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What's This Episode About?

This week on the podcast, Dr. Andy Roark and Stephanie Goss are tackling a mailbag letter from a soon-to-be veterinary technician. Our soon-to-be tech is about to begin their program externship experiences and is looking for a little guidance on how to choose a practice that feels like the right fit for them. They are asking themselves (and us) “How do I know if it’s a place I should stay away from?”. They shared that they have procedures/processes that feel ethically right and wrong to them to help guide the medicine they are looking for. And they want to know what kind of signposts they can use to help guide the “soft” stuff – whether people in the clinic actually like each other. Or whether they love or hate their jobs. How to tell a toxic environment from a good one and most importantly – how do I decide what feels like a good fit for me? Whether you are facing an externship or just looking for your next position, Dr. Roark and Stephanie share some of their favorite bits of perspective on interviewing as well as choosing a position. Let’s get into this…

You can listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Got a question for the mailbag? Submit it here: unchartedvet.com/mailbag

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Stephanie:

Hey, everybody. I am Stephanie Goss, and this is another episode of the Uncharted Podcast. This week on the podcast, Andy and I are diving into a great question from the mailbag. We got a letter from a vet tech student who's about to begin their externships, and they are wondering, “How do I pick the right clinic for me?” And they don't mean from a medicine perspective, they have some idea of things that they want, or maybe don't want in a practice when it comes to the medicine. But what they're talking about is, “How do I tell if the people at a hospital actually get along and enjoy working at that location and/or together?”

Stephanie:

All of this tough stuff about avoiding toxic work environments, because they hear that talked about a lot in vet tech groups, and they are wondering, how do they avoid it for themselves? Andy and I have some ideas about how to approach the interviewing process that we think would be great, whether you're a vet student who's about to be looking for their first job or just someone in general who's interviewing and is wondering, “What do I need to do as the person who's interviewing to try and figure this stuff out?” Let's get into it, shall we?

Speaker 2:

And now the Uncharted Podcast.

Andy:

And we are back. It's me, Dr. Andy Roark, and Stephanie “Keep On Hoping Cake By The Ocean” Goss.

Stephanie:

That is one of the most nonsensical songs, and yet it's like an ear worm. I cannot help but sing it-

Andy:

Oh, I love it.

Stephanie:

… and get happy when I hear it.

Andy:

Yeah. I like the, “Yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah” part. That's the thing.

Stephanie:

So great.

Andy:

That's it. When people look good at 2020s and like, “What was music?” There was a lot of yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah's, stuff like that. My daughters are into those songs, and so I listen to a lot of Levitating by Dua Lipa. There's also yeah-yeah's in Levitating. Anyway, that's a music update from the Roark house.

Stephanie:

How's it going, Andy Roark?

Andy:

Oh man. It's good. It's pretty darn good. How are things with you?

Stephanie:

Good, good. We're recording this in the middle of December, so it's craziness and the kids are getting antsy to wind down school and get a little bit of a break, and we're getting ready to start gymnastic season, which is very exciting in the Goss household.

Andy:

Yeah. Starting a new season during the holiday seems like a great idea. Those are some serious high level planners coming together to make that happen.

Stephanie:

Yes, we did.

Andy:

That's me throwing shade on the local gymnastics program. Sorry about that. That just slipped out. You could tell I'm not handling-

Stephanie:

He's throwing shade at me because I'm the one who coordinated that.

Andy:

You coordinated it. You're like, “Let's kick this off December 22nd. Everybody good? Good. Let's send that out.” My wife is traveling, and so it's just me and the kids, which again, shout out to single parents everywhere, I don't know how you do it. But it's me plus kids plus holiday season. I'll take down the person who puts the kickoff date on the 22nd, which is you.

Stephanie:

Yeah. Things are really good. Getting ready, the kids are excited we're going to go… I've been gone. I've been in Greenville with you for the last week and half. So I am back and the kids are chomping at the bit to go get a tree and make garland start decorating and turning it… As always, they're hoping for a white Christmas. So the energy level is high over here. How are things with you guys?

Andy:

They're pretty good. My kids' drama class goes today, and so they're doing their stuff, and it was very encouraging for them. But I also had the thought this morning, I was like, “I'm taking time off of work for this.” And so no pressure, but-

Stephanie:

No pressure but make this an Oscar-worthy performance, please.

Andy:

… if I don't cry, I'm going to be disappointed. Dad's a very busy man, and I made time on my schedule for you, and so I want you to bring the drama. That's not true. That's terrible. I would never think that. That's not what I thought this morning.

Stephanie:

Speaking of drama, we have a question from the mailbag about how to avoid drama, kind of. We got a great submission from a vet tech student who sent us an email because they are about halfway through their program and they are about to start their first externship. The program that they're in has two… They have to do two separate externships at two different locations, which I think is wonderful because we all know that every vet clinic is run differently, and so getting some perspective is great.

Stephanie:

This veterinary technician student is wondering, “When I start applying for my externships, how do I know if it is a hospital or a clinic that I should stay away from? And conversely, how do I know if it really is a good fit for me?” And they said, “I know that there are certain things that I don't agree with. Like I wouldn't want to work in a practice that did declaws or ear crops because those are old deal breakers for me from an ethical level.” And they also said the another big red flag for them would be like convenience euthanasia.

Stephanie:

So, they feel like they have an ethical foundation from the level of care. But beyond that, they are wondering, “How do I make decisions about whether it would be a good fit in terms of the general work environment, how the team gets along with each other?” I would probably say the level of medicine. There might be strong things from an ethical standpoint perspective that seem like deal breakers, but what about the other things as somebody is trying to figure out what is important to them?

Stephanie:

And they were saying, “I've heard a lot of discussion in different veterinary groups about toxic work environments, and I definitely want to avoid that if all possible.” So they were asking, are there ways to tell whether this feels like it would be a good fit for me and whether the team actually gets along?

Andy:

All right. I like this question.

Stephanie:

Me too.

Andy:

So let's go ahead and start with some head space. So this is just for anyone who's looking for a job. And so we'll talk about this technician, but I just want to talk about anyone who's looking for a job. I think we can speak in that broad sweeping sense, and I think it would be really useful. So let's do that. Headspace for me, the first thing to do is get into an abundance mentality. I see a lot of people who are like, “I don't want to screw this up. I don't want to work in a terrible place. I don't want to get taken advantage of.”

Andy:

And I go, “Obviously, those things are true. At the same time, I think you are going to be happier and going to do a better job of interviewing if you go in with an open heart and an open mind, and you say, ‘Is this going to be a great opportunity for me? Am I going to get to grow here? Is this going to be challenging? Is it going to be interesting?' I want to find a great place. I want to find a place that's going to really let me discover myself and discover my skills and spread my wings.”

Andy:

And that may sound, I don't know, it may sound sort of flighty, but I really do think that you can either go into a job search thinking, “I don't want to get taken advantage of, I don't want to get screwed over,” or you can go in and think, “Hey, this is an opportunity for me to do new things and to be challenged and, I don't know, to find something exciting for me to do with my time.” And I think if you take that second view, you'll enjoy the search more. And also, I find that it really helps me picture myself there and, I don't know, just end up with the job that's going to let me grow.

Andy:

As opposed to like, “This job seemed the least like to rip me off”-

Stephanie:

To be painful.

Andy:

“…to take advantage of me.” Yeah. And again, I don't know if that makes a lot of sense to a lot of people, but it's just something that I see a lot as far as people going in.

Stephanie:

No, I think it's really true. I think that when we're looking at finding a position, it's very easy to get on the far ends of the spectrum either way, whether you're looking at it from a time-bound perspective of like, “I have to find the perfect place because how great would it be if my externship became my forever job?” The chances of that happening are like lightning striking. So stop thinking about it like that and then start thinking about it from the perspective of dating.

Stephanie:

There are some people who meet someone when they first start dating in high school and they stay together for the rest of their lives. Those stories are few and far between. The reality is, for most of us, we've got to kiss a lot of frogs to find the prince or princess. So it's about figuring out experience and perspective. And I think that those two things are really, really important when we look at, “How am I going to find a job? Or how am I going to find an externship?” Don't think about it and limit yourself to, this has to be the be-all, end-all.

Stephanie:

The point, the whole point of an extern program is so that you get experience, and so that you can see the very, very concrete true, which is that every vet hospital in the world operates just slightly differently. They're not alike, they're all different, and there's all different shades of the rainbow, and it's worth spending your time to see what those different shades are to be able to give yourself that perspective of what might be the right fit for me long term.

Andy:

My wife and I get together every year. We get together more than that, but specifically for this purpose, we come together for a meeting once a year and we talk about the kids' school. And like many parents, we are stressed out and being like, “Did we put our kids in the right place? Are they in the right school?” Blah, blah, blah, blah. And you're like, “What if the teacher that they get next year is not a good teacher or the best?” And you can go down these rabbit holes. What was the most comforting thing for me in this phase of my life is getting together with my wife and saying, “How did last year go? Are we going to do another year where we are or are we going to do something different?”

Andy:

And the reason that was super useful is because it takes so much stress off of you of like, “Did we do the perfect right thing for our kids seven years ago when we enrolled them into the first year of elementary school?” And you go, “This is lunacy. You don't have this type of crystal ball insight.” And I'm bringing this up because that freedom should also come to you when you look at your job. And I think one of the reasons that people get this scarcity mentality of, “I can't get taken advantage of,” is because for whatever reason, they're like, “I can't leave. If I'm there, then I'm tied to this place.”

Andy:

And it's like, no, you're not. And if you just go ahead and embrace that, everything else gets so much easier. You are not signing a lifetime contract. You're not in the NBA where you're doing an eight-year deal, that's not happening. All that you are deciding is what you're going to do next. We all know people who took terrible jobs and they survived them, and they left them and they went somewhere else. And honestly, they probably were wiser for the experience and better able to spot those things. Some of the best practice owners that I know were people who had a horrible job and was like, “I learned exactly what it means working at a horrible place and I built a place that was meant to not be that, and it turned out pretty great.”

Andy:

I go, “Yes.” And so I know that's a bit of a philosophical view, but I think it's really important. You are not interviewing for the rest of your life. Our friend who's writing to us is interviewing for the next thing that she or he is going to do. And then they're going to get there and they're going to see what they think, and in a year or so, they're going to look around and say, “Do I want to keep doing this or do I want to go do something else?” And if you just take that mentality, it lowers the stakes to the point that it's not so scary.

Andy:

And I think that allows you to have that abundance mentality of, “What if this is really great?” I like your analogy of a relationship, dating. And I talk a lot about that when I start talking to people about taking a job. Because work relationships are just relationships. And so you're going to go and you're going to do this thing. It's easy to tell yourself stories about what dating is going to be like or what prince charming is going to be like. It's not healthy to go into a relationship being like, “I do not want to get taken advantage of.”

Andy:

That's not a good head space to start a relationship with. It's also not a good head space to go in with rose colored classes like, “Oh, this person, I am determined that they are amazing.” It's also not good to go into a relationship with these ridiculous expectations of what this other person is going to be. It's funny because you look at people, whether they're techs or vets and they come out and they're like, “Well, they're going to practice this kind of medicine and they're going to do this kind of thing. And they're going to offer these kinds of services. And this is what's going to be in the exam rooms.”

Andy:

And it's being like, “I'm going to meet somebody and she's going to be beautiful, but not too beautiful because then I'll be nervous, but she is going to be smart, but not so smart that she's intimidating, but smart enough that we can have really good conversations. She's probably going to volunteer. I don't know, Meals on Wheels, Soup Kitchen, something like that.” And we lay down all these things that this person is going to do. You're laughing.

Stephanie:

It's true.

Andy:

But the analogy is true with vet medicine. And people are like, “Okay, so they're going to do these things and they're going to have… It's going to have at least four vets, so at least four vets. I'd like them to be AHA certified. I'd like for them to have CE opportunities, but not things that I'm required to do, but things that I can do.” That may sound absurd, 100%, I hear people talking and thinking to that level. I like that our person wrote and says, “These are some lines in the sand for me.”

Andy:

And you should have lines in the sand, just like you should have lines in the sand for your dating, where you're like, “These are people that I just fundamentally know it's not going to work for me. This is a moral thing for me, and I'm not going to be with someone who's on the other side of that.” Totally fine. But you want to know what those lines are and then not race to draw a million new lines, just in case. You want to say, “What is truly important?”

Stephanie:

I love what you were saying about the things that you want, because I do think that that's important. I think that all of us probably have some of those lines in the sand things that we can think about. I know I do when it comes to the level of medicine and the way that the team works. Those things for most of us are a very small handful of the things, and I could probably count it on one hand, like my deal breakers. Beyond that, there is a big old list of things that I could sort into would be nice to have, really want to have, kind of a deal breaker, but not 100% a deal breaker, maybe I could figure out how to work a little differently.

Stephanie:

And I think that for me, the most important head space thing, when I think about interviewing whether it's for an externship or for a job, is that this is a relationship, to your point, and this is a two way street. Just like I expect them to interview me and ask question to get to know me and how I might fit in their practice, this is absolutely my chance to interview them. And I feel like so many of us look that gift to us in the mouth and do ourselves a disservice in an interview and not ask enough questions about what you're looking for and what feels right for you.

Stephanie:

And so from a head space perspective, that's my big thing, is, this is a two way street. You should be interviewing them as much as they are interviewing you.

Andy:

This is a real relationship, not an episode of The Bachelor where you're like, “I hope he picks me. The other girls, they're all so pretty, but really, if he gives me the rose, I'm going to… ” No, this is this nonsense. It is a real relationship. Hey, I have things that I'm interested in and things that I would be excited about doing, and I have needs that I need to have met, and I know that you are going to have needs and interest that may line up with mine and they may not, and there'll be some overlap in some areas and not in other areas. But I'm going to clearly communicate to you what's important to me and we're going to have an ongoing dialogue, and we're going to keep this relationship going as long as it works for both of us.

Andy:

And I think that that is the healthiest mindset to go into your job with, is, “Hey, I want to have a good relationship and I be reliable. Also, I have needs that need to be met and I know you do as well, and we're going to work through them together. I'm not going to disappear at the first sign of trouble, but I am going to communicate to you what I need and where I am, and I hope that you'll do the same for me.”

Stephanie:

I would say if you were listening to this and you are in a position where you interview people, whether it's for an externship or jobs in your clinic, that is one of my must-ask questions as an interviewer, is, “When you think about your next work environment, tell me what your deal breakers are.” I want to know what those things are. If I have someone who's interviewing for a job and convenience euthanasia is a deal breaker for them, and my clinic, for the most part, doesn't do convenience euthanasia, except for when something falls into this framework…

Stephanie:

Like a lot of clinics are like, “Look, we don't do convenience euthanasia, but if a pet attacks a child in the home, for example, we might be willing to make an exception to that rule.” All of us have whatever those things are. If I'm interviewing someone and they tell me that that is a deal breaker for them, I want to have the opportunity to explore that further with them during the course of the interview, because the last thing I want is them showing up for their first day and that situation coming up where the exception is going to be made to the rule, and they lose their mind in front of the team or in front of a client, or both because I didn't tell them that at the interview process.

Stephanie:

So that is actually on my list of questions, one of my favorites, is I want to know, “What are some of the deal breakers for you?”

Andy:

I think there's an odd thing that happens in the training in vet medicine, and here's why. Well, I think we have very good training institutions, whether it's vet school or tech school, and they do teach the gold standard of care. I think when you get into actual practice, not all of us get the chance to just live in the gold standard of care. I'm not talking about convenience euthanasia, I'm talking about things like pain control or things like that. And I think that a lot of times when you're educating people, it's nice to live in absolutes. And you say, “This is the best medicine. This is the protocol, and this is the thing.”

