This week on the podcast…
This week on the Uncharted Podcast, Dr. Andy Roark and practice manager Stephanie Goss are tackling some serious questions that Stephanie lumped together from the mailbag. We've received some asks from veterinarians and managers facing the angry clients, online mobs, in-person harassment/bullying from people when the horrible, unexpected things happen. When a pet slips a leash and runs into the road in front of the clinic; when a patient dies with no warning during an exam; when a pet in boarding is gravely injured trying to escape their run during a thunderstorm. Things we all hope don't ever happen to us but are out of our control for the most part. These stories matter and the questions being asked by these brave leaders facing these situations matter, maybe even more than the story. Questions like “how do I emotionally support my doctor who is berating themselves for not knowing that pet was suddenly going to die with no warning?” or “how do I be there as a leader and support my team when we are getting death threats on our voicemail and people are being called out by name or their personal information shared online? How do I make sure we are all mentally okay at the end of the day?” These are wonderfully compassionate questions that Andy and Stephanie enjoyed looking at from multiple angles. Let's get into this…
You can also listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts.
Got a question for the mailbag? Submit it here: unchartedvet.com/mailbag
Thank you to our sponsors! To learn more about this week's sponsor, GuardianVets, check out their website HERE.
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Episode Transcript
This podcast transcript is made possible thanks to a generous gift from Banfield Pet Hospital, which is striving to increase accessibility and inclusivity across the veterinary profession. Click here to learn more about Equity, Inclusion & Diversity at Banfield.
Andy Roark:
Hey, Stephanie Goss, you got a second to talk about GuardianVets?
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah, what do you want to talk about?
Andy Roark:
Man, I hear from people all the time that are overwhelmed because the phones never stop ringing, and I'm sure you hear from these people as well. Our caseload is blowing up and the doctors are busy and the phones just don't stop.
Stephanie Goss:
They never stop. That is a true story.
Andy Roark:
I'm amazed by how few veterinarians know about GuardianVets. This is a service where you have registered technicians who can jump in virtually and help you on the phones. You can flip the switch and Guardian Vets can jump in and take some of the load off the front desk, and they can handle your clients and get them booked for your appointments and give them support. And it really is a godsend.
Stephanie Goss:
Pre-pandemic, it was amazing to me how many people hadn't heard about it for after hours call help. But at this point, I can't believe how many people don't realize that they are offering help during the daytime, as well. Which I would think right now is a huge benefit to practices because everybody is shorthanded, everybody is drowning in phone calls. And so we talk about it, we've talked about GuardianVets a lot on the podcast, and every time we do, we always get somebody who says, “What is that?”
Andy Roark:
Guys, if you're not familiar with GuardianVets, if you think that you could use some help on the phones or up at the front desk, check them out. It's guardianvets.com, and if you mention our podcast, me and Stephanie Goss, you get a month free. So check it out, guardianvets.com.
Stephanie Goss:
Hey everybody, I am Stephanie Goss, and this is another episode of The Uncharted Podcast. So this week's episode is brought to you courtesy of a handful of letters that we've received over the months in the mailbag. And they are all the big picture questions that have to do with when we have a catastrophic event in the clinic, something that involves a patient or a client. A patient dies under anesthesia, a pet getting walked in from the parking lot escapes, slips their leash and escapes, a pet who is boarding during a thunderstorm escapes and gravely injures themselves, those kind of things. When it's catastrophic, what do we do to support ourselves as the medical professionals involved in the cases? What do we do to support our team when we're leaders?
Because we've gotten some letters from leaders who have gone through these situations and are really struggling with feeling like not only are they trying to keep it together and deal with the lawyers and deal with the liability and the weight of all of that sitting on their shoulders, but they're also trying to deal with the weight for the emotional toll that it has not only on themselves but on the team, particularly when clients go on the warpath and there is cyberbullying or people coming into the practice and harassing or berating the team, when there's death threats, nasty voicemails, all of those things that we've talked about in prior episodes that can happen when something goes sideways and people go on the warpath.
These questions all have to do with how do we support ourselves mentally and emotionally, and how do we support the team? How do we be good leaders in times of crisis? Andy and I leaned into some of our own experiences and really wanted to talk through what do we do and how do we do this. I hope that this helps. I hope that it is a really good episode. Andy and I really enjoyed this conversation. So let's get into this one.
Speaker 3:
And now, The Uncharted Podcast.
Andy Roark:
And we are back. It's me, Dr. Andy Roark, and Stephanie, she drives me crazy, Goss.
Stephanie Goss:
I was waiting for a good one. Are you going to sing me the song, please?
Andy Roark:
She drives me crazy. I was thinking, we're like 200 episodes and change, and it's getting progressively harder to find names for you.
Stephanie Goss:
Hey-
Andy Roark:
I do want to say something to you because I've got a website here.
Stephanie Goss:
You started this game.
Andy Roark:
The 1,001 awesome nicknames, is what it is. And I'm like, I need to pull from this. And so I'm looking at it, and how do you feel about, and we are back, it's me, Dr. Andy Roark, and Stephanie, the talent, Goss. They've got-
Stephanie Goss:
Awkward.
Andy Roark:
Stephanie Tomahawk Goss. They've got animal themed ones. Stephanie the Mastodon Goss, or just Wild Cat Goss.
Stephanie Goss:
It puts me back to grade school when dumb boys used just random things to make fun of you.
Andy Roark:
Stephanie, Lord Privy Seal, Goss.
Stephanie Goss:
I can't with you.
Andy Roark:
What if I just called you subwoofer? Okay, I don't know what to do with this list, but someone put a lot of time into this, and these are good. Cornflake. If I could go back to being a child, I would have a friend and his nickname would be Cornflake. And I don't care, it would get tagged on someone.
Stephanie Goss:
For me, it was Snuffleupagus.
Andy Roark:
No. Really?
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah, that was about the fifth-grade dumb boy teasing. Got pretty epic with Snuffleupagus for a long time.
Andy Roark:
Oh, man. I told you I gave myself a nickname, right? The camp story. My brother and I were going to that summer camp and my mom was like, “It says here, it asked if you have nicknames, do you have nicknames?” And I said, “Yeah.” I said, “I'm Hawk and he's Ace.” And my brother and I were Hawk and Ace when we went to camp that year.
Stephanie Goss:
Did anybody actually call you Hawk or Ace?
