Dr. Dana Varble, DVM, CAE, takes the mic to bust a myth that haunts way too many vets: that a board complaint is career-ending doom. (Spoiler: it’s not.) In this honest, eye-opening conversation, Dana, Chief Veterinary Officer at NAVC and exotic animal surgeon extraordinaire shares her personal experience with a board complaint, how it impacted her emotionally, and what she learned from it. Andy and Dana tackle the anxiety, stigma, and fear that swirl around board complaints. They talk about the emotional toll, the waiting game, and that wild moment when you wonder, am I the bad guy? Most importantly, Dana shares what helped her cope, grow, and come out stronger and still loving veterinary medicine. Gang, let’s get into this episode!
You can also listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts!
LINKS
Article Referenced: These “Terrible Things” Aren’t That Terrible
Dr. Andy Roark Charming the Angry Client Team Training Course
Dr. Andy Roark Swag: drandyroark.com/shop
All Links: linktr.ee/DrAndyRoark
ABOUT OUR GUEST
Dana Varble received her veterinary degree from the University of Illinois in 2003 andearned her Certified Association Executive designation from ASAE in 2021. She has practiced clinical medicine in exotic pet, small animal general practice, and emergency medicine and serves as an associate veterinarian for Chicago Exotics Animal Hospital.
She has spoken locally, nationally, and internationally on herpetological and exotic animal medicine and the state of the veterinary profession. She served as the president of the Association of Reptile and Amphibian Veterinarians in 2013 and presently works as the managing editor of the Journal of Herpetological Medicine and Surgery for ARAV. In 2015, she joined NAVC and in January 2020, she was named Chief Veterinary Officer.
As an NAVC spokesperson and a veterinary industry expert, she promotes animal health and the veterinary profession through media interviews and appearances including CNN, NBC News, local media outlets, and others including regular appearances on WGN radio on the Lisa Dent Show. She is the author of Today’s Veterinary Practice column, “The Secret Life of Vets.”
She shares her home with a Leonberger named Kodi, a Mastiff mix named Denali, a tank of cichlids, four ball pythons, a New Caledonian Giant Gecko, and her human family.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Dr. Andy Roark: Welcome everybody to the Cone of Shame Veterinary Podcast. I am your host, Dr. Andy Roark. I got a really good one today. This is one with Dr. Dana Varble. She is the Chief Veterinary Officer, NAVC, and I saw an article that she wrote about a board complaint that was made against her. And she talks about if you’re a doctor, getting sued and getting a board complaint is something that you should make peace with the idea of.
And we jump into it and she talks very candidly about a board complaint that was made against her back in the day and it did not destroy her career. She’s the Chief Veterinary Officer at NAVC. And so we talk about that. I think it’s great. I love that she shares a story. I think there’s a lot of stigma around board complaints or getting sued or things like that. I think that there is a ton of fear, and I mean real fear, especially in young veterinarians about board complaints or getting sued and it can be crippling and it can hold you back and, from your own development. And I think that’s unwarranted.
And so that having Dana on to talk about what her experience was and kind of what she learned and what the process was like. I hope that what that does is take some of the fear out of this process. If you are documenting correctly, if you’re communicating, if you’re setting expectations, you’re gonna reduce the risk of that happening.
But you can’t make ’em go to zero. And so, I do think this is something that we all just need to be a little bit more comfortable with, not, let’s not embrace it.
Let’s not enjoy it. Let’s not get in the habit. But it is something that shouldn’t terrify us. And I think Dana talks about this with real positivity, with a look of experience, someone having gone through it, and someone who came out the other side and still loves practice and has gone on and still loves what she does.
And so anyway, guys, this is a good episode. Let’s get into it.
Kelsey Beth Carpenter: This is your show. We’re glad you’re here. We want to help you in your veterinary career. Welcome to the Cone of Shame with Dr. Andy Roark.
Dr. Andy Roark: Welcome to the podcast, Dr. Dana Varble. How are you, my friend?