Andy:

And so I do think it's a shock for some people sometimes when they come out and go, “Oh, this is not the way we learned in school.” There's a spectrum of that. And we're talking more and more about a spectrum of care, which I think is good. I like that term, I like that we're talking more about that. I always challenge young people and say, “I want you to really think about what the lines in the sand are. What would you be open to learning more about and exploring?” And also, here's the other thing too, just like in relationships, we all grow and we change and we evolve.

Andy:

And there are things like, she mentions ear crops and declaws. When I started in practice 10 years ago, 12 years ago, they were a lot more common than they are today. And a lot of it was just how we were educated and things like that. I got in, I saw some of these procedures done and that's when I realized, “I don't like this.” I had to see it before, I was like, “Oh.” And then the more research comes out and my position solidifies and changes, and I think that's true for a lot of us. So just because you don't say something is a deal breaker at the beginning doesn't mean that your thoughts on it won't evolve.

Andy:

I just say that because I think a lot of people, for whatever reason, they seem to come in and they're like, “I need to decide now that all of these things are what's acceptable to me. And If I don't decide them now, then I can't pick them up later on. I've told them I'm okay with this.” And I go, “That's just not how a relationship works.” At some point you go, “It wasn't a big deal for me when I was 23 years old, but it is a big deal for me now that I'm 30. I'm not with this anymore.”

Andy:

It's not wrong. That's fine. It's all about lowering stakes. The last thing I want to put in people's minds for perspective is to say balance rules the day. And I think that's just good to know, is, the exception to a relationship rule is this, I guess in some ways, when I go into a relationship, it's you and me and we work out these things. I think it's important coming in and interviewing a practice to realize that it's the manager's job or the practice owner's job to balance the needs of the people that they're dealing with, to balance their relationships. So maybe that way is still the same.

Andy:

I know that my needs have to be balanced against the needs of all the other associate doctors, and also against needs of the pet owners, and also against the needs of the practice, and possibly the needs of the corporation. All those things have to come into play. It's just better for me to go in and say, “How do these things get balanced? And what does that look like?” And I'm not going to take it personally if I say, “Hey, this is the type of schedule that I would like to have.” And you go, “Well, I don't know that we can do that for you because we have these other protocols or we've come up with this system to try to be fair to everyone.” I think we should accept that.

Andy:

And just remember that we go in, it's not about what I want and what you want, it really is about, “How do I interface with the balance that this practice has going on?”

Stephanie:

And I think the last thing for me from a headspace perspective is, don't go into an interview thinking that this has to be a marriage proposal. The whole point of an interview is to find out more information. And so this is the opportunity to be in that creative, flexible headspace of asking the questions that are going to give you the information to help you make your decisions. And so to that end, I would say to this student, especially, when you're interviewing, take notes. Make note whether you do it mentally or you actually write the things down. The whole point is, you're trying to gather more information to decide, “Do I want to go on a second date?”

Stephanie:

And if the answer is no, that's okay. I have gone on interviews where before the interview is even over, thought, “This is not the place for me.” And that's okay, there's nothing wrong with that and there's nothing wrong with saying, “Thank you for the opportunity, I don't feel like this is the best fit for me at this time.” Same for the practice. I've interviewed people who I thought you would make an exceptional team member or employee, not at my practice, not at this stage of the game. And so, don't go into it thinking like, “I have to go all in on this one experience.” The whole point is that you're asking the questions to help get you the information to help you make a better decision.

Andy:

Yeah, I agree. Let's take a break and let's get into the action steps to make it happen.

Stephanie:

Sounds good.

Stephanie:

Hey, everybody, it's Stephanie. I just have to break in here for one second and make sure that about an awesome opportunity that is coming up, that we do not want you to miss. We are back. We are back in-person in April in Greenville. That's right, our flagship conference in Greenville, South Carolina is happening in person for the first time in three years, and we are so, so excited to be back with you guys. It is happening April 21st to the 23rd. So put that on your calendar now. And if you head over to the website at unchartedvet.com/april, you can find all of the details as we sort them out.

Stephanie:

You will get to see the schedule as soon as we have it, you will get to see information on the speakers. We've got an event FAQ. You can shop our Uncharted gear. We've got safety information if you're wondering about being back in-person. So if this sounds like something, you would be interested in head over to the website at unchartedvet.com/april and reserve your spot. This event will sell out, we cannot wait to see you. So don't wait to put this on your calendar. You do have to be an Uncharted member to attend. You can find out all the details at the website. We'll see you soon. Now, back to the podcast.

Andy:

All right. Let's start to unpack action steps here for our job seeker. We talked about knowing your deal breakers. That was our first step is, are there things that you are not on board with? Clear is kind, it is better to be up front. I think you made a great point about some people are like, “Pick me, pick me.” They're applying to try to get the job instead of going and interviewing to see if this job is a good fit for them, is this a job that I want to have? The power dynamics are fairly even, actually they may be tipped in the favor of the person of the job seeker, because hey, skilled labor is hard to find.

Andy:

You should go and you should think about what's important to you and you are going to have those ideas in your mind of, what are you up for and what are you not up for?

Stephanie:

Yeah. I think the next thing for me from an action step perspective is that there's so much in veterinary medicine that you can't know until you experience it. And you don't know what you don't know. So you can do the best job possible prepping for what might be the case when you interview someone. And when you come to work and you show up and start working with that team, it may not be what you thought it was or thought it was going to be. And that's okay. And so I think that that's important to me is, you won't know until you actually experience it.

Stephanie:

And sometimes you experience it and you're like, “Yes, and this is even better and now I'm learning about all of these things.” And also sometimes it may not be what you thought it was at all, or those things might come up that you're like, “I didn't know that this was a thing that I needed to think about and now I have this information.” I think that's where a lot of us struggle is feeling like we've committed to something and we've committed to it for the rest of our lives. And to your point, this is just the next step and it is okay to change your mind, whether it's because you don't feel like it's a good fit or maybe the type of now that you're into it, the way that they're doing something medicine wise is a struggle for you.

Stephanie:

And I would say, it doesn't mean you have to, again, it's not all or nothing. If there's something that you didn't know and now you found out, get curious about it and ask them questions and say, “Well, why do you guys do it this way? Why is this your process? Why are you running anesthesia this way? I'd just love to know more.” Because the nice part is for our writer, they're a student, the whole point is that they're supposed to be learning. So take this as an opportunity to get curious and ask the better questions so that either you can continue to make it the best possible experience for yourself where you're at or in your next experience, now you know something that you didn't know before, and you can add it to your list of things to ask about ahead of time.

Andy:

Yep. I agree. Every practices got quirks. There always going to be oddities, there's always these weird things that every team or practice does. You don't know what you don't know and that's okay, you're just trying to make the best choice about what you're going to do next. I think, again, let's go back to our relationship metaphor. If you were dating somebody and they were like, “Hey, we've been on a couple days, this is really not working for me,” wouldn't you rather just say that after two or three dates than to go on and just and just go farther down this road? It's like, “Look, if this is not going to work, I would rather go ahead and know it, or at least know where we stand early on rather than later.”

Andy:

So again, clear is kind, it's not failure to take a job and go, “This is not what I thought it was going to be.” I think you and I did an episode a while back something like, “Why do I feel guilty when I leave?” And it was people who really struggled with the guilt of leaving a practice. And if you're wrestling with that of like, “Hey, I took this job and now it's not what I want anymore. Or it was when I started and now it's not,” check that episode out there. You shouldn't feel guilty. You should just be honest about what you want and what you need and communicate that. And then go on.

Andy:

One of the action steps for me that I put forward, especially given this is someone in tech school, or if we were talking people coming out of vet school, don't buy into the shiny hype. And best medicine is not always the best practice, and it's not always the best practice for you. That is very true. And I think that there's a bias, again, towards we go to vet school, and that's my own experience, you go to vet school and you're in a university setting and you're surrounded by specialists and all of these shiny things. And there's CT scanners and there's an MRI and there's all sorts of different things.

Andy:

And then you go to a practice and the practice that looks most like the vet school that you went to, you think that's the best practice. They have the shiniest widgets and gadgets. And I just want to tell people very clearly that widgets and gadgets do not translate to happiness for you. They don't. There are lots of places I know that are very upscale, they have the best things and they're toxic and you don't want to be there. And they have a huge turnover. It is not a fun, nice place to be. And you look at it and you go, “But surely, they're successful because they have all of these things. They wouldn't be able to have these things if they weren't a great practice.”

Andy:

And I'll say, “I can tell you that is not true in the modern day and age.” And things change, but just don't buy hype of, “If I go here and they have the bells and the whistles and the toys, this is the “best” practice.” And I will tell you, I have been so lucky to work at great practices, and one of my favorite jobs that I really loved was in a dump. It was a dumpy building and it was not nicest bells and whistles, but God, I had fun and I love those people. And it was just, “Oh, it was such a great job.” And again, I've been lucky to have a lot of great jobs, but it does not correlate to the best equipment makes the best place. And I think a lot of people fall for that.

Andy:

So just put that into your mind, you're looking for the thing that makes you feel good and you feel special.

Stephanie:

Well, and I will tell you, I think when you said that about your practice, it made me laugh because I think that's true and I think that when I think about all the different practices that I've worked in and add, even in the shiniest, prettiest, newest facility, there's always something held together with duct tape. And the reality is there is always a building improvement that needs to be done, or literally a piece of equipment that is held together with duct tape. The question for you as someone checking out a practice is, what is that thing or things that are held together with duct tape? And is it okay because it's just cosmetic or is the team literally the thing that is held together with duct tape? And that is because it's toxic AF and that's not where you want to be.

Stephanie:

And so for me, that's what the interview process is really about is recognizing that there's no perfect shining Cinderella, it doesn't happen. Every practice, even the pretty ones have something that's held together with duct tape. And that's for me, why I love that interview process, because it's the opportunity for you to get real and figure out what that is. And I will tell you, if you were a manager or a practice owner and you are interviewing people and you are not being honest about what your duct tape thing is, you're really missing an opportunity to be real because I want people…

Stephanie:

I had a professor when I was taking business classes who taught a class about interviewing. And one of the most important lessons that I learned from him is he said, “I want people to go through a two or three round interview process. And I would far rather have them walk away and say, ‘This is not the right fit for me,' than take a job and have it be under false pretenses.” And that really stuck with me and it changed the way on a fundamental level that I interview because I really truly believe that. I want the interview process to be a chance for me to yes, impress people and talk about the things that we do really well, and also be honest about where our duct date places are.

Stephanie:

It's letting them see with a little bit of vulnerability who we are, and I don't want a student coming in to my hospital for an externship if I don't have a mentorship program that meets their needs. I would rather have a conversation and do the interview and find out what's important to them and say, “I can't offer you that,” than to your point, get more than a in and realize that this is not a fit.

Andy:

Well, yeah. There are two stories off of that. Zappos was famous for offering employees thousands of dollars to leave.

Stephanie:

To not take the job.

Andy:

Yeah. To not take the job. They're like, “You don't have the job? Well, I'll give you X number.” I think it was like four or $5,000. It was a chunk change. And they're like, “We'll give $5,000, if you don't take this job.” And I'm like, “Wow, that's a classic business story,” but that's about being serious about people who want to be there in the fit. The other part of it is, you talk about status symbols and signs of success, the practice owner, who looks at you as a new person coming into interview and says, “You can go anywhere. You can ask anybody anything, make yourself at home. This is what it is.”

Andy:

That's a flex. That's a real flex of being like, “This is what we are, and I'm not going to hide anything from you. I'm proud of the practice that we have.” And it's also enlightenment to say, “I know that there are going to be things that are not going to be the way that you think that they should be done or whatever. I'd rather you just know those now.” And I've totally been on those job interviews where they say, “Look around, make yourself at home, asking questions you want. Talk to me, anybody you want.” And I really think people who don't allow you to do that, I think that should be a flag of like, “Hey, I'm having a real hard time getting away from this manager. He seems to be attached to me wherever I go.”

Andy:

Those are things that I look for. How do you know what the things are, where the duct tape is? There's a couple things for me. One of them is, and I can't believe we haven't really brought this up before now, but reputation. Reputation is important and it is a small profession. And one of the things that I always recommend for people is you should do your homework before you go in. It's like going on a date, if you're going to go on a date with somebody, you know people who know that person. And so maybe asking them what they think before you go on the date, that might be a smart idea. Just say, “What's your impression?”

Andy:

You say, “Well, I'm going to a place and I don't know anybody.” Well, I'd say to you, you know farmer reps, you know food reps, you know suppliers, Jim Patterson, MWI, those guys. Those people are in the practices and they know people and you can go to your own, say he's a [inaudible 00:37:28] rep or Hill's rep or whatever and say, “Hey, I'm moving to this area. I'm looking to this. Do you have a rep in that area who knows the practices?” And they'll generally say yes and you say, “Can I talk to that person?” And they'll generally say, “Yes.” And then you can just say, “Hey, I'm looking at some practices, what do you think?”

Andy:

And they'll obviously be cagey because these are customers, but you may be able to get some insight there, or you can say to them, “Hey, I'm going to this area, are there practices you would really recommend?” And again, just gathering that information is really useful. It is a small profession, you know someone who knows what a reputation is. Again, just like a relationship, it's worth looking into, even if you don't put more weight on it than that. The big things I like to ask when I get there, we'll talk about when you go in, again, I'm looking for duct tape and some things that I use to look for duct tape is I talk to people in the practice and I say, whether they're text or doctors or whatever, I try to talk to everybody and I'll ask them again, “How long have you worked here?”

Andy:

And I say that because I'm looking for staff retention. And if I go to some places and they say three years, two years, one year, six months, three months, I go, “Oh, it's interesting. It's a young staff.” And again, sometimes these things just happen, but it registers with me when I go to a place and I hear seven years, six years, 12 years, nine years, I go, “Oh, you guys hang around here.” And so again, it's not be-all-end-all, but that's the question I like to ask. And again, I ask across the practice because I'm just generally looking for trends, I'm looking for patterns.

Stephanie:

And that's a great example. For me in my practice, most recent practice, that was a great example of a duct tape for us. We live in a military town and I have frequent turnover in my team. Not because there was anything culturally wrong with the team, they loved working and we had frequent turnover. And that was part of the discussion with candidates when they were coming in is, “We have change amongst our team on a regular basis because we are employing military partner, spouses, whatever. And are you someone who is okay with a consistently changing team?” Because that is a piece of duct tape for us, and if someone if they wanted consistency, if they wanted to go to the team where the faces and the people don't change very often, we probably would not be a good fit for them.

Stephanie:

And so that is part of my process is talking about that and talking about how do they adapt to change? How do they like to get to know people on the team? Because the reality is, they're probably going to have to get to know new people because someone's always going to be getting relocated or shipped out. So that's a great example for me of one of those things as a manager, I could have let that be something that I didn't speak to, but it made it better in the long run for me to be honest about that, say this is a real thing.

Andy:

It's like in the movie, 8 Mile when Eminem rapped about himself and all the problems that he had, and then Papa Doc didn't have anything to rap about Eminem with, that's what you did. That's exactly what you did. You're Eminem from 8 Mile. I love it. It all makes sense now. Stephanie's fallen backwards away from the microphone, so I get to talk more.

Stephanie:

Oh God, how do we recover from that?

Andy:

Yeah. We just move on. We just put this down.

Stephanie:

Reel it back in.

Andy:

We just put this down and move on.

Stephanie:

Yeah. Reel it back it.

Andy:

Reel it back it. All right. Another thing we should ask, I like to ask people, what is the best part of working here? What do you like the most about working here? And the reason I ask them that is because then they are much more likely to answer my second question, which is, what is the worst part about working here? What do you like the least? I have found that if I don't let people say what they really love, then they are very hesitant to say what they don't love. Honestly, that's a tainted view anyway. So give me the best part and give me the worst part. And I'll ask people feel like they're treating their employer fairly if they say, “I told you what was great and now I'm telling you my least favorite part.”