Andy Roark:
Oh, yeah. Oh, they went with it. They were like, “We're supposed to call him Hawk.” Yeah, they called me Hawk. I was embarrassed by it by 10 minutes after I was there. I was like, this was a bad idea. It was one of those things where like three months before summer camp when you're filling out the paperwork, it seemed like a good idea. When you were actually there and people did it, it was like, no, this was a mistake.
Stephanie Goss:
That's fantastic. I love it.
Andy Roark:
Oh man. How have you been?
Stephanie Goss:
It's busy. It is full-fledged fall. We had our first storm of the season out here yesterday, and it was crazy. I live in the boonies so we lose power. I went to try to go to the post office to mail actually something to you and something to Tyler, and there was no power. And I was like, I guess … I'd been carrying it around in my car for a week and I was so proud of myself. I'm like, I'm finally going to the post office. No power. He's like, “I can't help you. I can't print stamps.” I was like, “Gosh darn it.”
Andy Roark:
Yeah. Oh boy.
Stephanie Goss:
How have you been?
Andy Roark:
Oh man, living the dream. I was like how have I been? Just running as hard as we can, building out next year at Uncharted. It's going to be amazing.
Stephanie Goss:
I feel like it's the time of planning this, it was always this way for me in the clinic too. Fall hits and you've got all of the craziness of the end of the year, but then you're also excitedly thinking forward to the new year, of what are we going to do? What changes are we going to implement? What are we doing for marketing and social media and all of that kind of stuff? And I always enjoy this time of the year, but I feel like it adds a whole layer of chaos to the chaos that already exists in the fall.
Andy Roark:
Yeah, I do agree with that. I will tell you that part of growing a business is planning farther and farther forward. So when you have a small business, you don't have to plan all that far in advance. And then the more people you have to coordinate, the earlier you have to plan and start communicating what you're doing. And I'm not saying this as a joke, this is really what I've learned.
And so it used to be that December was the time of planning for the next year, and then it was November and now it's October, pushing into-
Stephanie Goss:
July. August.
Andy Roark:
Honestly, it was like by September we really need to be working on what we're doing next year, like really need to be working. And I'm like, it's just interesting that things change, and I think that everybody wants to believe that there is a plan that a quote unquote good business runs. And I'm like, it wholly depends on where you are in the lifespan of your business and the size of the business and the type that you have.
And just one of the big things that you and I talk a lot about is it's not one size fits all. It depends on your culture and your team and your location and your objectives and your challenges and the skillsets of your people. And all these things play into how you run your business. But that also means that as those things change, the way you run your business is going to continue to change.
Stephanie Goss:
Well, and I think it's funny because we get asked questions a lot where the answer is if you have a team of three, you have a doctor and a technician and a CSR, the answer's probably vastly different than if you have a team of 100 or 30 or 23. And we talk a lot about that scale, and it's funny because you think about it uniquely siloed to the perspective of the clinic, but when you zoom out, those same problems exist in a different way in every business as it grows and as it scales.
And it's funny, I've been reflecting a lot on how a lot of what we're going through as a team in Uncharted is very similar to a lot of the things, different specifics, but same rules apply to a lot of the questions and things that you struggle with in the clinic. So on one hand, it's nice to know that you're not alone because everybody has the same kind of challenges.
Andy Roark:
Yeah. I remember I was in vet school and there was an essay contest, and it was a business essay contest. And I was like, I'm going to crush this. I'm going to tee up on this essay contest. And it was about, I can't remember the specifics of it now, but it was something about you're having this sort of toxicity or whatever inside this practice, or they're trying to get the practice organized. I can't remember. There was a growth thing going on.
Anyway, but I distinctly remember it was a one vet practice is what it was. And I think based on the finalists of the essay among which I was not one, it became clear that they were looking for this organizational idea, and the winner was like, “Well, we need to have department meetings and a surgery department meeting and all these other things.” And I remember just sitting there and looking at it and saying-
Stephanie Goss:
They have one doctor.
Andy Roark:
It's a one vet practice. What are you talking about? In my thing, I was very much like, these are important conversations. I thought on an individual level, I would make sure this person is on board with this and talk to this other person about this and understand their feelings on that. And that was not what they were looking for. They were a hundred percent looking for an org chart of how these things are going to go. But I just remember being like, “A surgical team meeting in a one vet practice?” You know what I mean? And it was so overbuilt, and I just, I've never gotten past that.
Stephanie Goss:
That's funny.
Andy Roark:
Anyway, just the dissonance of what they said it was and then the organization that they celebrated, I was like, these things are not compatible. What are we doing? Anyway.
Stephanie Goss:
It's just funny.
Andy Roark:
I hold that up not because I'm still bitter about losing the contest in vet school.
Stephanie Goss:
Uh huh, sure. Nope, not at all.
Andy Roark:
But because it goes to my point of I think that a lot of people think that there is a way that a practice is supposed to run, and I'm like, that's not correct.
Stephanie Goss:
So all of this has nothing to do with what we're going to talk about today. Storytime.
Andy Roark:
We should note the recording time and just let people know you can just skip to the four-minute mark if you like.
Stephanie Goss:
Storytime with Andy and Stephanie. No, we have a good one today. And so this is going to be an episode. It's interesting we've gotten some, I've been kind of collecting a few asks from the mailbag and they're all very different, and I don't want to share specifics from any one of them because I think they're representative of a bigger concern. And they were situations where something catastrophic happened in the practice from a medicine perspective.
So a patient escaped, got off the leash and escaped, or they had a death under anesthesia, or a patient was not under anesthesia, was just in the care of the hospital, and died. Things that are really either accidents or out of our control where there actually wasn't anything wrong. When you zoom out, and bless you all for giving us specifics, when we zoom out and look at the questions we would ask to make sure that we did the right things along the way, all of those boxes were checked but something catastrophic happened and you have the reactions of the clients and the people immediately involved.
And in all of these situations, obviously there was upset and anger and hurt and emotions on the part of the clients. And that is then all getting directed at the doctors, at the team, at the hospital. And in several circumstances, we've done episodes on this before, it explodes into the online arena. And then there is bullying and cyberbullying and people who are not a part of the immediate family berating the clinic and the team. And in some instances, personal information is getting shared online, people are being called by name, they're getting attacked.