Dr. Dana Varble: I am good. How are you, Andy?
Dr. Andy Roark: I’m doing really great. I’m super glad that you’re here. You and I have been friends for a couple years now. We met through your work at the NAVC. You are the Chief Veterinary Officer of the NAVC.
Dr. Dana Varble: You got it.
Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah, I was like Chief Medical Officer? Nope. Chief Veterinary Officer of the NAVC. So you are in that rolling capacity. You also still practice you are at Chicago Exotics, and you have, you made a job for yourself where you just, you show up one day a week and you do surgery on exotic animals and then you leave. Is that correct?
Dr. Dana Varble: Yes, it’s correct. It’s a very unique position right now. It’s worked out for them. It’s worked out for me, but we’re all enjoying it.
Dr. Andy Roark: God I love this profession. Like I love it so much. This is so great.
Dr. Dana Varble: I know, right. Who would’ve thought that you could do that for a living among other things, but yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark: I wanted to bring you on, I wanted talk to you. So you write a column in Today’s Veterinary Practice
Dr. Dana Varble: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Andy Roark: every month as a Chief Veterinary Officer for NAVC and the last column that you had that came out was called These Terrible Things Aren’t That Terrible.
And you, and the subheader is, here’s a secret, if you stay in veterinary medicine long enough, you’ll get sued and taken to the board, but it won’t be career ending if you learn from it and move forward. And I was like, oh boy, there’s a lot to unpack here. And anyway,
Dr. Dana Varble: Yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark: I saw this and it took me back to my first years as a veterinarian. And I was working
Dr. Dana Varble: Oh,
Dr. Andy Roark: and, one of my colleagues who came out, who had started with me, and, so she was in her first year and she had a cat come in that needed an E tube, an esophageal tube. and so they were gonna put a feeding tube in this cat, and she, was gonna do it.
And then she turned to one of the more senior surgeons, so doctor who did a lot of surgery, and she said, Hey, can you just kinda watch over as I do this? And he was like, yeah,
So they went in, they put the tube in, everything was fine. You know, the, case ended fine, they fed the cat okay. Like the cat was eating through the tube and then ultimately it got stronger and it goes home. But then I think minor like a, you know, a surgical site infection, something like
Dr. Dana Varble: I dunno.
Dr. Andy Roark: that it was, it took longer to heal up. It left a scar, but it was, nothing was life threatening and the cat survived and did fine. The owner ultimately took my friend and the senior doctor to the board and she said they’d put the tube on the wrong side of the neck. And I have gone and looked. And I remember I don’t think there’s, I think side. And a wrong side, I think.
Dr. Dana Varble: Not technically, right? Yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark: And but she was like, no, they put it in the left side and it’s supposed to be in the right side. And so anyway, ultimately it didn’t go anywhere and, it got started thrown out, but in the six to eight weeks that my friends waited, both of them waited for this case,
Dr. Dana Varble: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Andy Roark: one of my friends lost about 10 pounds.
Dr. Dana Varble: Yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark: They just, it wore them down. Just waiting to see how this would go and what would be. So that emotional toll is a big deal. And then how many young doctors do I talk to who are terrified that someone’s gonna sue or something’s gonna happen. I mean, it’s absolutely horror for them.
Dr. Dana Varble: It’s, yeah, and that’s what inspired this column is I had been speaking to someone who was in veterinary school and they somehow the subject came up of being taken to the board or being sued, and they were petrified already. I’m like, you’re not even in practice yet. You’re, you haven’t practiced anything yet.
Don’t be petrified. Don’t be petrified. You’ve created, you’ve manifested this incredible fear, this incredible stress for something Not even that hasn’t happened to you, but to, yeah. Not even a, been in this situation before.
Dr. Andy Roark: It can’t even happen to you. It can’t even to you. Like you’re not a place to be threatened by this yet.
