Jenn Galvin is a spreadsheet-loving Veterinary Practice Manager with over 20 years of experience in the field. Growing her hospital and helping her team succeed through hard work, positive leadership, and humor is what gets her up in the morning. She's an introverted inventory nerd that loves bratty beagles, dungeons and dragons, and the outdoors. She loves sharing the mistakes she's made, and the things she's learned with other hospital owners and managers so they can grow their hospitals, teams, and themselves!
Erika is a dedicated small animal veterinarian and veterinary hospital owner with a solid connection to both patients and clients.
She really enjoys the people part of this profession and the long-standing relationships she develops with clients. Erika understands the strain we are all under within the veterinary profession. As an owner of a privately owned practice, there are unique challenges that we are all facing.
ABOUT JENN & ERIKA'S PRACTICE OWNER SUMMIT SESSION
Started From the Bottom Now We’re Here –Management and Owner Relationships
We are a team of two practice owners – one of us is the veterinarian and one of us is the practice manager – which gives us an interesting perspective. We see a lot of practice owners struggle with trying to run their practices, manage their people, and be a doctor all at the same time. We are excited to help other practice owners see the value of hiring and working with a practice manager, and finding other leaders in their practice, and then working together as a team to accomplish their shared vision. We will be reviewing how to find leaders, how to delegate, and how to follow up and follow through so that you can all hold each other accountable, stay in your own lanes, and succeed as a management team.
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Jenn Galvin and Erika Cartwright
Practice Owner Summit
Jen Quammen likes to bring fun and light energy into any presentation; she's rarely been accused of being a wallflower. Dr. Jen loves to speak about practice technology and workflow efficiencies. She and her partner have been speaking and coaching in the arena of personal development since 2013. She still practices as a relief doctor and especially enjoys surgery and pain management. Be prepared for some punny jokes and literal humor.
About Jen's Get Sh*t Done Shorthanded Session
Technology That Will Actually Save You Time
If you find yourself or your team having to check messages in numerous places (post-it notes, voicemail, email, social media, carrier pigeon, whiteboard, etc) then this session is for you! Get ready to discuss methods to simplify your communications and develop a framework to collect, log and respond to general client questions, patient follow-ups, and medication refill requests.
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Jen Quammen, DVM
GSD Shorthanded Speaker
Dr. Meredith Jones is a practicing veterinarian and the co-founder of Veterinary Financial Summit, a financial conference and online community for veterinary professionals. She is a self-professed “money nerd” who attends financial conferences and courses in her spare time. In 2016, she completed training to become a financial coach and founded the Debt-Free Vets Facebook group. She is also the co-host of the Veterinary Financial Podcast.
About Meredith's Get Sh*t Done Shorthanded Session
Triage Your Personal Finances
Time is one of the biggest obstacles for Get Sh*t Done Shorthanded attendees. This workshop will give you practical tips you can use to make progress on your financial goals with minimal time investment. It will guide you through a framework to help you determine your next financial goals and break them down into manageable action steps.
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Meredith Jones, DVM
GSD Shorthanded Speaker
Christina Freeman joined the Adobe Animal Hospital family in 2015 and focused her first few years in the Veterinary Marketplace. She was excited to move to the remote team and work with our online chat services and telemedicine and help these new communication tools grow and evolve. Christina is a native of North Carolina where she currently lives with her family and a large collection of animals great and small. Christina has a retail background and degree in Animal Science from North Carolina State University along with a teaching certification in all things science. She spends her spare time chasing children, gardening, doing pottery and oil painting.
About Christina's Get Sh*t Done Shorthanded Session
Virtual Client Service Representatives: How to Staff Your Hospital From Afar
You will walk away from this workshop with an understanding of the basic technology needed for a remote person to help you in your hospital…even as early as next week! Learn how to expand this process to cover additional areas of your practices like in-room checkouts, triaging, surgery scheduling, and more.
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Christina Freeman
GSD Shorthanded Speaker
Summer Burke-Irmiter, MBA, has worked in veterinary hospitals for over 26 years. At the Uncharted Conferences, you will find her proudly wearing her Founding Member button and excitedly talking about her two amazing hospitals with over 22 doctors, the Open Hospital design which allows clients to go wherever their pets go and pitching her latest outlandish ideas to anybody who will listen. She's earned the nickname of “Goddess of Innovation” in some circles (along with other nicknames we won't mention here) by helping to launch remote teams at Adobe over 9 years ago, pushing for video visits a year before the pandemic, and touting the benefits of online chat to her team. The recent development of Video Client Representatives is one of the many creative solutions Summer has to solve common issues in our industry. Summer runs away to the circus every chance she gets and trains in Cirque du Soleil type arts such as lyra, a spinning hoop 6-12 feet in the air.