So unfortunately we've seen enough of these circumstances in veterinary medicine in the last few years, and I was holding onto these because I wanted to talk not so much about what do we necessarily do in the moment, although a little bit of that, but there was some questions that were asked in each of these that really stood out to me because they were not so much related to the how do I deal with this, right? Should I get an attorney? Who should I talk to? But they were about, when we think about the bigger picture, how do we keep the team safe? How do we lead the team through challenges like this? And there were several cases where people were like, I feel like I did the right, we got an attorney, or I work for a company that has an HR and a legal department, and they were there to help us with all of the paperwork pieces of it, but how do I support the people who are involved?
And my heart went out when I read some of these because these are good people who are trying to do the best for their teams and their patients, and they're just feeling really, really overwhelmed with how do I create the space, the emotional space, and how do I deal with it? And I thought this is really good for Andy and I because so much of it is headspace, which is what we spend a lot of time talking about on the podcast.
And then also, there are actionable things and what can we do to help the team in specific. So some of the questions that I really liked is when the worst case happens, when clients are angry about something, how do we keep the team safe? How do we lead them through the challenges, and really, how do we handle the extra sticky situations like this?
Andy Roark:
Yeah, no, I'm glad you brought this up. And I really like the fact that they broke this apart and said just the people part. And I go, great, because this is a big sticky wicket. And depending on the specifics of the case, I would give you different advice on handling the other things. I really like the way they set it up and they were like, “We got our lawyer, we got our liability insurance people involved. We are checking the boxes, we are covering our bases, we've got the social media part under control. We've locked down things, turned off comments, we've done stuff.” All right, so I really like this a lot.
So what do we say to the team? I think one of the big things is the way that we address this with the team is the way that we address trauma with any group of people, whether it's family or any group of people who are going through a hard time. I think the first thing we do is acknowledge the elephant in the room. And that may sound silly, but a lot of people miss that trick because they're like, “I don't want to bring it up because they might not know.” It's like, they know. They are acutely aware, and you not talking about it, it doesn't show leadership, it makes them feel isolated and cut off, or it makes them feel powerless. It makes them question what is being done? What should we expect? Are we just being left alone in this?
And so I think it starts there. I think the first thing is start with the elephant in the room, is having some clear conversation that just says, “We see that this is going on.” And I don't want to heighten it. I don't want to say, “Boy, really hope people's addresses don't start getting posted online.” Don't give them ideas, don't heighten this beyond where it is. Resist the urge to let this spiral into something else. And I think that's a big part of bringing it back.
So I'll talk about the spiral part in a second, but that's how I would open it up, is to say, “The first thing to know is the staff is aware of this.” I think your job in leadership is reassurance. You don't have to fix the problem, you don't have the power to fix the problem, but let them know that they're not alone and you see it and we're this together. I'm not going to let you sit up at the front desk and be abused while I stay back in my office and pretend this isn't happening.
Stephanie Goss:
And on the flip side of that, I think, you said that the team is aware that this is happening. And I think that that's true. And I think that our first inclination, my first inclination, I had a situation where we had a patient who was in a carrier, we were bringing it in from the parking lot. The client was walking beside the member of my team. And it was a large cat, and they got freaked out by a noise in the parking lot and shifted their weight, and the carrier dropped and it popped open and the cat exploded out of the box and took off and was gone for three days. And it was hugely scary.
And the team who was there at the time that day knew what was happening because the person ran inside and said, “Hey, I need a couple of people to come help me fan out. We're going to look for the pet.” But then the rest of the day goes on, we still have patients, other patients that are being seen. Not everybody knows. And I think my inclination at the time was to try and control the potential for the game of telephone. And so I was like, “I only want to tell them what they need to know.”
And I think there can be the inclination to lean into not telling people because it's like you just keep doing what you're doing, don't worry about what's happening over here. And so I think on the flip side of that, it is important to know that when something like this happens, particularly if you have a larger hospital where team members aren't present, it's really important I think from a headspace perspective to think about how do you make sure everybody is aware of what happened and not so much everybody needs to know all of the details.
Because I think that is an important piece of the action. They don't need to know all the details. And sometimes, especially if it's a case where it's a legal situation, you might not want to tell them all of the details. But I do think it's important to make sure that everybody does know what happened. So the next, if you're on shift and you have a death under anesthesia, man, that is freaking hard. Those are some of the hardest days in veterinary medicine, and I hate to say it, but when you come in the next day, maybe you've been able to tamp it down and you're trying not to think about it, but it usually doesn't mean you've shaken it off.
And if you're working with somebody who wasn't on shift the day before, they're not going to know what happened and they're also going to not know maybe why you're acting the way that you are or where your head is at. And so I think it is important to make sure that everybody knows, hey, this is what happened. And that there is a process to talk about those things when they do happen.
Andy Roark:
Yeah, I think that that's a really good point. I think one of the things that I, one of the first things I want to talk about with the team, and now we're shifting away from dealing with medical mistakes, which we have a podcast episode about that and communicating that with the team and things like that. I'm shifting a little bit away from how we communicate medical mistakes inside our team to the client component. Because that's specifically what we're talking about, is when the clients go on the warpath and they go on social media and there's this external nastiness coming in.
I think one of the things that I want to do, so we start with communication about the elephant in the room, and the next thing that I want to talk about is valid versus invalid anger. And it's about, I think part of the communication stuff with the team is hey, we empathize with people and we try to understand where they're coming from and how they're feeling.
And I feel like we have done that. We want to do that, we want to think about this from their perspective. And at some point, there is a limit to what is valid in people's behaviors. Can you be upset because your pet escaped for three days? Of course you can. Can you make death threats to the people who own the building? No, you cannot. That is not normal, rational behavior. And sometimes we just have to call it out, especially for the people who are dealing with the client, because people will say, “You are horrible, you are a terrible person. I hope your children are injured,” blah blah blah. And sometimes when people say that to us, a voice in our head says, “Do I deserve this? Did I mess up this bad? I know this went really badly, but do I deserve this?”
So I think bringing your people together and saying, “We are going to empathize with these people, and then also, we are going to be clear about what is acceptable and what is not acceptable and what is unreasonable and what is unwarranted.” Because I do think that a lot of people struggle, especially, I tell you, I can remember cases in my past where things have not gone well and the clients have blamed me for things to my face. And I have eaten myself alive, saying, “Why didn't I anticipate this? Why didn't I see this coming?”