Stephanie:

And I would say that question splits into even more so for me with an extern or a student, which is that I also want you to ask, what is the best part of your job? What is the least, what is the thing that you like the least about your job? Because as being an extern and going into the field, trying to become a veterinary technician, you should not only be wanting to know about the company, but here's a great opportunity to pick people's brains and find out the nitty-gritty realities of the actual job itself. And I think that for a lot of us, when we got into the field, we romanticized a little bit what it might be.

Stephanie:

And to your point earlier, Andy, about you go to vet school and you're in this ivory tower medicine, and then you get out into real practice and then you find out, “Oh, maybe this job is a lot different than I actually thought that it was.” And I have experienced that a lot with vet's students is like the reality of day to day in veterinary practice is not necessarily the picture that they had in their head. And so I think that those are two great questions and I would sub-divide it as well, especially if a manager offers you the opportunity to talk to the team, ask them what do they love about their job and also what is the biggest challenge about their job.

Andy:

Yeah. I think that's really good. They're also just a good question to have in your back pocket, and then also I'll be done with the interview questions, but a nice question to have in your back pocket is, “If you were me, what questions would you be asking?” That's just a good one. That's just a good one, just a float to people and just see what they say. I found that people in vet medicine are generally painfully honest to a fault. And that's great. So if you say, “If you're me, what questions do they ask?” And they will say something like, “I might ask about what pain protocols we follow,” if that's a thing for them. Then sure I can ask that question and just see what I think and make my own decision.

Andy:

Anyway, those are some simple questions to help me find duct tape, is just I'm looking for like, what is the downside? And again, there's always duct tape. There just always is.

Stephanie:

There are three other questions that I would ask, two that are culture related and then one specific to being an external or a new student, in particular coming into a practice. So one is, what's the biggest reward of this job, because that's that says a lot, I think, both about the people that you're talking to, like what do they value and where do they get their job satisfaction from? But also in terms of learning about the job itself and also what is the biggest reward working for this company? Why do people feel appreciated? I feel like is the answer that comes out a lot in asking that question.

Stephanie:

And I think that those are two that are really good, in particular, this student who wrote in was asking, how do I spot the toxic environment? Ask them what reward they get working for the company. If they can't think of any really good examples for you, it's probably a sign. If they're working in a really rewarding environment, they should be able to tell you why they feel that way. And then the last thing from a student perspective that I'll say is super, super helpful, if you are new to a position or a role or you're interviewing for something that would be a new position or role for you, is asking, tell me about your onboarding process for this position.

Stephanie:

You want to know what is their training and onboarding process like, are you to get one day with somebody and then you are going to get let loose? What is their expectation for timing and for training? Because as a student extern, that is a huge part of the process. And I will tell you, I don't want to throw some of my fellow a manager's under the bus, but I'm going to, a lot of them will work with schools to have an external program because they are trying to find new employees, which in and of itself is not bad. And a lot of them do not have an actual plan in place to support those team members when they get there.

Stephanie:

And so knowing if you are someone who's like, “I want to try and learn all of the skills and I want to have a buddy and I'm envisioning sitting down at the end of the day and debriefing and getting to ask questions to somebody,” if that's the picture you have in your head, you need to be able to figure out if that is something that this practice is going to be able to offer you or not. And so asking them that wide open question of, “Tell me what your training and onboarding process looks like,” and then drilling down on that, “Well, tell me more, tell me more about that,” to get more information, invaluable question to ask.

Andy:

Yeah. I really like that a lot. I guess the only thing I was going to say was spend time if you can, “Can I shadow? Can I stop back in? Can I come for a visit and just hang around and get to see how things work here?” I always say that to young vets, in this case we got an externship, you've got some good time to be there, but there's nothing as good as just watching a team work and hanging her out and trying to be a wallflower and just watch what happens. But you're looking for culture, you're looking for, how do these people communicate? What's the stress level like here? Are people relaxed? Are they happy? Do they laugh or do they not? Are they uptight? Do people raise their voices to each other? Are they snapping at each other? Things like that.

Andy:

If you can, and generally manager will try to push you away from it, but if you can come on Mondays or Fridays, that's when I like to go, because that's when things are generally pretty stressful. I like seeing at their worst, and if they're worst is not very bad, then I'm pretty happy me about that. That means a lot to me.

Stephanie:

Yes. And I will tell you on the flip side of that, manager friends, I learned to really lean into that towards the end of my career. And I absolutely schedule working interviews for Mondays and Fridays, because if people can see us at the absolute disaster best, then they're going to get a real pick. I don't want them there on the day that is half booked and super slow because yes, they might get to talk to the team more, but they're not going to get a real picture of what the clinic is like. And a lot of times I feel like that's where we do ourselves a disservice as we get people in and we pick a quiet afternoon and then there's nothing really happening and they think, “Oh yeah, this is great.”

Stephanie:

And then they show up to your practice on a double booked Monday morning and they're like, “Oh my God, I can't do this.” Again, this is where you want to convince them not to work there before you actually get invested.

Andy:

Yeah. That makes a ton of sense. It's like an 8 Mile when Eminem has people come to the trailer park to see where he lives and it's like, “Hey, if you can't handle this, then don't come and see me on stage.” And a full circle.

Stephanie:

We've gone full circle. I think that's where we need to leave it.

Andy:

I think we're done. I think the wheels have officially come off.

Stephanie:

Unless you're going to rap a little. All right. I like it. Have a great week everybody.

Andy:

I'm going to lose myself in the music. I'll see you guys next week.

Stephanie:

Well, everybody, that's 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 podcast 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.

What's This Episode About?

This week’s episode is brought to you, ad-free, by our sponsor – Pets Best Pet Health Insurance. This week on the podcast, Dr. Roark and Stephanie have the pleasure of spending some time with their friend, Dr. Peter Weinstein. Our conversation takes a winding path through some timely and relevant topics in veterinary medicine – There is a lot of chatter about money right now in veterinary medicine, in a variety of contexts. We wanted to talk today about where we are when it comes to pet owners paying for services, how to get access to services for more clients and how we communicate with clients about pricing and any financial concerns they have. All of these things are tied to the level of care and service we provide to our patients. Let’s get into this…

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Episode Transcript

Stephanie Goss:

This week's episode is being brought to you by our sponsor, Pets Best Pet Health Insurance. Hey everybody, I am Stephanie Goss and this is another episode of the Uncharted Podcast. Andy and I are having a great conversation today with our dear friend, Dr. Peter Weinstein. For those of you who don't know Peter, he is an author having co-wrote the E-Myth Veterinarian with Michael E. Gerber. He's a veterinarian, he's been a practice owner, he sat on more committees and boards in the veterinary industry than I can count, and as always Peter is willing to share his ideas and thoughts freely with Andy and I.

Stephanie Goss:

And so when Andy and I were thinking about a series of conversations about money in veterinary industry, we could think of no better person to have some of this conversation with than Peter. Because he's got a lot of experience, he's got some unique perspectives, and Andy and I wanted to talk in particular a little bit about where are we at when it comes to pet owners paying for services? Do we really have a problem? If so, what problems do we have? How do we get access to more service for clients? And how do we communicate about pricing? Let's get into it. And now the Uncharted Podcast.

Dr. Andy Roark:

And we are back. It's me Dr. Andy Roark, along with Stephanie Goss, and the one and only Dr. Peter Weinstein. Peter Weinstein, thanks for being here.

Dr. Peter Weinstein:

Dr. Roark it is an honor and pleasure to be able to hang with you, but more importantly it's an honor and a pleasure to hang with Stephanie. So thank you for the invitation.

Stephanie Goss:

Thanks, Peter. It's so good to see your face. How are you doing?

Dr. Peter Weinstein:

I'm doing wonderfully. And of course those people who are listening to this can't see my face, but I'm glad you can.

Dr. Andy Roark:

Yeah. I remember we did a live podcast episode one time in Kansas City, and I was introduced and people were like, “Yay.” And Stephanie was introduced and the place just went bananas and I thought, that's how this is. That's what it is.

Dr. Peter Weinstein:

It's the way it's supposed to be.

Dr. Andy Roark:

It is.

Dr. Peter Weinstein:

The technicians never get the respect that they deserve, and Stephanie got it there and you got dissed.

Dr. Andy Roark:

Stephanie you were never a vet assistant were you? You were always a practice manager, correct?

Stephanie Goss:

No, I started at the front desk and then went to school and became a technician, but I did that about the same time I became a practice manager. I quickly realized that while I really liked nerding out on the medicine, I was really good at working with people, and the business side was really interesting, but I have done both.

Dr. Andy Roark:

Knock me over the feather, that is a part of you I can't believe I didn't know that or I didn't even remember that, that's incredible.

Stephanie Goss:

That's so funny. I thought you were going to tell this story about Kansas City when the lights went out and we were having technical difficulties.

Dr. Andy Roark:

Yeah, that was another one.

Stephanie Goss:

And we just kept going.

Dr. Andy Roark:

Yeah, we were recording a podcast and hundreds of people were watching and then all the lights went out I think it was on a timer and we we're plunged darkness. And I was like, “Just act natural Goss. Just act natural and keep talking.”

Stephanie Goss:

It's perfect for today Friday, it has been a day with technical difficulties, but we are all here and I am excited for this podcast because the three of us are going to nerd out about stuff we like talking about.

Dr. Andy Roark:

We are. I wanted to talk a bit about some, I always like to have these high level conversations, I very much enjoy having with Peter and always with Stephanie, we talk about stuff all the time, but high level conversations. There's a lot of chatter about raising staff pay which is happening and which is good, there is a lot of chatter about keeping vet medicine affordable for people, and that manifests in a lot of different ways. There's talks about pet health equity and things like that, and underserved communities, and also equity and availability to help drive diversity in our very white profession.

Dr. Andy Roark:

And so there's a lot of talk about money and medicine, and I wanted to unpack some of that today because it's hard for me to determine what is real in this conversation and what is hand waving. And so I just want to go ahead and open this up with the question of where are we when it comes to pet owners paying for services? A lot of people say that price is a problem, do you guys think that that's true or do you think that we are just biased towards the bad experiences when we have people who are not able or willing to pay for services? So let's just open with that, do you think that pricing in medicine at present is a real problem?

Dr. Peter Weinstein:

Well, I think that pricing is a problem in everything, and it's the cost of gasoline in Southern California is $2 a gallon less than it is in Texas. So pricing is going to be an issue for somebody somewhere, we've got such a discrepancy in income amongst the American population that within our own practices, we have pet owners with different levels of income. So I'm not sure we can talk about pricing, I'm not even sure we can talk about cost without talking about truly diverse demographics that we serve in all our practices, and trying to be everything to everybody makes it very challenging as well. So affordability, equity, availability, spectrum of care, all of these Pandora box topics I'm not sure we can cover in 45 minutes, or an hour, or even weeks because there are so many variables that you're getting at right now.

Dr. Andy Roark:

No, I agree with that.

Stephanie Goss:

To your point Andy, I think that it is very easy for our teams in particular to latch onto the negative experiences or the bad experiences with clients, right? It's the client who comes in and is ranting at your front desk and shouting at them, literally shouting because they don't want to pay for an exam to get their rabies vaccine. And they're mad that it's costing what is costing to get that, right? Those are the kind of experiences that stick out in our brains, and so it is very easy for the whole team to paint a very broad brushstroke across the client experience when it comes to price and say, “Well, clients are mad about our prices or clients are upset.” Especially when they are living day in and day out with people as a whole that are frustrated with life.

Stephanie Goss:

There's a lot of people that are mad about life right now, and who are tired and exhausted, and the last two years have been crazy for everybody. And so I think to a degree, I think the team's response right now is particularly colored by that maybe more than it has been in the past. And I also think that we are still struggling as an industry to Peter's point, to look at all of the things that make up how do we approach pricing? Because it is so varied, the demographics are varied, the cost factors for individual practices are varied, and we as a industry have really struggled with how do we educate clients on that? How do we explain that? Because the ones who try when we have tried, I know I have done this, I've been in that conversation with a client.

Stephanie Goss:

And I think about it at the end of the conversation and I go, “They didn't care about any of that.” Like I'm trying to explain to them why the fact that we have a $60,000 x-ray machine sitting in our hospital and being used makes the price of their pets exam what it is, right? We've all been there and struggled to communicate to owners why our pricing is the way that it is, and so I think that that is something that we have to deal with, but to Peter's point it is really hard because there's so many factors that complicate the money conversation in veterinary medicine.

Dr. Andy Roark:

Yeah, I agree with that. I think it's very regional, right? I mean, I've worked at some practices where I felt man like I am having money conversations all day, every day, and I've worked at other practices where I go, less so, not zero, but less so. I'm convinced that specialty medicine probably talks less about medicine without money than general practice, and did the general practice money conversations seemed to me to be much lower stress and lower stakes than what the emergency clinics have. And that's just because these people are showing they have an emergency and now they're talking about money as opposed to me saying, “Hey, here's a vaccine that would be good for your pet.”

Dr. Andy Roark:

And they're kind of going, “No, I don't know, or do I really want the flea medicine? My pet doesn't currently have fleas.” That's not how it is in emergency medicine, no one's there for preventive care, they have a pressing need and so those problems are really hard. At the same time Steph so you brought up the $60,000 x-ray machine and stuff like that, I was in the treatment room yesterday and I had this Dalmatian and he was like one year old, ad he was a nut ball. I mean, not bad, I mean he was wound so… You know those dogs that are just like a spring that is way overwound? That was this guy. And it was me, and a technician, and an assistant all just trying to get him to calm down so I could just do a physical exam that wasn't a rodeo.

Dr. Andy Roark:

And so I've got somebody who's helping to hold him, and then someone else who's trying to just talk to him and give him some treats and things like that, and I'm trying to just palpating these abdomen and stuff, and it tied the three of us up for 15 minutes probably, and that's just for the exam. And then by the time we run him back and forth and stuff and you go this pet owner came in for a 30 minute appointment, that's a half an hour of doctor time, it's a half an hour of licensed veterinary technic time, and a half an hour of assistant time. Plus, the front desk person is sitting up front and they're also being paid for their time.

Dr. Andy Roark:

And you go, I don't think that we're wildly overpriced for what people get when you look at the labor that it takes to do our job and do it well, and especially do it in a low stress or minimal stress environment. And so I never handle it well when people are like, “Oh, we charge too much.” I go, “No, I don't believe that we charge too much.” I 100% understand that people can struggle to pay for it, and I'm not saying it's not expensive because it is expensive, but when I look at what we provide I go, well, this does not seem unreasonable for the services that we provide to me at least.

Stephanie Goss:

Yeah.

Dr. Peter Weinstein:

I concur, it's just the perception. I mean, it's all about perception. And if you think about it Andy, if you were to take a $200,000 salary over the year, it's equivalent to $100 an hour, so half an hour of your time would be $50. Your tech time is probably $20 an hour, there's another $10. And then your assistance time might be $15, so maybe it's another $8. So there's $68 for that visit, and I don't know what your office call is, but that doesn't include all the overhead. So the price that the clients see doesn't reflect the cost to deliver those experiences, and what I don't think that we've done a very good job of as a profession is clearly giving a good value for the price and explaining the cost. Probably about 20 years ago out of Tampa Hillsborough County produced a flyer called the Cost of Compassion.

