Kelsey Beth Carpenter RVT, or Vet Tech Kelsey as she’s known to her adoring fans, is a registered veterinary technician, singer/songwriter, and all-around creative genius. Her humorous takes on veterinary medicine can be found across the internet, and today she joins the podcast to discuss what she has learned about veterinary medicine from her own journey as apatient facing a chronic medical issue.
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LINKS
Back to School Webinar Series: https://drandyroark.com/webinars/
Dr. Andy Roark Exam Room Communication Tool Box Team Training Course: https://drandyroark.com/on-demand-staff-training/
Dr. Andy Roark Charming the Angry Client Team Training Course: https://drandyroark.com/charming-the-angry-client/
Dr. Andy Roark Swag: drandyroark.com/shop
All Links: linktr.ee/DrAndyRoark
ABOUT OUR GUEST
Kelsey Beth Carpenter is a Registered Veterinary Technician, social media manager, singer/songwriter, speaker/performer, and content creator. Kelsey has enjoyed working in emergency hospitals across California for over a decade. At her most recent clinic, she fell in love with the open hospital concept, and is passionate about teaching others how to implement this structure in their own practices. Kelsey also works as the Social Media Manager for DrAndyRoark.com, a Content Specialist for the Uncharted Veterinary Conferences and Community, and the manager of her own growing brand, Vet Tech Kelsey. With a background in the arts, Kelsey is passionate about the power of creativity, the importance of humor, and the magic that happens when art and science overlap. In her free time (what’s that?), she can be found hiking, writing goofy songs about Veterinary Medicine, and dressing up her Chihuahua even though she swore she would never be “that person”.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Dr. Andy Roark:
Welcome, everybody, to the Cone of Shame Veterinary podcast. I am your host, Dr. Andy Roark. Guys, I’m here with someone who is near and dear to me in my heart, the one and only vet tech Kelsey, that is Kelsey Beth Carpenter, RVT. Kelsey is an RVT. She is a media personality. She has been doing social media for me for years, and she’s part of the uncharted team, and she is genuinely a wonderful, funny, very, very insightful person. And it’s a bit of a personal episode today. Kelsey has been having some medical challenges over the last couple of years, and she has spent a lot of time on the human side of healthcare as a patient. And we were talking, and we sort of laid this out in the episode as we get started, but what are the things that are in human medicine that are good that we might like to see more of in vet medicine? And what are the things that we have learned in human medicine that we do not want to see in vet medicine? Or what insights can we gain from being a patient of human healthcare that will help us do a better job of taking care of pets and pet owners?
And that’s what we talk about this episode. It’s really kind of a sprawling episode, but it’s all on that theme and topic. It’s really interesting. Kelsey is just such a wonderful person, and she’s just really insightful, and she’s obviously thought a lot about this. And so anyway, this is a really neat way to think about practice and how practice works and just to kind of check and say where am I stacking up here? Am I doing the things that turn people off? Or am I doing the things that are going to make our visits positive experiences? So anyway, guys, check it out. Let’s get into this episode.
Kelsey Beth Carpenter:
(Singing) This is your show. We’re glad you’re here. We want to help you in your veterinary career. Welcome to The Cone of Shame with Dr. Andy Roark.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Welcome to the podcast. Kelsey Beth Carpenter, how are you?
Kelsey Beth Carpenter:
I’m pretty darn good. How are you doing Dr. Andy Roark?
Dr. Andy Roark:
People are having a deja vu. They’re like I’ve heard that voice before. Yeah, she sang the theme song that you just listened to right before you got to this point in the podcast. But yes, Kelsey Carpenter, you are an RVT. You are a media personality. You are best known-
Kelsey Beth Carpenter:
Am I?
Dr. Andy Roark:
For singing a song called My Dog Ate Weed, I think. You are the social media manager for Dr. Andy Roark.
Kelsey Beth Carpenter:
Who’s that?
Dr. Andy Roark:
I don’t know. If people don’t know, it’s kind of on you. You’re a part of this too. So if they have no idea who I am, I’m not the only one responsible for that. You are here with me.
Kelsey Beth Carpenter:
Most of the time. If it’s a good thing, you were responsible. If it’s a bad thing, it’s typically me.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Totally. That’s part of a social media manager’s job, is like I need someone to throw under the bus when I drink too much and decide-
Kelsey Beth Carpenter:
Of course.