And I needed another doctor, my friend, to come to me and say, “What are you talking about Andy? You're not omniscient. You didn't do anything wrong. You didn't imagine everything that a pet might do in that moment. That's not failure, that's being a human being.”
And I just think it's really important to have those types of conversations about what happened and then about what is a reasonable reaction that pet owners can have and what behaviors are over the line. And that gives people permission to put up some barriers. It gives people permission to feel sadness for this person, responsibility, upset, and also say, “And at the same time, you posting online in every forum you can find that I'm a terrible person, that's not okay and that's not warranted and that's not justified, given what actually happened.” And so sometimes it is those conversations to validate what is okay and what is not okay.
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah, I like that. I like that a lot. I also think it creates an opportunity, too, for the team to talk about some of the things that might actually have nothing to do with this situation that's currently going on, but that may have happened in the past, that kind of got set aside, like the emotional blackmail situations with clients. It opens up the doors and creates opportunity to talk about those things, particularly with your front desk team, who gets it really, really bad sometimes from clients, about what is invalid anger, what is invalid behavior? Not just in terms of they're in the lobby shouting, but the specifics of what they're shouting. Where do we draw those lines?
And I think the good part is that it opens the door to having those conversations because in the moment, I think a lot of the time we may not take the time to have that because we're trying to let the emotions process and dissipate, like let's calm down before we have this conversation. And then I think a lot of the times the chaos of every day, it comes into play, and we have the best of intentions, but I'll be honest, I didn't always circle back and have those conversations.
And so I think taking it as an opportunity to say, “Hey, let's talk about some things that we have experienced, and we don't need specifics. We're not going to rehash old situations, but what are the specific behaviors? What are the specific instances that you guys feel like would be invalid behavior, invalid anger from a client?”
Andy Roark:
Yeah, I think those types of conversations are important, because here's the thing, and this is why it's important to have the conversation too, is the question is how do I help support the staff? I can tell you, Stephanie Goss, that I think what you're dealing with is complete garbage and no one should talk to you that way or no one should say that to you. Me telling you that is never going to be as powerful as you coming to that conclusion for yourself. And so me asking you, well, what do you think is valid and what do you think is over the line in the interaction that you had with this person?
And if you can say, “Well, I understand them being mad, and I would be mad too.” I would say, “I agree.” And you say, “But I do not think that they should use homophobic, racist language, slurs, whatever, profanity, whatever they're doing. I don't think that they should do that.” And I would say, “I agree with you. I do not think that that's acceptable.” And now it's not me just saying, “Hey Stephanie, that's not acceptable,” and I'm telling it to you. You're coming to that conclusion on your own, and there's real power in hearing your colleagues say, “Well, this was not okay,” and just coming to that consensus.
And so I'm trying to build solidarity, and that's why we have these conversations about what do you guys think about this? Now, the important thing is I think it's good to go here and have this conversation about what do we think and what is over the line in how we're being treated, how do you guys feel about what's happening? I think that's good, but we want to bounce out of that area fairly quickly. I want people to be able to say and validate and reach a consensus about what is justified and what is not, and then we need to move on.
And so I want to evolve the conversation from that to, okay, what will we do or can we do to prevent things like this from happening again in the future? And the answer may be nothing. It may be this is a hundred percent out of our control. This was a lightning strike thing. The owner put the cat in the carrier, and the carrier was not put together well, and it didn't even make it across the parking lot to us. I don't know what we do. Maybe send people a text reminder to make sure if they have any questions about assembling their cat carrier, they can call us. I don't know.
So for example, we had a case years and years ago, I worked at a place and we had dog boarding, and a thunderstorm came up and this dog that we did not know was storm phobic just went bananas. And I can't remember how he got out of his run, but it was something that should not have happened, meaning he tore through chain link or something. Something you go, superhuman panic. It's heartbreaking, right?
Stephanie Goss:
Yes.
Andy Roark:
The panic. And then the dog sprints down the hallway, jumps up, hits the bar on the emergency door, and is gone into the night in the storm. And it's just like, oh my God. The question is, what can we do differently? Is it questions, direct questions about how does your pet respond to storms? Things like that. Maybe if we can't do anything to, we should lock the fire door. You can't do that. That's not going to go over. But are there questions we can ask? Are there other things? Maybe pets that have storm phobias, they go into different areas. Maybe there's a different monitoring, I don't know what's possible. We can get creative.
It's called credibility. And when I teach dealing with angry or complaining clients, I talk a lot about credibility. Credibility is figuring out what happened, why it happened, and what we're going to do to prevent it from happening in the future. And I like it for a couple of ways. Number one, it's one of the most powerful things you can say to the pet owner. You can say, “This is what happened, this is why it happened, and this is what we're doing to prevent this from ever happening again in the future.” And it's owning the mistake in an appropriate, productive way and talking about how this is going to be taken care of and it's not going to happen to anyone else again. And that is a very powerful thing that often doesn't happen.
So I like it because it is cathartic for the pet owners. It makes them feel like justice is being served and moving forward and this has been owned and it's being fixed, but also, it puts the power of the situation back to some degree into our hands as vet professionals and say, “All right guys, what in this situation do we have control of? We have control of what we do to prevent this in the future.” And so it's giving some power back to people who might otherwise feel powerless.
Finally, it also gives you clear talking points. So if you are being attacked from the outside, on social media, things like that, I don't want my people engaging on social media. However, if we're going to communicate, we can communicate what we are going to do or what policy changes we are making to make sure this does not ever happen again. It shows how much we care, it shows that we're working on it. It is a positive thing to put forward to say, “We are reviewing all of our policies and protocols. We plan to make some updates to things that will prevent accidents like this from occurring in the future.” Things like that. And again, without knowing specific, without talking about specific instances, I can't tell you exactly what the wording would be.
Stephanie Goss:
And I think one of the things too, and this certainly does not apply in every situation, but I think that there also creates opportunity there. And it's why I feel really thankful that I have the tool in my toolbox of knowing that I can always apologize for the impact to somebody. I can't apologize for something that was out of my control. Like your example, I can't apologize that a storm hit. I do not control that. But I can absolutely apologize for the impact that it had to them because I am sorry, I am so sorry that their pet was so scared and that it escaped and that whatever happened to it happened. And even in that worst case scenario, I can empathize with them, and that is a superpower here.
