well as to support the client care team, who has to listen to all of this negativity, to be able to take a step back and spread out all of that a little bit, so that we could tease out the calls that truly needed to come through.

Andy Roark:
How did you do that? How did you separate the actual client’s calling saying, “I need a medication refill, my pug needs his nails trimmed.” And you’re separating that from 3,000 angry phone calls from people who found you on the internet. How do you do that?

Megan Vaught:
Yeah, we had to pick up every single phone call. Eventually…

Andy Roark:
Oh, my God.

Megan Vaught:
… we turned our phone straight to voicemail, and had to be very creative about how can we have clients tell us that they’re here and need care, which we had to be a little bit creative about and didn’t want to put on social media, the solution. So, that wasn’t also getting bogged down.

Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Megan Vaught:
But we did certainly, have to pick up those calls for many hours until we finally just said, “We have to go to voicemail.” And then, we still have to listen to those voicemails to find the clients that do need their refill, or have a question from a recent discharge.

Andy Roark:
Oh, my gosh. What was the situation like in the building? Were clients there going on just like normal? Were there picketers? Were there people who actually, showed up to make life hard in person or was this a 100% a virtual outside the building thing?

Megan Vaught:
I would say, it was very much mostly, virtual and outside and phone calls and that thing…

Andy Roark:
That makes me feel good.

Megan Vaught:
… and keyboard warrior.

Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Megan Vaught:
There were many, very specific threats, unfortunately. So, we did have local police department, 24 hours a day here at the hospital for about 10 days. We did have normal movement and normal clients arriving. We’re currently still, curbside. So, we had people coming up, whether they’re there for a specialty appointment or through the emergency room.

Megan Vaught:
So, those processes were still happening as normal. There were a few people who had just like coincidentally seen it on social media or on the news while they’re sitting in the parking lot and asked questions. But a lot of our truly wonderful clients and patients was just an outpouring of support even in those actual moments.

Andy Roark:
So, tell me about that. What did it look like? What did the clients do? Yeah, what did the support of clients do exactly? And then, how was that received by the staff?

Megan Vaught:
I think it was a refresh when things were a little bit more shifting that there were a few positive things coming through. But certainly, those were drowned out by the thousands of negative things initially. But some clients just wrote emails and to say, “Hey, you have always treated my dog wonderful, or I only have my dog because of this particular case, or doctor.”

Megan Vaught:
So, I think that was really uplifting for a lot of the team, regardless of what their role was, which was really important. I do find also, I don’t know if it’s coincidental or not, but clients were very patient and very kind that whole week that the ER could have been very backed up, but everyone was super appreciative that people… Because we never closed. We were always here to be able to still get that the care that they needed.

Andy Roark:
Wow. That does make me feel good. I think, I really like and want to believe that when these things happen. It is this outside keyboard warrior existential thing and your actual clients tend to know better. And the experience you have with face-to-face people who come in and see that you’re a human being, that tends to be different.

Andy Roark:
So, I feel a little bit validated in having that belief, and that makes me feel good. How long was the onslaught really going on? So, this was, I said, you’ve got this day and you’ve got 3,000 people to call. Did that last for a day? Did it last for five days? Kind of just general before it started to taper off and people seemed to lose their enthusiasm for just being horrible to a stranger.

Megan Vaught:
Yeah, I would say probably, about 24 hours. We were on voicemail after a couple of… Probably, five to six hours we went to voicemail. It really did, the volume tapered off after that 24-hour period. We still were getting some intermittent calls for probably, about a week.

Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Megan Vaught:
But not to the volume as that we had initially.

Andy Roark:
Okay. That’s good. Hey, everybody, I just want to jump in real quick with a couple of updates. Gang, before I do though, I got to get a shoutout, I got to get some love to Banfield Pet Hospital. Guys, they have stepped up and supported us in getting transcripts for both this podcast and the Cone of Shame Veterinary Podcast, which is the other podcast that I host, they do it to increase accessibility and inclusion in our profession that is a big point for them right now.

Andy Roark:
It’s something that they are doing for our whole profession industry. And they stepped up and put their money where their mouth was and said, “How can we help you?” And I said, “Hey, this is a thing that people have asked for.” And it’s a big lift for us. And Banfield said, “We got you, buddy.” And they have made this happen.

