This Week on the Uncharted Podcast…
A veterinarian who seems afraid of their patients… is it possible? This week on the podcast, Dr. Andy Roark and Stephanie Goss are tackling a letter from the mailbag, asking for some input on a veterinarian in their practice who seems to struggle with aggressive patients. The team and clients have complained about how this doctor interacts with and handles pets. Andy and Stephanie share some of their experiences on both sides of this coin – let's get into this…
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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.
Stephanie Goss:
Hey everybody. I am Stephanie Goss, and this is another episode of the Uncharted podcast. So this week on the podcast, Andy and I are tackling a very simple question that doesn't have such a simple answer. We got an email from a lead veterinarian at a fairly large hospital who was asking, “Do I have a doctor on my team who is afraid of our patients?” This is something that I am really excited to talk through with Andy and with you all, because it's something that I've been on both sides of this discussion for. I have gone through having a veterinarian on my team who is nervous or anxious around aggressive patients, and I've also been the technician to have some fears of my own. I share that, and Andy and I get into it and more on this episode. So let's get into this, shall we?
Meg:
And now, the Uncharted podcast.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And we are back. It's me, Dr. Andy Roark, and the one and only Stephanie “Kitty's Got Claws” Goss.
Stephanie Goss:
I like that one.
Dr. Andy Roark:
It's a good one.
Stephanie Goss:
How's it going, Andy Roark?
Dr. Andy Roark:
It is good. You and I had a big week and a busy week working with a group of about 75 doctors.
Stephanie Goss:
Yes.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And talking to them about leadership and managing people and running hospitals, and we worked with them for a couple of consecutive days.
Stephanie Goss:
Yes.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And then we're going to talk with them every two weeks for about the next eight months.
Stephanie Goss:
I know.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And man, this is Uncharted next-level stuff. I love working with groups like this. Boy, we are building communities inside of other organizations and really getting people support and teaching them stuff and having them work on their own issues and challenges together. This is the future.
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark:
We're living in the year 3000.
Stephanie Goss:
It is so much fun. This is not our first time with this company. We had another group of doctors like this last year, and that group was pure joy. It was our first time working with them and we had so much fun.
Stephanie Goss:
And I was a little bit nervous about starting this program because I thought last year was so amazing. How can we top that? And I have to say that this new group, they rose to the challenge. These people are amazing, and I am so looking forward to spending the time with them this year.
Stephanie Goss:
I think you're spot on. This is so fun. It's something totally different for you and I. I love getting into the weeds about what their individual specific challenges are in their practices. This is the kind of stuff that really fills my cup, and so I am really looking forward to it. It is going to be a fun year.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. One of the analogies that I think about in leadership… And so bear with me here for a second, because it's going to seem really weird. For a long time, I was a big college sports fan, football and basketball especially. I love college football and college basketball. And one of the things that made those sports so exciting for me was that, at that level, momentum is a huge factor.
Stephanie Goss:
Sure.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And I think a lot of it is because you're dealing with younger people, but also they care a lot. These are college athletes. And so momentum was a huge thing. And so you would see games that would just shift as one team gets excited and gets momentum and the other team feels down.
Stephanie Goss:
Yes.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And you could see huge upsets because the lower-ranked or the lesser-experienced team would start to win and they would get fired up, and the other team would get scared or demoralized and fall off. And I bring that up because that was a driving force in college sports, and I always thought it's fascinating.
Dr. Andy Roark:
But Stephanie, I have really come to believe that that phenomena is true in leadership.
Stephanie Goss:
Sure.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And it is something that I've always, again and again and again in my career, I have found it to be absolutely the case of if you can generate momentum, if you can make your team feel excited and feel good, they will perform. And when they perform, if you add to the momentum, you do the wave by yourself. You are a one-person cheering section and you share positive comments from clients, and you celebrate them, and you thank them individually and you tell them what winners they are, you can make them believe that they are winners. And then, when the next challenge comes, they step up.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And I will tell you, this is the power of culture. And a lot of people say, “Oh, culture, culture.” And a lot of it is momentum of we jumped in and we created a positive experience and we made people feel good, and then we hired more people.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And that's the beautiful part. You have this culture. You have this positive experience or atmosphere, and then you add more people to it, and those people just get swept up in it. They're like, “I guess we're doing this.”
Stephanie Goss:
Right.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And so often when we have people who are saying, “We're dealing with negativity in our practice,” and things like that, a lot of times it's because they- and they don't have any momentum, right? That's it.
Stephanie Goss:
Sure.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Everyone is neutral, and you've got some negative people. And it's starting to roll the boulder on flat ground. And you go, “This is all effort.” But if you can get some wins on the board, if you can show people what is good and what is ahead, if you can get them to believe a little bit, then everything is easier. And then you make them believe some more, and you show them some more good things, and you show them what the practice can be when we get along, and they'll continue to improve. And often times you can run the person who's determined to be negative. They'll just be like, “I don't like it here anymore.” And I'm like, “Good.”
Stephanie Goss:
Good.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Good.
Stephanie Goss:
See you later.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And they'll leave. But anyway, I bring that up because the group that we were working with, as we had worked with this other group and it had gone so well.
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And on the first day of bringing in this new group and working with them, it was obvious. They had talked to the first group and they were like, “We're here for this.”
Stephanie Goss:
Right.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And as a result, they threw themselves into it and it was massively successful and much better than we could have ever made it be if you and I had to do all the heavy lifting. They came as active participants. And again, I use this as a teaching analogy for everybody and everything, get a group of people in your practice and get some wins on the board.
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And it doesn't have to be everybody. If you have a great CSR group, there's nothing wrong with working with the CSRs and doing some stuff with them and getting some wins and making some changes, and then taking what you've done with the CSRs to the other group and saying, “We've been doing this up front and we figured a lot of things out and they're excited about it, and you guys have started to see this working. I'm going to share this with you guys now.” And you can sweep people a lot of times up in enthusiasm and get them on board because you've already got momentum.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And so anyway, that was just the lesson that was in my mind, if I was thinking, why did this go so well?
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And it went so well because we'd already won.
Stephanie Goss:
Right.
Dr. Andy Roark:
We'd already won. We'd already put a lot of points on the board. And people had a lot of fun.
Stephanie Goss:
Yes.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And so bringing in new people, they were like, “I'm ready to have fun. I'm ready to put points on the board.” And man, they went to work. And then it's a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Like that's the thing is they showed up ready to kick butt and, surprise surprise, they kicked butt.
Stephanie Goss:
They kicked butt.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. It's confirmation bias. They believed that it was going to be awesome, and so they acted in a way that would make it awesome, and then it was awesome.