And I've been in the situation where empathizing with the owner, and to your point, Andy, having the conversation with them to say, “I can't change this for you. I wish that I could. I can't change it for you. I can't make them come back.” I remember being a very young practice manager and having a situation happen in our clinic where a pet that was supposed to have a private cremation was not tagged and they were group cremated. And I remember it was my first time handling something big like this, and I remember sitting in an exam room with the client and I remember just looking at her and saying, “I wish that I could fix this, but there's literally nothing that I can do to solve this for you. But I want you to know that I am hearing you, I am seeing you, and if I could make this different for you, I would. And I need you to understand that I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure that this doesn't happen to somebody else.”
And that may not bring them comfort in the moment, but being able to say that opened the door for that client, who actually called me a couple weeks later and said, “I've been thinking a lot about what you said, and I have some questions about what you do do.” And they were wonderful. Unfortunately, it was one of my all-time favorite clients, but she had this conversation with me and she asked me questions that I hadn't yet thought of, of what were our processes in the clinic.
And it actually helped me figure out how could we help prevent this from happening again. Because they weren't looking at it from the narrow inside perspective that I was, which is like, what are we doing? How can we fix this? She was asking different questions, and it enabled us to look at our protocols and processes in a way that was completely different and helped us solve some of the challenges. And I think we don't get to do that if we don't open ourselves up for that vulnerability. And it's not always right. There are absolutely circumstances where I would not touch that conversation with a 10-foot pole and without an attorney present, right?
Andy Roark:
Yeah, sure.
Stephanie Goss:
And at the same time, I think we can always apologize for the impact.
Andy Roark:
Yeah, I like that. I just start tying credibility and apology together. I think it's important.
I met this vet one time, and we were just talking and we were just telling stories. And I wasn't speaking, I was at a CE event, I was totally doing my own thing. And I met this guy and we were just talking and it was kind of, you sort of bump into somebody and you're just killing time and one thing kind of leads to another and you end up having this really weird, deep conversation. You know what I'm talking about?
Stephanie Goss:
Yep.
Andy Roark:
It was that. I was talking to this guy and he told me this story, and I don't remember if I asked him for a, I don't remember how in the world I got him to tell me the story, but he said, and I swear this is true. He said, “I've got a story for you.”
He said, “I was doing a dental cleaning on this cat, and the clients were wonderful clients. They had multiple cats who came to our practice.” And the cat had a mouth gag when it was intubated, and they extubated the cat and put it into one of the dens to recover, and nobody watched the cat. And it comes to the end of the day, the cat's dead in the den. And he goes and he looks and the mouth gag was still in. Nobody pulled the mouth gag.
Stephanie Goss:
Oh no.
Andy Roark:
And so the cat suffocated and died.
Stephanie Goss:
Oh no.
Andy Roark:
And he said to the pet owners that there was an unexpected complication during recovery and the cat died.
Stephanie Goss:
Oh no.
Andy Roark:
And the owners were just distraught and they went home. And he sat there and he just couldn't live with himself. And so he leaves the clinic and he goes and gets in his car and he drives to their house, because he has their address, and he knocks on their door and he tells them, “What I said was not true. This is what happened.”
Stephanie Goss:
Oh no.
Andy Roark:
And, “I am so, so sorry.” And he said, “I'm going to figure out how to make sure this never happens again.” And those clients were involved with him figuring out what the protocols were going to be in the future, and he kept them in the loop about what they would do. And he kept them as clients, and they continued to come back because they were like, “You came and you sat here in our house and you owned up and you told us what happened and then what you were doing about it.” And he kept them as clients.
I have never forgotten that story of just like, I get it. You know what I mean? It's the human experience on display where this is a terrible mistake and you can't fix it. And I understand panic and saying, well, just tell them there was a complication. Which is technically true. I get it. I get that impulse. I also get the impulse of being eaten alive by guilt and saying that's not true and that's not fair.
So anyway, but I've never forgotten that story of just owning it. This is what happened, this is why it happened, and I'm going to figure out how to make sure it never happens again. And I'm serious about that. And so I do think that those types of conversations about what can we own here, again, after setting aside what is, as far as anger, what is valid and what is invalid, then we can say what are we going to do about it? Because if you don't set aside valid and invalid, you make people feel like they deserve, we made a mistake and we deserve this. You have to pull those apart. I think that's really, really important.
I think that when we start talking about where do we go from here, one of the things that you're going to battle in yourself for very, very valid reasons, and in your team, is defensiveness, right?
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah.
Andy Roark:
I mean, when people are online attacking you, it feels awful. And you do get defensive and you feel like your reputation, which you have worked so hard for, is being destroyed. And I've got a news flash for people. Brace yourself, buckle up. You're not going to hear this coming. You're not always treated fairly in the court of public opinion.
Stephanie Goss:
Imagine that.
Andy Roark:
And I talk a lot about this too, and this is one of the things I'm really anti-social media, I'm really anti-social media in general these days in a lot of ways. But this is one thing I'm specifically, intentionally, very much over the top focused on, is the fact that veterinarians make great villains online. Everybody hates a hypocrite. It's why Ellen DeGeneres got torn down, like career ended when people found out she wasn't nice. If people found out Clint Eastwood isn't nice, they'd be like, yep, that tracks. You know what I mean? Like yep, he's a grumpy-
Stephanie Goss:
He's a grumpy man.
Andy Roark:
Being nice is not required for adoration unless you're Ellen DeGeneres, who has this reputation of being the queen of nice. James Corden is getting torched right now because of being crappy to a waiter. And I don't know whether he deserves that or not, but you can't convince me he's not getting torched entirely because his whole persona is Carpool Karaoke, happy, fun guy. And people go, “He's pretending to be happy and fun. In reality, he was nasty to a server.” And so they torch him for it. People hate a hypocrite.
And the problem that we as veterinarians have and vet professionals is, is that we have Ellen DeGeneres' reputation, we have James Corden's reputation of being the fun, wonderful, happy, loving people who would do anything for you. And then when things don't go right or when we're not able to do anything for you, we take the fall like Ellen and James Corden do. Because if your attorney, if someone's like, “My attorney screwed me over,” people are like, “Welcome to the club. Are we getting mad about that now?” It's kind of a thing that they're known for. And my brother's an attorney, I can say that. But no one gets their hackles up when people say, “My attorney is a crook.” They're like, “Of course he's a crook, he's an attorney.”