Andy Roark:
So, if you want transcripts for our podcast, we got them. Head over to unchartedvet.com. You can see all of our podcasts, and you can see transcripts for those. Feel free to share them, help us get the word out. But I just got to give some love to Banfield because they didn’t have to do that, but they did. And it is awesome. So, thanks to them.

Andy Roark:
Over on the Uncharted Veterinary Conference side of the house, guys, we have a workshop coming up on July the 13th with my friend, Brett Canfield. If you don’t know Brett, you’re missing out. He is awesome. He is such a fun, interesting person. He has great insights on what motivates people in the psychology of management.

Andy Roark:
And he is doing a workshop on managing a negative team member. I know none of you guys work with a negative team member. I know you don’t have anyone in your practice, who’s good at their job, but their attitude leaves something to be desired. And you would like to coach that person or work with that person or motivate that person or try to get a change in that behavior to get that negativity turned around, just to make the person more successful in your practice.

Andy Roark:
Guys, this workshop is open to everybody. It is free to Uncharted members. If you don’t have your Uncharted membership yet, you should really think about that. It is $99 to the public. I put a link in the show note, or you can head over to unchartedvet.com and see all of our workshops coming up.

Andy Roark:
But that is on July the 13th with Brett Canfield. Don’t want to miss that on the Uncharted Veterinary Podcast, which is the other podcast I do with Stephanie Goss. We are talking about help. My practice doesn’t write up soaps. We got a letter in our mail bag from somebody who went to a practice and they like it. But that doctors don’t write up medical records. What is this person going to do? Is this a deal breaker? Do we leave? Do we say something? What do we say? That’s what’s happened on my Uncharted podcast.

Andy Roark:
Last but not the least, if you have not grabbed the copy of my new training course, it is the on-demand course, you can find in the store at drandyroark.com. It is my exam room toolkit course. It is 17 tips, tools and hacks for you to train your staff or yourself on how to work effectively in the exam room. How to enjoy being in the exam room, how to set clear expectations, how to manage the clients that are there and how to get the best patient care done for those patients who walk through your door.

Andy Roark:
Guys, head over there and check it out. It is on demand course. You can get it whenever you like. It is made to be done with teams, but individuals can 100% go through it as well. I hope you’ll check it out. Let’s get back into this episode.

Andy Roark:
Tell me about other veterinary professionals reaching out. You guys heard from other people in the profession, correct?

Megan Vaught:
We, yeah, the outpouring of love and support from everywhere around the world is really, really wonderful. And I think really, what helped everyone get through this. So, just a huge thank you to anyone and everyone who’s out there. Our walls currently, are like smattered with all of the cards that we received. There were donuts delivered from Michigan. There was so much love and support coming even from around the globe. Nevermind just the country. So, it was wonderful.

Andy Roark:
Yeah, that’s amazing. What’s it like managing the staff through something like this? What was their experience? I’m talking about your technician, your assistant. And we can talk about the front desk as well. I know everybody was helping pick up phone calls. But yeah, help me get my head around that. What was it like to keep people going during a time like this?

Megan Vaught:
Yeah, I think certainly, there’s a lot of anxiety because the world is tricky nowadays. The threat actually, might hold weight. And I think that that is a hard thing to manage in the moment or to process mentally, but they did truly rally to say, we need to be here for the patients that need us.

Megan Vaught:
Here in Maine, we don’t have 30 emergency rooms around the area. There’s often one other major resource for patients that need care or specialty care. So, I think it is, and was really, important that we are always present for those that need us. And that’s really, where they stuck into, which was great to just be there and be present for the patients that we need and to rally together as a group. That we’re pretty great.

Megan Vaught:
They’re doing some great things every day and that’s something to be proud of. We know what our goal was, and that what our mission was to help that dog as well as all of our patients. And to try to just stay in that mind frame rather than get into the negativity.

Andy Roark:
Did you have anybody who just said, “I don’t feel safe coming in to work?”

Megan Vaught:
Yeah. Unfortunately, we did have a couple people who elected to stay home or whatnot.

Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Megan Vaught:
Thankfully, like I said, the surrounding police departments were great with their presence, which I think really did help people, just that we always had added support.