Dr. Andy Roark:
To go on social media and say inappropriate things.
Kelsey Beth Carpenter:
Which happens frequently.
Dr. Andy Roark:
All the time. It’s all the time.
Kelsey Beth Carpenter:
I think I was just really a strategic hire. It was sort of like who’s going to make me look really good on this team? And it’s like Kelsey, because when Andy can’t find something, he can’t find a document in the Google Drive, it’s okay because Kelsey can’t find the Google Drive. So it’s just sort of I’m just a strategic hire. I think every company should have one.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Right. Your job title is foil. That’s not true. You were a very strategic hire, because you are magnificent and lovely and wonderful and creative and super funny and super fun. And since I started doing social media 15 years ago, you have always got the positivity and the energy that I think is so important to kind of put out into the world and kind of what we always wanted to do. And you just radiate that as well. And I feel blessed every day that you show up to work. So that’s one of the many joys of my life. So thank you for being that person.
Kelsey Beth Carpenter:
Thank you, Andy. I feel the same way. And now also I have it on audio recording. I could play-
Dr. Andy Roark:
Listen back to it.
Kelsey Beth Carpenter:
Back to myself. Also, next time you fire me on a team meeting, I can go ahead and play that for everyone. Remember you did like me at one point.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, that happens a lot as well. That often happens. Yeah. So we were talking, and we were sort of talking with the rest of the team recently and you brought up an idea for a podcast, and then you were immediately voluntold to do the podcast, and here you are. So let’s go ahead. How do you want to open this up? Yeah, how do you want to open this up?
Kelsey Beth Carpenter:
Well, I was listening to one of your episodes recently, and now I’m blanking on which one it was, and you guys were talking about how to make clients feel heard in an exam room. And as I was listening to it, I was thinking back on all of the doctor’s appointments I’ve been through, because I’ve gone through a major medical experience over the past few years and all of the things that have made me feel heard and all of the things that I would… Ultimately I’ve seen so many doctors lately, and every time I go to a doctor’s visit, I think here’s what I would do differently if I get back into the clinic one day. Here’s what I would change about how I talk to clients or how I put someone in a room or how I discharge people, just because of what I’ve now experienced being a patient myself so many times.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Well, I thought that was great because my wife has gone through a major medical event in the last year, and I had the similar experiences of things that I’ve watched, how they’d impact her. And then I’ve been along in a lot of these appointments and things as well. And I thought this would be really fun just to go through and break down what we’ve seen in human medicine that is good that we would like to point over and then things in human medicine that are not good that we definitely don’t want to point over. And so I think that’s fun. The intention is not to throw shade on human medicine-
Kelsey Beth Carpenter:
Of course.
Dr. Andy Roark:
But I do think we’re crushing them. I think there’s so many good things about vet medicine-
Kelsey Beth Carpenter:
Not to throw shade.
Dr. Andy Roark:
That is not good-
Kelsey Beth Carpenter:
We are superior.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Not to throw shade. Yeah, I don’t want them to feel bad about that, but let’s just call a spade a spade. It’s a lot of really good things in vet medicine that got lost in human medicine, and I think that that’s worth calling out. So yeah, let’s go. How do you want to start?
Kelsey Beth Carpenter:
Well, I’ll just say this though. So we’re not trying to, yeah, throw shade on human medicine. Also not trying to say our veterinary professionals, our fellow veterinary professionals aren’t already doing many of these things, because some of them are so basic, but I think for me it’s like I had been working in veterinary medicine for 10 years, and I kind of stopped thinking about some of the things I do. A perfect example is callbacks. It’s so routine. I sit there and I do 15 callbacks in the morning, and I don’t even think twice about it. And then when I became a patient myself, realizing what that actually does for people. So there were just multiple things. I guess we could kind of just start at the top of an exam maybe.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, sure. I mean, I’m totally up with that. So we’ve been in a number of different exams over the last years and stuff, and a lot of things that we take for granted, that medicine really matter, just a warm welcome, just confirming that someone is in the right place, that this is the plan, just sit here, we will take care of you. I think that that’s so important. I think the other part that I would say here is the idea that someone actually caress that you understand what’s going on is important. I remember talking to a nurse as I was leaving an appointment one time, and I was like, “I just want you to know this is a whirlwind, and I do not feel like our questions got answered. And now we’re kind of getting dumped out the door, and the doctor’s in the next appointment.” And she was like, “Okay, well, I’ll pass that on.” And I doubt that they did, but it’s just such a simple thing to be like, “Hey, we’re going to make sure you understand what we did here.” And I had not felt that way in a long, long time.