About Summer's Get Sh*t Done Shorthanded Session
Virtual Client Service Representatives: How to Staff Your Hospital From Afar
You will walk away from this workshop with an understanding of the basic technology needed for a remote person to help you in your hospital…even as early as next week! Learn how to expand this process to cover additional areas of your practices like in-room checkouts, triaging, surgery scheduling, and more.
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Summer Burke-Irmiter
GSD Shorthanded Speaker
Maria Pirita is currently the Business Development Coordinator at Uncharted Veterinary Community where she is responsible for strategic direction with industry partners and creating educational content for the veterinary community. A seasoned professional with 20 years of leadership experience and nearly a decade of that within veterinary medicine, Maria is well known for driving growth through positive culture, effective marketing strategies, and careful strategic planning. She most recently served as the Executive Director of a veterinary clinic which she directly grew from a single doctor to a multi-million dollar practice in just 3 years. Maria has an Associate's Degree in Business Administration and is only an exam away from becoming a Certified Veterinary Practice Manager. She is currently based out of Tampa, Florida where she shares her home with her husband, dog, two rabbits and a quaker parrot.
About Maria's Get Sh*t Done Shorthanded Session
Avoiding Breakdowns When You're Shorthanded
This session, led by Maria Pirita and Stephanie Goss will help attendees learn how practices can use different technology tools to help streamline their workflows. Technology options to support working with less staff are great ways to shift communication focus with clients from a place of stress and frustration to a place of regular and clear communication on what we can do for them.
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Maria Pirita
GSD Shorthanded Speaker
Jason is a fourth-year veterinary student at the University of Illinois. He is the SAVMA Class President for his veterinary class and was the VBMA at Illinois President for two years. He hopes to own his own practice after graduation!
About Jason's Get Sh*t Done Shorthanded Session
What Do New Grads Want?
We are working in a world where the need for veterinarians is outgrowing the number of new graduates that are coming out of veterinary school. In this workshop, you will cover trends in new graduate jobs, a survey of 300 students, an in-depth evaluation of the survey results, comments from the survey, and tips and tricks to recruit and retain new grads.
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Jason Szumski
GSD Shorthanded Speaker
Founder of Uncharted Veterinary Conference
Dr. Andy Roark is a practicing veterinarian, international speaker, author, and media personality. He is the founder of the Uncharted Veterinary Conference and DrAndyRoark.com. He has been an award-winning columnist for DVM360 and his popular Facebook page, website, and YouTube show reach millions of people every month.
About Andy's Get Sh*t Done Shorthanded Session
Change Management When You're Overwhelmed
Overwhelmed…it's how most of us feel in the face of big changes. Even small changes can trigger teams to sink into a place of indecision. This workshop is all about how to get a clear view of your workload and the amount of support you have and make a strategic plan so you can really get sh*t done! This will be a general session for all attendees.
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Andy Roark, DVM
GSD Shorthanded Speaker
Dr. Lily Chen is a small animal integrative veterinarian in Los Angeles, California.
Her journey in veterinary medicine took her from an internship at a specialty hospital to a busy conventional hospital as a general practitioner. She then fell in love with holistic medicine and began practicing as an integrative veterinarian. She started a personal brand and a housecall practice which has now turned into a unicorn brick-and-mortar practice. It's fun to try to do things in vet med uniquely and differently. 🦄
About Lily's Get Sh*t Done Shorthanded Session
The Phone-Less Veterinary Clinic
We have heard over and over how overwhelming the call volume has gotten, especially since the pandemic. Instead of trying to manage the overwhelm with phones, why not consider more efficient ways of communicating with clients? Dr. Lily Chen's clinic has not had physical phones since they started in 2020, and she wants to help other clinics find ways where they can go phone-less.
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Lily Chen, DVM
GSD Shorthanded Speaker
Caitlin DeWilde, DVM
Dr. Caitlin DeWilde is the founder of The Social DVM, a consulting firm devoted to helping veterinary professionals learn how to manage and grow their social media, online reputation and marketing strategies. Working with large industry groups and individual practices alike, Caitlin and her team are passionate about translating the geek speak to veterinary speak and helping vets reach more clients and pets.