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah. It's so true, and it's such a great example. It's going to be a good year. It's certainly been a good week, that is for sure.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Going to be a good year, yeah.
Stephanie Goss:
Everybody's like, “Where is this going?” And it is not going towards the episode.
Dr. Andy Roark:
That was it. That was the stand-alone. That was a free mini episode inside the larger episode.
Stephanie Goss:
We're just telling you guys about our week.
Dr. Andy Roark:
It's like when you watch a Pixar movie and they have the cartoon at the beginning.
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark:
That's like four minutes long.
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark:
That's not connected to the other thing. It's like the squirrel chasing the acorn through the Arctic. That's what you just got right there.
Stephanie Goss:
I can already see Dustin, our editor, coming up with ideas for how he's going to attach a cartoon to this.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. I see Dustin our editor going, “I know seven minutes that I can cut right now.”
Stephanie Goss:
Okay. Reigning it in.
Dr. Andy Roark:
All right. All right, here we go. Here we go, back on track.
Stephanie Goss:
We have got a good one for everyone this week. I think I'm excited about this. We got a mailbag question that was a little bit different than the ones we normally got. And at first I thought, I don't know if our podcast is the right place to talk about this. And I honestly thought maybe this is a good one for the Cone of Shame podcast. But the more I thought about it, I thought, “No, I'm interested in this. I certainly have seen this.” So I'm excited to talk about it.
Stephanie Goss:
So our mailbag question is that: I'm the lead veterinarian at a fairly large hospital. I have one doctor on the team that I'm consistently receiving complaints from staff and clients in regards to how this doctor is dealing with animals. They basically seem scared to death of them if they look at the doctor wrong. They are an amazing, intelligent doctor, and so our lead vet is struggling with how do I deal with this? This doctor has been through fear-free training. So, specifics that they gave us generally, when they're talking to owners about their concerns regarding their pets, they're using words like “extremely aggressive” and they are making the technicians manhandle them and definitely not use their fear-free or low-stress handling techniques because it makes them feel more comfortable, I'm assuming.
Stephanie Goss:
This doctor usually is not the one helping or assisting with any of the treatments. And so our lead vet says, “I find myself sometimes watching in horror, or I end up just jumping in and assisting the technicians and assistants myself to get things done. Is there some guidance for this situation? Should I be telling my team to avoid scheduling known anxious, worried, fearful, aggressive animals with this doctor?” And I thought this was such a good one.
Dr. Andy Roark:
That's a great one. Yeah, I love this question. And this is real life. I guess I see this behavior, but to [inaudible 00:11:03] I really love about this is you can take fear of pets and replace it with any unacceptable behavior-
Stephanie Goss:
Sure.
Dr. Andy Roark:
-that comes from a place of fear or insecurity.
Stephanie Goss:
Yes. Yep.
Dr. Andy Roark:
The steps that we're going to use here- The point that I really want to make in this whole podcast, and I'll make it right now right up front, is yeah, we are going to approach this in a very logical, strategic, matter-of-fact, behavioral change way. And it doesn't really matter what the behavior is. And that's what I kind of want to lay down. And so when we say, “Is this an Uncharted podcast? ‘Cause this is more animal handling.”
Dr. Andy Roark:
I'm like, “No, it's not. It's a behavior change.” A doctor is exhibiting a behavior that the staff and clients are complaining about, and we need to address that behavior. And so I think this is going to be a really useful podcast, even though at first blush, it may sound kind of niche. First of all, I think it's much more common than people think it is. I would be really curious to hear from the audience. Do you see this in your practice? ‘Cause I've seen it a number of times. And so first of all, I wonder how common it is. And part two is this is a coaching behavioral change podcast. And man, this is the Swiss army knife of podcasts.
Stephanie Goss:
It's so funny because, as usual, you and I are thinking the same way. Sometimes it's scary how much in each other's heads we can be, because I had the same thoughts. When I was thinking about, okay, what is this? Well really at the end of the day, we have to do our jobs, and taking care of animals is part of our job. And there are different ways that we can approach that, and different things that we can try in terms of coaching behavior and changing behavior, like you mentioned, but our jobs involve animals who we know aren't always calm and gentle and comfortable with us, and fear is a powerful thing on both sides, on the animal side and on our side. And so for me, it was like, “Look, we know that fear could get us hurt when we're working with our patients, if they sense it.”
Stephanie Goss:
And we also know that lack of respect or caution on our part can get our team hurt. And so there's concern on both sides. So we've got to find the middle ground, because this person is a veterinarian and we have to help them do their job. So I thought very much the same way. So I'm excited to talk about this and I agree with you. When I read it, the reason I was interested in it was because I went through this with one of my veterinarians at my practice. And it is hard because I will tell you, I felt stumped at first as a manager. This is kind of our job. What do you mean you're afraid? You know? I was at a loss for how do I approach this? So I think this one's going to be fun. So should we start with our head space as we do?
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, sure. Always. Yeah, always. All right. So first let's just get real basic head space. Start with empathy.
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Start with compassion. Start with kindness. Getting angry at someone who is afraid, or who is frustrated, or is anxious, that is counterproductive. You know? Yeah. Getting frustrated with this person is not going to be helpful. And if you are frustrated, which you could be because you're getting complaints from the staff and now a client's complaining and you have to call them, it'd be really easy to be like, “This has to stop, and you need to suck it up and you need to do your job.” And that is a human emotion to feel. Yeah, that's very understandable. Do not communicate that, please. Just take that home and sit with it, and try to breathe through it and empathize and say, “This is a good person, and they are struggling.”
Dr. Andy Roark:
We all struggle with certain things about practice and our professional- None of us are perfect. We're all flawed human beings. And so they're struggling with a thing, and I just want to try to be forgiving of that because I also have things that I struggle with. Everybody's got their thing. The other thing is to seek first to understand. It's easy to make assumptions about why people behave the way that they do. And one, I want to validate that that assumption is correct. Are they making assumptions about pets that aren't true? You know what I mean? Are they really afraid of pets that they should not be afraid of? Or are they actually seeing things and they just disagree? We've all had pet owners who were like, “How dare you muscle my dog.”
Stephanie Goss:
Right?
Dr. Andy Roark:
And their dog is literally lunging-
Stephanie Goss:
Right.
Dr. Andy Roark:
-and snapping at people. You got to be kidding me. I know you think Fluffy is wonderful. I'm looking at bared teeth, and I do this all day every day and I'm not risking my face, or my hands, or my technician's personal safety so that you get to keep telling yourself your dog doesn't need a muzzle. I'm not going to do it.