Kelsey Beth Carpenter:
Yeah, absolutely. And it’s really hard… When you get to a point where you’ve been doing this long enough, you forget what people don’t know. Like something as simple as, “I’m going to take your dog back for x-rays,” what can the client expect? What are they supposed to do while doing that? Just the simplest things. But you started to mention just saying something as simple as making sure you’re in the right place, honestly, it’s the first simplest thing. You actually have a point about this, and it was in one of your lectures that I watched once about building trust and how every little thing you do in the exam is building up that trust level. And that first thing is just using names, introducing yourself so they know who you are and saying the patient’s name or the client’s… For me, I’m the patient… or saying the pet’s name. It just already builds that little tiny bit of trust and starts you off on the right place.
I can’t tell you how many times a doctor has walked into a room and be like, “All right, so we’re looking at this today.” And I’m like how do you know who I am? There could be another Kelsey here. How many times have I had three Fluffies sitting in the waiting room, and I could pull the wrong one? So it’s something so simple like that I never thought twice about until I had to be a patient myself.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. No, I completely agree with that. And I get it. People are busy. And you go in for a medical procedure, and they’re like, “You need to be here at this time,” because the doctor is doing their procedures, and they’re just stacked back to back to back.
Kelsey Beth Carpenter:
Of course.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And it kind of feels like a cattle train where you’re just getting pushed, a shoot where you’re here and then you’re here and you better not be late because they’re going to be upset. And I think that you can be efficient and you can move things through, but I think that we should actively work against making people feel like they’re widgets being pushed through the widget press. You know what I mean? And I’ve had that. I think there’s definitely a balance of efficiency and getting things done and then also just taking a moment to confirm to the person, “I recognize that you’re a human being, and I’m also a human being. And this is my name, and if you need anything you can call me.” I think that that’s really good.
Kelsey Beth Carpenter:
I think that’s a huge one for me, so one of the biggest ones that I just didn’t really think much about when I was a tech before, is just the acknowledgement. We talk about making people feel heard. To me, that’s not a complicated concept at all. To me, it is as simple as someone comes in, I put them in a room with their dog, and they say, “Bella’s here because she’s been vomiting. We tried doing a bland diet. She vomited three more times this morning.” We go straight into, “Okay, let me go ahead and start getting her vitals.” I’m not saying that’s wrong, but the simple statement of saying, “Wow, that sounds really rough for both of you.”
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, “That must’ve been scary.” Yeah.
Kelsey Beth Carpenter:
Huge, I mean, because you think about the fact this client has been up all night, they’re cleaning up puke out of their lovely carpets, they’ve been through it, they’re exhausted, they’re stressed. It happened to me in an exam once, I… In my total time just going through my recent development of fibromyalgia and everything, I actually had to tally up how many doctors I’ve seen in total. And the last time I tallied it, which was about six months ago, I was up to about 70.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Wow.
Kelsey Beth Carpenter:
So I have a lot of experience. And I remember the first time I saw a new psychiatrist, and he was just taking a basic history on what was going on with me. And I explained to him about my chronic pain and fibromyalgia and what I’d kind of been through, and I was doing it very much in my vet tech way of, “Here’s the data that you need,” right?
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.
Kelsey Beth Carpenter:
And he just literally stopped and said, “Wow, that sounds like you’ve really been through a rough time.” And I was like it’s not computing. I don’t know what to say to that. No one had ever… At that point, I was about two years into it, and I don’t think a single doctor had said to me, “That sounds really hard.” And it’s not that they’re not thinking it. You guys talked about this in another recent podcast. It’s not that we aren’t thinking it as doctors or veterinarians or technicians. It’s that we’re just in efficiency mode and we maybe don’t say it out loud. The compassion is there. It’s just sometimes making the extra effort to verbalize it, that’s huge, right?