Andy Roark:
Yeah, I think that that would have an impression on me if I was going in there. So, I think that that’s wonderful that they were willing to do that. So, you’ve gone through this experience and it was pretty awful. Talk to me about resources that you used, support that you got, what was helpful to you guys in keeping your spirits up, first of all, but also just navigating the situation that was going on?

Andy Roark:
Because guys, we don’t get any training in social media, cyber bullying attacks. How was that experience? I’m sure that you probably didn’t have, “Oh, I have a long history of dealing with this.” No, I don’t think most of do. Talk to me of picking up those skills on the fly?

Megan Vaught:
Yeah, it’s tricky. I would say, having personally been through it and I’m sure there are plenty of people who are not as lucky as I am to have someone like Sarah Mills here, but having those resources. And I think truly, you said it earlier that you’re not alone. It is very isolating, even though there’s tons of people around you to be the point person for what you thought was doing, the very best thing that you could for that pet. And that’s really tricky.

Megan Vaught:
And so, I think knowing that you’re not alone. There is a great profession out there and everyone has your back and truly sees what you’re doing. And what is the important pieces to this story. But knowing, because I certainly didn’t, knowing that there are great resources out there with NOMV and AVMA and having some of these cyber bullying, task force and resources out there, we are working very closely with NOMV to truly make a crisis folder for further resources in cyber bullying.

Megan Vaught:
And I certainly, have Sarah talk a little bit more about that. But I think for me too, one of the really important pieces is to try to bring humanity back into veterinary medicine. Like you said, the clients that are there in person know that you are a person, that you are here. And it’s so easy to go behind a screen or a keyboard or a phone call.

Megan Vaught:
And it’s not, we’re not remembering that, yes, we’re a veterinarian or a technician or someone who works in client care, but we all are people who care very much about the medicine that we’re providing and the patients that we want to partner with these families to do truly what we all started out to do.

Andy Roark:
Yeah, I’ve never had an experience at all, like what you guys went through. But I have been unpopular on the internet in Times and I will tell you, it feels terrible. And it is hard to explain to someone who has not been through it because they go, “Oh, well you just ignore those people.” They call and you know that, you can blow them off. And I go, “Man, when it’s someone coming after you and you feel that your reputation and all the things that you have done in the past are being destroyed and just disregarded, and that you’ve worked so hard to be helpful and to have that just, absolutely crapped on. It makes you feel so terrible.”

Andy Roark:
And the comment I made to another doctor when I was first looking at this, I’ll just tell you, it was no good deed goes unpunished, and you just feel so bad. And you feel like if I hadn’t tried to help, if I hadn’t pushed so hard, I wouldn’t have to deal with any of this. And like, that is just this extra kick in the gut that I just think it just, “Oh.” Anyway, I know it’s so, so tough.

Andy Roark:
And so, that’s why I think it’s so great that you guys are talking about this, just to let people know. Because man, it feels so isolating to have what feels like a hoard of people. And it’s actually, six people, not about… My case is actually, six people supporting each other and telling me I’m terrible.

Andy Roark:
But man, it’s hard, if you haven’t been through it, you don’t realize how, like what caveman instincts take over as far as like, “Oh, my gosh, I’m going to be destroyed, and this is the end.” And so, yeah, I think it’s wonderful that you guys are doing this. Have you made any changes having gone through this? I’m just curious. Anytime I would have a situation like this, I’d always go and say, “What am I going to do differently next time? Or what changes would I make in the future?” And so, for those of us looking from the outside, were there things that afterwards you were like, “Yeah, I would do this differently next time?”

Megan Vaught:
I think, no, and I think we’ve certainly chatted as a group, as far as continuing to work really closely with our rescues and shelters in the area and what are those payment resources that we can use? Or how can we have a better conversation about pet insurance and things like that? So, that it’s more about preventing and preparing, rather than the scramble in the end.

Megan Vaught:
Because certainly, we don’t want anyone to have to be in this situation. But emergencies come up and as we both know; routine medical care can be expensive. And so, how can we look to doing that a little bit differently, so that we can have better pet parent education and community knowledge for what the value and the true cost of veterinary medicine is.

Andy Roark:
If you could go back right now, and give yourself one piece of advice, right when the phone started to ring, like it’s lunchtime, but you’re like, “Boy, it’s been a quiet day today.” And the first angry phone call comes in, if you med could pop your head through time and space and whisper something into your ear, like what piece of advice would you give yourself as you started to go through this experience?