Stephanie Goss:
Right.
Dr. Andy Roark:
There's balance here. Let's go, “Okay, well, what is real?” And the other thing is, and seek first to understand, man, there are people who have had real experiences that if you had them, it would change the way that you think.
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark:
You know? You and I both know a RVT who got bitten by a cat in her job, and then she had anaphylactic reaction to the antibiotics that she got to treat it. And ultimately, she ended up not being able to work on the floor anymore. It was career-ending for her.
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And she works in a different part of vet medicine now, but that was it for her.
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And you go, “Man, that sits in the back of my mind sometimes,” of hey, you never know what's going to happen.
Stephanie Goss:
Oh yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And so getting bitten is not a thing to blow off. I mean, I have friends with permanent nerve damage in hands from dog bites or cat bites. I have friends with facial scars.
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I have a friend who was, I think it was a cat, a cat bit her right on the lip. This is recently. And she's going to go to the plastic surgeon, and get it put back together. This is not something to blow off.
Dr. Andy Roark:
So again, let's put that in our minds and be like, “Hey,” empathy, seek first to understand what's going on and what's driving this person. What are their actual concerns, and let's start to dig into this. If you think, “This person just won't, they're not doing their job,” that is a blunt statement that is not productive. I can't work with that. That doesn't give me any nuance, any room for collaboration, any room to work with the person on their behaviors. I don't know where to begin training on that. I don't know how to address their concerns because I don't know what their real concerns are.
Stephanie Goss:
Right.
Dr. Andy Roark:
That is a dead-end mindset. And so get curious and get empathetic, and have this conversation because you want to help this person. And so that's my opening head space position.
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah. I was thinking very much the same in terms of the “have empathy for me”. It was also about assuming good intent, and really when you said it, “have empathy”, I agree with that. More than make sure that you're controlling your response outwardly, I think it's about asking yourself some questions like, could you understand where this could be a concern? Because a lot of times it's not that you're outwardly going, “Oh my God, this person is awful.” And I didn't get that sense here at all from our mailbag writer. I got the sense that they were just like, “I kind of don't know how to relate to this, so I don't know what to do with it,” which I imagine is the case for a lot of people.
Stephanie Goss:
And so for me, it's about this person. I truly believe no one becomes a veterinarian if they don't love animals. I don't know how you could, to some degree. And so for me, it's about assuming good intent. This person is clearly here for a reason, because they want to be. And so my job as the leader is to ask different questions. And so for me, the head space is about, I agree a hundred percent, having empathy and leaning into, okay, “What could be some reasons why this person could be afraid or concerned or worried about the behavior?” To your point, I totally understand that, and I will say that this episode is hard for me because I've been there on both sides.
Stephanie Goss:
I've been the manager who has worked with a doctor who genuinely was afraid of a certain type of patient and had to work through that. And I've also been the technician, and I'm going to out myself here, I've been the technician very early in my career taking x-rays with another very competent qualified technician with a canine patient. It was a really sweet, old golden retriever. We had it on its back on the x-ray table. It was when we had film x-rays, so the x-ray room is totally dark. And my other technician screams and I flip on the lights, and their whole face and neck is bleeding because the dog got painful and snapped her right in the face. And it scared the hell out of me.
Stephanie Goss:
And I will tell you that I was then the technician where, for a really long period of time, I would not want to work with golden patients without a muzzle on because it caught me so by surprise. Because we think generally they're so sweet and happy, right? And this patient had been no exception to that, super sweet, but it was just one of those fluke things. But it evoked a response in me that was something that I couldn't control.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.
Stephanie Goss:
And I remember having other technicians and other teammates be like, “Are you kidding me? I'm not going to put a muscle on this patient. It's totally fine.” But it made me very, very nervous because of something that I had experienced. And so a lot of what we're going to talk about, I was thinking, I could put myself in someone's shoes. I could understand where they could be nervous or worried because maybe they have had an experience. And so for me, it's about how do we think about putting ourselves in somebody else's shoes?
Stephanie Goss:
And so we get to the action points. One of the things is you got to have a conversation about, “Did something happen?” Have they had that experience? Because let me tell you, when I would share with other technicians, particularly when I left that practice or we had people come in who weren't there when it happened, and I shared that experience, there was an immediate empathetic response of, “Oh my gosh, I totally understand that.”
Stephanie Goss:
And we could work together to find middle ground, but until that information was shared, I had other people judging me. And they were just like, “Why? You're such a bad technician. You're such a bad restrainer that you couldn't work with a golden retriever without putting a muzzle on it?” That wasn't the case at all. But it was a hard thing to go through. And so I think when we, when we talk about finding the empathy, I think it's really important in terms of starting at the beginning and asking what happened. And so that really is an action step here, but I think your point about empathy is spot on there.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Well, I think you take me to the second point that I want to make too, which is when we start to have this conversation, commonality is key, right? I don't want this person to feel like they're a freak in vet medicine. I know that's a strong word, but it is how I don't want them to feel. I don't want them to feel like, “Oh, you're the weirdo who's afraid of pets.” I think that your experience is not uncommon.
Stephanie Goss:
Yep.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Also imagine how the team looked at that and they're like, “Stephanie's putting muzzles on all the golden retrievers? This is bonkers.” But when you tell that story-
Stephanie Goss:
True story.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I understand how that would affect you.
Stephanie Goss:
Yes.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Again, I think it's part of the human experience. I will share for myself, I've never been super comfortable with horses.
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I don't run screaming from the paddock, but I didn't grow up with horses. I never planned to practice on horses. I was like, “Hey, vet school, I'll sign a waiver that says I'm not going to touch a horse. And then you just let me go do more small animal courses and I'll be pumped.” And they did not go for it.
Stephanie Goss:
They were like, no, actually you get the first rotation. Here you go.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Oh, totally. But I have these thoughts too, because when I took a job years ago and they were like, “Hey, we take call because we have a mixed animal component.” And they're like, “You won't see horses or mixed animal stuff during the day, but if you have to take call, you're going to have to go see that stuff.” And I thought, man, I have to brush up on it. It's just not something that I'm comfortable with. And I know the clients would've noticed that. And so I just said this is-
Stephanie Goss:
Not the right thing.
Dr. Andy Roark:
You need to know that this is not in my repertoire and it's not something I'm going to be comfortable doing.