Dr. Andy Roark:
It doesn’t take a whole lot. I completely agree. But yeah, it’s easy to get head down and just… The classic thing, and I talk about this a lot with emergency medicine, is when you’re an emergency doctor or you’re an emergency tech, you just see emergencies all day long. And this emergency is just the thing that we’re doing for 20 minutes right now before we do the next one. But to the pet owner that’s there on emergency, this is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. This is one of the worst days of their lives.
Kelsey Beth Carpenter:
Exactly.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And the dichotomy of those experiences is very real. And I just think we have to be conscious and aware of what the other person’s experiencing in order just to not have them feel like they’ve been pushed through the machine.
Kelsey Beth Carpenter:
Yeah. My favorite thing, one of the first things I would always tell newer assistants or technicians when I was training them, was my little secret for how I interact with clients is I pretend that every single client is a good friend of my mom’s-
Dr. Andy Roark:
Oh, that’s fun.
Kelsey Beth Carpenter:
Because how are you going to treat a friend of your mom’s if they come in and they’re like… Well, first of all, you’re going to go in the room and be like, “Oh my God. Hi, I’m Kelsey. I’m Cassie’s daughter.” You’re going to introduce yourself. You’re going to be like, “This must be Bella. I’ve heard about her,” you know?
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.
Kelsey Beth Carpenter:
And then when they talk about Bella’s been vomiting, you’re not going to be like, “Okay, let me go ahead and get vitals.” You’re going to be like, “Oh my God, that sounds terrible. Oh, I’m so sorry you’re going through that.” How do you treat someone who’s like your second cousin or your dad’s friend from high school? How do you treat that person? That’s how I try to pretend, that’s what every client is to be, and it helps me say those things out loud, that we’re all already thinking them in our heads anyways.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, I like that a lot. I think some of the interactions we’ve had recently with nurses have made me think a lot about the technician role in communication between patients, our patients, our clients and doctors, where… We had some experiences recently where you know that I’m a big believer in empowering technicians, and I feel like in human medicine they have made big strides in empowering nurses to be communicators. And I do think that we can absolutely learn from that. I’ve seen that go really, really well, and I’ve seen it go really badly to a point it was a really frustrating experience. And the difference for me in the experiences that we sort of had is when the nurse is the point of communication and they feel like an advocate or someone who is trying to help you, that is different from the nurse as the gatekeeper who says, “I’m not going to… Nope. I’m telling you what the answer is, and I’m not going to take your question or answer. Go to the doctor.”
So for example, my wife was talking to the doctor about something, and I’m sure she wouldn’t mind me saying, but she’s very active. She works out, she exercises, and so she has a procedure. She wants to know how long is it until I can be back doing the things that I want to do? And she’s pretty aggressive in that.
Kelsey Beth Carpenter:
Yeah. No, let’s just be honest. It’s not she’s just active. She’s a badass. She’s a verifiable badass. Let’s say it as it is.
Dr. Andy Roark:
She’s over the top badass. Yeah, that’s true. But anyway, so she’s like, “Hey, look, I am taking badass time off here, and I would like to get back to my badass self.”
Kelsey Beth Carpenter:
Exactly.
Dr. Andy Roark:
“And can I do that?” And the doctor was like not a big deal, but then the nurse was like, “Oh, no, no. You don’t do anything. Don’t lift anything more than 10 pounds until your recheck in like six weeks.” And Allison was like, “That’s not going to happen.” And Allie really wants to do what she’s supposed to do. She wants to be smart. And so she got mixed messages from the doctor and from the nurse. And the nurse did not seem to take her seriously and wasn’t willing to go back to the doctor and say, “Tell me what you were thinking here.” She was like, “No, these are the rules.” And it very quickly became this adversarial feeling that I have not had in other instances. And I go, wow, this is how leveraging your support staff for communication kind of goes off the rails. And then it became I don’t want to talk to the nurse. I want to go around her because I don’t feel like they’re on the same page. And that was an interesting part to me of how you leverage and utilize your techs. You still got to communicate with them. You have to be accessible. They can help you, but it’s almost like by closing off the line of communication, you end up undermining trust.