Dr. Dana Varble: Yeah, you don’t have a board that you report to really yet, so yeah, it was, it’s amazing. There’s a lot of stress. I’m almost worried, and I do worry, there’s some stigma around board complaints and legal actions and like your friends. I more often than not, when I speak to other veterinarians and they talk about board complaints or times they’ve been faced legal action, I.
It’s not the cases you think are going to be the big ones. It’s not the case where you’re like, I actually did make a mistake. I dosed something wrong. Something went wrong. I should have known that. I should have checked on it. I should have been more, I don’t know, responsible or double check something.
It’s the cases where you’re like, gosh I really did the best I could. Everything went great and then. Just circumstances, something came up, you know?
Dr. Andy Roark: That was the case that kind of rocked me at the time. I was like, did the cat die? Like the cat didn’t die. The cat got better and went home.
Dr. Dana Varble: Everything went good. Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark: Everything worked out.
Dr. Dana Varble: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Andy Roark: The, you know, the incision was slow to heal. And, that was the thing.
Dr. Dana Varble: Yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark: In this piece that you wrote, you know, your line was here. My eyes were gradually coming back into focus and the fog was lifting. This case is dismissed. So yeah.
Dr. Dana Varble: Yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark: tell me the story. Like what so you’ve been through this sort of what happened?
Dr. Dana Varble: you know, kind of like your, well, it’s a different case certainly, but it was working emergency at the time, and I do, I will, I just wanna shout out to all the emergency doctors and techs out there, because I feel like emergency’s a little more ripe for this kind of circumstances arising.
The relationship is not, the relationship between you and the pet owner is just not as solid. So I think that’s always a little bit harder. But working emergency and my techs carry back a rabbit and I was like, oh, you and I, you know how those things, there’s certain things in your career where you’re like, the picture is still very clear of this happening ’cause it.
Little bit of trauma around that, but they carried back this rabbit. I’m like, oh, the rabbit, did it die? And they’re like, no. And I was like, oh my God. Okay. So this rabbit was basically, you know, near death very low blood sugar, no probable pulses. And my team was really great with exotics at that particular emergency clinic, ’cause they knew I saw them. And we had managed to get an IV catheter in this rabbit and correct its blood sugar and provide, you know, IV fluid support. And for anyone that’s ever gotten an IV in a rabbit, you know, like already we’re betting a thousand, like we’re doing really good. This is a rabbit that had no palpable pulses.
We couldn’t get a blood sample from, it was, it was in pretty bad shape. And long story short, the rabbit did well for about four to six hours. It was probably septic. This is probably an animal that had a poor prognosis. Obviously, anytime you have an animal come in and you think it might be. Not with us anymore.
And your technician goes, no, I need you now. You know, prognosis is not good, but rabbit managed. We managed to like, support the rabbit and it stayed alive for about, I wanna say eight hours and it passed away. And the owner just was someone who had a lot of emotional attachment to their pet as a lot of our owners do.
And you know, I explained to her the situation. I remember explaining when the rabbit came in, like it’s not looking good. Like prognosis isn’t good. And you know, I, when I called her and told her the rabbit passed, she was emotional, but seemed understanding and we talked about care of remains and that was that.
And I ended my shift that morning, you know, bummed. But thinking I had done like your friends the best that I could. Like done a really good job. And the way board complaints often work is there’s a delay, as we all know. So you get, you know, you go about your business and then you find out, you get a notification, usually in the mail.
it’s usually certified mail or something like that. And I got a notification that I was being taken to the board. I just remember being so shocked because this is not one of those cases, as we just mentioned, this was one of the ones where I went, something went wrong. Something was so strong, we didn’t handle that well, and I, didn’t have that feeling at all.
