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Being a veterinary practice manager can be a challenging job and a rewarding one! You are the one with the answers to the questions, the master of challenging conversations, the heart of your practice. Such a diverse position is bound to come with some quirks! We see you. You might be a veterinary practice manager if…

1.You walk into the practice with a hot coffee and end up magically drinking an iced coffee with your lunch.

“Oh! You're here! Just one more question…”

2. Your desk may have been clean this morning but… 
No judgments here. Just start with one invoice/post-it/phone message at a time. Does it still spark joy?

3. You are fluent in the languages of the client, veterinary technician, front desk, practice owner, angry Yelp review and industry representatives.

If you're a veterinary practice manager, you know that these languages are often very different. You are a master translator and get your teams on the same page time and time again. Definitely add that to the resumé.

4. You are an IT wizard, finder of the missing [insert absolutely any item found in the practice here], tamer of the frustrated client, mediator of team disagreements, meeting leading machine and practice owner idea translator.

If it's broken, guess who can fix it? You've got your team's back – even if it means climbing into the IT closet to reset the WiFi router in your favorite dress pants.

5. You are a magical unicorn with a brain full of great ideas to lead your practice and team into their best year yet!

Practice managers don't always get the fun puppy and kitten reward that comes with a hard day's work – but you are such an important part of our profession! We appreciate you. Thank you for everything you do, you magical unicorn.

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Don't miss the chance to share your practice manager wisdom and meet more unicorn managers just like YOU at our upcoming Practice Manager Summit!

Join the Uncharted Veterinary Community and get the support you need ALL YEAR LONG!

When an overworked, underpaid veterinary technician writes in to ask how to ask for a raise, Dr. Roark and Stephanie Goss lay down their absolute best advice.
If you're a veterinary professional and you've ever thought about asking for a raise this episode is for you!

Related links:
Register for the Practice Managers Summit: unchartedvet.com/uncharted-practi…-manager-summit/

Instant Buy-In Workshop: unchartedvet.com/lean-board/

Upcoming Events

Veterinary clients are carrying a ton of stress these days, and as a group, they seem more challenging than ever before for veterinary staff members. What happens when your staff has had enough and starts to push back? Can a practice survive when the staff talks trash about the people they serve? How do we stop the slide and get positivity back in the building? Let’s get into it!

Links:
Upcoming events: unchartedvet.com/upcoming-events/

Register for Practice Managers Summit: unchartedvet.com/uncharted-practi…-manager-summit/

Instant Buy In LEAN Course: unchartedvet.com/lean-board/

Goal setting and resolutions are hard for a number of reasons. They can feel rigid and don’t allow for a more forward-thinking “look at how far I’ve come” mentality and in general, they are complicated. SMART goals or SMARTER goals, (brought to us by Drs. Phil Zeltzman and Meredith Jones) can feel complicated and cumbersome and they take a lot of thought to write up. Are they important? For sure! Do they work for everything? In my less than humble opinion – no. That’s going to be controversial, I know, but hear me out.

The truth of the matter is that goals aren’t just things that need to be accomplished but you don’t want to do and so put off and put off and put off until you finally just hire someone to paint the deck (not that I’m speaking from experience here at all). Goals are also things you want to accomplish! Pro-tip: It’s perfectly okay if some of your goals are even things you were going to do anyway – like have that baby you’re already pregnant with (I’m looking at you, Charlotte Lucas)!  

I think a number of us have spent a long time viewing goals and resolutions as something we fail at regularly and so we give up. Is the answer to have SMARTER goals? Maybe so, but the reality is that over the course of the year, priorities change. Look back at last year. Things that matter to you in February, were most likely not your priority in April. I think it’s time to turn annual goal setting on its head.

That’s what we’ve done in the Uncharted group “21 in 2021”. A bunch of our Community Members have said – here are 21 things I’d like to accomplish in 2021. Here are some of my favorite “goals” on lists from members this year: 

• Get 3 chickens or 1 kitten
• Promote our new designation as a Fear Free Hospital
• Do something crafty once a month
• Launch SmartFlow at work
• Host future vet camp 
• Think harder about current job situation
• Go through saved journal articles… purge unneeded ones 
• Take one Irish language class 
• Call Nana once a week

You’re right if you’re thinking that some of those would benefit from SMART or SMARTER goal setting – that’s true. But if that stops someone from putting a goal down on paper (or in Trello, or on their Remarkable Tablet) or looking for accountability partners, then that’s not so helpful.  

What is helpful is that this group is about more than goals and accountability – it’s about support for what you want to accomplish, without judgment. After all, there is enough judgment out there in the world and you are hard enough on yourself. We cheer each other on throughout the year, but the most fun is our year-end wrap up when we get to look at what we’ve accomplished together, personally and professionally.  

We hope you’ll join us because we can’t wait to see what you will accomplish in 2021!

Join the Uncharted Community!

About the Author

Jamie has over 17 years of experience in the veterinary field, most in emergency and critical care. In a prior life she was an animal control officer and a veterinary team manager for a 24 hour practice in Los Altos, California. Jamie is the Administrative Manager for Dr. Andy Roark and Uncharted Veterinary Conferences. Jamie is passionate about mental health and suicide prevention in the veterinary community and is a firm believer that education reduces stigma and increases survival. She is a certified Mental Health First Aid responder, QPR gatekeeper and certified gatekeeper instructor. Jamie is an administrative rockstar, organizational aficionado, tea geek, and workaholic – not necessarily in that order.