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark:
But anyway, I put that forward because having these conversations, this goes back to empathy, is can you think of a time when something happened to you or an experience when you were uncomfortable? That's going to help you get into a good head space to talk to this person. And even if you've never felt that way, just the stories I told earlier of my friend having permanent nerve damage or my other friend having an anaphylactic reaction to the antibiotics from a cat bite and then having it end her career on the floor, those things are good to get in your head. So again, just empathize, seek to understand, look for commonality because that's how we're going to connect to this person and make them not feel judged and outcast.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And because when I come to them and say, “Hey, we need to talk about something,” and I want to hear where you're coming from. I need to understand what's going on. And I get it, and I can see that. And I'm not dismissing you as you're doing something that's ridiculous, I can't abide by. I think you and I need to get into a spot of this is human behavior. And I'm curious as to where it came from and why you feel it. The other thing I think that we need to figure out is why is this true? So here's the hard thing with this case is that when the staff says, “The doctor seems afraid of these patients, and the clients say the doctor seems afraid of these patients,” if I go to the doctor and say, “Hey, why are you afraid of patients?” What are they going to say?
Stephanie Goss:
“I'm not.”
Dr. Andy Roark:
“I'm not afraid of those patients. I'm just being cautious and keeping people safe.” And that's an argument you can't win, because being afraid of patients is completely subjective.
Stephanie Goss:
Yes, yes.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And you can't do it. And so talking to them about being afraid, that's a challenging thing, which is why we're going to have to build empathy and trust.
Stephanie Goss:
Yes.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Because you're not going to be able to prove that they're afraid of patients because only they know-
Stephanie Goss:
Right.
Dr. Andy Roark:
-if they're afraid, and they may be in denial about it.
Stephanie Goss:
Yes. Yeah, I think the last thing for head space, for me, which ties directly to then starting to have that conversation, is I think you have to be able to be honest and also be vulnerable yourself. And what I mean by that is if you were looking at this other person and you were thinking, “I don't understand why you're putting the muzzle on every golden retriever,” you have to be willing to be vulnerable and honest and say something when it comes to having the conversation, something along the lines of “I care about you and I want to make sure that you feel comfortable here at work. These are some things that I've noticed and they seem unique to you. And so I want to understand more.” When I say being honest and vulnerable, it means you can share that you may not understand or that there are things that you are worried about in a way that doesn't feel like you are attacking them.
Stephanie Goss:
Like you said so well, it's like if you say, “I think the way you're acting makes it seem like you're afraid of animals to the client,” they absolutely can and should, as a veterinarian who is responsible for protecting their team, there should be some part of them that is thinking “I want to be safe with all of my patients.” Right? And so you can't argue that safety side of it. But if you can be honest and you can be vulnerable with them and share, even if you don't understand, I think that's going to go a long way to helping have the conversations that you need to have in order to unlock this and start to do some problem solving.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, I agree. I got a couple other things that are related to that, but I'll lay them down when we start talking about action steps.
Stephanie Goss:
Okay. That sounds good. Should we take a break here and then get into how we tackle this?
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Hey, Stephanie Goss, you got a second to talk about Guardian Vets?
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah, what do you want to talk about?
Dr. Andy Roark:
Man, I hear from people all the time that are overwhelmed because the phones never stop ringing, and I'm sure you hear from these people as well. “Our caseload is blowing up and the doctors are busy, and the phones just don't stop.”
Stephanie Goss:
They never stop. That is a true story.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I'm amazed by how few veterinarians know about Guardian Vets. This is a service where you have registered technicians who can jump in virtually and help you on the phones. You can flip the switch and Guardian Vets can jump in and take some of the load off the front desk, and they can handle your clients and get them booked for your appointments and give them support, and it really is a godsend.
Stephanie Goss:
Pre-pandemic, it was amazing to me how many people hadn't heard about it for after-hours call help. But at this point, I can't believe how many people don't realize that they are offering help during the daytime as well, which I would think right now is a huge benefit to practices because everybody is shorthanded. Everybody is drowning in phone calls. And so we talk about it. We've talked about Guardian Vets a lot on the podcast, and every time we do, we always get somebody who says, “What is that?”
Dr. Andy Roark:
Guys, if you're not familiar with Guardian Vets, if you think that you could use them help on the phones or up at the front desk, check them out. It's guardianvets.com. And if you mention our podcast, me and Stephanie Goss, you get a month free. So check it out, guardianvets.com.
Stephanie Goss:
Two workshops coming at you from our dear friend, Dr. Tracy Sands. Tracy is passionate about amazing teams, building a intentional culture of appreciation, and that is exactly what she is going to talk to us about. She is leading the first workshop May 21st and it is “Retain your team: speak the languages of appreciation in your workplace.” She's going to talk to us and work with us on how to learn about the languages of appreciation, but also talk about how do they influence our team and clinic cultures. That is happening May 21st at 2pm Eastern, that's 11am here on the west coast. It is $99. You can participate if you are not an Uncharted member. And if you are an Uncharted member already, it's free as always.
Stephanie Goss:
And part two is happening in June. It is June 25th. It is also a two-hour workshop, also $99 for our non-members and free to our members. And it is “Be a part of a happier team: strategies to build an appreciation culture in your practice.” So this is going to be an even more in-depth look at workplace appreciation, but the actual practical how do we apply it in our practices. To find out more, head on over to the website at unchartedvet.com.
Dr. Andy Roark:
All right, well, let's talk about how we start to tackle this and have this conversation. Okay?
Stephanie Goss:
Do it. Yep.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Perfect. And to no one's surprise, the first thing that I'm going to talk about is expectations and clear communication.
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And that goes back to what we talked about before about I don't want to pull a doctor in and say, “Hey, you're afraid of pets.” That's not the conversation that I want to have because I can't prove it and it's unspecific, and it leads immediately to debate about fear.
Stephanie Goss:
Right.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And a lot of people were raised with the mindset that being afraid is to be cowardly. You know what I mean? There are societal or cultural stereotypes and norms around fear. I grew up in rural North Carolina. And if you called me afraid, when I was 15, 14, 12 years old, I would negatively react to that.
Stephanie Goss:
Sure.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Even if it was true, I would a hundred percent tell you it wasn't. And that's a cultural thing, and so everybody's different with that. Talking about being afraid of pets is an unproductive conversation.
Stephanie Goss:
Yep.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Period, full stop. And so the first thing we laid on action steps is speak in specifics.
Stephanie Goss:
Yes.
Dr. Andy Roark:
What are clients complaining about? What is the staff concerned about? So in the example you gave about the golden retriever, it's not about “Stephanie's afraid of golden retrievers.” It's “Stephanie muzzles every golden retriever patient that comes in, and the rest of the staff-” and I'm not going to say they hate it, or they are upset about it. I'm going to say “they don't understand.” And I feel like that is true.
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And that is not judgmental.