Megan Vaught:
I think it’s hard because I don’t know that I completely know the answer yet. I am someone who needs to try to bring it into something positive, which is what has been our next mission. But I think in that moment, I probably, would try to tell myself, don’t take it personally because that’s definitely how it felt. And it’s very isolating, even though you have everyone’s support.

Andy Roark:
Sarah, I don’t know, I can’t imagine that you have experience with things like this either. If you could go back and give yourself as the Director of Marketing and Communications, what piece of advice would you give yourself right when things started to be nasty?

Sarah Mills:
I think I’m right there with Meg. It’s hard to say what you’d say to yourself in that exact moment, other than don’t take it personal because it is personal, right? It feels very personal in that minute. And our number one priority was, let’s take care of the pets that are here, the ones that need to be seen, let’s make sure that we can do everything and our power to stay open and to get the care to those pets that need us and those pet parents. And after that, the safety of the staff and the team is making sure that everyone here is safe.

Sarah Mills:
So, it does feel very personal in that minute when you’re going through all that. I don’t think that we could have done anything different in the way that we managed the crisis at that time, because I think our client service team, our technicians, our vet assistants, our veterinarians, everyone was so professional and just really, stuck to making sure that everything was done a 100% to the best of our ability here, right? Making sure that our clients in the parking lot were safe.

Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Sarah Mills:
We were definitely in crisis mode, which is something that we never prepared for. Never considered something that would happen to our hospital, to our little state of Maine. And it just shows that it can happen anywhere. And that’s why, we want to share our story.

Sarah Mills:
This is really important. Like you said, this happens everywhere and all the time. And we dug our heels in and we said, “We’re done. We’re not going to be bullied and we’re not going to bully the bully.” So, we’re not going to come at it with any perspective that would hurt the client or any of our clientele or our community. We want to use this as a jumping off point to really support our veterinary community, our pet parents, and use this as a positive.

Andy Roark:
When you say, we really focused on the pets that were in the building, it reminds me of the Viktor Frankl quote, someone with a why can accomplish anyhow. I’m paraphrasing, but it’s something like that. Do you think that having that focus on the patients who were in the building, did that give you a sense of purpose or something to put your head down and work on that was beneficial?

Sarah Mills:
I think so. And I think especially, for the rest of the team is to continue their normal day-to-day, even though we might have to jump through a couple extra hoops to make sure that the normal phones ringing, how can we do that differently, so that we can still know who’s here and who needs that care and how can we communicate differently? But I think, it did really help them focus on their ultimate mission and what their day-to-day goal is, and why they come to work. And that’s so important.

Andy Roark:
Yeah, I started to think a lot about after our first conversation and trying to make things better and digging in your hills, as you said, and saying, “We want to make a difference with this.” And I thought, “What do you do about these things that it’s almost like a freak of nature, occurrence where you say, “I don’t… This was this massive external event and it was a lightning strike unlucky.” And you go, “What do you do about that?”

Andy Roark:
And I sat, and I thought with it for a long time, and I think, what I took away from what you’re trying to do, and I guess, what I would say as an optimist is to say, “I do believe that we can decrease the probability of things like this happening.” And I do think that we can decrease the severity when they happen. And we do that through setting expectations, having resources available by talking to pet owners and generally, letting people know what we’re trying to do and how we’re trying to care.

Andy Roark:
But then, also, to your point about having conversations of how do we make care affordable, or keep it affordable, or what do we do to help people with payment options and things like that. And so, talk to me a little bit about how you transitioned? Once you gritted your teeth and said, “We want to use this and turned it into something positive and make it good for the profession,” where is that path taking you? How have you moved forward?

Megan Vaught:
So, so far, we are meeting with a number of groups of people to form different type of paths and resources. Like we said, including NOMV other companies and AVMA and things like that, to really work on education of all the communities.

Megan Vaught:
So, whether that be our surrounding pet parents or future pet parents, as well as us as veterinary professionals, like how can we have these conversations? What are the resources out there? If this, gosh forbid, does happen, what are these resources that you can use if you are faced with this type of situation? Because I certainly, didn’t know.