Dr. Peter Weinstein:

I don't know if you remember that, you probably were still nursing. And we haven't done a really good job of self-promoting the value proposition of the veterinary profession globally. We've spent our time pumping vaccinations and selling vaccinations and giving away exams for free, instead of charging for exams and giving vaccinate for free. So we need to be our own best cheerleaders so people truly can understand all of the different services that veterinarians can provide, because think of the convenience by going to your hospital. They don't have to go to another place to get a blood test done, they don't need to go to another place to get a radiographs taken. Can you tell me a doctor Stephanie or Andy where you can go in and get a colonoscopy, a dentistry, go home with a pedicure, a manicure, a bath, and a bag of food all in one location in one day?

Stephanie Goss:

No.

Dr. Andy Roark:

No.

Stephanie Goss:

No. And that's the thing is that when we have those conversations, I've had these conversations with family and I have put it in that frame of reference Peter, and every time it's like the light bulb goes on, but the problem that we have struggled with as an industry is how do we turn that light bulb on for more people more often? Because when people really stop and think about it and understand what we're offering, it's the question of when's the last time you went to your doctor and they recommended blood work or x-rays and you didn't have to go to at least two other places to get that done, right?

Dr. Andy Roark:

Yeah.

Stephanie Goss:

And so when they think about it in their own context for their own health they understand it, but we struggled to help them connect the dots back to this is A, why it's expensive and B, why it might take more time or there might be more steps involved. We have really struggled to connect those dots for people I think.

Dr. Peter Weinstein:

Stephanie one other thing, they can pick up a prescription before they leave and they don't have to go to the drug store as well. I mean, we just have done a really poor job of self-promotion, we really need to put on a cheerleader outfit, and I'm looking forward to seeing Andy in a cheerleader outfit, and start to be a cheerleader for our profession.

Stephanie Goss:

Yeah.

Dr. Andy Roark:

I did an interview with David Besler, and he's one of the co-founders of VEG, the Vet Emergency Group, and I really liked the interview with him and I think he's fascinating. And one of the things that he said, so we're talking about at VEG, they have these policies where it's things like as soon as the pet owner comes in they go straight to see the doctor before they fill out paperwork even, and that blew my mind. I was like how do you even do that? But he said it was important, and what he talked about was he said, in emergency care people are mad a lot of the time, and we talk about everybody being burned out because the clients are mad. And he said, “We do these things that make them angry.

Dr. Andy Roark:

We put barriers in that tick them off, and then we deal with them being ticked off all the time.” And he said, “If we just stop doing these things that make people mad, they're a whole lot easier to deal with.” And I've just been thinking about that a lot, and so let me put this back to you guys and say, are we doing things that just make pet owners mad, or that escalate these situations that we don't need to be doing? To me this feels very much like we don't promote ourselves and let people know what we're doing that's part of it, are there other things we do that unintentionally make the situation worse?

Dr. Peter Weinstein:

Well, depending on your definition of mad, are you talking about from a sanity level or from an anger level?

Dr. Andy Roark:

Raving mads. Frustration level, yeah.

Dr. Peter Weinstein:

All right. Because honestly the last 20 months or so have created a tremendous amount of mental health issues, not just in the veterinary profession, but in the world in general, but we still had issues prior to COVID and we will have issues after COVID because we have put up barriers. We have not made access easy, we haven't communicated clearly, and when somebody answers the phone and says, “Please have $500 ready and available before you come in,” we just set up a barrier to access. So I think part of what we need to recognize in this profession is that we have moved from the healthcare world to the service world, and that we should start to create a service based industry that clearly focuses on the needs of the pet and the pet owner from a service standpoint, and that we provide those services.

Dr. Peter Weinstein:

We need to listen more and talk less, we need to be listening to what our clients want and start to build practices for their needs. And so what VEG is trying to do, and some other companies are trying to do is to meet those needs. We really have not listened to what clients wanted and cost of care, access to care. And access to care isn't just financial, access to care is hours that you're open, locations for practices, it's the time that you're open in a two income community so that people can drop their pets off on their way to work. So again, we have to start to think of us maybe more as a service industry, and less of it as a healthcare industry.

Dr. Andy Roark:

Yeah. No, I like that a lot. I think that one of the things, I completely agree with thinking about the needs of pet owner and can we do that, I think that listening to what they want and what is important to them ideologically is also a place that we need to go. I think so many of us have spent so much time fighting with pet owners about what is important, as opposed to just saying, “Look, they think that this is important.” So I'll use example of nutrition, and they say, I want organic foods, or I want a minimal ingredient foods or things like that. And I go, I can fight with them about it, or I can try to understand why they feel that way, and then talk about our services and the things that we provide, and we recommend in the context of what they care about as opposed to trying to get them to care about what I care about. And I see a lot of people fighting that battle and I go, “God, there's got to be an easier way.”

Stephanie Goss:

One of the things that I think we have always struggled about or struggled with, at least as long as I've been in veterinary medicine, is nobody has enough time. And I don't know how important this factor is, but I noticed a dramatic difference in the ability to lower some of those barriers to Peter's point, and to your point Andy, to have the conversations that exists in a bubble where time exists. And so if I'm trying to do back to back 10 or 15 minute appointments, it is far harder to have a conversation with your one year old Dalmatian pet owner about why you might want to think about lifelong care for this pet, right? To have the nutrition conversations, to have the conversations about pet insurance, or the things that are not a two second blurb out of my mouth, right?

Stephanie Goss:

And so I think that that has been a challenge for a lot of us is that we have struggled particularly during this last two years because we have all been so overwhelmed. And I think we have been seeing more patients, and we've also been really inefficient due to the changes we've had to make in our workflow. Some of us have become more efficient with curbside, but some of us have also become incredibly inefficient, and that impacts the time that we have to have some of these conversations and really figure out how do we lower these barriers for the owners? How do we find out what's important to them? How do we meet their needs? And I think that that's to your point Peter about becoming a service industry, that's a big missed opportunity for a lot of us.

Dr. Peter Weinstein:

So here's a thought, you have 30 minutes if you want to stay on time. Now, I jest in lectures and I ask how many of you would be willing to give away a free office call if you had to make your clients wait 10 minutes or more? And 99% of the people would never do it because they can't stay on time, but you almost have to look at that 30 minutes and break it down to a minute by minute experience. How much of that time has to occur in the exam room? How much of it can be done in YouTube videos that are sent ahead of time? We have this cost of care conversation at the front desk, which is tantamount to having it at a Broadway theater.

Dr. Peter Weinstein:

Where somebody's on the stage wanting to perform, and they happen to be a really pissed off Hamlet or Othello or somebody and they're at the front of the stage wanting to put on a performance for everybody who is sitting in the lobby. Probably the best thing about curbside is taking payment at the car window, and they have to shout through the window, but the bottom line is we could be doing a lot of communication beforehand and afterwards so that there's no surprises. I think the role of the veterinary profession going forward is to be totally transparent and to avoid surprises.

Dr. Peter Weinstein:

Cost of care, I mean, maybe we should start publishing our fee schedules on our websites, and so people can see what the cost of care would be. Why don't we share our financial policies and have clients read them and sign that they've read them ahead of time? I mean, we never talk to a dentist about the cost of care, you never talk to your doctor about the cost of care. When I had Lasik $5,000 for a 15 minute procedure, I never talked to the doctor about the cost of care. It was presented to me well ahead of time, but we get stuck in that conversation.

Dr. Peter Weinstein:

So we really do need to rethink that 30 minutes and how we want to break it down, and really, I mean, if Andy's time is 10 minutes out of that 20, but Stephanie or some other team member could handle the other 20, the clients are going to probably get an even better value proposition because they're getting a full 30 minutes of team time and it's not as doctor centric from that standpoint. And I'm sorry, I went off on a tangent.

Dr. Andy Roark:

No, I think that's totally fine. I thought a lot about increasing transparency in this way, in a lot of human hospitals you go in and they have patient rights and responsibilities. And it used to be, it started off it was a patient bill of rights, and then it generally changed to a patient bill of rights and responsibilities. And I think that that's good, and I hear a lot of us talking about personal boundaries and boundaries in our practice, and clients beating people up. And I go, we should have client rights and responsibilities that say, “This is what you can expect from us. This is how you will be treated, and we will treat you this way. And this is what we expect from you in return, and if this doesn't work for you then you can go somewhere else.”

Dr. Andy Roark:

And I'm a big believer in that, in that empowerment of this is a relationship that we have with clients. And in order for it to be a healthy relationship you have to tell people what to expect, and then you have to deliver what people expect from you. And that's just basic relationship and trust building, but I think it's where we need to go in vet medicine as well. But the whole thing of like, “Hey, pet owner guess what this is costing or guess this is going to go,” that's not healthy. I think our society as a whole is moving much toward more towards, “Hey, here's what it is. You can Google around and find whatever you want to buy costs, and have an idea of what you're walking into.”

Dr. Andy Roark:

It still feels a bit opaque I think when they come into vet medicine, and we all know why that is. It's like when they walk in, I saw a little dog yesterday just in for lethargy and I'm like, “I have no idea what's wrong with that dog before they come into the building.” There's always going to be some of that, but I do think that we can increase some transparency. And if they're going to have a problem with the price, then it's better for everybody if they know it at the very beginning and we can just talk about that. I think people underestimate how much of an extra headache it is to not have money conversations until the end, or to get down this path of we've done these diagnostics and now let's talk about your budget.

Dr. Andy Roark:

It was like well, we should have talked about your budget before we started running that blood work. And so I think that that's the future, to Peter's point I think a lot of transparency there is… When I ask the question of, do we do things that tick pet owners off or that make them mad? I think this is a pretty darn good example of things that we do to make them mad, which is we bury the lead when it comes to talking about money, and then we wonder why tensions are high and they're frustrated. So what do we do about it? So Peter you and I have talked in the past about inefficiencies in practice and ways of becoming more efficient. So inefficiencies, financial vehicles, things like that like I said, I don't believe that vet medicine generally, and this is a broad generalization, I don't believe it's generally overpriced.

Dr. Andy Roark:

I think people get what they pay for whether or not they realize it. I think that that's true, and I think that we can make them realize it, and that's something that we should do. I think that it may be possible, and then this is why I'm really enjoying seeing the spectrum of care discussion bloom, and people start to talk about, “Hey, maybe there's multiple standards of care that are acceptable.” How do we talk about those? How do we present those? How do we get pet owners to see the difference between them? How do we as vets handle there being someone else at a different part of the spectrum of care operating down the road from us? Are we going to be okay with that? Can we be okay with that? I think those are all really fascinating, but as I unpack those things for you guys, what are you looking at as far as paths forward to try to keep that medicine feasible for the majority of pet owners?

Dr. Peter Weinstein:

Well, I think you have two topics that we need to cover. One is the spectrum of care discussion, which is a practice act, state board, delivery of care discussion because that will be an issue in some fashions, and then the transparency on the cost of care discussion. I do think that the spectrum of care isn't important because we were always told to give the gold standard, or the Cadillac standard, or the Tesla standard, whatever you want to call it, and try to talk the client into that standard of care. But I think where we really need to do is one of the most important questions I had on our welcome to the practice forum was where does the pet fit in your household? Where does the pet sleep?

Dr. Peter Weinstein:

Because you've got to understand how important that pet is to the family to most importantly understand where their availability to pay may come in. I think the other thing is as Andy noted, we have the discussion of cost of care after we have created a level of anxiety about the concerns that the pet owner has. Whereas, we really should have, and especially with a new client, before they even come in send them your bill of rights, and send them a financial policy that talks about the variable choices that they may have in how to pay for veterinary services.

Dr. Peter Weinstein:

Whether it is a pet health insurance that they probably never even heard of or knew about, and maybe there are a couple of companies that you suggest that they sign up for and explain that preexisting conditions aren't going to be covered, et cetera. And then maybe some third party options, care credit, et cetera, that could fit into those discussions. Have those discussions ahead of time so that when they come in they can focus on what's best for their pet, and maybe can come in prepared on the financial side of things. So two discussions, one is a clinical discussion, and the other is a financial discussion when it comes down to it.

Dr. Andy Roark:

I think that there's a lot of knobs that we can turn in both of those discussions. I 100% think that there's things that we can do to better communicate, and I think there's efficiencies that we can build in our practice, and we're seeing some of those. I think the pandemic was good in that specific way of pushing us to make some changes, and pushing technology forward in a way that I don't think otherwise would've happened. On the financial side, I mean, there's a pretty good indication that we could significantly increase the number of pet owners that we see that have pet health insurance if we just made clear recommendations and put it in their mind. And so part of it is just making a recommendation and putting it on their radar at the very beginning when it's a low stakes conversation. The other part of it I really think is talking honestly with people about their chosen dog breeds.

Stephanie Goss:

Yes.

Dr. Andy Roark:

I mean, really I saw a new study out just this last week and it was amazing, it was the difference in cancer rates in Boxers versus chihuahuas is amazing, it was amazing. Compared to your average dog, a Chihuahua is 50% less likely to get cancer than your average dog, and your Boxer is a hundred and some percent more likely to get cancer.

Stephanie Goss:

Likely.

Dr. Andy Roark:

Yeah, it really was. The English Cocker Spaniel was the worst dog for getting cancer that was out there. Mixed breeds were less likely to get cancer than pure breads just in general. It's just all these facts I just thought were fascinating, but these are the things that we talk to pet owners about, right? And be like, “Hey, you've got a Boxer we should look at this.” Or every Dachshund puppy I see is an easy conversation about common health problems, and “Hey, if I were you I would take a look at pet health insurance just because these are things we want to look out for.” Westy with allergies, a Cavalier King Charles and heart disease, and just the list goes on and on, on, but just talking to the people about the pet that they have and being like, “Hey, this is a chance to protect yourself from the very outset.” And just I don't think that we talked to them about finance before they need finance, and I think that's a problem.

Stephanie Goss:

Yes, I think that's another example to the earlier point where we as a whole, as an industry really struggle to have that conversation until we're in the thick of it, and that immediately puts up a barrier for clients and pisses them off. Because they're like I've been a client of yours for five years, why didn't you tell me that my Dachshund could need to have surgery with a neurologist because disc problems are real, right? I've watched clinics struggle with that conversation, and it's hard for me, and it always hurts my heart when I hear about friends struggling with that because I'm like, why didn't you have that conversation with them, right? Why didn't the pet insurance conversation be in every single puppy conversation that you had with that owner because we know for a fact that the statistical chance is significantly higher.

Stephanie Goss:

And it may not happen to them, their Boxer might not get cancer, or their Dachshund may not need surgery, but we know the statistics of it, and so it drives me crazy when we as an industry as a whole don't lean in more to some of the practices that our human health care counterparts have done. To Peter's point, we're not doing a great job of sending them the information early and often, we're not having the conversations about how can they pay for pet care? We wait until they ask us, this could be a problem for me how do I deal with it? Versus being proactive, and so I think that it creates incredible opportunity for us.

Dr. Peter Weinstein:

So this is going to be a fairly long-winded answer I believe, so I apologize ahead of time. I've done a talk called creating a user's manual for pets, all right? You buy a car they won't let you drive it off the lot until they teach you how to use all of the features and fancy buttons and everything else. You buy a dryer, washer dryer and it comes with the user's manual. And if something goes wrong it's like what frequently asked questions about a dryer that's not drying or whatever the case may be. We need to create a user's manual for a puppy from womb to tomb, what to expect on a year by year basis and some breed specific testing that you would do so that you can get ahead of the curve for glaucoma, for dry eye, for arthritis.

Dr. Peter Weinstein:

And the focus on breed specific education needs to start at the first puppy visit that says, “God, I'm so glad you got a Cavalier King Charles, I'm going to go put my kids' college tuition in the bank right now because I can guarantee you that between EARS, skin, eyes, and heart, you have just paid for private school.” I mean, correct me I'm wrong, but… Okay, sorry about the sarcasm, but seriously this goes back to the transparency conversation, and let me go retrograde in just a second, why don't pet owners come to the veterinarian and ask which pet should I get? Because it's going to cost me $10,000 for a French Bulldog just to buy it, and another $80,000 just to get it through its first two years of problems that it's got.