Caitlin is a graduate of the University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine and a recipient of their Outstanding Young Alumni Award, and also an alum of the AVMA’s Future Leaders Program. She served as medical director for a large AAHA/Fear Free/Cat-Friendly certified hospital in St. Louis before stepping back to focus on her marketing passion. Today, she divides her time between practice, consulting, and writing. She is the author of a new book from AAHA Press, “Social Media and Marketing for Veterinary Professionals,” and a columnist for Today’s Veterinary Business.
Caitlin DeWilde, DVM
Uncharted 2022 Speaker
Stephanie Goss started in the veterinary field quite by accident but fell in love with the experience of being able to serve people and their pets. With over 15 years of experience both on the floor and in the office, Stephanie is passionate about staff education, team culture, management and training. Stephanie loves helping managers and owners control their inventory and leverage their profits by maximizing their home delivery using online pharmacies. She is a vet med nerd who loves to geek out about technology, especially Practice Management Software. She has experience as a practice manager in both private and corporate practices, ranging in size from one to seven doctors. She has experience as a consultant and trainer with AVImark software, paperlite/paperless transitions, practice management and staff. Stephanie is the Director of Community Development for the Uncharted Veterinary Conference. More notably she’s the co-host of the Uncharted Veterinary Podcast where her laughter highlights the start of every episode and her knowledge bombs reign down like massive chunks of enlightenment from on high.
About Stephanie's Get Sh*t Done Shorthanded Session
Avoiding Breakdowns When You're Shorthanded
This session will help attendees learn how practices can use different technology tools to help streamline their workflows. Technology options to support working with less staff are great ways to shift communication focus with clients from a place of stress and frustration to a place of regular and clear communication on what we can do for them.
Register Now!
Stephanie Goss
GSD Shorthanded Speaker
Phil Richmond, DVM
Dr. Richmond is the Founder & CEO of Flourishing Phoenix Veterinary Consultants and practicing medical director of a small animal hospital in New Port Richey, Florida. He is passionate about positive culture, psychological health, safety, and wellbeing in veterinary workplaces. He works toward implementing tools and policies for thriving and flourishing in the profession, especially at critical education and career points.
Dr. Richmond is involved in state, national and international projects for the advancement of wellbeing and culture in veterinary medicine. He currently serves as the chair for both the Florida Veterinary Medical Association’s Outreach and Professional Wellness & Wellbeing Committees and is a member/advisor of several national committees for workplace suicide prevention and veterinary wellbeing. Dr. Richmond is a member of the UF College of Veterinary Medicine wellbeing curriculum committee and is an instructor for the program at the College.
Dr. Richmond is a published writer and speaker, a frequent veterinary podcast guest, and holds multiple certifications in the fields of applied positive psychology, workplace wellbeing, psychological health & safety, resilience training, behavior change, and suicide prevention. He received an FVMA Gold Star for service in 2019 and the FVMA Veterinarian of the Year in 2021.
Phil Richmond, DVM
Uncharted 2022 Speaker
Michael Miller, DVM
Dr. Michael W. Miller is the co-owner of a four-hospital small animal practice, and sees patients at Lakewood Animal Hospital in Morris, Illinois. In addition to dogs and cats, he has a special interest in reptiles which led him to start a wildlife rescue at his practice for hit-by-car turtles. After being a contributing author to the DrAndyRoark.com and UnchartedVet.com websites, he started his blog called Harry Potter Vet, where he uses comparisons to the wizarding world to help veterinary professionals and himself discover the magic in veterinary medicine. Outside of vet med, he also is discovering the magic of parenthood as he and his wife raise their two young sons.
Michael Miller, DVM
Uncharted 2022 Speaker
Sarah Wolff, DVM
As a self-declared client experience nerd, Dr. Sarah Wolff is fascinated with how different industries and individual businesses care for their customers. The mere fact that we can decide when and how we are there for our clients is thrilling to her, and nothing gets her more excited than experiencing a novel customer service solution.
Sarah Wolff received her bachelors degree from the University of Virginia and her veterinary degree from The Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies at the University of Edinburgh, before moving to New York. She worked for ten years in different veterinary support roles before becoming a doctor, and knows the challenges these critical team members face.
Sarah believes that client relationships are the cornerstone of veterinary care and that in order to thrive, we must center our services around a thoughtfully designed client experience cycle. When we create systems that support our teams and ensure consistently excellent customer care, we create a recipe for business success.