And that's not fair to attorneys. But I just use that to illustrate the difference between them and veterinarians. And in this social media world, being dubbed a loved profession, it has a downside. And it's that you make a great villain, you make a hypocrite, you make a horrible villain. And so I don't know that attorneys get mobbed the way that we do by strangers who don't have any idea what's going on. And maybe I'm wrong in that. But I do think that we are uniquely situated to get absolutely hammered on social media by faceless mobs.
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah, I think that makes sense. And we know that the keyboard warriors exist because there is the facelessness, right? People can say whatever they want and there's no consequences because there's a screen and a keyboard between them and the people. And I think that we've talked about this lots of times on the podcast, how social media has this ability for people to be able to be big and scream and rant and have it be this huge thing.
And I think it makes sense, what you said was a light bulb moment, because it totally makes sense. People think about veterinarians as the big hearts, the all creatures great and small. And it's at the heart of a lot of our challenges in veterinary medicine, particularly when it comes to things like money, but also when it comes to problems like this because then we make a really good, easy villain.
Andy Roark:
Yeah, that's my point. So I think that we get unfairly targeted or we draw passion from online mobs in a way that a lot of other professions don't. Nobody mobs the auto mechanic. Not that I can see, but maybe, again, maybe if you're in the auto mechanic Facebook group you're seeing a lot of things I'm not, I don't know. But it doesn't feel that way to me. It really is, everybody online hates a hypocrite. And when people say, “These people could have saved my pet and didn't. They charged me for money that I couldn't afford and they wouldn't take care of my pet,” we hit that-
Stephanie Goss:
It's an easy target.
Andy Roark:
… button in their mind. And we get torched in a way other people don't. And that's why I think I specifically look at social media as being bad for vet professionals. Now what I was saying was, resist the urge to get defensive. The reason is because it does not help. If you are wading into an irrational mob, it does not help. And again, I've had lots of debates with other people about responding to negativity online. And I will be up front, I own my position and I have had plenty of people who are very, very smart argue with me on it. My position remains unchanged, with very rare exception. It is better not to engage.
And people are like, “No, you should do it.” No. You should talk to the individual who's involved, you should communicate, you should do things like that. But wading into online drama does not tend to go well. It just doesn't. All it does is re-attract attention, stimulate people to post more, to write more, to call more. And it keeps the drama going, as opposed to laying low and letting it go.
And again, this is very much about the specifics of the case, but I think people feel too much of a pressure to respond to the masses. And I don't think those people deserve a response. They don't know what's going on. They don't have the information. And you are not going to change their mind because they don't want to have their mind changed.
Stephanie Goss:
Right, exactly. Yeah.
Andy Roark:
You can choose to be righteous or effective, and if you want to be righteous, you can wade into the crowd with your flaming, raging sort of justice, seeking to defend your honor. You can do that, or you can be effective and to say, “How do I make this go away as fast as possible?” And a lot of it is don't engage with it, and it's going to run its course in three days and it will be a distant bad memory in three weeks.
Stephanie Goss:
How do you feel about taking a break and then coming back and talking about some of the actual, like some of action steps in particular for how do we support a team?
Andy Roark:
Yeah.
Stephanie Goss:
Hey friends, it's Stephanie, and I'm jumping in here for one quick second because there's a workshop coming up and it is one of the last ones for this year of 2022. And I want to make sure that you don't miss it because it is coming to you from my dear friend Maggie Brown-Bury. Maggie is a former emergency veterinarian who lives in Newfoundland, Canada. And a few years ago, Maggie made the decision to make a change, and she moved out of ER medicine into being a relief veterinarian. And I remember Maggie telling us within weeks of opening up her schedule, her whole first year was booked.
And so we asked Maggie to come and do a workshop for how to get the most out of the relationships that you build as a practice with your relief veterinarians. Because more and more practices, as we face the veterinarian shortage, are struggling with needing to have relief doctors on their schedule, maybe more regularly than we would have previously. And Maggie's got some great ideas after working with a ton of different practices on how you can leverage that relationship and set yourself up for success, set your relief veterinarian up for success, and set your clients up for success. So if this sounds like something you'd be interested in, head on over to unchartedvet.com/events and find all of the information about the workshop and how to sign up. I hope to see you there. And now back to the podcast.
Andy Roark:
All right, let's start to transition a little bit. I've ranted about the internet and mobs and negativity.
Stephanie Goss:
You, Andy Roark, getting on a soapbox?
Andy Roark:
I know. All right, let's change this into some actual action steps. So number one, like I said, open communication with your team about what's going on within legal boundaries. Obviously we don't fill you in on the details on something that may be going to the state board. But they need to know what's going on, especially if they're getting hate from outside, the phones are ringing. They need to know what's going on. So part of it is they need to know that this is not being ignored. It is being worked on, that it's being addressed. That's number one.
Number two, we should have a conversation about what is valid here and what is not valid here. And so that we're all in agreement and we can have this conversation and support each other. We can start to shift the conversation from there into what are we going to do about this? Where do we go from here? How do we prevent these things from happening in the future? And part of that is making our people feel empowered. And it's also about coming up with what our talking points are going to be.
And that's the next part for me in this, and this is still equipping your people, but it's figuring out what are the talking points that they're going to have? What are they going to say when people call? What are their options? And they don't have to talk everyone into pieces. My favorite thing is called the broken record defense, is where you say, “This is what we can say, this is what we're working on, this is where it goes from here. And that's really all that I can tell you.”
And when people ask questions, basically you end up with-
Stephanie Goss:
Repeating.
Andy Roark:
Those little three pieces of information, and we give it, but we're not going to get drawn off track. We're not going to comment on other things. No, we're not going to connect you to the doctor. This is where we are. And it's helping people know what to say so they feel prepared and they feel supported.
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah. I think for me, when I think about the question of how do we support the team, it struck me because in one of the mail bag letters we got, they were like, “We had the legal side of this covered and that was great.” And I think it's important to say this is when the worst things happen, right? We're talking about the really unexpected and the things that are really catastrophic for an owner. Do not DIY this. Do not go it alone. This is where you pay professionals.