Megan Vaught:
We learned a lot of things, certainly, even using our own crisis management team of how do we go about this and who can you rally from a media standpoint? And who can you not? Those things I think, are really important things of how to go about the different virtual parts of the world that are so not tangible. And not something that you can really sort out easily when it’s rapidly progressing, seemingly kind of out of control.

Megan Vaught:
So, that is where we are hoping to go, is to continue these conversations and continue to use this newer case in this platform to be able to strike a little bit of a positive change. And hopefully, it’s not just a little, but we can really try to help spread the word about those payment resources, like you said, or pet insurance.

Megan Vaught:
And we have a community that has rallied together. Let’s unite and use this together for what the future can look like, so that we can step out of the current crisis that we all are in and unrelated to this case, but the whole NOMV and the mental wellness and those things.

Andy Roark:
Yeah. For those who are not familiar, NOMVI is the Not One More Vet group, just in case anyone’s not familiar with the acronym. So, yeah, so talk to me a little bit about the crisis folder. What does that look like? Give me some insight into what that will be and how people would exist that?

Sarah Mills:
Sure. So, one, we were in the thick of everything. We were definitely in panic crisis mode. There are a lot of resources that are out there that people have pulled together from their own experiences, but we didn’t know about them. We really, had to rewrite the book for our own situation.

Andy Roark:
Yeah.

Sarah Mills:
And so, the purpose of the crisis folder is really, to empower all the veterinary teams to have something. Hopefully, you never need it. But gosh, if you’re ever in a pickle, here’s what you do, here’s this folder, here’s how you turn off your social media, here’s how you turn off reviews for your hospital. Because we saw numbers plummeting, right? It was coming at us from all different aspects. It was coming at us from the phone calls, text messages.

Sarah Mills:
People were stocking our website, reaching out to people directly, finding their names. We were getting blown up on Facebook, on LinkedIn, on Instagram, on TikTok. People were going to our corporate pages and reaching out to our accounting teams and threatening them.

Sarah Mills:
So, it was an assault from all the different angles. And so, what we’re really hoping to do in this crisis is to put everything in one place and share these resources with every single practice that’s out there. So, they have the resources at their fingertip. And hopefully, if they do have this type of situation, it’s a much more mild version, but we really want to incorporate all the different resources that are out there from AVMA, dvm360, the NOMV group.

Sarah Mills:
There are so many different crisis resources that are out there that people don’t know about. So, we have the power of sharing one to many, and then many to many. And eventually, everyone will have this and be prepared.

Andy Roark:
Yeah, where can people find this? Where is it going to live?

Sarah Mills:
It’s still under construction. We actually, are…

Andy Roark:
Under construction.

Sarah Mills:
We’re just starting it now. And we’re looking for people to join in, share their resources. And then, once we have it all in one collection, then we’ll ask everyone to share it with their people, so that it can get shared out with all the people.

Megan Vaught:
One important lesson that we learned is, NOMV, if you do, gosh, forbid need it now. NOMV does have some resources. It’s just not published on their website for obvious reasons. But it is certainly, available upon requests. You just need to know, to reach out to them, which was an important lesson that we learned as well.

Andy Roark:
How did you reach out? And traditionally, in a Facebook group, I know that they’re expanding and doodling on other things, were you a member of the group?

Megan Vaught:
I wasn’t, no. One of our doctors here actually was [inaudible 00:39:44] with one of their team members. And then, Sarah’s been in touch with them. So, part of, just our everyone’s outpouring of love and support has really connected a lot of team members and different avenues.

Andy Roark:
That sounds absolutely, fantastic. I’m going to put a link to NOMV and to the AVMA resources in the show notes, so people can have that sort of stuff. When you guys get the crisis folder and your resources together, let me know. And I will shout them out here on the podcast. And then, also we’ll push them through the Dr. Andy Roark social media and stuff like that to help get the word out because I’d really love to support you.

Andy Roark:
Thank you both for making time to be here. And I know this was not a fun experience. I think that sharing it with other people can be valuable. I think my point that I like to make to people is, I know how horrible this can feel to be targeted online. This too shall pass. I think that’s an important part, but there are things that we can do to protect ourselves and make it better. So, thank you guys, both for being a light in that darkness, and for helping our profession grow and be better.

Megan Vaught:
Thank you so much for having us.