Dr. Andy Roark:

And I'll take that back as well to what you were talking about earlier on when you were talking about the YouTube videos and things like that, why don't we have resources that don't involve us spending our time in the exam room? Things like this I think it's a fascinating idea of how do you take this puppy and kitten information and package it up so that you get pets to consume it not during their visit? I think it would be fascinating to get a new puppy or kitten in, and then have an email an series that comes that has once a day here's an email, and here's a link to a short video on one thing. And then here's day two, and here's day three.

Dr. Andy Roark:

And people go, “Well, I mean, they're not going to open all those. They don't look at them.” And I go, “Buddy, they're not listening to 90% of what you say in the exam room right now, at least this way they would have it in the inbox and they would be able to back to it.” And so I'm very bullish on opportunities to do education like that, I think it's fun for me as a vet who likes to teach and it's just interesting, but also I think that we can do real good with it.

Dr. Peter Weinstein:

Yeah. Well, count me in I'm in with you from that standpoint. We have done a lousy job of education at all levels, and I think it's because of time constraints. And we really haven't done a very good job of communicating clearly, and teaching our staff the language of veterinary care. And so I'm going to just do a shout out to AVMA for their language of care study that just came out because there's some great tips and tools on how to better communicate with clients at all different levels, including the cost of care and cost savings issues of those things. So I think it's important to start to shut down our practices for a little bit and learn how to communicate, because this goes back to transparency, it goes back to honesty and trust that we can create by having better communication. And I don't think the cost of care becomes this big an issue when there's trust. Have you read Stephen M. R. Covey The Speed of Trust?

Dr. Andy Roark:

I have not, no. I have not.

Dr. Peter Weinstein:

This is Stephen Covey's son, and basically when people trust you the transactions go much quicker.

Dr. Andy Roark:

Oh, yeah.

Dr. Peter Weinstein:

We need to do a much better job of building trust, and then that 30 minutes becomes 10 minutes because when you tell the client what the needs are, they trust you and you can move forward from that standpoint. So, I mean, we've talked about a heck of a lot of stuff, but honestly it's really all about communication, building trust, and transparency about the value, about the different services that we were there, and also about listening because I don't think we listened to clients enough.

Dr. Andy Roark:

The state motto of North Carolina translates from Latin to be rather than to seem, and I love that, and I think about that a lot to be rather than to seem. I think that it almost feels like sometime we try to present ourselves in a way to entice pet owners, and I'm wondering if we shouldn't be transitioning more towards a matter of fact presentation of this is who we are, and this is what medicine costs, and this is what we do, and this is why we do it. And just being very maybe even a bit more out in the open than we are, and I say that for a couple reasons, right? Number one, I think it increases transparency, which increases trust.

Dr. Andy Roark:

Which is we said this is what we are, we said this is what we do, and now you're here and now this is what we're doing. I think that that does help speed that relationship along, but the other reason to put that stuff out there is… Oh man, now I'm trying to remember what I going to say. Where was I going with this? Oh, no, oh man-

Dr. Peter Weinstein:

It's Friday afternoon.

Dr. Andy Roark:

Put it out there to build trust and transparency, but then also just to let us set boundaries. It takes the load off of our shoulders of trying to be all things to all people, we said, “Hey, this is who we are, this is what we do, and if you don't like that, that's fine.” There was a study that came out recently, it's in a Canadian journal, Canadian Veterinary Journal, and it was talking about the relationship between customer satisfaction and veterinarian mental health. And what it basically said was to some degree, after a certain point the higher the customer satisfaction, the more negative the impact on the veterinarian's mental health. Meaning that if you try to please these people and you do everything in your power to please them, it has a negative effect on you. And I think that that's true, and I think that having a cap of this is who we are, and this is what we do I think that's probably a very healthy thing for us as professionals.

Dr. Peter Weinstein:

Well, you want to talk about transparency, what do clients see in your practice? The parking lot, the waiting room and an exam room. So the value of perception to them is three things, a parking lot, a waiting room, and an exam room. Give them a tour, let them see the technology that you've got within your practice, and maybe they can truly appreciate things from an overhead standpoint as well. And I think that we're talking about access to care and cost of care and the concepts of communication, well, communication starts before they even come in. The client experience starts before the client even comes in, and what about even having a video tour on the website?

Dr. Peter Weinstein:

I love what some of these realtors are doing with these 3D tours of homes, why not do that for your hospital and have that as a welcome. “Hi, I'm Dr. Andy Roark. I'd like to walk you through our hospital right now, just so you can get an idea of all the services and technology that we can provide for you and your pet.” And so even when they come in they have a higher perceived value. I think we just really need to bring that value proposition up as well to go along with this transparency and other conversations.

Stephanie Goss:

So there's some good news, because I feel like all three of us have as we do soap box a little on things that we're doing bad, right? And that we're struggling with as an industry because we have a lot of areas of opportunity. And I feel like this conversation could very easily feel beat up because there's a lot of room for us to grow and improve, but there's really good news because we know that the numbers of pets that are getting help and care have gone up in record numbers over the last two years. And specifically to Peter's point, an area where I think we're succeeding in spite ourselves, there has been statistical information that's out of North American Pet Health Insurance has done a study, they do a state of the industry report, right?

Stephanie Goss:

And we know that pet owners are accessing care at really high rates, we also know they have said to us, pet owners have said 50% of them that they would be more likely to seek out insurance or alternative options like care credit if we talked about it. So they're telling us what they want and it gives us an incredible opportunity to turn around and give them what they want. We can make these changes to your point Andy, doing things like having the simple conversation in the exam room, or to Peter's suggestion, putting educational videos on our website. These are all controllable things that we can fix, and we also know that we're succeeding in spite ourselves because the number of patients and clients that are accessing pet health insurance is going up year over year for the last five years, almost 24%.

Stephanie Goss:

So if we're doing such a horrible job of educating them, which we all anecdotally feel like we are, they're still seeking out things and ways that are helping them access our care which is good news. So I feel like this provides us an incredible opportunity to sit back as a whole, as an industry and think how can we get out of our own way? And how can we stop putting up some of these barriers? How do we make it easier for them to tell us what they want and actually actively listen to your point Andy?

Dr. Peter Weinstein:

Well, and I don't know Andy if you knew that I actually worked for Veterinary Pet Insurance now Nationwide for two years?

Dr. Andy Roark:

I think you had told me that before, it was before I knew you.

Dr. Peter Weinstein:

Well, I think you were still in vet school. So I ran their claims department for two years, so I have an integral understanding of pet health insurance besides having insured my pets even as a veterinarian, and having ensured my employees pets. And I had a breakfast meeting with Jack Stevens many years ago, and we sat down and I said, “Jack, if you could have gone direct to consumer, if you had the budget to do so back in the eighties would you have done so?” And he said, “Absolutely.” He said, “The veterinarians have been greatest barrier to the growth of pet health insurance. The consumers would've bought into it if the veterinarians weren't such a barrier.” And I'm begging my colleagues to get a better understanding of where pet health insurance can fit in to the practices.

Dr. Peter Weinstein:

I know there's tremendous misinformation and disinformation, and if you go online you'll get more negative websites than positives, but from a practice standpoint when I was in practice pet health insurance definitely increased the number of visits that we saw from clients, and their willingness to spend. And I still have my pets insured, so I think we have to do a better job of advocating for pet health insurances as veterinarians, and I think we also need to do at least take a neutral role and not be so negative about it. And have a couple of policies that you've tried for your own pets or for your clients, your employees pets and advocate for those. There's plenty of great resources and plenty of great companies that are out there, do your due diligence and consumers want to hear about it. Who better to hear about it from than you and not Dr. Google?

Dr. Andy Roark:

Yeah. I think this is a good place to wrap this up. I want to leave this with this thought though, and I'm curious if you guys are on board, I am very positive about vet medicine in the future. I mean, you look at the care that we're providing pet owners and how they seek it out and the compliance that is there, our services are in great demand and they're going to continue to be in great demand. And we do work that matters and that people see value in, and I feel like yes, we're working through things and the world is changing around us, but my honest belief in the future is that vet medicine is going to be a great place to be. And again, this is access to care, pricing of care, all the sorts of things.

Dr. Andy Roark:

There are things that we're going to work through, but I think that if we just support pet owners, and take care of our people of our staff, and run healthy businesses, I think that we're going to come out in a very good place doing work that matters and that we enjoy doing. And that's just a sweeping generalization for the profession. I'm still very bullish about where we're going, I think that the pandemic has pushed us forward in a lot of ways that may ultimately end up being very good for us. So do you guys agree with that? Parting thoughts.

Stephanie Goss:

Yes. I'll take a line out of Peter's book and just say yes to all of the above.

Dr. Peter Weinstein:

No, Andy I fully concur. I mean, I think we have a world of opportunity, and I think we need to embrace change and we need to look for ways to continue to improve each day every day and not look back. I think COVID curbside forced a change, and that force worked out okay. Prior to that, nobody wanted to change and guess what? We survived. Okay? So I'm suggesting that if you make a 1% change every day in a positive direction, stop looking through the freaking rear view mirror and look through the windshield and look to improve your practice just 1% every day. I think your practice, and your team, and everybody else will be benefited, and I think the profession will be benefited as well. We've got a great profession, we've got a world of opportunity, we need to get our off the break, put our foot on the gas, look through the windshield and set our own direction going forward and make sure your windshield is completely transparent.

Dr. Andy Roark:

Yeah, that's awesome. Great. Thanks guys.

Stephanie Goss:

I love it.

Dr. Andy Roark:

Hey everybody, you guys have a wonderful day and Stephanie and Peter have a wonderful weekend. I'll see you guys next week.

Stephanie Goss:

You too. Take care guys.

Dr. Peter Weinstein:

Thanks Andy. Bye-bye.

Stephanie Goss:

That's it for or another episode. Thanks so much for joining us this week. I really want to thank our guest Dr. Peter Weinstein, and I especially want to thank Pet's Best Pet Health Insurance for sponsoring this week's episode. Take care of everyone. We'll see you again next time.

What's This Episode About?

This week on the podcast, Dr. Roark and Stephanie tackle a topic from the mailbag. We received an email from Dr. It’s Not the End of the World. They are struggling with a client service representative on the team who seems to catastrophize everything. Every client they speak with seems to be upset about something and yet when the team jumps in to help, the clients seem to simply be in need of help with something. Dr. It’s Not The End of the World wants to know – Isn’t helping clients why we are here? And how do we help this person learn to empathize with clients and de-escalate the client's stress instead of adding their own anxiety to the situation? Let’s get into this…

You can listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Got a question for the mailbag? Submit it here: unchartedvet.com/mailbag

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You don’t want to miss this. Jenn Galvin, practice manager, practice owner, and game-playing aficionado, is leading a workshop on how to engage and have fun with our teams. In a time when clinics are struggling with turnover, burnout, and disengagement, it is time to create a plan that will help you lean into the individuals who make up your team and get some tools that can help you work on keeping them happy! Sunday, Dec 12 from 4-6 pm ET/1-3pm PT, Jenn will lead us in discussion and brainstorming on:
– What employee engagement means for your individual practice
– Simple ways to measure engagement
– How to work through what to do with engagement results to create a response plan that matters
– Ideas for how to reward the team in ways that will result in a more happy and efficient team.

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Episode Transcript

Stephanie Goss:

Hey everybody. I am Stephanie Goss, and this is another episode of the Uncharted Podcast. This week on the podcast, Andy and I are tackling a topic from the mailbag. We got an email from Dr. It's Not the End of the World, and they are struggling with this CSR on their team who seems to catastrophize everything. I felt incredibly seen during this episode because you guys, I've been there. I read this email and I thought, oh my God, is Dr. It's Not The End of the World a fly on the wall at my clinic? Because I have been there more than once, in more than one clinic in this situation. And that is what do you do when you have a CSR who seems to catastrophize everything? Every client that they talk to is angry or upset about something and it always seems to end in chaos because other members of the team have to get involved and try and save the day. And when the other team members get involved, they find that these clients are just fine. They seem to just need help with something which leaves Dr. It's Not The End of the World wanting to know isn't helping clients while we're here. And how do we help the person learn to empathize with our clients and deescalate client stress instead of adding their own concerns and anxiety to the situation. Let's get into this.

Speaker 2:

And now, the Uncharted Podcast.

Dr. Andy Roark:

And we are back. It's me and Stephanie under pressure Goss. Under pressure. [inaudible 00:01:27]

Stephanie Goss:

Oh, that's fantastic. How's it going Andy Roark?

Dr. Andy Roark:

It's great. We're recording this right before Thanksgiving. We just opened up registration for the April Uncharted Veterinary Conference.

Stephanie Goss:

Yes. That's right.

Dr. Andy Roark:

I'm geeking out, geeking out. It's our five-year anniversary.

Stephanie Goss:

I know.

Dr. Andy Roark:

It's our five years of Uncharted. That's amazing.

Stephanie Goss:

I know. It's funny. We actually, I had to ask the question to our team because I was reading through everything for registration and I read it and it was like, this will be our first live event in three years. And I went, “No way. It's only been two years.” Then I had to look at the calendar and count and think, okay, that this really is going into the third year since we've done the thing and that's… It's crazy. It is crazy. It's also crazy to think we've been doing this together for five years. I remember our very first Uncharted like it was yesterday. It does not seem like it has been five years.

Dr. Andy Roark:

You were an attendee, which is great for me because I didn't have to pay for you to be there. You paid me to be there. We should go back to that. That was excellent.

Stephanie Goss:

That is a very true story. I had just joined the team and it was our first live event and we had so so much fun. I remember how anxious and nervous I was heading to Greenville, having started working with you and Jamie and not having met Jamie yet. I was very nervous about that.

Dr. Andy Roark:

It was intimidating. Jamie was intense.

Stephanie Goss:

Oh, it was so good though that we had so, so much fun at that first event. And I am just… I cannot wait to see people in person and…

Dr. Andy Roark:

Yeah. I've been thinking a lot about how we're going to talk about this conference and get people to recognize how awesome it's going to be. And so I have a plan and I just want to do it with you now. I want to do the first ever episode of Uncharted Playhouse. Uncharted Playhouse, a theatrical representation of what it means to come to uncharted and why [inaudible 00:03:32] to come. And so that's what I want to do.

Stephanie Goss:

Oh my God. Shut up. Are you kidding?

Dr. Andy Roark:

I'm not kidding. I have a script right here.

Stephanie Goss:

That you've not shared with me.

Dr. Andy Roark:

No. Well, I only have my half of the script.

Stephanie Goss:

Right, okay.

Dr. Andy Roark:

So you don't have-

Stephanie Goss:

I don't get a script.

Dr. Andy Roark:

I'm going to stick to my script and I just want you to react in character on your side.

Stephanie Goss:

Oh my God.

Dr. Andy Roark:

Okay. You have to stop laughing so we can do this. Are you ready?

Stephanie Goss:

No. Oh dear God.

Dr. Andy Roark:

Welcome to Uncharted Playhouse. Janet, I give so much of myself to the practice. I feel there must be a way for me to work smarter, enjoy practice more, grow our revenue and build an even better workplace culture, but I don't know what it is. Also, I believe my evil twin sister is having an affair with your husband.

Stephanie Goss:

But Dr. Andy, where would you find such a thing?

Dr. Andy Roark:

Do you really think so? Cannot really learn in an act of engaged, collaborative way that is wildly not boring and that will connect me to hundreds of amazing vet business geeks who want to help me succeed?

Stephanie Goss:

None of your sister's husband is leading classes.