Sarah Wolff, DVM
Uncharted 2022 Speaker
Founder of Uncharted Veterinary Conference
Dr. Andy Roark is a practicing veterinarian, international speaker, author, and media personality. He is the founder of the Uncharted Veterinary Conference and DrAndyRoark.com. He has been an award-winning columnist for DVM360 and his popular Facebook page, website, and YouTube show reach millions of people every month.
About Andy's Practice Owner Summit Session
Balancing the Needs of the Team
Giving clients what they want, keeping your staff happy, and running a smooth and profitable practice are all unique tasks. Doing each of these on their own can be a simpler puzzle to solve. Managing to do them ALL… that’s the challenge! This workshop is about finding the balance between what clients need, what staff need, what your business needs, and never forget, what YOU need!
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Andy Roark, DVM
Practice Owner Summit
Bret Canfield
Bret Canfield is the Director of Organizational Development for Summit Veterinary Referral Center in Tacoma, WA. In this capacity, he is responsible for providing our industry with unbiased customer-specific recommendations and solutions, develop team culture, communication, workflow and engagement. Through his consulting and outreach work he has been fortunate enough to work with hundreds of clinics, including many of the most successful groups and organizations within the Animal Health Community.
Specializing in efficiency, engagement, and learning + development, Bret brings value to his clients by seeing the world through different eyes, identifying latent needs, making open-minded observations, and providing customized solutions. He works with his partners to help them improve their business, engage their staff, challenge their status quo, and solve the struggles that keep them up at night.
Bret Canfield calls the beautiful American Pacific Northwest his home base. When he is not saving the world with the veterinary heroes at Summit, you can find him hiking, kayaking, or doing yoga with his wonderful wife, Moriah, or relaxing with his mischievous torby cat, Eve, and his lazy pitbull, Rookie.
Bret Canfield
UVVC Culture
Robin Brogdon, MA
Robin Brogdon, MA, is the founder and chief executive officer of the award-winning BluePrints Veterinary Marketing Group. After earning a master’s degree in Communication and Marketing, Robin began her career in sports marketing. Her three decades of experience, include work for a Big Ten university athletic department, a professional sports franchise, an action sports media company, management of veterinary specialty hospitals, and most importantly, as a pet owner, gives Robin the breadth of knowledge and pure passion to help her clients achieve their goals. Robin has experience with companies at all stages from start-up to acquisition and divestiture, along with management of multiple construction and relocation projects, most notably the building and operational launch of City of Angels Veterinary Specialty Center in Los Angeles, a 30,000 square foot multi-specialty hospital. Among the projects for which Robin is most proud was the opportunity to rename and rebrand Kansas State University’s Veterinary Teaching Hospital.
Robin Brogdon, MA
UVVC Culture
Carol Hurst, LVT, CVPM, CVJ, CCFP
Carol has been in the veterinary industry since 2005 when she graduated tech school and became a Licensed Veterinary Technician. Even more than helping furred and feathered friends, she found that she enjoyed being able to affect the positive change within her clinic that having a leadership role afforded her. She managed for twelve years. After many years of study, she gained the designation as a Certified Veterinary Practice Manager in November of 2017. Her proudest accomplishment is the work that she’s performed for her local management group. She has been a member since 2010 and served as the President up until December 2019. In 2018 she started as an instructor for Patterson University’s courses and in 2019 she joined forces with the team at VetSupport, taking on a role as a full-time consultant. Her family includes 1 boxer, her “furry” child, a husband and the newest addition, Rowyn, her “non-furry” child.
Carol Hurst, LVT, CVPM, CVJ, CCFP
UVVC Culture
Tracy Sands, DVM
Tracy Sands, DVM is on a mission to empower veterinary support staff and to improve mental wellness in the veterinary profession. A practice owner and mom, Tracy strongly feels that the way to do this is to normalize conversations about mental health and well-being, incorporate core values into a positive culture, and share our veterinary journeys. As part of her journey, she hosts the Vet Med After Hours Podcast, founded the #VetYouMatter campaign, and speaks on topics of staff wellness and improving client experience.
Ron Sosa
Ron initially started his college career in computer science at Rowan University, recently he has restarted and majoring in business management to obtain his Master's degree. Ron has been working in the veterinary field since 2002 and has had every role in the clinic other than being a veterinarian. He has a special passion for solving complicated problems with out-of-the-box solutions. He is working on obtaining his CVPM, but already achieved his CVBL along with fear-free certification and certified compassionate fatigue professional. He is currently the chief visionary officer for Bark Avenue Enterprises, which encompasses 3 animal hospital locations, 2 pet retailers, and 1 pet resort.
Ron Sosa, CVBL, CCFP
UVVC Culture