Andy Roark:
And that is our episode, guys. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you got something out of it. Thanks again, to Meg and to Sarah for being here. Again, my interest in this and my hope here is to make people who have experiences like this feel like they’re not alone to highlight some resources that can be helpful to veterinarians or vet clinics that are going through experiences like this.

Andy Roark:
And just to humanize veterinarians in the eyes of the public as they deal with some of the nastiness that manifests from online. If something like this does happen to you, I think some of the big takeaways are this too shall pass. You’re not alone. These things sort of happen. It is a challenge in the work that we do, trying to keep our clinics going, and also do what is right with the cost of medicine rising as they have in the last couple of decades.

Andy Roark:
So, anyway, guys, complex problem, but I do see light ahead and I think things can get better. So, anyway, guys, take care of yourselves. Be well, talk to you later. Bye.

Filed Under: Podcast Tagged With: Life With Clients, Perspective, Team Culture, Wellness

Why I’m Leaving The Vet Clinic

March 30, 2022 by Dr. Andy Roark Community

Today was a big day for me. My eighteen months of maternity leave has finally come to an end and I would have been returning to work as a registered veterinary technician at the same small animal hospital I’ve been employed with for over nine years now. 

But instead, I’ve chosen to take a big leap and concentrate all of my efforts on helping families adopt rescue dogs with the Pawdoption Guide Membership Experience I’ve created, whilst caring for my young family. 

This is huge for me because I am such a proud RVT!

I have always loved what I do. I’ve been an advocate for my profession while regularly enjoying the pursuit of continuing education. I thought I had the coolest job in the world; as a registered veterinary technician you’re ALWAYS on your feet and you get to dabble in so many things. One minute you’re prepping and monitoring a patient in surgery, the next you’re taking x-rays, running lab work, reading cytology, or providing client education. The day-to-day work I did was everything I had dreamed of during the two years I spent obtaining my college diploma for this role. 

That being said, working in a vet hospital is anything but perfect. Even though the role fulfilled me, I seriously considered leaving my vet clinic a few times during my career there. I always chose to stay for the standard of care and professionalism that they upheld. I just didn’t think anyone else could match it. 

So How Did I Get Here… 

In 2019 when I started my own business, Pawdoption Guide, I had no idea when or if it would become a full-time gig. I merely started it thinking that I should have a backup plan because many technicians dealt with burnout or short careers. At one point, I had heard that the average career length for vet techs was 5 years! Probably, in part, because our low salary was and is easily matched by other job opportunities. Shift work, physical demands, and clinic atmosphere most likely played a role in this too. That statistic was an eye-opener for me. 

Now, there are certainly some technicians who stay in the field long term but I would not hesitate to say that the majority of them don’t have children. Unfortunately, veterinary medicine is not an easy field to be in while raising children and my priorities changed quickly with the birth of my two kids. 

I realized how much time I would be sacrificing with them if I worked the rotating shifts of an RVT. There would be weeks at a time where I wouldn’t see my kids following dropping them off at daycare in the morning. I decided I wasn’t okay with this.

Let me be the first to acknowledge my privilege to be able to make a choice like that or even have the financial stability to do so. I am very fortunate. 

When I went back to work following my first maternity leave, I was able to negotiate a stable work schedule with no rotation. However, in doing so, I had to relinquish most of my participation in surgery duties. This was almost unthinkable for me, my identity as a vet tech was wrapped up in this aspect of my work, yet I gave it up because I could not imagine the alternative. 

It was definitely the right choice for me and I got used to the new norm but my job no longer held the balance and satisfaction that it once had. This, along with a second child was really the tipping point for my in-clinic career. 

At this point, I was creating a lot of free resources and courses to empower dog adopters in their dog adoption journey, and completing each one of them enlivened my passion for dog rescue and adoption. I could never have imagined being so fulfilled by something other than my RVT duties in an animal hospital. So, with this personal growth came the awareness that I must continue to pursue this new passion. 

The nail in the coffin, so to say, was when I set out to write my resignation letter. I did what most people do and googled “resignation letter template.” The template I came across looked great and had all the necessities, plus a few optional things. One of them is to mention a memorable achievement, big accomplishment, or highlight of your career. 