Dr. Andy Roark:

I'll do it. I'll become an uncharted member to register now and I'll go to Greenville, South Carolina, April… Was it 22nd through to 24th? Is that what you just…

Stephanie Goss:

[inaudible 00:05:05].

Dr. Andy Roark:

I didn't… I put a blank in the script that I would fill in later. I'll go check that. [inaudible 00:05:16] 22nd to 24th then?

Stephanie Goss:

21st to the 23rd.

Dr. Andy Roark:

Oh go to Greenville, South Carolina, April 21st through the 23rd for an Uncharted Vet Conference. Thank you for all you've done for me, Janet. And I'm sorry about your husband.

Stephanie Goss:

My name's not Janet.

Dr. Andy Roark:

End scene. Nailed it.

Stephanie Goss:

Oh my God. I wish they could see me right now because I am tomato red, dying laughing.

Dr. Andy Roark:

I'll write both half of the script next time. All right, let's get into this [inaudible 00:05:55]

Stephanie Goss:

This is going to be the best Easter egg present that we've ever given Dustin Bays.

Dr. Andy Roark:

I expect high production value on this bit, Dustin.

Stephanie Goss:

Holy guacamole. No, but seriously, we're going to be together in Greenville, South Carolina next week. And it's our first time all being together in ages, and we are going to hang out with practice owners and I cannot wait. I am so excited to see everybody.

Dr. Andy Roark:

Yeah. Me too. The practice [inaudible 00:06:31] so that's going to be great. It's a-

Stephanie Goss:

And it will pump all of us up for April and I can't wait for that.

Dr. Andy Roark:

We're also running our strategic planning for our team, which will pump you and me up for doing some strategic planning workshops in the first of the year as we do.

Stephanie Goss:

Yeah. I am excited. There is lots of good stuff coming. And if you all think you have seen Stephanie turned up to excitement level 10 on the podcast, you have no idea.

Dr. Andy Roark:

Yeah, definitely. I'm looking forward to it. What do we got from… If anyone is still listening, they want us to get into the mailbag and what we're actually doing here.

Stephanie Goss:

Oh my gosh. We have a great one from the mailbag. We got an email from Dr. It's Not the End of the World and it is so fantastic. As I read this, I was like, is this person in my clinic? Because this has been my clinic and I felt seen in this email. So it said, “Hi, Stephanie and Andy. We have our CSR who is constantly catastrophizing everything. Every client that this person speaks to seems to be set about something. And as soon as anybody else talks to the client, it becomes clear that they aren't really upset, they just need help with a problem.” And Dr. It's Not the End of the World is asking isn't that why we're here? And so they said they've tried using scripts to help this receptionist, but if a client is asking questions that require the CSR to go off script, catastrophe tends to ensue. And so it resulted almost every call with a client being escalated to the manager or to a doctor. And it's very inefficient, as you can imagine, and extremely disruptive to everybody's workflow.

Stephanie Goss:

And the CSR is very young. This is one of their first jobs. And so Dr. It's Not the End of the World is wondering, maybe this is due to a lack of experience, both in the veterinary world or the real world, being one of their first jobs, but they're wondering how do we help this person empathize with clients and deescalate the clients' stress instead of adding their own anxiety on top of that? Any advice we could give would be appreciated?

Dr. Andy Roark:

Sure. Well, I think we can definitely tackle that. You want to start with some headspace?

Stephanie Goss:

Oh yeah. It's a good place to start.

Dr. Andy Roark:

The headspace is super important here because this behavior can be really frustrating. I've been this person and I've been very frustrated by this person at different times in my life. It's the little boy who cried wolf, right? At some point you got this person and everything is an emergency or everything is bad. And you either end up spending your life with high cortisol levels because this person has always got really bad things and I think this person is really upset, or you end up just putting yourself in a headspace where you're like, I'm going to ignore this person or everything that they say I'm going to radically discount the importance of…

Dr. Andy Roark:

And you and the person notices that because they think this is a big deal and you just don't seem to have time for them. And what happens is you end up in a place where your employee feels unappreciated, unheard, ignored. Because in their mind, remember people don't base their actions on truth. They base their actions on the perception of the truth, what they believe the truth to be. And so you might be able to have some grading system and you look at this and say, objectively, this is big deal. It doesn't matter. Subjectively to that person, it is a big deal and they have something that's a big deal and their boss, their direct supervisor is completely ignoring them and now you are the jerk boss who ignores your people when they're panicking or when they're “in trouble.” And so I have 100% been flummoxed by this very problem of, I can't emotionally continue to go here. And at the same time, if I don't figure out how to fix this, the person is going to feel very frustrated with me for not taking them seriously.

Stephanie Goss:

I feel even more seen right now because I don't know that I have been this person. I thought about that a lot leading into this, but I, 100%, have been the jerk boss trying to help this person getting frustrated by it and ignoring them and tuning them out for a period of time that a 100% resonated with me because I been there, done that. And it is hard.

Stephanie Goss:

And that, I think you put your finger early on the heart of it for me, which was, I didn't understand how someone could live their life so constantly wrapped up in anxiety because every time I talked to this person and looked at this person, it seems like they were having high cortisol levels because everything was stressing them out. And I looked at that and I was so baffled by how someone could live their life in this state. And I struggled with how to put myself in their shoes. We talk about headspace and that's a part of the headspace process for me is like, what could this person be thinking and feeling and trying to understand? And I will tell you guys, I struggled with that because I was like, I don't understand this. I don't understand it at all. It felt black and white to me. And I know to them, it probably felt black and white and it felt like they're on one side of the Grand Canyon and I was on the other and I had no idea how to cross this. And so to your point, Andy, I just ignored it for a really long time. And that did not go so well for me or for my team or that person.

Dr. Andy Roark:

No. No, it doesn't. So there's three general reasons that you get behaviors like this. And like I said, I'm very familiar with this behavior. I have been this person who has gone through periods of catastrophizing. And I have a 100% been the boss or the vet who works with the person who does this. And it has wildly frustrated me because I'm very goal oriented. And I am very much focus on like, let's not get wound up if we don't need to get wound up. And that's sort of almost wellness strategies, I think [inaudible 00:12:51]. And so with someone who's goal oriented when lot of energy and hand waving and excitement and emotion, I don't like that. And it can, especially if I feel it's getting in the way of us getting our work done for the day, I can get very frustrated.

Dr. Andy Roark:

So why does this happen? Generally, in my experience, there's three causes and they're all intertwined so give me a little bit race here as I lay these down, because I know how tightly linked they are.

Stephanie Goss:

Okay.

Dr. Andy Roark:

The number one reason I see this is anxiety. Catastrophizing, catastrophic thinking, negative thinking, those are all cognitive distortions that we see in people who have anxiety or who are manifesting anxiety. Catastrophizing is common. You guys have heard me joke on the podcast about there'll be something, something comes up and happens and I'm always like, I'm going to end up living in the forest by the river, eating salamanders to-

Stephanie Goss:

And the [crosstalk 00:13:46].

Dr. Andy Roark:

… stay alive. Yeah. And I joke about it, but that's catastrophic thinking that we're talking about everything is going to come crashing down. So people with anxiety tend to have catastrophic thinking. So when you see someone and they just constantly live with their cortisol level jacked up to 11, that's probably somebody who's wrestling with anxiety. And is it clinical anxiety? I don't know and neither do you. And I'm not trying to be this person's therapist, but I do recognize it for what it is and say, wow, that's a very anxious person.

Dr. Andy Roark:

The second part is control of the situation. A lot of times what happens is, and I know this is tied to anxiety is we get this catastrophic thinking in scenarios where this person who really wants control, doesn't have control. I don't have control. I did the thing I was supposed to do, and the person did not react the way that I wanted them to, and they want to talk to the doctor. And I do not know what they're going to say to the doctor. And I don't know how the doctor is going to handle this. And all of these things are out of my control. And for some people that loss of control can be very upsetting and can spin them up.

Stephanie Goss:

The tailspin.

Dr. Andy Roark:

Exactly. Right. In this exact way. And the last thing is, and this is the most benign version of this is sometimes it's a process person. It's someone who says I'm trying to do what's right, I want to get the right answer, I want to follow the rules, I want to do what I'm supposed to do. And now we're off the rails and the rules have been broken and I am no longer confident that I am doing what I'm supposed to do and I really don't want to get this wrong.

Dr. Andy Roark:

And again, I know that all three of those things, they're so overlapped and interrelated and everything, but in my mind, those are three really common reasons that I see catastrophic thinking and I see people getting wound up.

Dr. Andy Roark:

Now the reason I'll lay those things down is because pick any of those things. It's anxiety, the loss of control, the process person who's off the rails. Ignoring that person makes all of those worse.

Stephanie Goss:

Right. Yep.

Dr. Andy Roark:

If this person is having anxiety, because they're like, “I don't know what's going to happen.” And you're like, “I don't have time for this,” and you close the door in their face, you have made this significantly… You know what? I mean, imagine that, the door just slams in Janet's face. Boom. And she was panicked before and now her boss, the person who has organizational power, who can actually help her has literally closed the door in her face. And you just took her up three more notches in her belief that everything is melting down. The same thing with the control. And it's like, “Hey, I don't know what to do. Things are out of control. I'm going to go to my boss and try to get control of the situation through his or her help and they refuse to help me and now I have even less control because the obvious path forward has closed the door in my face and now I have less control than I did before. I don't have access to my boss or my direct supervisor. And this is worse.”

Dr. Andy Roark:

And then the process person is like, “I don't know what to do. I really desperately want to get the right answer.” And I say, “I don't have time to talk to you.” That is, I am not helping them get the right answer. I am increasing the chances that they are going to “get in trouble,” which is what they're generally really worried about.

Dr. Andy Roark:

So again is super understandable to get frustrated, especially if this is a pattern of behavior. I have a tendency to get frustrated, but I do know, I think discipline, as you get older, is knowing a truth and being able to adhere to it, even though emotionally you don't want to.

Dr. Andy Roark:

I was talking to one of my friends recently and I was like, the definition of maturity in marriage is not saying, “I told you so,” when it is so obvious. Being able to have the thing happen where you're like, “I told you so, [inaudible 00:17:41]” and just being able to not say it. There are people who die of old age having never reached that level of self-discipline where they could just take a pass and not say, “I told you so to their [inaudible 00:17:58].” And it is that exact level of control where you have to look at the person who is melting down and they're throwing their hands up and they're like, “And I told her that we don't do discounts for rescue groups and she said I'm coming in to talk to you. And here we are.” And you look at that person and you do not say, I don't know [inaudible 00:18:24] You look at them and you say, “I hear you and I understand you. Let's talk about what we're going to do to handle this situation.” And man, that is a test of willpower for most of us, I think.

Stephanie Goss:

Yes. Yes. 100%. And I think it was for me and I failed repeatedly over and over and over again.

Dr. Andy Roark:

Yeah, me too. I have blown this situation. I have a 100% just stomped on. I've cut the red wire many times and had it explode in my face.

Stephanie Goss:

Oh yeah. And it's just not worth it, because then you still have to deal with the thing and now you have another problem of going and trying to put the person back together after you blew them off. You still have to deal with the problem that they are upset about, which is generally a real problem. It's not of the proportion that they're making it, but now I have an HR issue, a person management, a relationship issue that I have to deal with and now it's a much bigger thing than it had to be. And so in the short term, me closing the door and saying, I don't have time for this is just going to make a whole lot more cleanup for me to do later on.

Dr. Andy Roark:

Yes. Again, I feel painfully seen in this episode because that was me. That's how I… I tried these things, but I totally feel it. And so I think I agree with you. I think I struggle. And I think it'd be interesting, I would love to know how you look at this in the end. And I think our listeners would all look at it differently, which is what's interesting about it. But when I think about those three things, I think about the anxiety, I think about the loss of control and I think about the rule-following. The hardest of those three, for me as a manager to deal with is the rule-following.

Dr. Andy Roark:

Really? That's the hardest one? That's the one you pick?

Stephanie Goss:

Yeah.

Dr. Andy Roark:

[crosstalk 00:20:19] I would pick. Okay. All right, tell me about that.

Stephanie Goss:

That's why I wanted talk about because I think that everybody's responses are going to be very different because I'm very much a compassionate person. I've always been the mom of the group. So somebody who is having anxiety or who I can recognize that they are struggling with the loss of control, I feel like I can cope with those two things in my role as a leader and as a boss. I feel like I can cope with those so much easier than trying to cope with someone who wants to follow the rules. Because what I know as a core truth in the depths of my soul is that veterinary medicine is not black and white. And I can't change that for someone. And that was what I struggled with in this situation in my clinic was how do… I want to help this person? I see the anxiety, I see the loss of control. I see the hurt feelings when I shut the door in their face. I see the giant mess that I'm cleaning up out afterward when I've shut the door in their face, or they don't feel like a boss is available to them and so they're like, I'm just not going to do anything because I don't want to do the wrong thing.

Stephanie Goss:

So then the list of things to do and clean up stacks up and up and up, and then I'm dealing with the giant mess. That was where for me, I froze because I was like, I don't know what to do about this because I can't change the fact that veterinary medicine is not black and white, 100% of the time. I can't change the fact that especially for the front desk, it exists in a world of gray a lot of the time. And that actually was the part that I found the easiest as a CSR is I never had a problem navigating those waters. And so for me, the rule-following and the structure and the ability to freestyle, that is a part that I couldn't relate to. It felt like in any way, shape or form. And so that was the part that I struggled with the most.

Dr. Andy Roark:

Yeah. It's very much a mindset, you know what I mean? And you and I are both very creative people. We improvise as you might have heard earlier on when we were goofing off talking about the conference. We improvise. It comes fairly easily to us. That is how you and I are wired and that's not how other people are, are wired. So there's a couple of things that we can do. So one of the first things that I want to try to do when we have a process person, and we hear a lot about this is process people are great. They're amazing. They just want to know what they're supposed to do so that they can do it every time and they can run it smooth as silk and get the right answer. It's like, don't look at that as anything other than a… That's not a flaw, it's a feature.

Stephanie Goss:

Right. Yes. Oh yeah.

Dr. Andy Roark:

But it does require some systems. And so I think for a lot of us, what we have to do is get a little bit creative in what our processes are. And you talked recently in a way that I… That's something I really liked. We talked about whenever there was… We talked about staff constantly coming to us to solve problems, and you talked about, at the front desk, you said, “Look, if you can solve this problem for $25, just solve the problem.” That's a process. That is evaluate the situation, present the options and try to make the client happy up to this point. And beyond this point, then elevate, escalate up the chain and you come and talk to me. And that's a very nebulous process, but sometimes that's enough of a process to make that person feel comfortable.

Dr. Andy Roark:

Some processes can have things like evaluate the situation to determine how the client is feeling and then escalate if you feel that this person is not going to be satisfied with the results and you said that is what our process is. So in some cases it is about making more robust processes. When we are surprised again and again, by something, at some point it's not a surprise, it's our business model. Which means if this person is coming to you every week with similar problems or problems that have a similar theme, you should fix this problem. You know what I mean? The definition of a good business is probably solving one problem right after the other, the definition of a bad business is solving the same problem again and again and again.

Dr. Andy Roark:

So it's hard when it's always something different, but if it's always the same thing where this person has a client that they think is upset but is not upset, we need to look at what is going on here and what should the process be and how do we flesh that out with them? So part one is, can I build out processes?

Dr. Andy Roark:

And again, I agree with you. There's so shades of gray, these cannot be lab, bench processes like add a third of a milliliter, add a third of a cup to this and a 100 milliliters of that. It's not that prescriptive. It is more assess the situation, present options to the client, things like that. So can I flesh out these processes, is the first part.