And my fellow private practice owners, this is where we have to say, we're going to dig into our pocketbook, because you should not, and [inaudible 00:50:31] is wonderful and they have attorneys on staff and obviously you should utilize all of the liability resources that you have. But this is also, especially, especially if people are sharing, calling people out by name on social media or in reviews and stuff, giving personal information about your team, you have to outsource this. You have to get a lawyer and get help because there's so many ways that they can help. And even if it's not something that they can provide, they can provide you additional resources that you should have at your disposal for those catastrophic situations. So don't go it alone.
And I think for me it's the same when it comes to supporting the team. This is where we need to lean into thinking about our responsibility as employers. And so I'm going to put on the HR hat for a second and step on that soapbox because at the end of the day, it is our responsibility to provide a safe workplace. And so if we have catastrophic situations which are inevitable, we can't control everything in veterinary medicine and accidents are going to happen, we have to still provide a safe workspace for our teams.
And so if there are situations like this and a perception is that we're not doing things to make it safer for our team, we can absolutely be sued as employers. And so I say that not to create fear and make you panic and go, “Oh God, that's another thing that's going to keep me up at night,” but it is something that we should think about.
And so for supporting the team, you and I, Andy, talk a lot for a variety of reasons of why, and employee assistance programs or EAPs are great, that is a really easy first step here in terms of supporting the team. So having a program in place where they can get assistance, including counseling, because when we have situations like this, where especially if a mistake was made, having access to counseling, having access to professionals who can help your team talk through those situations and deal with the emotions that they are going to feel, is really, really important. And if you don't have an EAP, or even if you do, depending on the circumstances, you may want to consider outsourcing additional help, like bringing in a grief counselor to talk to the team as a whole or individually, offering ongoing therapy for your doctors.
Generally, every time I had a doctor have a board complaint, part of it was that they needed to have access to talking to somebody. And if they declined, that was fine. But I wanted them to know that, hey, this is hard. You're going to have to defend yourself, and even if you did nothing wrong, that is a hard thing to go through as a human being, and I want to recognize that and provide you the opportunity to have someone who is professional. It's not my job as the manager, it's not my job as a practice owner, and I'm not qualified to do it, but you should have access to somebody. So providing them the support and resources that are professional I think is really important.
Andy Roark:
Yeah, I agree with that. So at Uncharted we have BetterHelp as an employee benefit, and it's not a plug for BetterHelp, but it's the one that we use and we have. So the way it's set up, I actually like the way it's set up. The way it's set up basically is you set it up as an employer and then if people want to schedule time with a counselor, they can. And I don't know those who use it and who doesn't. I get a breakdown on how much it was used and things like that. And that's it. It's not super cheap, it's not super expensive, but it is a thing that we've done as an employee benefit.
I don't see anything wrong with having it as a short term employee benefit if your staff is going through something like this, and what if you said we're going to offer this for three months and anyone who wants to have a counselor for three months can have it, and that's what we plan to do. It was not hard to set up. It has got some nice privacy controls on it as well, and it was just a thing that we were able to make available and our people can use it as they need to.
And so anyway, I like the EAP a lot. If your EAP has limitations in how much counseling there are or if you feel like your team needs something more than that, there are other ways that you can access professionals and get them some support as well.
Stephanie Goss:
I think the last thing in terms of resources and professionals that ties to this, and it's a little bit of the in the moment, but also a little bit of the abusive behavior, and so your team should know who to call for help. And I say that because I had a situation where we had a client who was being verbally abusive. It started pretty mildly in the lobby and escalated very quickly. And when I found out about it and then they went out, they finally left the building and they were hanging out in the parking lot. And when one of the team members went out to get another patient, they physically accosted the team member in the parking lot.
And when I was asking the team about what happened, because I wasn't there at the time, they were just like, “We were fine. We felt like we could handle it.” And I asked the question, I was like, “Did anybody call the police?” Literally the police station was across the street from the practice. They were like, “No.” I was like, “Why not?” And they're like, “Well, because it didn't feel serious enough.” And I was like, “You guys.” Then it opened up an opportunity for us to talk about it as a team because the person involved didn't think that it was a big deal. But when I looked at it, I was like, dude, if they're physically accosting us in the parking lot, you should have called the police because that's what they're there for. They're there to help protect us.
And I think it goes back to what we were talking about earlier, Andy, which is you want them to bring up the ideas, but also, we're all going to have different ideas on what the level of invalid is, righteous, or sorry, valid or invalid anger. And so for me, I was like, this is invalid behavior. This is a line in the sand. And it created an opportunity for the team to talk about it and for us to talk about those protocols of what do we do for personal safety, what does that look like, at what point? And we had a wonderful conversation, and it helped pave the way for me to create this rule with my team, which is no one should ever feel like they cannot pick up the phone and call 911.
If there is truly, they feel threatened or intimidated, that's what I want them to do before they do anything else. Get a professional there to help you. And I can think of a whole multitude of situations in veterinary medicine where that might be applicable, but your team won't necessarily use that if they don't feel like you're advocating for it.
And so I think part of it was having the conversation open the door to me in my mind, even as a manager, of like, hey, remember when you're in grade school and you do the safety drills and you know to get under the desk and duck and cover when we have an earthquake? I lived on the West coast as a kid, obviously. That's a thing for a reason and it kind of stops in adulthood, but it shouldn't. Like when we think about our practices, for me the last piece of this is we should be prepared for what we can be. And some of that is the safety drills. It is knowing who to call, when to call, and having those ongoing conversations, but also practicing it so that everybody knows this is what we do when those catastrophic things happen.
Andy Roark:
Yeah, I like that a lot. I think that that's really good. I think that those are some hard and fast resources for keep taking care of the team. There's one more sort of soft resource that I want to add to this, and I need to couch it just the right way because I don't want it to come off wrong. When people are going through cyberbullying or they're feeling this pressure from clients, they're feeling a lot of negativity, it's important to [inaudible 00:58:21] everything that we talked about, justify them, validate them, support them, all those sorts of things. I find that it's really important to try to point to the good things that are going on in the practice and what is going well and the good that we do in the world. And I'm not saying that in a way that invalidates the bad feelings that they have.