Kelsey Beth Carpenter:
Oh, absolutely. Yeah, getting those mixed messages, it’s what starts to, like you’ve said before in these lectures, starts to drain that trust bucket that you’ve started filling up, right? Exactly. And you lose faith because then it’s that feeling of who am I supposed to trust? I don’t know now. I don’t know. That nurse could have been doing this much longer than that doctor, or vice versa. I don’t know who’s right. Yeah, that’s hard.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Talk to me a little bit about continuity of care. You said you’ve seen like 70 doctors. So I can guess what maybe that experience is like, but I could be completely wrong. So talk to me about your feeling of consistency and continuity when this has been your experience.
Kelsey Beth Carpenter:
The continuity is nice if you can do it. It can’t always happen, but I think there’s ways that lack of continuity can still be done successfully, if that makes sense. So for example, okay, I’ll give this example. My mom and I, we go to the same medical center, and it’s kind of like a tight-knit thing. And so my mother and I both have the same primary care physician, so share doctors.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Sure.
Kelsey Beth Carpenter:
We also have the same physical medicine and rehabilitation doctor as well. And so one of-
Dr. Andy Roark:
Do you carpool?
Kelsey Beth Carpenter:
I wish.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Do you drive together?
Kelsey Beth Carpenter:
We’re not that cool yet. I just realized we also do have the same physical therapist. We did once have our physical therapy appointments back to back, and that was weird. It’s all really becoming a family affair, and I don’t know whether I am enjoying that or having questions about it. Anyways, so one of the beautiful things is, for example, our primary care doctor saw my mom the other day because she finally came down with COVID, the VID, and my mom was like, “Yeah, I’m really worried. What if I gave it to Kelsey?” And immediately the doctor knew who she was talking about and was able to reference things that she would’ve only known, but she made these notes to herself. We all have places we can make notes. And it’s the continuity of having seen her numerous times and her taking the time to remember who’s connected to who or what’s going on here.
The last time I saw her, she was like, “How is it going with this supplement?” That kind of continuity is so valuable. But meanwhile, I think there’s a way that it can be done successfully where you don’t always have to be there. So one thing that I think is very important is creating a plan. And I think it’s one thing that many of us, I think, could improve on in any field. And I’m going to tie this together, I promise. We’re going to go on a journey, and then we’re going to come back.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I’m trusting you. I’m trusting you.
Kelsey Beth Carpenter:
We’re going to go on a little island, and then we’re going to float on back to the mainland. Okay, so I think one of the most important parts is to create a plan with your patient or your client and say, “Okay, this is what we’ve decided to do today. If this does not work, here are some other things that we might consider going forward.” And that doesn’t always happen. And sometimes it’s just, “All right, we’re going to prescribe you this medication,” and it leaves people, like myself, I’ve often felt sort of abandoned. It almost feels like the doctor’s saying, “All right, I’ve given you this medication, and I’m done with you.” And I kind of feel like, okay, well, if this doesn’t work, I don’t know what to expect. And many of us have brains that we like to plan ahead, okay, if this doesn’t work… How long do I wait to see if it doesn’t work?, that kind of thing. So you create this plan, and it doesn’t have to be detailed. It doesn’t have to say what dosages you’re going to give of some other antibiotic, just we are going to try this or this.
And then the beautiful thing about that is it helps your team. So now if I have to go back in through urgent care because whatever my primary care physician did didn’t work, there are now really clear notes in my primary care physician’s record about what we discussed or the next plan, or is the next thing we’re going to try. And so now this urgent care doctor’s going to say, “It looks like you guys talked about trying this as the next thing. Do you want to go in that route?” And now I feel like there is still continuity, even though I’m not seeing the first doctor that I saw. And I feel like I haven’t been abandoned. I feel safe seeing another doctor that I’ve maybe never seen before because my first doctor took the time to say, “I’m not leaving you with this. I’m going to say, ‘Here’s this, and here’s what we’re going to do if it doesn’t work,'” you know?
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.
Kelsey Beth Carpenter:
So that’s important, I think.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I love that. So I can rant about medical records in vet medicine with the best of them. And so I definitely have my own position and soapbox. The very, very short version is we should think about what the purpose of a medical record is, because people write books, and I don’t think that people get trained very well in what’s required and what’s not. And the point of the medical record is to document what happened and why it happened, meaning how was the decision reached?
Kelsey Beth Carpenter:
Exactly.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Why did we not do this or why did we do this, but how was the decision reached? And the last part is what is the plan going forward? And that last part is mission critical for being able to pass cases between doctors at your practice.