I thought, “Sure, how hard could that be?” Well, I must’ve sat on that question for hours, maybe even days. I just kept reliving my 9 years as an RVT at this small animal hospital and all of the opportunities where I showed initiative, leadership or brought something to fruition. I thought of many things but I could not find even one thing that felt worthy of that title. Not one. Every example that came close had a mental asterisk beside it for one reason or another. The truth is, as a veterinary technician you do so many tasks. The accomplishments are many, yet that’s all expected of you. The authority to see projects or tasks through the way you may want to is seldomly possible. The vet or boss is always overseeing you and has the final say. 

For me, it was suddenly and overwhelmingly clear that although I enjoyed the tasks I performed as a tech I was left feeling unrewarded because I didn’t feel I could take full responsibility for my accomplishments. I wanted the ability to lead, not just contribute. 

I don’t want you to get the wrong idea and think that I resent my workplace for this revelation. I honestly don’t think I would have had a different result recalling a 9-year career at any other clinic. The really joyous or impactful memories for me all surrounded the camaraderie I experienced as a team or with my individual colleagues.

It just comes down to the role description of a registered veterinary technician which is to work alongside and assist the veterinarian. This was no longer serving me. 

In comparison, with just 2 years under my belt as an entrepreneur, I can name 10 things or more that I’m immensely proud of accomplishing and have provided me with personal and professional growth. That resignation letter gave me the clarity I needed to turn my side-hustle into a full-time gig while confidently leaving my in-clinic vet-tech career. Entrepreneurship is undoubtedly the way onward and upward for me as an RVT.

Photo of Bethany Muir and two dogs

About the Author:

Bethany Muir is a seasoned RVT from Kitchener, ON Canada, who is passionate about rescuing pets. She proudly uses her RVT skills to empower dog adopters in locating, adopting, and integrating their dream rescue dog via her Pawdoption Guide Membership Experience. Find out more by listening to weekly episodes of the Pawdoption Guide Podcast or visiting her website.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Perspective, Team Culture, Vet Tech Life

Are You Trying to Be Someone Else?

March 10, 2022 by Andy Roark DVM MS

In veterinary school, future vets are generally taught that there is a “right” way to do things. There is a gold standard, a best practice, and a correct answer. That mentality tends to seep into our minds… and our minds were already largely programmed this way in college if not before. We’re taught early on, it seems, that there are very specific ways to get gold stars.

I bring this up because I want to remind you that, while there may be a “right way” in veterinary school, that idea is largely BS in most of our lives. Every day, I talk to people in practice who have bought into the idea that there is a model they are supposed to follow. There is a mentor they are supposed to mimic. There is a pattern of behavior that they are supposed to demonstrate.

I’ve been fortunate enough to work with literally hundreds of very successful people in veterinary medicine, and there’s one thing about them that I can tell you for sure: they are all different people. They are unique and they have become successful in their own way. Not ONE person that I have met who is thriving in vet medicine is doing so because they are using the exact same skills or behaving in the exact same way as someone else.

I know people who have been successful because they are organized and create processes for almost every situation. I also know people who thrive by thinking outside the box and trying new things whenever possible. I know people who have become successful because they are gregarious and charismatic. I know others who got there by being introspective and slow to speak. I know people who are excellent managers of others, and people who have excelled by delegating those responsibilities away. I know people who became leaders using exceptional medical skills to gain credibility, and those who became leaders joking that NO ONE wants them to actually practice medicine.

Today, I want you to stop for a moment and ask yourself “am I trying to be someone else?” It’s scary to be yourself, because there’s no model to help you be you. You have to make it up as you go, and that’s not how we were trained. Also, we know how people we respect turned out because we can see (or think we can see) their success. We don’t know how we’ll turn out, so it feels safer to be less like us and more like those other people, doesn’t it?

But hear me when I say, you’ll never reach your true potential without being true to yourself and your unique skill set. Your greatest power is in being your own quirky, flawed, unique self and in using the unique combination of skills that you have. So let go of the picture of success you have in your head. Stop trying to be that other person or to walk the path that he or she walked. You’re not doing that. You’re doing your own thing. Yes, that thing is scary because you don’t know how it will turn out, but if you trust yourself, you’ll enjoy the journey so much more.

Take care of yourself,

   Andy

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Perspective, Wellness

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