Stephanie Goss:
Sure.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And this is not a disciplinary conversation, but, “Hey, I have heard from a number of people that you muzzle every golden retriever that comes in and some people don't understand, and they're trying to process that and they worry about the stress that the muzzle causes.”
Dr. Andy Roark:
And so let me ask you about that. Does that ring true in your ears or do you think that's a valid thought that other people are putting forward? And that is how I'm going to open this up very softly, very broadly, but I'm not going to talk to you about being afraid. I'm going to talk to you about the behavior. Hey, and you see this a lot. A lot of people who are afraid of cats are cat scruffers. They handle cats aggressively. They grab the cats.
Stephanie Goss:
Yes.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Things like that. And people who are cat people do not like that, and rightfully so.
Stephanie Goss:
Yes.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And what I hear a lot is, “This person doesn't care about low-stress handling. They don't like cats. They hate cats. They're mean to cats. They're untrained.” The truth is, they're afraid.
Stephanie Goss:
Right.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And that is a vulnerable thought to have, is, “I'm doing this because I'm afraid of cats and I need to work through this.” But that is true. That's the conversation to have is not, “Hey, you are man-handling cats. You are being rough with cats.” It's, “Hey, people don't understand the level of control that you are taking. Help me understand what your process is and what your thought process is when you deal with these patients.”
Stephanie Goss:
Yep.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And I'm just trying to get into your head. Is it a lack of knowledge? ‘Cause a lot of people are like, “Clearly this person hasn't been trained,” and I go, “I bet they have been trained, but I bet that they're afraid and they're not messing around.” At some point we do have to deal with that, and we're going to come back around to what that looks like in a bit.
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah. No, I agree. I have been thinking, not only do you have to be specific, but also I think it's really important to have it be recent examples. When it comes to feedback, nothing puts people more immediately on the defense than giving them an example that happened far in the past. Right?
Dr. Andy Roark:
Right.
Stephanie Goss:
It's one thing if you say, “Hey, I got a call from Mrs. Jones who was here on Monday and she said this was how you reacted in the room. Can you tell me more about what was going on? Because I really want to understand,” right? That feels radically different than saying, “Well, over the last six months I've gotten 15 complaints from clients about the way that you've acted with their patients in the room, and so let's talk about Fluffy. I understand she was here three months ago but this owner was particularly upset. So let's talk about that,” right?
Stephanie Goss:
And I think as a manager, our logic brain can immediately go to, “Let's take a really clear-” and by clear, our brains often interpret that as the most severe of the examples, right? And that isn't necessarily, I think, the best tact to take here. I think it's really important to have a really concrete example to be able to share with them, especially concrete examples of the kind of feedback that you're getting from the team. And you gave some really beautiful ones of how you can transform the words that you may be given from the team or from a client into something that is softer and less aggressive in terms of talking about it with the other person.
Stephanie Goss:
But it's got to be specific. And for me, I agree with you. It's just starts with, “Tell me more about what was going on.” Like you're seeking to understand, you don't want to put them on the defensive, you just want to know because the ideal situation, regardless, for you as the leader, is for them to open up and tell you something, tell you about their experience as a baby technician with the golden retriever, tell you about an incident that they had with a cat that really scared them. That's the goal is to get them talking, and so you've got to use vocabulary and word choices that are going to help support that.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. The other significant Jedi trick that I use in these cases, and that's what I said, this is any sort of a behavioral change, but anything that comes back from the staff or it comes back from the clients and you didn't see it, and you don't know what happens. One of the approaches that I have used many, many times, and I find it very successful, is to not argue about what happened, because I wasn't there.
Stephanie Goss:
Right.
Dr. Andy Roark:
But I am going to talk to you about the perception of those who were there.
Stephanie Goss:
Sure.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And so I'm not saying you're afraid, I'm saying that there clearly is a perception among the clients, the client who called me.
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Their perception was that you were afraid. That's what they said. I'm not saying that you handled the cat overly aggressively. I wasn't there. The perception of the staff was that this patient was unnecessarily restrained in a way that caused stress. That was their perception. Now perception is not reality, but it's what they saw. And here's the reason I bring that up is because if I say to you, “Stephanie, you did this bad thing,” you're going to feel shame. You're going to feel-
Stephanie Goss:
I'm going to turn tomato red immediately.
Dr. Andy Roark:
You're going to turn to tomato red. You're going to feel shame. You're probably going to feel anger. You may disagree that that's what happened. You're going to feel falsely judged, all of those things. But if I say to you, “Stephanie, there was a perception that this is what happened-“
Stephanie Goss:
I wasn't there so it doesn't [crosstalk 00:38:27]
Dr. Andy Roark:
And so tell me what you saw and what happened.
Stephanie Goss:
Yep.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And so one, that helps me unlock the conversation, but number two, and bear with me, I swear it's true- What do I care about? The truth is, I can't fix the past, right?
Stephanie Goss:
Right.
Dr. Andy Roark:
What happened is over. What I care about is future behaviors. Now listen, I do not care if you change your behavior because you admit that you are afraid, or if you change your behavior because you understand other people have the perception that you're afraid, and you want to make sure that you address that perception and you are going to behave differently to address that perception. I don't care. But addressing the perception of others is much less challenging to my self-image than addressing some significant thing about myself.
Stephanie Goss:
Yes.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And so I have just found, again and again and again, that it's easier to talk about perception than it is to talk about, “Andy, you're afraid of this, and you need to stop. Andy, you lose your temper and get angry.” And I go, “No, I don't.” And now I'm talking about who I am as a person, and that's scary.
Stephanie Goss:
Right.
Dr. Andy Roark:
But if you said to me, “Andy, the staff has a perception that you have a short fuse,” I can say, “Well, why do they think that?” And they'll say, “Well, this is where you raise your voice, and because you're 6'3″ (I'm not 6'3″) because you're 6'3″ and you raise your voice. It's very intimidating. People think that you're very upset.” And I go, “Well, that's not true.” And I say, “Well, it doesn't matter that it's not true. It's the perception that the team has, and so we need to address it.” And oftentimes people take that- You love the idea that I imagine myself as 6'3″. In my head, I see myself like a chihuahua sees himself. You know what I mean? That's how I view. When I look in the mirror, chihuahua Andy sees mastiff Andy. And I'm like, “Damn, I'm intimidating. I have to tone it down.”