Kelsey Beth Carpenter:
Exactly.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And it’s just the number of medical records I see that doctors don’t jot down even the most basic, “Hey, if this doesn’t work, we’re going to recheck blood work and consider… I don’t know… trying a different medication.” That gives the client some idea of what will happen next. If something goes bad or they just don’t get resolution, they’ve already said, “Okay, we’re going to go do this blood work.” There is a plan. They know what they’re doing. And I’ve had the exact same experience that you have had in medicine of getting a plan. And they’re like, “No, you’re just doing this now.” And I’m like, “Well, for how long?” And they’re like, “I don’t know. Forever? We’ll see.”
And so that’s not at all uncommon. And, again, my guess would be that there’s some liability fear in human medicine where they’re like, “I don’t want to take you off of medicine.”
Kelsey Beth Carpenter:
Of course.
Dr. Andy Roark:
“Just stay on it forever.” Again, I’m telling myself stories too, but I think sometimes in human medicine they’re like, “I’m going to put you in this medicine, and at some point you are going to get tired and decide it doesn’t work, and you’re just going to stop, and I’m not going to have to tell you, but then if it ever becomes an issue, you’re the one who decided to stop it, not me”. And so I don’t know about that, but I think the idea of having a plan and communicating a plan, I think it’s absolutely true. You don’t have to have a master plan either.
Kelsey Beth Carpenter:
No. Exactly.
Dr. Andy Roark:
You just don’t want to feel like you’ve been pushed off into the ocean in your little dingy, and it’s like, well, maybe we’ll bump into each other again.
Kelsey Beth Carpenter:
Exactly.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Something more than that, yeah.
Kelsey Beth Carpenter:
Well, And ultimately, like we’re saying, this doesn’t have to be some extensive conversation. It’s, “We’ve chosen to do this today. I want to hear from you in two weeks. And if it’s not working, we can consider some recheck blood work, and there’s another medication that we could try as well.” That’s as simple as it needs to be. And that one sentence saves numerous people so much time if that first medication doesn’t work. If it ends up with another doctor, it saves that doctor time. It saves the client time, or the patient time because they can know what’s going to happen. If you end up seeing the same patient again because it’s not working in two weeks, saves you time. You don’t have to go through the whole conversation of options again. You’ve already set out your plan. So even though it sounds like I’m saying do all these extra things, I think ultimately it’s actually a time-saver for everyone.
Dr. Andy Roark:
The patient portal experience in medicine, I’m a big fan. That is something I would actually like to see in vet medicine. I’m confident we could do it in a way that does not generate a ton of extra work for us, but just the ability to have your own little thing and you go and you log in, and you can pull up your blood work from the past, and you can look at radiographs or you can do whatever. Or you have the ability to send messages to the doctor, and it’s like I totally get people being like, “I don’t want clients to have immediate access to me.” Look, they’re getting access to you anyway. They’re calling. They’re being put on hold. You’re going to talk to pet owners. Go ahead and figure out how you want to do it and come up in a way that’s convenient and easy and safe and secure where you have everything documented.
And it’s just… I don’t know… the patient portal stuff, I think they’re pioneering it in human medicine. And I think that that is something that I can absolutely see us in vet medicine doing and saying for our clients, “This is kind of what your portal looks like,” and then also just the benefit of if your pet ever ends up in the emergency clinic, you can be like, here’s what we have. And I know we already have services like that. We have a number of sort of record-sharing services that work great. VitusVet is the one that was popping into my head. I know there’s others as well, but getting to the point where that’s expected, I think that’s something that’s coming.
Kelsey Beth Carpenter:
Yeah. The value of seeing things as well, at least in the practices that I’ve worked in, it’s very rare that a doctor will go over x-rays with a client without showing them the x-rays so they can point out, “This is what we’re looking at.” And there’s incredible value in that, because you see that’s my pet up there. This is what was actually done. This is what I’m paying for. This is what my doctor’s seeing, and this was what it means. That visual representation is so important. And I think sometimes that’s part of what’s missing in some of our client education. They don’t have access to their blood work. We go in and say, “The BUN and creatinine is elevated, and so we’re worried about the kidneys.” If I wasn’t in medicine, that would not process anything for me. But if it’s written out in front of me and I see the big red highlighted, oh, this is an abnormal value, now I’m going to remember that. And so I think you’re totally right. I think the portal is the best way to go. And also I think it’s an incredible opportunity for technicians. I think so many technicians are often looking for new ways to be involved in veterinary medicine that maybe isn’t blowing out their back every two seconds. And I think that’s an incredible way that we can allocate work to technicians for sure.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. I think that that’s a big part of where technicians are going in vet medicine, is in the communication, customer service sort of realm. I just think there’s so much opportunity there for sure. And again, I know everybody has different learning styles. It’s been interesting for me to recognize how much some sort of visual learning is important to me. The doctors that I’ve been most impressed with have been the ones who have visual aids.