So I think part of the shock of it was that tremendous disconnect between everything I thought I had done right and everything that owner thought maybe I had done wrong. And you know, it was a very challenging case. There was a little bit, the big disappointment, this, and I didn’t write this in the column, but it’s something to that it’s, it’s great to discuss is that the owner came when the complaint came to me, you know, and the board sends you documentation and you have this enormous emotional weight of dealing with it and rehashing the case and looking over everything you did and really It’s hard on, you’re hard on yourself because you go back and you’re like, oh my God, should I have done something different? You question every single thing you did, even if you know it was right, even if you confirm it was right. You check with a colleague, you’re, you’re really wrapped up in it.
What really was like, the real emotional, the knife in this case was that another veterinarian had written a letter with the, you know, had consulted this owner and had said, well, yeah, they should have done blood work. They should have done full blood panel and they had a point which I could look at now, but at the time I was crushed.
I was like, one of my colleagues thought I did something wrong. One of my colleagues, not an owner, not, you know, a lay person, one of my colleagues thought I should have done something different. And I look back now and I’m like. Again, you know, hindsight is one of these wonderful things. We, you’re gonna look back with a different perspective.
And I was like, well yeah, it would’ve been great to do full blood work on an animal that I could have gotten blood from.
Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah. Yes. I
Dr. Dana Varble: This
Dr. Andy Roark: That’s a vital important point right now. If their heart’s not beating, it’s really hard to draw blood.
Dr. Dana Varble: Yeah. Like this is an animal that had no palpable pulses, drawing blood on a, you know, this could have happened in a cat. Any small animal where, you know, when their blood pressure drops, getting a blood sample is tremendously difficult.
I mean, this happens with children in human medicine. It happens with everything. So that was the real, that was, I think the real emotional blow with this one.
Dr. Andy Roark: That would’ve been really hard. You know, the truth of the
Dr. Dana Varble: Yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark: chances of you getting a full blood panel and it changing the outcome in this case are essentially zero in my mind.
Dr. Dana Varble: Yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark: I just, that really, it bothers me. I can imagine the other veterinarian
Dr. Dana Varble: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Andy Roark: being put in a hard place where the owner says,
Dr. Dana Varble: too! Exactly.
Dr. Andy Roark: Is anything this person could have done? And they’re like, well, I mean, they could have done a panel. I mean, that’s right.
Dr. Dana Varble: Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark: You could always say, well, they could have done this.
Dr. Dana Varble: Yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark: Did you know the other veterinarian?
Dr. Dana Varble: I didn’t. And I think back, you know, to this day I, again, it’s one of those things like perspective now, like what you said, I’m sure they were put, you know, this was a, a person who was grieving. They probably came at them and said, tell me anything. Yeah. The other thing again,
You started to understand, and I think this on her, she felt tremendously guilty and you could see that even, you know, even when she presented the, this rabbit was on death door, unfortunately, and you could see the guilt in her face. You could see it in her emotions. I mean, I don’t recall actually saying it, but she was extremely, she felt a lot of guilt.
So, I think that’s something to keep in mind too, when things like this happen to, you realize you’re dealing with people that are going through a lot of emotional turmoil themselves and they dunno how to deal with it sometimes. I mean,
Dr. Andy Roark: That’s how we feel on our best days. Like I, you know, like,
Dr. Dana Varble: It’s, yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark: When I’ve had a snack and I’m well rested, that’s, that is the mindset that I have.
Dr. Dana Varble: Easy. Yes.
Dr. Andy Roark: Did you get resentful? I mean, I would’ve, I would’ve struggled to not be I would’ve struggled angry.
Dr. Dana Varble: Yes. I think,
Dr. Andy Roark: I would have felt like I did. I went to the mat for you.
Dr. Dana Varble: yeah,
Dr. Andy Roark: absolutely stabbed me in the back. Like that’s how I think I would have a hard time not being angry about it every day.
Dr. Dana Varble: I think you go through these, that whole range of like grief emotions. You’re sad, you’re resentful, you’re angry. there’s a level of acceptance, but there’s also, you know, it’s hard to get through that when you have this looming future board process coming up and you don’t know what, what the outcome’s gonna be.