Stephanie Goss:
I can't, I can't.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Let's get back on track. Okay, I'll give you this example. So this is the example of perception versus truth in my life, okay? And I've told this story before, but it's the best example that I have. I remember being a parent of young children and I was working a lot, and my wife was teaching a college course that was a three-week course where they traveled. She had gone to Ecuador with a bunch of students. And so I've got the kids for three weeks, right? And so I'm busting my hump and I'm working hard, and I am full-time dad for two little kids. Shout out to all the single parents out there. You guys are amazing. Anyway, and I'm doing it. And so my parents call, and they're like, “Hey, would you like to come up for the weekend?” And I thought, “Yes, I would. Yes.”
Dr. Andy Roark:
And so I take the kids up there-
Stephanie Goss:
You're like, “Help!”
Dr. Andy Roark:
-hand them to my parents. Yeah. And then I disappear into one of the back rooms with my laptop and just bang out work for two days. And then the weekend was over and I emerged from the room and I'm like, “Hey, thanks a lot, guys. See you later.” And my dad looked at me and he said to me, “Hey son, I'm concerned about the relationship you have with your kids.” And I was like, “What?” And he was like, “You were completely absent this whole weekend, and we did all these things. They're not going to remember having you around. I'm worried about you, and I want you to think about this.”
Dr. Andy Roark:
And guys, I have a great relationship with my kids, and I did then too. A very engaged dad. I can say that in all honesty. I love the kids and I spend a lot of time with them, but, and so I went home and that's why I was so bothered by this, is I feel like I'm a really engaged dad.
Stephanie Goss:
Right.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And so I called my brother who knows me really well and who's around a lot, and talks to me all the time. And I said, “Man, Dad said this thing to me and it really upset me.” And he said, “Well, Andy, you have a perception problem.” He said, “All that they see is that you show up and disappear.”
Stephanie Goss:
Right.
Dr. Andy Roark:
“And they don't see the rest of the things.”
Stephanie Goss:
Right.
Dr. Andy Roark:
“And so you do not have a ‘I'm a bad dad' problem, you have a ‘my parents perceive me as being absent' problem. And so you need to address that perception that they have.”
Stephanie Goss:
Right.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And as a result, when I go up there, I'm fully engaged and I'm involved in this. And I just realized, well, “Hey, I can't go up there and clock out and do my own thing. I need to be engaged because this is the picture my parents have of me and my relationship with my kids” And that has always been a lot to me because if you said to me, “Andy, you're a bad dad,” I would fight with you, like really throw down, because I'm huge and powerful and intimidating.
Stephanie Goss:
Because you're a mastiff. Okay, got it.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I would write you a passive-aggressive letter on flower stationery. That's the real thing that would happen. But I don't want to think that, and I don't want to hear that, and I don't want to believe that.
Stephanie Goss:
Right.
Dr. Andy Roark:
But when my brother says, “You have a perception problem,” I go, “I can fix that perception problem.”
Stephanie Goss:
Right. That makes sense, yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And so I do. I know it's a long way to go, but I think this is a really important point. When we talk about behaviors that are being reported by the staff and the team, is I can say to you, “The truth is, I don't know how you feel and I wasn't there, but I'm going to talk to you about the perception that people have, and you and I are going to work on that perception.”
Dr. Andy Roark:
And that brings me to the next part of this. There is an excellent opportunity here not to correct this person-
Stephanie Goss:
Right.
Dr. Andy Roark:
-but to recruit this person.
Stephanie Goss:
Right.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And that unlocks this conversation in yet another way, because people say, “Well, how do I bring them in and tell them they need to stop being afraid of pets?” Or “How do I bring them in and tell them they need to do training?”
Stephanie Goss:
You don't.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And the answer is you don't. Here's the beautiful Jedi maneuver is I'm going to bring them in and I'm going to say, “Hey, Stephanie, I got a call from this client that you saw yesterday, and they had this concern and this is what they said.” And I have to tell you, relatedly, “I have gotten feedback in the last couple of weeks about another patient where the staff felt like this patient was over-restrained and they mentioned it to me, and I just want to talk to you about that.”
Dr. Andy Roark:
And then I'm going to ultimately, if the person pushes back and say, “Well, I don't agree that these things are going on,” or “I don't agree that the way this was done was out of line.” And I'll say, “Well, you can choose to disagree. The perception of the clients and the staff is not favorable, and that needs to be addressed. Because I can't have the staff working with a doctor that they are worried about, It's bad for you and it's bad for me, for the perception of the staff to be that we're not doing what we're supposed to do. And so let's, you and me, circle up and let's figure out how we're going to control this perception and what needs to happen.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And I'm happy to invest in you. We can do team training and focus on this. If that will help make them more comfortable, if that will make you more comfortable.” But again, and here's the other thing, I can't propose action steps until I know why this behavior is happening.
Stephanie Goss:
Yes.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Because like to Stephanie's point, if you're worried because you saw this thing happen and I'm like, “Let's get you more fear-free training,” then that's not going to fix the fact that you had this experience.
Stephanie Goss:
Yes.
Dr. Andy Roark:
We're going to need to work through that in a different way. But the big last sort of point I want to hit on here is I don't have to fix this problem directly, meaning it's not on me to fix you because I don't know how to do that.
Dr. Andy Roark:
When feedback comes from the clients, one of the easiest things to do is to say to the doctor, “The perception of the client was X and we need to figure out how to control that perception in the future.” What can we do to make sure that clients do not feel this way? And often we can fix the problem by, say, “Oh, no no, it's not about you. It's about other people and their perception of this. And we need to fix it because we can't have this in the building.” Great. As long as the behavior gets fixed, I don't care how it's presented.
Stephanie Goss:
And I think the nice part about looking at it from the perception perspective is that it becomes easier for the person receiving the feedback to put on their empathy hat. Because if you told me, “Stephanie, the perception of Mrs. Jones was that you were man-handling her patient. And I know you, I don't think that was the case, but that was her perception. And so we have to figure out how do we address it in the future so that she doesn't feel that concern or that other people don't feel that concern?” I would immediately much more easily be able to lean into having empathy because I, as a person who cares about animals, but also who cares about my clients, I wouldn't want clients thinking that I man-handled their pet.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Exactly.
Stephanie Goss:
Right? So it unlocks the empathy. You are approaching it from an empathetic perspective as a leader, but it also allows the ability to unlock some of those emotions, too, for the doctor to be able to put themselves in the client's shoes or the staff's shoes and unlock their own empathy in a way that doesn't feel like I am in trouble because I did this thing. And we're talking about why I did the thing, the why doesn't matter. And so I think that's spot on and I love it.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Well, it's just flipping it around from a place where you're arguing with the person about what happened, because I wasn't there.
Stephanie Goss:
Right.
Dr. Andy Roark:
But it's not an argument for me to tell you, “This is how people perceived what happened.”