Dr. Andy Roark:

The second part is training and saying, okay, we are consistently getting, whenever there's a client who seems like they might be upset, this CSR is getting very upset and they're coming to me and they think the world is ending. Can I work with them on their phrases and what they say and how they say it? Can we possibly get them some training on dealing with angry clients like perhaps the charming the angry client course, which is available for sale at drandyroark.com. It is me teaching how to handle angry and complaining clients. It's an outstanding resource. Take [inaudible 00:26:32] there. They might benefit from something I don't know, like that. Just put that out there. But is there, in all seriousness, is there-

Stephanie Goss:

That was a perfect plug.

Dr. Andy Roark:

Thank you. I thought that was pretty seamless.

Stephanie Goss:

Perfect. But it is a true story, and I'll tell you why. So Dr. It's Not the End of the World started this process by approaching it, I think from a clear head space. So to go back to thinking about things, I think from the message we got, they said, okay, how can I solve this? Well, maybe if we give them to your point, some training and some structure, and we give them a script that that will solve the problem. So I think that they're thinking in the right direction, it's exactly what I would've done and what I have done. And so I think that is good. I think the part about your plug that is important is that we are dealing with other human beings, we're not dealing with a solution on the lab bench. So I can put two drops in at the exact right moment and the thing will go, according to plan. I can give a client a response that is in my script. They have a 1001 and ways to respond and usually they respond in the 1002 way. It's not the way you're ever expecting. [inaudible 00:27:52] and that's the problem.

Stephanie Goss:

And so I think that Dr. It's Not the End of the World is doing the right thing and heading in the direction to your point of training and focusing on how do I support this person. And we have to remember before we start any systems or training or programs and processes that we are dealing with other human beings and so part of the training has to be addressing the human response, which is the unknown. You never know how they're going to react.

Dr. Andy Roark:

And that's how scripts can screw you up. And I'm not saying scripts are bad idea, scripts are a good idea, but often people get the intent of scripts are wrong or providing scripts. If you say, here is exactly what you say in this situation, you are going to cause more panic because they're never going to get set up to say exactly what is there, like the client will phrase their question in a weird way, or they'll ask it with some caveats. And [inaudible 00:28:49] just never going to get a chance to use this script right on the way that it was written.

Dr. Andy Roark:

And so scripts are still super valuable for giving people some phrases, some ways to say the messaging, here is the messaging they want to deliver. It's really, what we're trying to do is build systems where the scripts are a guide and they give you some ideas and some words to use and to practice with, but the scripts have to be held loosely. And if we have a hardcore process person or someone who has anxiety, they want to believe the script is exactly what they're supposed do. And that's not what it is, and we just need to be upfront about that from the beginning and say, “Here is the script I want you to read it through a couple of times. And then tomorrow I'm going to ask you some questions as a client, and you're going to work off the script and give me some answers.” And then just sit down with them and ask them the common questions from clients, but ask them in weird ways, because the clients are going to ask in weird ways. And just ask them in weird ways where the script doesn't really work and tell them, take the information on the script, reformulate it, so you can deliver it and deliver this information. And just let them practice how they would say it and how it fits.

Dr. Andy Roark:

And so that's generally how I use scripts. And we've used them a number of times in Uncharted for different things. Super helpful for people to know what's important to communicate, but they have to be held loosely or else they cause more headaches than they solve.

Stephanie Goss:

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And I think from a headspace perspective, I think the other thing that is important here, which always is is for doctors, it's not the end of the world when you're addressing this. I think some of it is sitting down and looking at where is your own emotional state, because when you address this challenge and you work with this team member, it is important to be calm and safe and not be frustrated and not be angry or triggered because that leads to shut the door, not necessarily in their face, but I'm just going to hide from this person. It leads of that kind of behavior. It leads to the avoidance. It leads to the frustration. It leads to, I will say I was guilty of this. It leads to the venting in the moment. When your work is interrupted for the sixth time in an hour to get asked a question, it leads to you venting to another person on the team. Those things are real. So I think from a headspace perspective, Dr. It's Not the End of the World has done, made some steps forward into solving it, which I think are great, and they're being proactive about it. And I think it's still important to sit back and say, what is the differences?

Stephanie Goss:

And look at those three things. I'm curious to know which of those three, you would struggle with the most, Andy, because I think, like I said, I think it's going to different for everybody and I think Dr. It's Not the End of the World should step back and say, what is it about this that is the most frustrating to them and work a little bit on trying to bridge the divide between themselves, because if you can't try and figure out how to pinpoint what is actually frustrating you, I don't know that you're going to be able to come to a viable solution for how to solve the problem.

Dr. Andy Roark:

Yeah, I just want to validate what you were just saying is not being triggered. Having this conversation is really important. And I know people listening are like, why does he keep saying that? Why does he bring that up? And it's like, because I see this conversation happening, in frustration, in response to you have interrupted me the fourth time in an hour, and I have had enough of this, and I need to talk to you right now about how you need to take care of your job and stop asking me to do everything. And again, that's terrible wording. That's because you're frustrated and you say that to the person. And if anyone out there is listening and thinks that could never happen, I promise you you're mistaken. That is how the conversation happens, because we're nice people in which when we want to assume the best and we do until we're having a bad day and then this person does this behavior multiple times, and then we just snap and we're like, I've had enough and so now we're going to have this conversation, and that is the bad time to have the conversation. So I see that a lot.

Dr. Andy Roark:

For me, the hardest one, the anxiety controller processes, the hardest is the anxiety part. Because that is a deeply internal struggle that I can't help you with all that much. And I can give you some guidance. I can give you some coaching, and we're going to do that in the back half of this episode. But ultimately, if this is something that a person struggles with, if that's how they're wired, if they're constantly, if they're an anxious person, there is some self work that they're probably going to need to do that is beyond employee coaching that I can do.

Dr. Andy Roark:

And so they have to need to see it in themselves. And it's like, I can't change someone. They have to want to change themselves. The need for control, at least we can talk a bit about control and help them create more of an illusion of control that they feel comfortable with. Then the processes, at least we can work on the processes, but if there's just someone who generally believes that things are going to go badly and just spin out of control, I don't know how to tell you that they're not going to go badly and they're not been out of control other than the coaching that we're talking about. I'm just pointing out how this has happened so many times and has never gone out of control. And I just need you to internalize that and believe that.

Dr. Andy Roark:

So for me, that type of stuff is always harder when I have someone who has these types of cognitive distortions they do, the catastrophic thinking, the negative thinking, finding the bad in everything. I'm always imagining the worst case scenario. That can be very frustrating to deal with because it's so internally driven and it is hard to give them clear, direct practice oriented feedback on that. That is really something that they have to own and work on themselves.

Stephanie Goss:

Yeah. That makes sense. Do you want to pause here and then we can dive into when you have a person on your team, who's like this, how do you approach it?

Dr. Andy Roark:

Yeah, let's do it.

Stephanie Goss:

Okay.

Stephanie Goss:

Hey everybody. I just want to jump in here for one second, because I want to talk to you guys about someone who has been one of the best gifts that Uncharted has given me, and that is my amazing friend, Jen Galvin. For those of you guys who don't know Jen, she is a practice manager and a practice owner in Arizona, and she is fabulous. We met at the very first Uncharted and I am so thankful that the universe brought her my way because she is smart and she is funny as all get out. She makes me belly laugh and snort laugh every time we are together. And she is kind, and what I love potentially the most about Jen is how passionate she is about her team and about having a great, happy place to work. And she is bringing that attitude to you.

Stephanie Goss:

She is going to be teaching a workshop or leading a workshop in December on Sunday, December 12th, from 4:00 to 6:00 PM, Eastern, 1:00 to 3:00 PM Pacific. She is going to be talking about how It's All Fun and Games, how to play with engage with, and reward your team. She is going to talk about what employee engagement means, but more specifically, what does it mean to you in your practice?

Stephanie Goss:

The group is going to brainstorm and talk about some simple ways to measure engagement within our practices. And then most importantly, what the hell do we actually do with this? When we do measure it? How do we create thing that is actionable and also matters to our individual teams? We're going to brainstorm some ways that we can reward the team so that they feel appreciated in a way that resonates and matters to them. It's going to be a lot of fun. I am super excited to get to be her wingman on this. And I hope that you will come and join us. If you head over to unchartedvet.com/events, you can find the registration page for Its All Fun and Games. I hope to see you guys there. Now back to the podcast.

Dr. Andy Roark:

All right. So let's get in the nuts of bolts here. So the number one takeaway from headspace is don't be triggered. So to summarize and expand a little bit what we said on headspace, don't be triggered. Remember to some good intent. This person is wound up because they care. And if they didn't care, they wouldn't be wound up. They would just say, eh, and they wouldn't come. They wouldn't come to you first of all. They don't care. And certainly, if they did come to you, they would just say, “Hey, here's a phone call you need to make.” And they wouldn't tell you that they think this person is upset or frustrated. This person is only chewing their fingernails because they want to do a good job and they want to provide good patient care and they want to be a good employee. And as long as you can put that in your brain and hold onto it, you can have better conversations with them.

Stephanie Goss:

And I would actually suggest, obviously, you don't want to make things up that aren't true. But if this person is having this behavior more often than not, what I found is that they are doing it because they genuinely care about the client experience. And yes, sometimes they are manifesting, upset or irrational thought or anger that is not present when somebody else talks to that client. And I would rather have somebody that is hyper aware of the client experience and the client response to how we are interacting with them than someone who is apathetic and who doesn't care. And so where for myself, where I started the conversation with my team member was saying, thank you and saying, I appreciate that you care deeply for the client experience. That is really important to me and I appreciate that. And because there's an [inaudible 00:38:54]. It's not a but. When you use but-

Dr. Andy Roark:

And don't say but-

Stephanie Goss:

… you're making it wrong.

Dr. Andy Roark:

Yeah, but is a [inaudible 00:38:58] word. Yeah.

Stephanie Goss:

But, there's an [inaudible 00:39:04] and there should be an [inaudible 00:39:05]. And so for me, it was thank you for this [inaudible 00:39:07], and then it was about talking about the impact. When you interrupt the doctor who is in surgery to ask a question because you think a client is angry and it's something that could have waited, here's the impact of that. Here are the responses because a lot of times they are so focused on getting the answer, getting it right, trying to help the client that they cannot see the impact of that action on the rest of the team, on the doctor, who's getting interrupted, on the manager who's on a phone call who's someone I literally… This was what drove me craziest and it was part of what made the divide. I would be on the phone and the person would just stand outside my door, waiting for me to be done because they wanted to help the client. And they had the client on the phone or they had the client at the front desk and they wanted the help so badly. And I could appreciate that and at the same time that had an impact for me. I couldn't focus. I screwed up on phone calls. I had things that came out of my mouth, because I was thinking about the fact that they're literally standing next to me, waiting for me to get on-off the phone.

Stephanie Goss:

So it's okay to give them the [inaudible 00:40:20]. But for me, the place where I would start with this is to look at the behavior and think about what are the positive outcomes of this. When you have someone who is detail oriented on your team, to your point, Andy, that is so important. We need the detail oriented people. We need the people who need a process and protocols because that's how we get those things developed in our practice. This is an opportunity where you can turn pieces of the behavior that Dr. It’s Not the End of the World Is probably feeling because this is how I felt. This drives me absolutely freaking insane and I just want to strangle this person. And yet it became an incredible opportunity for my team to harness that into where can we direct their focus so it's positive? Can we write some scripts? Can we develop some protocols? Can we come up with some black and white, this is where things are falling apart and can we use that to become better? And that is a much healthier place to be and don't get me wrong, I did not jump there immediately. I jumped straight to I'm going to start ignoring this person because they're driving me freaking bonkers.

Dr. Andy Roark:

Yeah. Oh I mean it's like being a parent trying to go to the bathroom and your kids are waiting outside. And it affects you at a level that doesn't make sense to anyone who hasn't been that first [crosstalk 00:41:41].

Stephanie Goss:

Oh my God, yes.

Dr. Andy Roark:

I don't know why it affects me so much, but I want to put them in the yard and lock all the doors.

Stephanie Goss:

Oh my God. Yes.

Dr. Andy Roark:

But that's it. And that's why said, these often are triggered conversations for the very reason. Okay, so I agree with that. Quick words of advice on this, it is very hard to coach this person in a positive way while the problem that they are stressed out about still persists.

Stephanie Goss:

Yes.

Dr. Andy Roark:

So regardless of the cause of why they're doing this way, if they're waiting on the client and they're trying to serve this client and you are trying to talk to them about why them interrupting you is bad, you are making this worse because they are panicking about the client waiting and now they're panicking more because they have to stand here while you tell them that what they did was not right instead of helping a client.

Dr. Andy Roark:

And it is very hard to coach someone who is triggered. It is very hard to coach someone who is panicking. The first thing we have to do is go with the flow and relieve their source of tension. So they're obviously freaked out about something, we are going to deal with it. And once the problem is resolved, they are going to come back down in their stress level to a more reasonable level and now we can talk to them about the process that they use to get there and brainstorm how to go forward. So for example… Well, I'll go into examples in a second. So resolve the initial point of conflict and stress so that this person is in a headspace so that you can coach them. And if you try to coach them before they get out of panic mode, you're wasting your time. So start with that.

Dr. Andy Roark:

The second thing is the way that we talk to them is very important. If I have of someone who has panic attacks because they don't want to get it wrong, me talking to them about how they got it wrong, is going to be hard on them. Now that does not mean I'm going to mince words or I'm not going to be truthful to them, I am. Remember clear is kind. Would you rather, if it was you and you were having panic attacks, then would you rather someone act like everything is fine until they've had enough of you and they just lose it on you or would you rather them tell you as you go along, “Hey, this is starting to affect our work relationship or hey, there are some things about what you're doing that I'm having problems with. Can I talk to you about them.” And so try to get to that place. Okay.

Dr. Andy Roark:

So how do we have the conversation without just saying to them, you are messing up, you are causing a problem. You thought you had a problem before when the client was upset, well now the boss is upset and now you got another problem that you're going to respond as you always do, which is [inaudible 00:44:38]. A lot of it's how we say it. And so it is easy to say, “Hey, when you stand outside my door, while I'm on the phone, you are wildly distracting and it makes me extremely angry, like I see red.” And you can say that, or you can say, “Hey. I am not a multitasker and I have to focus on what I'm doing. And so when I'm on the phone and I see you outside, my pea brain has a hard time keeping both of those things in check in doing the work that I need to get done right when you're there.” And I hope that that sounds very different because-

Stephanie Goss:

It does.

Dr. Andy Roark:

… it is very different. And it's not why you say it, it's how you say it. And so the message I'm giving to them is don't stand outside the door and wait for me to get off the phone. The reason is not going to be because you make me insanely angry and I want to-

Stephanie Goss:

Throttle you.

Dr. Andy Roark:

… throttle you. Yeah. The reason is because I can't concentrate on what I'm trying to do when people are waiting for me and that's a personal failing of mine. And so I need your help with that because I can't do it and I need your help.

Dr. Andy Roark:

And that's just sprinkling in a little bit of vulnerability. It's the way that we're phrasing it as… It's not a you problem, it's me problem. It's not you, it's me.

Stephanie Goss:

I love that.

Dr. Andy Roark:

That's exactly where we're going.

Stephanie Goss:

I love that.

Dr. Andy Roark:

Same thing with, well, interrupting the doctor in surgery to tell them that the client is angry. It's not about, hey, you really take off the doctor when you do that, it's hey, can you imagine being a doctor who's doing surgery and then someone comes and lets you know that someone's angry at you and how hard that would be. You go, “Ah, yeah. I'm sorry. My bad. I didn't think of that.” And so the reasons that we give about the behaviors and behavior change that we need, it matters. And again, that doesn't mean I'm letting off the hook, that doesn't mean I'm saying things that aren't true. It just means I'm thinking about how to deliver that message.