Kelsey Beth Carpenter:
Absolutely.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Like a whiteboard, and they’re like, “All right, this is what we’re doing, and this is what it looks like.” And they’re just simple diagrams, but I was like, oh, I feel so much more informed of just understanding what’s going to happen and why it’s going to happen. But it has made me think a lot about my time in the exam room and how I want to use those tools and how much of a difference it can make for people.
Kelsey Beth Carpenter:
Yeah, it’s why I’ve always been so passionate about working in an open hospital, is that when people get to see what is being done, they retain so much more information. I always say clients can come back after being in the open hospital and be like, “My pet received subcutaneous fluids yesterday and an injection of Cerenia,” but it’s because they watched it happen. If you came and told me that’s what you did to my pet, there is no way my brain would remember that if I wasn’t in medicine. But seeing it is really different for sure.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Define open hospital for people who aren’t familiar with the term.
Kelsey Beth Carpenter:
It basically functions as if you were going to a pediatrician where you get to stay with your pet, as… I was going to say as humans stay with their children in that same way. I don’t know why that sounded funny to me in the way I said that. As humans stay with their skin babies, the clients get to stay with their fur babies.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, I think we should call pets babies and humans skin babies.
Kelsey Beth Carpenter:
Skin babies.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I think we should not call pets fur babies. Just call them babies-
Kelsey Beth Carpenter:
Just babies.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And then make humans call them skin babies.
Kelsey Beth Carpenter:
Congratulations on your new skin baby. We’re going to start something new here.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Oh, it’s going to totally catch on. Oh, yeah.
Kelsey Beth Carpenter:
This is going to catch on like wildfire.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I feel it already. Mothers are going to just go right to this as a concept. All right.
Kelsey Beth Carpenter:
There’s something that you said earlier that I wanted to touch on too that has been something that I think is maybe the biggest thing I’ve learned from being a patient. And we were talking about choices and how you come to a certain decision and then what you’ll try next and those kind of things. And one thing I found being a patient myself and going through a really difficult time and I didn’t have a clear diagnosis, and it was a rough case, I am essentially the 20-year-old geriatric, cancer and kidney disease and liver failure cat who’s mostly bones that comes in that you dread getting because they have a lot of questions. That’s me. I’m that patient. Okay?
Dr. Andy Roark:
Okay.
Kelsey Beth Carpenter:
So one thing that I learned is that I experienced an incredible burden of responsibility to care for myself. There was an incredible burden of I am the only one who can make these decisions, and hopefully they are the right ones, but my life hangs in the balance based on these decisions that only I can make. And I realize that I have that same feeling when it comes to my dog Birdie, that I have an incredible burden of responsibility, that I am the one making decisions for her life. And it’s almost even harder. At least if I’m making a decision for myself as a patient, I’m the only one who gets hurt if I make the wrong decision. If I’m making the decisions for Birdie and I make the wrong decision, let’s say I don’t take her to urgent care and I see if she gets better on her own, she’s the one who gets hurt because of that. And that is an incredible burden. That’s really heavy on your shoulders.
And so one thing that a doctor said to me recently, which made a huge difference, was I was seeing a new doctor, and we went over all of the things that I’ve tried so far for my chronic pain. And a lot of them were things that she normally has to tell people about. And she’s like, “Wow, you’ve really done your research. You are doing everything you need to be doing right now. You are doing everything right. Keep up what you’re doing.” And I, after that appointment, sat there and cried because I was so just like I needed that validation to say I am making some really good decisions. I’m doing the right thing. And it took a huge weight off of my shoulders. And I think that’s the biggest thing that I would change, is when I go to put an urgent care patient in a room, because yeah, Bella’s been vomiting for a couple days, being able to say to a client, “Gosh, you made the right call, bringing her into urgent care today. I’m definitely glad you brought her here,” or if the client decides, “I don’t think I’m ready to hospitalize her. I’m going to monitor at home,” saying, “I think that’s a reasonable choice. And we have a plan in place in case it doesn’t work,” that kind of validation is really huge.