You don’t know. You know, you don’t know how your actions are going to be perceived by, and, and remember, I had this peer already telling me something wrong. Now the board is made up of your other peers and it really makes you second guess. Like, if this peer didn’t agree with me, what are these other people gonna think? Oh my God. And
Dr. Andy Roark: That’s the worst. Yeah. ’cause you don’t, ’cause you don’t know what they’re gonna think and they can’t tell you and they’re not going to tell you. And so was there any part of the process when you think about the actual process of going through the way that the board engaged with you, was there any part of the process that you felt was unfair?
Or did you feel like you were treated as fairly as you could be by like the board and this litigation process?
Dr. Dana Varble: It’s really, it’s interesting because I. It’s very easy and it’s also very human to let your emotions make you feel like it’s not fair. Even if, again, subjectively, it’s a reasonably fair process, to be honest. So yeah, in retrospect I’d be like, oh no, it was totally fair. Everything was fine.
But at the time I was like, this is unfair. I worked so hard, why are they targeting me? Why don’t they look at this and just know this person is grieving it? But they don’t. They can’t. I think we forget that the board is there to protect both pet owners, but they’re also there to protect us from members of our profession that may have fallen by the wayside, that may be struggling, that may have made a mistake or be actively making mistakes.
That are unethical, that are unfair. So I know a lot of times when people talk about the board, they’re like, oh, they’re here to protect owners. They don’t care about vets. I get that. But it remember, they’re also protecting us from someone in our own profession. There are not many, thank goodness we’re by, by and large, a very honest, ethical profession, but they are profe protecting us from our own professional.
Bad guys, if you will. So you know, in a way, when you look LA back at it, if you know you’re not one of those bad guys, I think that’s something to help change your perspective a little bit. Like
Dr. Andy Roark: They secretly wonder if they’re the bad guy. Dana, I think everyone secretly is like, am I the bad guy?
Dr. Dana Varble: I did. I, yes.
Dr. Andy Roark: Did I doing something wrong?
Dr. Dana Varble: Yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark: I, my first thought was I would not do it that way. And then I thought. What if I’m wrong?
Dr. Dana Varble: Yes. What if I’m the one screwing up? Yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark: But yeah, I wonder if, we are, yeah. Yeah. It’s the stuff of nightmares. And then everyone is like, you did that. And then I lose my license and my marriage falls apart and then I lose my house and I live in a box by the river.
Dr. Dana Varble: You can literally talk yourself into the van down by the river in 10 seconds or less. Yeah. You’re like, there it is. That’s how it happens. Yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark: Did your views on board complaints in general change? Like, did you think about board con complaints one way and then having gone through on the other side? Do you kind of fundamentally think about them differently now?
Dr. Dana Varble: I do, I, so two things, what I shared with you. One, they’re, out there, they’re to protect the public. They’re here to protect our profession from bad actors. But the other thing, I think that the experience changed me and what I really wanted to share in the article is, I think especially I was earlier in my career when this happened, not super early, but earlier, I assumed that a board complaint met.
You were a bad veterinarian. Your career was probably going down the tubes. You weren’t going anywhere. You weren’t doomed. You were doomed. That was it. It was the death nail for you. Like you were gonna be lucky to be given vaccines on a street corner for 10 bucks an hour. back to that, like, down the proverbial wash tube.
And I think afterwards I realized, you know, sometimes. These things just happen. It has nothing to do with you. The quality of medicine you practice, your communication skills, your, again, the quality of your medicine. Sometimes you do everything right and you have an owner that doesn’t get it feels wrong, is going through their own grieving, a thousand reasons, their own grieving process, their own guilt, and this is how they processed it.
So it’s disappointing that there’s not a lot of ways to filter out like these really egregious complaints from for the board. Like they can’t, so I know some of them do. They look at it and go, yeah, there’s no basis here. This is getting thrown out. But they still have to look at them. All right.
And in the meantime, you still have to go. I, this is it, you know, big red flashing light in the camera of my mind.