Stephanie Goss:

Yeah. I approached the situation from a different perspective, but I agree with you the words matter. And so the way that I looked at it was I see the anxiety, I see the loss of control, I see the physical manifestation of that in the nervous behaviors in the tone of voice, in the fact that they are telling the rest of the team how stressed out they are about being at work in the fact that they're cleaning that their stomach hurts because they're so stressed out at work, those things. Say, I am worried about you. This is how I see that this seems to be impacting you. Tell me more about this, because in the moment, I didn't know what to do. I just knew I needed to cast a wide net because I knew that I was frustrated and I knew that I was angry and I was like, I don't know what the hell to do with this because I'm not seeing it that way. And so I just said, this is what I see happening. Tell me more about that. And then I shut up and listened.

Stephanie Goss:

And I asked them for their help in figuring what it was that was actually the struggle for them and where they needed the help. Because like I said, I felt like the anxiety and the control of the situation was something I could support them with and the rule-following was the struggle for me and so I needed to figure out like what is actually triggering them. I know it's triggering me, but what is triggering them as well, to figure out a game plan for it. So I think no matter what, having a conversation is important. So I totally applaud Dr. It's Not the End of the World because their team is like, this is a problem, we recognize this, so we're going to try and solve it. So we've created some scripts. I'm hoping that they also had a conversation with this person. But I would say if they haven't, it's a good place to start and just say, Hey, this is, to your point, either this is how I am struggling and I need your help and bridge the gap with the ask of help or I see this and I'm worried about you. How can we…

Stephanie Goss:

But it is clear as kind and you have to have a conversation. You can't just ignore it and hope that giving them scripts, hope that training, hope that helping them is going to solve the problem. I think you have to be honest and you have to be empathetic and you have to be able to ask them, I see this as a struggle, tell me how I can help you. Even if they don't know, talking about it is going to help. You have to start the conversation somewhere.

Dr. Andy Roark:

Yeah. One of the things that I think is make or break in these conversations that really is a leadership skill is identifying the pattern of behavior that you are seeing and that you're trying to manage. Because if you just get upset every time this person does something where they're panicking, it can very much be a whack-a-mole exercise where every day they're upset about something different. And it's really hard-

Stephanie Goss:

[crosstalk 00:49:37].

Dr. Andy Roark:

… to coach someone when every day… Yeah. It was really hard to coach someone when everything they do is wrong. That's a terrible thing to try. You can't coach someone. And the other thing is they are going to believe that they're destined to fail because how do you fix everything about yourself? The way out of this trap is to identify the pattern of behavior. Hey, when the protocols that we have don't cover the situation, you react very strongly. That's a single problem. That's just one problem. When the protocols don't cover, what happens? You have a strong, emotional reaction and we need to work on that. That's just one problem. And there's a million great things about you and just one problem, that's not a big deal. Have 99 good things and one single problem, which is very different than Jay-Z. Much, much more manageable, I think.

Stephanie Goss:

Oh.

Dr. Andy Roark:

Oh.

Stephanie Goss:

This episode is off the [inaudible 00:50:36]

Dr. Andy Roark:

Watching you not respond to that and then just see the pain on your face, is it sunk in, that made it all worth it. All right. One problem, the only way you can [inaudible 00:50:48] a one problem is if you spot the pattern and so you got to find the pattern. The person who goes and interrupts the doctor because the angry client is on the phone and the person who stands right outside your desk and drives you nuts because there's an angry client on the phone, they've only got one problem. They don't know what to do when they have an angry client on the phone. And honestly, guys, the answer is you need to take a message and tell them that we will call them right back and that you are going to take this directly to the practice manager and get them some answers. And we need to work on the wording so that you can get off the phone and get the resources that you need so this person can get taken care of.

Dr. Andy Roark:

And again, I'm not saying that that's exactly the policy you should choose, but if this is a recurrent problem of the person who is needed is not available and the front desk is just leaving the client on the phone, I would argue strongly. That is a worse scenario than coming up with wording to say, I have this. The doctor is in surgery right now and I am going to relay this to him or her as soon as they are done. You can expect a call from our practice manager probably the next few hours.

Stephanie Goss:

Well, and I think part of it for me in solution mode here is you have to figure out a way to bring objectivity to the conversation because Dr. It’s Not the End of the World said it seems when anybody else talks to the clients, they're not actually upset. And so that tells me when that is happening on repeat that something is happening for this CSR that may or may not be true for other people.

Stephanie Goss:

The only way to figure that out is to bring in a measure of objectivity into it. And so if you are not recording phone calls at your practice, that would be a very great way to start, because let me tell you, nothing is better than after the fact, being able to take a recording and sit down with your CSR and listen to it and say, tell me what you here. Try and figure out what are they hearing that makes them think that this client is angry because if Janet picks up the phone and her impression of this situation is that this client is totally hacked off and a manager needs to get on the phone right now, and I get on the phone and I think this client just had a question and their tone of voice maybe was really to the point and like, let's get it done but I didn't… That being able to see that and look at that objectively comes from hearing it, talking about it together, looking at it and analyzing it.

Stephanie Goss:

And this is the part of our practice to your point, Andy, that so many people dread. It's like the idea of role playing people don't want to feel silly or feel they're listening to themselves. I had a really hard time with this. I hate the sound of my voice. Listening to recordings is hard. And when I was in practice, watching myself on video, working with clients, listening to phone calls was a painful process for me. And I will tell you, I had significant growth in my customer service skills by being able to listen to it and talk about what other people were seeing and hearing in a way that was objective and not in the moment pressure. Because to your point in that moment, if this CSR picks up the phone and thinks that this client is upset, you're not going to be able to coach them. But being able to look at it after the fact and not look at it punitively like this one went bad, but just let's listen to this. What is different about this call than the last one we listened to? Having a measure of objectivity, there is hugely helpful.

Stephanie Goss:

So if you're not investing in something like that for your practice, I would absolutely tell you that that is one of the best things that I ever did as a manager for my front desk team was the ability to listen to phone calls and to work on it from a coaching perspective and get better as a team.

Dr. Andy Roark:

Yeah, I agree. So bringing us all back around into a nice little bundle, the big things and the action steps that we talked about, the first thing you got to do is relieve the tension. We can't coach our way out of this while this person is still panicking about the thing they're panicking about. So suck it up, get the problem fixed before we turn to the coaching. And then now that things are calm again, now that it's the day after, use the feedback model, hey, can we talk about that client that called in yesterday afternoon and how that went? And now we're having a conversation about that without the pressure of the incident. Look for patterns because I want to present them with a problem that is a simple problem. I don't want to present them with nine problems. Here's nine different things that you did that were really infuriating. That's too much. They feel like, “Oh man, I'm failing. There's so many things I'm doing badly.” No, you're doing one thing. There's one thing that tends to undermine you. And then maybe there's other smaller things, but we're only going to address the one thing now because it's the one that's the elephant in the room.

Dr. Andy Roark:

So what is the pattern? What are we really talking about here? And then go into protocols. Are there protocols that can support this person where I can give them guidance so that they know what to do on their own, and they feel comfortable making that decision? Beyond that, we're into training and coaching, which is what Stephanie's talking about with, “Hey, let's listen to some phone calls.” Let's go back and talk about how we're going to handle these situations.

Dr. Andy Roark:

What are we do when someone calls the front desk and they're really angry? Do we put them on hold and stand outside the practice manager's office? Is that our plan? It is bad plan. Yeah.

Stephanie Goss:

Right.

Dr. Andy Roark:

Is that [inaudible 00:56:19]?

Stephanie Goss:

Yes.

Dr. Andy Roark:

I think we need a new plan. And let's not point fingers. Let's just come up with a new plan that people are on board with and that they feel comfortable with. And then let's practice saying the words that communicate that plan to the client so that people are comfortable saying those things.

Dr. Andy Roark:

And then training rolls into coaching, which is, “Hey, can we talk about how things went yesterday?” When these scenarios come up, what are our options for handling them? Aside from coming directly to me, what other options do you think you have in this scenario? And there's some coaching things like that.

Dr. Andy Roark:

One of the other things that I have found to be very helpful for people who have the anxiety piece of this or who catastrophize and they seem quite nervous, a lot of times convincing those people that they're good at this and they have done this many times before and it has always turned out to be just fine, that has been a powerful tool. And so it's a lot of talking about how things went after they're over. “Hey, I wanted to circle back up with you about the client yesterday that you were concerned about. We had a really nice conversation. They were a bit frustrated at the beginning. We worked through it with them. They seemed just fine. I just wanted to give you a heads up.”

Dr. Andy Roark:

The reason I do that is because it's easy to not talk about those things. And of course we don't like to talk about the angry client stuff. The problem is that this person, they get this phone call, they have this emotional reaction, they hand the call away to the practice manager or the practice owner or the doctor and then there's no resolution for that situation for them. They never realized this was fine because they don't know because the manager went in their office and closed the door. Maybe the manager went home and cried all night and it was really honestly, as horrible as imagine it was. Of course it wasn't, but they don't know that. And so closing that loop to be like, “Hey, this was fine. You did a good job of communicating what to expect. You set them up. I think that you accurately interpreted where they were. I think that's great.”

Dr. Andy Roark:

And the same thing of coming back and being like, “Hey, I talked to this person. Just so you know, they really were not upset. It really was not that big a deal.” How in the world is the person ever going to learn, hey, maybe I over interpreted this person's frustration level unless they come back and hear again and again, hey, it wasn't that they were not that upset. And hopefully the person can start to say, oh, okay, I'm having these experiences. They seem upset to me. And then I'm hearing that they're not upset overall. Ultimately, how many times does it have to happen before the CSR realizes, man maybe they're not that upset when they talk to me or maybe it's going to go differently when I talk to the manager or, hey, I might give the manager or the doctor a heads up. Hey, I think this person may be a bit frustrated just so they can be aware. But I'm not go going to chew my fingernails off because this is going to be terrible because it's probably not going to be terrible. And I know that because a 100 times before it has happened and has not been terrible.

Stephanie Goss:

Yeah. I think that's so great. And I think the last piece from the email, which I think is important is that Dr. It’s Not the End of the World asked isn't helping clients with problems, why we're here. And they're concerned that the CSR is young and they don't have real world experience.

Stephanie Goss:

And so for me, part of the training process has to be what does customer service look like in your practice? Because we hire people and we think that they should know how to answer the phone and they should know, and be able to interpret when someone is angry or when they're not, or what the protocol or process to your point, Andy. But the reality is you can have somebody… I had customer service experience coming into my job in a vet hospital, lots of it. But that doesn't mean that I knew what customer service meant to my practice owners. And until I understood what that meant to them, I was being set up to fail.

Stephanie Goss:

And so I think where it has to start is what does that look like? And then developing systems and protocols where, especially, if you have someone who look the veterinary job, the veterinary CSR job is I have worked every job in the hospital other than being a veterinarian. It is the hardest job in the hospital. And I will tell you that if we don't set them up for success and we don't teach them what to expect, they will fail and they will fail miserably. And so we need to own that and we need to look at our processes and protocols and figure out how do we help them feel supported so that we don't throw somebody who has no real job experience or minimal job experience in the deep end, at the front desk and let them sink or swim. That's just a bad plan.

Stephanie Goss:

And I'm not saying that's what Dr. It’s Not the End of the World did. I know this person, and I know that that's not the case, but I would say that we need to think about how do we better support our team and ask smarter questions. And so stating the obvious saying, hey, we want clients to feel like they can ask us for help. And so when they call with a concern or question or whatever, I want everybody to look at it through the lens of, they're just asking for help. And if we can do that, maybe we can have a better head space collectively when we deal with clients, things like that that matter. And we skip that part of the process a lot.

Stephanie Goss:

And so I think thinking about what does client service look like here? How do we approach it? And then developing the systems and protocol so that they have a buddy, so that someone else can objectively listen to those calls with them, so that there is a process to help them figure out how to live a little bit more in the gray, because we need people who can see that at the front desk.

Stephanie Goss:

And maybe this person will never be that, but maybe they could exist just fine with rules and black and white processes if there's a person who can handle the gray sitting right there at the front desk for 90% of their shift. And maybe it's as simple as saying, for me, one of the solutions we came up with was to say, okay, we're going to tell clients, I will get back to you. I need to get some help. I need somebody else to take a look at this chart. Whatever the situation was, one of us will get back to you.

Stephanie Goss:

And instead of interrupting, they started writing down the list of the things. And then at every two hours, someone either was at the front desk, or I would pop up there and say, “Tell me, what's on your list.” And in five minutes, we would run through the 10 things that had come up that they felt they needed help with. And I could answer them in five or 10 minutes, rapid fire, versus getting interrupted every 10 minutes for two hours.

Stephanie Goss:

So it's about figuring out what is going to work for you, what is going to work for that person, and how do you put those systems and processes into place?

Dr. Andy Roark:

Outstanding. I love it. Well, thanks for doing this episode with me.

Stephanie Goss:

Yeah. This is fun. I hope this is helpful. I can't wait for more Uncharted Playhouse episode.

Dr. Andy Roark:

Uncharted Playhouse episode.

Stephanie Goss:

Next time I'll actually know what's happening.

Dr. Andy Roark:

Don't make promises that you don't have any control over.

Stephanie Goss:

That is the hashtag truth. Have a great week everybody.

Dr. Andy Roark:

See you everybody. Bye.

Stephanie Goss:

Well that's a wrap on another episode of the podcast. And as always, this was so fun to dive into the mailbag and answer this question. And I would really love to see more things like this come through the mailbag. If there is something that you would love to have us talk about on the podcast or a question that you are hoping that we might be able to help with, feel free to reach out and send us a message. You can always find the mailbag at the website. The address is unchartedvet.com/mailbag, or you can email us podcast@unchartedvet.com. Take care everybody, and have a great week. We'll see you again next time.

WHAT'S THIS EPISODE ABOUT?

This week on the podcast, Dr. Roark and Stephanie tackle a letter from the mailbag. We received a note from a veterinary technician who is feeling very frustrated with the language that our industry is using to describe ourselves and communicate the pain and frustration we are all experiencing, outwardly to the rest of the world. This technician feels like they see conversations happening where we vet med people say “This is a field meant for broken people” and they disagree. Andy and I are in their camp and want to talk about it, so… Let’s get into this.

This episode contains discussion topics (mental health, suicide crisis) that may be triggering. If you or someone you know are struggling with mental health, there are ways for you to get help. We've attached resources and links below.

You can listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Got a question for the mailbag? Submit it here: unchartedvet.com/mailbag

Resources & Links

National Suicide Hotline (United States) – 1-800-273-8255

International Suicide Hotlines (Outside US) – https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/suicide/suicide-prevention-hotlines-resources-worldwide

Upcoming Events

December 12: It's All Fun & Games – How to Play, Engage With and Reward Your Team with Jenn Galvin

Don’t miss an awesome new workshop coming in December. Jenn Galvin, practice manager, practice owner, and game-playing aficionado, is leading a workshop on how to engage and have fun with our teams. In a time when clinics are struggling with turnover, burnout, and disengagement, it is time to create a plan that will help you lean into the individuals who make up your team and get some tools that can help you work on keeping them happy! Sunday, Dec 12 from 4-6 pm ET/1-3pm PT, Jenn will lead us in discussion and brainstorming on 

• What employee engagement means for your individual practice
• Simple ways to measure engagement
• How to work through what to do with engagement results to create a response plan that matters
• Ideas for how to reward the team in ways that will result in a more happy and efficient team.

$99 Registration fee (Free for Uncharted members)

All Upcoming Events

A UVC MEMBERSHIP IS YOUR KEY TO FINALLY GETTING THINGS DONE AND GROWING YOUR VETERINARY PRACTICE.