So there's two things that I point out. I picked my daughter up from high school yesterday and I was taking her out, she wanted to get a birthday gift for one of her friends, and so we had to drive. So I pick her up at 4:30 and we're going right into traffic. And Greenville is a growing city and we're going into the city part, and it sucked. The roads were packed, and there was this guy in this like BMW SUV and he was driving like a maniac. He came shooting down the road, he did that thing where he was in the left lane, he cut right behind me. He literally missed my back bumper by three feet, you know what I mean? As he cut all the way over in the other lane, and you just see him cutting people off and cutting back.
And he's doing that thing where he's driving wildly, aggressively, and he gets to the stoplight one car length ahead of where he would've been if he had just calmed the eff down, you know what I mean? And driven. And you see the guy and he's cutting through and just, he's driving like a maniac. So I get my daughter through all this stuff and we get back home and my wife goes, “Well, how was it?” And I was like, “Traffic is terrible. People are crazy.” And I thought about it later, I was like, you know what, I was probably next to 800 cars. There was one guy that was crazy, one guy. That's like a 0.01% of the population. But that guy wildly affected my interaction, my perception of this interaction I had with a thousand other drivers.
And I bring that up because it's negativity bias. We have this one thing that we, oh my God, and it deeply affects everything else. Well, the same thing is true when we have bad experiences like this, if something goes wrong or people really go over the edge in being negative or angry, and that same thing of, oh my gosh, traffic was horrible. The truth is, it's one guy. It's sort of the same thing with this.
And so getting people to realize and say, so I talk about, it's called negativity bias. It's our natural instinct to remember the negative things and give negative things more weight in our mind because it keeps us safe. That's why it's hardwired in, because it keeps us safe. And so putting those sorts of things out and just talking to the team and saying, “Hey, when we have a negative experience, we tend to see negativity everywhere. And I want you guys to remember that we do great work, and there's so many people that we help and so many people who are supportive of us, and don't forget those things.”
And then don't make it a big deal, but go the extra mile to call out the things that you see people doing well. And it's not about, hey, don't worry about this other thing because of blank. It's like, no, it's just, “Hey, I saw you doing this thing and it was really great. Thank you very much. You're really great at your job. Hey, those people were just completely smitten with you and how you treated them. That was really amazing to see. Thank you.” And lift people back up because they're getting beaten on, you know what I mean? You can make their day a little bit better just by recognizing them and appreciating them for the work that they do, to try to offset the crap that's falling from above.
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah, I like that. I think the other thing too, besides seeing the good things, and this is going to sound silly and it is a little bit silly, but it's also not meant to belittle it, is sometimes leaning into things that really make us happy in veterinary medicine. So find the puppies and kittens, man. Bring a petting zoo to your team. Do the things that are positive. And it's small and maybe it is silly, but I remember a period in my career where I was helping, I was working off the floor as a manager, but we had new people at the front desk and the area that they hadn't gone through in terms of training yet was euthanasia. And so I got called to come in and do the front desk piece for all of the end of life cases that came in.
And it sounds strange, but I enjoy that piece of work, but it also is not without a toll. And so I remember feeling really, really negative because I was like, dude, I get all the crappy sad all the time. That's all I'm focusing on. And I remember venting about it to one of my technician friends at the time, and I just needed to say something. I wasn't saying it and actually asking for help. And I remember, I don't know, half hour, 20 minutes later, she comes in my office and she's like, “Come with me right now.” And I was like, oh God, another case, I can't, I can't. And she brings me into an exam room and there's a literally a bucket of puppies in the room.
Andy Roark:
Oh man.
Stephanie Goss:
And it was so good. She's like, “You needed puppies.” And she's like, “You just need to sit in here for 15 minutes.” She's like, “We're not even ready to deal with them. Just sit in here and entertain them.” And it was so good and it was so simple and it was silly and it was what I needed to break out of that.
But I think thinking about those little things that we can do to think about what is really good about our jobs and get them to think about smiling, because we can't fix it. The reality is we can't make the behavior stop right away. We can't make the negative reviews stop coming in. I mean, we can kick a client out of the building, but we can't do anything to take away that feeling in the moment. And so I think your point about what is the positive, what can we control in this situation, and what are some of those things that we can do to just bring a little smile to somebody's face? Even if it doesn't take it away, for that moment it felt really good to sit there and cuddle puppies.
Andy Roark:
Yeah. You remind me of what we talked about not long ago. It's like sometimes you have to walk in the rain. You may not have done anything wrong, but it just, it's going to rain on you. And that's just life. We all have to walk in the rain. Yeah, I've been thinking about it a lot recently. It's like we go through hard times, and you can't make the rain stop. You know what I mean? It's out of your control.
But you can find little things to enjoy on your walk in the rain. You know what I mean? You can find little warm spots, maybe little dry spots along the way. You know what I mean? And I think a lot of times that's the best that we can do. I don't know. I think that's all that I got. I think we've kind of worked through.
I think sometimes it's really hard, and these things are a lot like a force of nature. It's about motivating your people to walk in the rain. It's about trying to make them find enjoyment in what we do. It's not invalidating the fact that we're walking in the rain. It's walking in the rain with them. And just being a part of it. Make sure you get them all the support that you can, but then just be there for them and know that sometimes we can't fix things, sometimes we just have to walk through them. But my experience in all of these things is that this too shall pass. It will pass.
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah.
Andy Roark:
Well, Stephanie High Octane Goss.
Stephanie Goss:
Was that from your website?
Andy Roark:
It was.
Stephanie Goss:
Ace. Ace was-
Andy Roark:
How about Stephanie Half Pipe Goss? Mustang. There's literally 1,001 of them here.
Stephanie Goss:
Okay, I think we're done for the day.
Andy Roark:
I think that's enough.
Stephanie Goss:
Take care, everybody.
Andy Roark:
See you, everybody.
Stephanie Goss:
Well everyone, that's a wrap on another episode of the podcast. Thanks for tuning in again this week, as always. We love spending time with you. And before we go, I just wanted to say I am getting so excited to head to Greenville in just a few short weeks. We will be there for our Practice Owner Summit, which is happening December 8th through 10th. This is a giant, giant thank you shout out to our sponsors for helping make this event happen. This is one of my favorite events of the whole year. It is so much fun.
If you are going to be there, I can't wait to see your face. I have all the hugs for everybody, including our sponsor friends. And so I just want to shout out and say thanks to Royal Canin, Hill's, Care Credit, IT Guru, and Chronos for making this event happen. Take care, everyone. Have a fantastic week. Be kind, and we'll talk to you again soon.