Dr. Andy Roark: When you’re going through that waiting time, ’cause I, was talking to somebody about this recently. I had this thing, it was years ago.
But I I got a tax refund and so like you found my taxes and they gave me a refund and they were like, do you want this applied to next year’s taxes or do you want a check. And I said, I wanna apply to next year’s taxes, I think. And then the tax years are comes on over. And for whatever reason did not credit it.
Dr. Dana Varble: Ooh,
Dr. Andy Roark: And so ultimately they were like, you way underpaid your taxes this year. And I was like, no. You asked me like, this money should have been applied. And they were like nope.
Dr. Dana Varble: What?!
Dr. Andy Roark: Well, yeah. What? And again, this is the IRS, so they deal in certified letters which is terrifying.
Dr. Dana Varble: Yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark: Ultimately, what happened they, also did, they send me a check and I’m like, this is not helping at all. This makes it worse. And I’m like, I’m worried if I cash this, then I’m gonna cash this and validate everything they said. And, they’re communicating by letters which come like every three months and they’re all like, we are
Dr. Dana Varble: Yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark: to take your house. And so I’m getting these letters from the IRS
Dr. Dana Varble: Oh yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark: that say they’re gonna take my house. And there’s no way out. And
Dr. Dana Varble: No,
Dr. Andy Roark: you have to go through the process, you know what I mean? It’s this, here’s the information you’ve requested. Once again, here’s my position, here is the documentation from my accountant. And, but that ongoing process, it just absolutely sucked. And so I was thinking about what do you do when you’re in this horrible just wait time period? Let me just ask that, Dana. Were there any coping mechanisms that you picked up as you were just waiting for this terrible thing to make its way through the system and reach resolution?
Dr. Dana Varble: Yes. You know, and it’s, interesting because obviously like the wait times on these vary from a handful of weeks because these are state institutions. Every state has different timelines and ability to get through these things to months to, I’ve heard some horror stories of years. Hopefully those are becoming fewer and far between.
But yeah, a couple of things that some actually, one of another really good mentor I had at the time in emergency medicine, she was really instrumental in helping me. She’s like take, first of all, take a day to be upset. Feel all the feelings. Get those out. Those are valid. The anger, the resentment, the sadness, the fear, feel all those.
The second thing was, you’re gonna have to do a records review this. It’s part of the board process. They’re gonna ask for your records. So do a records review, take it now. Take some time between the feelings and the records review so you can be a little objective. You don’t wanna do those back to back.
Yeah, don’t wanna be those back to back and just be like brutally honest with yourself or have a colleague you know there to like bounce ideas off of and be like, you know, am I not documenting enough here? Is this too much? What do you do? Look at the records from, your colleagues that you respect and be like, okay, I’m gonna adjust a few things.
Because through that, you make it a learning experience. You make it a you know, this is what we do, this is fine, it’s okay. And then the last thing actually was she went with me to the board that day. Which was huge because you’re there, the owner’s, it’s an awkward situation. It’s awkward. The owner’s there, they kind of have you in this room where you’re like staring at each other, but not staring at each other, but like kind of doing one of these things because, you know, it’s usually like these tiny little rooms.
It’s not like this big court, this is not SVU, this is like the back corner of a, you know, state building. And just having someone there And she, and you know, she was just scrolling on her phone. She’s like, I have dinner plans tomorrow. And it was a nice distraction. It just created that like, yeah,
Dr. Andy Roark: It’s so disproportional what she has on the line and what you have line. It’s wildly unbalanced.
Dr. Dana Varble: Exactly. Yeah. Totally. Completely opposite. Yeah. But it was so, good. So you know, the other coping mechanism, lean on your colleagues. You know, find your little community. If you’re a solo practitioner, find even solo practitioners, we have great vet techs. We have people who, know, the medical stuff. Don’t be afraid to lean on people around you because , they’re just instrumental in getting you through that event.
Dr. Andy Roark: Your state and local VMAs are fantastic for that.