And I think that’s the biggest thing I never thought about until I was a patient myself and I felt that burden on my shoulders.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, that’s a great point, is people want to know that they’re a good pet owner, and they want to know that they’re doing the right decision. And they always ask themselves if they’re overreacting. You can see it in pet owners’ eyes, should I have come? Maybe I’m-
Kelsey Beth Carpenter:
Absolutely.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Just being paranoid, and just that validation of, “No, you are doing the right thing,” yeah, that’s great. Kelsey Carpenter, where can people find you online? You are such a joy.
Kelsey Beth Carpenter:
Mostly silently, quietly, privately being a keyboard warrior behind the Dr. Andy Roark Facebook page.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Facebook page.
Kelsey Beth Carpenter:
I am under Vet Tech Kelsey on Facebook and Instagram, and that is it.
Dr. Andy Roark:
That is it. No, I saw Facebook launched their new sort of Twitter-like platform today.
Kelsey Beth Carpenter:
Oh, was it Threads?
Dr. Andy Roark:
Threads, yes.
Kelsey Beth Carpenter:
I’m hearing all about that, and I’m a little… I know I’m 34 when I start going, “These darn new social media platforms-
Dr. Andy Roark:
I know.
Kelsey Beth Carpenter:
“We don’t need them. I refuse to sign up for Threads.”
Dr. Andy Roark:
That’s great that you’re a social media manager for an old fart who’s like, “I don’t want to do that thing.”
Kelsey Beth Carpenter:
And I don’t want to do it either.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And you’re like, “Good, because I don’t want to do it either.” [inaudible 00:33:35].
Kelsey Beth Carpenter:
My favorite part is like Andy Roark doesn’t want to dance on TikTok, and I’m like neither do I with my Bachelor of Arts in dance.
Dr. Andy Roark:
That’s so great.
Kelsey Beth Carpenter:
I won’t touch it.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Oh, I love it. All right. Kelsey, thanks for being here. Guys, I hope you guys enjoyed the episode. I think there’s so much to think about here. I always enjoy sitting back and going what does this mean for vet medicine? So anyway, guys, take care of yourselves. Be well, everybody.
And that’s it, guys. That’s what I got for you. Thanks for being here. Thanks to Kelsey Beth Carpenter. Check her out on the social medias, if that’s where you hang out. She really is amazing and wonderful. Be well, everybody. I’ll talk to you soon. Bye.
Hey guys. I just want to jump in real quick and let you know that my Back to School webinar Series is winding to a close. I’ve had a bunch of webinars on recently. They’re done by me. They’re done by guests of mine. I’ve got one more live one coming up. It is on Tuesday, September the 19th. That is at noon Eastern time, 9:00 AM Pacific. It is a one-hour presentation. It has one-hour of RACE. It is a presentation by me. I will be getting the team on board with the spectrum of care approach. If you listen to the podcast very much, you know that I’m big on spectrum of care. I think it’s important to balance the quality of care that we put with affordability and accessibility to pet owners. This is about talking to the team about those concepts and getting everybody in the same place so we feel good about providing quality care and striving to meet pet owners where they are. So anyway, like I said, that’ll be one hour RACE. It’s me doing the presentation, getting the team on board with the spectrum of care approach. It is Tuesday, September the 19th at noon Eastern time. It is sponsored by Nationwide.
Also, I have got a webinar on demand for you. It is from Ceva Animal Health. It is called Updates in Canine Pancreatitis, Treatment Innovation with Fuzapladib Sodium for Injection. If you haven’t seen this presentation before, it is a great presentation. It’s super, super action-oriented on dealing with pancreatitis, and it talks all about the new drug on the market, Panoquell-CA1. So anyway, that is on demand. You can watch that webinar right now. I’ll put links to all this in the show notes. Okay, let’s get back into this episode, but I hope to see you on the webinar on September the 19th. All right, bye.