Stephanie Goss:
Yep.
Dr. Andy Roark:
That's statement of fact that can't be argued with. Yeah. I wasn't there, I don't know if it was inappropriate restraint or not. The perception was that it was beyond what was necessary. And that's the second complaint in that vein that I've gotten in a short period of time, and we need to figure out how to fix this perception lest it become your reputation and something that we have to deal with.
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Right. So those, I think, are the big ways that I would have this conversation, okay? And so then people go, “Okay, well, that's great, and I understand how you explain it. What do you actually do? And what do you do if this doesn't work?” And so the big point that I want to make here, when we talk about moving into action steps, I think a lot of us have a tendency, myself included, to think very black and white. I can let this person go, or I can demand that they fix this and fix it full stop, continue. And if they don't fix it, then I'm going to have to let them go. And people freak out and they're like, “What am I going to do?” It's like, okay.
Stephanie Goss:
Right.
Dr. Andy Roark:
The first thing to try to do with this is try to partner with the person, “Hey, what are we going to do? How are we going to move forward? What's the underlying cause? How do we address it?” Because that's going to inform us in what we're going to do, okay? Now, I feel much better emotionally when I can just look at things pragmatically, and so here's the truth. If this person is afraid of the pets to the point that they're not able to do their job, I have a couple of options, okay? Let's say that they are not able to change their behavior. It may be possible for me to compromise. Maybe Stephanie Goss doesn't see golden retrievers. And people go, “Oh my God.” I'm like, “Look, does anybody care that Stephanie doesn't see golden retrievers?”
Dr. Andy Roark:
Now, if it's Stephanie Goss doesn't see fractious cats and she's one of two paraprofessionals that we have, that's different.
Stephanie Goss:
Right. Yes.
Dr. Andy Roark:
But if we have a lot techs that are very comfortable with- Maybe Stephanie doesn't see cats, and that's just what it is. And if you can staff for that and it doesn't feel like favoritism to the rest of the team, it feels like, “Hey, this is a reasonable thing and we're okay to have Steph just be a dog tech,” then go with it. You know what I mean? Don't overthink it. Not everything has to be set in stone. Let's try to be flexible here, but can we compromise?
Stephanie Goss:
Well, and I think it also doesn't have to be huge. And I think our minds immediately go to these big grand sweeping things that we have to change and that's not necessarily the case. So in my case, there were other pieces to it too, and I think that we'll talk about these in a second, but the compromise with the team was I didn't feel comfortable being the doer in front of those patients anymore because I had been holding and someone had gotten hurt. But the early compromise was could I try being the holder and just doing things where we weren't going to potentially invoke a reaction from a patient. And so it was baby steps, right?
Stephanie Goss:
Or for a while, I didn't touch the golden retriever patients. And I worked in a hospital where there was six or seven of us, and so it was really easy to say, “Hey, I'm going to take your cat over here and I'm going to hold it instead, and we're going to swap out,” right? And I think a lot of the times we think about, well, that means that you can't be on the floor, you can't do your job. And we think in these grand sweeping things, and that doesn't necessarily have to be the case. Because the reality is, we can't go through our careers on skates. All of us are going to have a really difficult case, a really hard situation with a patient or with a client. We're all going to have things that upset us. And so the compromise can be really small, but it can make a world of difference for that person.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I completely agree. I mean, other examples, our original question here was about a doctor and I would have that conversation. And again, this is part of partnership, is, “What do you need to feel comfortable?” and “What do we need to address this perception?” And it may be that this doctor needs to be partnered with a technician who has very strong animal handling skills.
Stephanie Goss:
Yes.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Or a technician that he or she is comfortable with, so they trust the animal handling skills of that person.
Stephanie Goss:
Yes.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And can say, “I feel safe because this person is doing the handling.” That may be what we need to address that perception of “this person over-restrains.” And so I go, “Well, can we have someone else restrain for you that you trust? And then they can do it in the way that we like, and you can have a restrained patient to do what you need to do.”
Dr. Andy Roark:
And again, I don't know. We have to talk to the person and kind of see where their head is, but compromise is part of it.
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And I love what you said. I think so many of us blow this up and we catastrophize and we go, “Oh, I can't have a doctor that's afraid of big dogs, because 60% of our patients are big dogs and they'll be ruined. And if I don't let them see those cases, then they're not going to make their bonus, and then blah, blah, they're going to leave, and other doctors are going to not want to see big dogs either, and then I'm going to have 12 doctors that only see cats and dogs less than 25 pounds. And you know who's going to have to see all the patients? It's me. I'm going to see 75% of our caseload, and I'm one person. I'm going to work all day and all night, and my spouse is going to leave and my plants are going to die because I'm never home to water them. And no one's going to clean my house and I'll never, ever, ever get to watch season 2 of Bridgerton because I won't have time ever. And then I'm going to die and not know what happened.
Stephanie Goss:
Oh, god. This episode is 100%-
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, that's the mindset we have. Instead, this is probably not a big deal. Let's figure this out. Let's make some compromises. Let's make some tweaks. It's probably not going to be in the end of the world. That's it. Option two, of course, is training. If the person is not comfortable and they say, “I'm just not comfortable with cats,” then you could say, “Can we get you some training?”
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I would tell you, that's the thing for me with horses. Like I said, I don't have a lot of experience with horses. And if someone said to me, “Hey, we want you to be able to do this and we're willing to train you, and we're willing to put in time, and we're willing to mentor you, and you're going to work with horses and you're going to work with them for three months.” I would be like, you know what? I can do that.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I'm not terrified, I just don't have a lot of experience and it makes me uncomfortable to be alone out there. You want to pair me up with an experienced equine vet, they're going to mentor me, man. I'm a mentorship sponge. I love to be mentored.
Stephanie Goss:
Sure.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I'll 100% take that. And that's training. The compromise was, “How about this? How about you work this way? And you take these emergency cases, or you do these things, or you're available at these times, but you don't go out to the farms and you don't do rural house calls.” Great, that's a compromise that work for me and work for the practice.
Stephanie Goss:
I think the last important thing for me, both about compromise and about support and getting them some answers and some training, because I think that can absolutely be part of the solution package, is that is really important to recognize if there actually is fear or if they have had an experience like my experience, it is really important to recognize that you, as the practice leader, even you as a lead veterinarian or the practice owner in your practice, you're not a professional therapist. You're a professional animal person, but you are not prepared or equipped to deal with your team member's emotions, full stop. You should not put yourself in that role. And so it's really important to think about, how do you pair those things together? And there are lots of things when it comes to professional therapy and support in terms of overcoming fears.