Dr. Dana Varble: Yeah,
Dr. Andy Roark: I really don’t want to see VMA’s go away. I think that the connection there is so important.
Dr. Dana Varble: They have a lot of, although they’re separate from the state board, they know about the state board. So if they’re like, oh yeah, these things take time, don’t worry. Our state takes, on average 12 weeks, our state takes on average six weeks. Like they know those things. And so they’re great resources. ’cause this is a state and local problem. This isn’t, that’s what helps you. Yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark: Oh, definitely. So the last question I have for you is now that now you’ve kind of gone through this, I always like to think about what do I wish I knew before I started, you know? And so now that, like looking back, is there something that you could have told yourself or something that you could have known that would’ve helped in this process? Or is this just one of those terrible things you just kind of have to go through?
Dr. Dana Varble: Well, you know, I’m hoping, again, one of the goals in the article was to help people cope with a terrible thing a little better than I did, because I did really catastrophize it. I was like, even though I can’t find anything wrong, I’m not gonna be a vet at the end of this. Doesn’t matter what I did, doesn’t matter what I think, I’m doomed.
So I think it’s really important to. compartmentalize this event in your life to the best of your ability. It’s really hard, but you know, this is not all that you are as a veterinarian. It’s not all that you do. It’s not a measure of your success or failure. You gotta keep telling yourself that though, because in four weeks you’re gonna be sitting around, you’re like, I did my records review.
I sent everything in. I’m gonna practice when this is over and you gotta go. It’s not everything. It’s not everything. Because so often I hear people that are going through this process and they have really made this hard on themselves, and then they find out at the end, like more often than not, one cases get dismissed a lot.
And the other thing is a lot of them are like, oh, I, just have to do two extra hours of communication ce.
Dr. Andy Roark: I have to take two hours of virtual CE.
Dr. Dana Varble: It’s not that bad.
Dr. Andy Roark: Like that’s like you lost 2 hours.
Dr. Dana Varble: You gotta do it anyway.
Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah. You are exactly right.
Dr. Dana Varble: Yeah, you gotta do it anyway. Just find a course that you don’t find horrible. Hopefully one you can take away as learning experience and brush this off and put it behind you and keep doing being a good vet. Just do what makes you feel good. Do what you know is right and you’ll probably just be just fine.
Dr. Andy Roark: I love your perspective on get, one is getting through it, but then the second part is making sure you come on the other side in a place where you can still go on and be happy.
Dr. Dana Varble: Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark: The records review for yourself. I think a big part of it is I. When things go wrong for us, I think the first thing we do is look and say, what needs to change?
What can I do better? I own? How, what adjustments can I make? And then you need to put it down and be done with it and say, I’m done.
Dr. Dana Varble: Yeah. And just, yep.
Dr. Andy Roark: I figured out what I’m gonna do. I am going forward, this is what I’m doing. And just try to compartmentalize and go on. But anyway, Dr. Dana
Dr. Dana Varble: Yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark: Where can people find you online? Where, can they follow you?
Dr. Dana Varble: Well, you can, my column comes out every two months in Today’s Veterinary Practice, which is on navc.com so I love hearing people are reading it and connecting with it. So hopefully we’ll see you there.
Dr. Andy Roark: Absolutely. That sounds great guys. Thanks for tuning in. Everybody. Take care of yourselves, gangs. I’ll talk to you later.
And that’s what I got guys. Thanks for being here. Thanks to Dr. Dana Varble for being here and sharing her story and her perspective and, lessons learned. Gang, I hope this was helpful. Definitely if you are a doc, if you know a doctor who choose their fingernails because they think that someday, somehow some way they’re gonna get sued. This could be a good episode to send to ’em and hopefully it’ll be something for them to mull over and go, well, I don’t want that to happen. But I guess it wouldn’t be the end of everything as long as I’m doing my best and not being negligent. So anyway, guys, that’s it. That’s all I got. Be well, gang. Take care. Bye.