Stephanie Goss:
And so if there is a legitimate fear concern, or if they have had an experience pairing some training, learning some low-stress handling techniques, I'm a huge fan of Sophia Yin's techniques, learning about fear-free, which our mailbag writer doctor said that they already had tackled, but partnering that with the offer of, “Let's get you some support.” Do we have an EAP? Do we have an employee assistance program where they can talk to somebody?
Stephanie Goss:
You're not talking about, “You need to commit to therapy forever, because this is going to be a lifelong issue for you.” Like your example with the horses, sometimes it's about desensitizing ourselves. And it is important to address it from a work perspective, but it's also important to give them a safe space with actual professionals when it comes to mental health support to work through that as well. And it doesn't have to be a permanent thing, but if you can offer them support there, that is a role that you shouldn't put yourself in as the leader. But it is something that is really important to pair with this, if fear is genuinely a concern.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Well, and if the person is open to it and if it's part of the need, right? Remember, seek first to understand what are we dealing with. I don't need therapy for my inexperience with horses, but 100% those sorts of anxiety, when you say, “I'm very concerned. I was bitten. And I'm very concerned about that, and it's causing me stress, or I'm literally having panic attacks here.” Yeah, absolutely.
Dr. Andy Roark:
But all that comes down from doing your diagnostics on what exactly were you talking about here? Yeah, I think that's probably about all I've got. The last thing I want to circle back to, and I think I said earlier, remember to be vulnerable first. Find commonality. I don't want to make this person feel like, “I can't believe that you're doing this.”
Dr. Andy Roark:
Say, “No, I get it. This is a stressful job. And honestly, that's dangerous.” Dog bites are nothing to joke about, and cat bites, even worse. We do a dangerous job, and we should be honest about that, not shame someone for being cautious. I think there's a lot of options here in sort of how to go forward. Let me touch on worst case scenario, because some people have that idea and say, “Well, that's great, Andy, but what if you can't compromise? And what if they refuse to get training or they take the training, and it doesn't change their behavior?” This is the last reason that we want to make sure we're speaking in specifics. What exactly are we measuring here? It's not fear, because I can't measure your fear.
Stephanie Goss:
Right.
Dr. Andy Roark:
But it is complaints about specific handling behaviors. It's complaints from the pet owners, things like that. My take on this is we're going to have the conversation. We're going to do everything that we talked about. We're going to try to partner with this person. We're going to talk about changing the perception that is out there, and making sure that we are perceived as doing right by the patients and taking the best care that we possibly can. And we're going to do all those sorts of things. And we are going to continue to measure the problem behaviors. And if we continue to get negative feedback from the staff and things like that, ultimately what I would say is, in my mind, I'm looking at this, I'm going to set a deadline on this. It would depend on what the plan is.
Dr. Andy Roark:
If they're like, “I don't need a plan. I don't need training. I can 100% handle this. It's not going to happen again,” then I'm going to set a fairly short deadline of if, after a month, you got one month and if after a month I'm getting more complaints, you and I are going to have another conversation and it's going to be much more direct. And it's going to be much more about, again, I don't know what's happening and I'm not going to argue with you about the quality of your handling. All I'm going to say is, “I continue to get complaints about your handling and we're not able to have those.” And ultimately I am going to pick my poison, which is what I do. And picking the poison means you're going to be allowing this person to continue to behave the way that they are, and dealing with the fallout from that behavior. Emotional customer service, staff retention, moral on my part because I'm probably having significant concerns about what exactly is happening and what is happening to the patients here.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And I have responsibility to keep them safe. So do I deal with the fallout of keeping this person, or do I deal with the fallout of letting this person go? Because if we've tried everything to compromise and train and it's not going forward, and we don't see any other path to change behavior, those are your two options: deal with the fallout of keeping them, deal with fallout of letting them go. And ultimately to me, that's not a question, that's a done deal.
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And I go, “Well, that's it.” And I have to be okay with that. And so I think that's the emotional part for me is to say, “I talked to this person. I did all the things right. I connected with them. I tried to understand, I offered them help, I tried to come up with whatever ways would remedy the problem and support them, and I gave them time to do that and to go through the process. And I asked for patience from the staff, but ultimately the staff trusts me. And they trust me to not allow these things to happen.”
Dr. Andy Roark:
Generally, if you say to your people, “Hey, we're, working through things, we're doing training, we're doing whatever, we're working on some new systems,” they'll generally give you some grace. But at some point they're going to say, “We've given you grace, and this does not seem to be changing.” Right? And at that point, you have to make the call and then you shouldn't feel bad about it. You had the conversation, you took the steps, it did not improve, and you decided that this was not the standard of care. You were willing to offer it your practice. And so you did what you had to do. No [inaudible 01:02:06] go on. Feel good about it.
Stephanie Goss:
Well, and I will say when I got to the point of having that conversation with my doctor, who was having some fear concerns with patient, we tried all the things. We went through those steps. And when we had the conversation, they were the one to tell me, “I hear what you're saying, and I've actually decided that I'm going to leave the practice because I need to be in a position where I'm actually not dealing with this type of patient, and I recognize that this hospital is not that.” I was coming to the table to make that decision, but they made it for me, and so I think a lot of times you'll be pleasantly surprised, and don't think you need to gear yourself up for, “I have to let this person go.” But I think you're right. You got to be ready to pick your poison.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, sure, and I think that's important to remember. I'm going to end on that. A lot of times, we think that we are making the hard decision, and if we let this person go, they're going to be devastated. Look, I'll tell you if I went and worked in equine practice and I was mentored for three to six months, and I'm still anxious and nervous and my palms are sweating at every appointment, man, I don't want to be there either. You know what I mean? You're not going to break my heart if you part ways with me.
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Because we did it and we tried, it didn't work. That's it. Oftentimes this is the kindest thing for- And honestly, would you want to be in a job where people keep saying, “Stephanie's not handling patients well, and she's doing these things,” and people are complaining to the manager about you? No, you should go somewhere else or you should do something else. Anyway, that's all I got, Steph.
Stephanie Goss:
This was a good one. I hope everybody has a great week.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. Take care of yourself, everybody.
Stephanie Goss:
Well, everybody, that's a wrap on another episode of the podcast. Thanks so much for spending your time with us. We truly enjoy spending part of our week with you, as always. Andy and I enjoyed getting into this topic. I have a tiny little favor to ask. Actually, two of them. One is if you can go to wherever you source your podcasts from and hit the “review” button and leave us a review, we love hearing your feedback and knowing what you think of the podcast. And number two, if you haven't already, hit the subscribe button. Thanks so much for listening, guys. We'll see you soon.
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