Dharti has been in the veterinary field for over 15 years and served as a veterinarian for the last 8. Her passion for people and clients led her to leadership that provided support across multiple hospitals and markets. Dharti has been an Area Chief of Staff for Banfield Pet Hospital and now works as a Regional Operations Director for Companion Pet Partners. Dharti earned a BS at Texas A&M University and a Master’s in agriculture at Sul Ross State University. She went back to become a DVM at the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine. She started practicing in Mesa, Arizona to be closer to her sister and soon thereafter met her husband. She resides in Arizona with her husband, 15-month-old daughter Sameera, and 8-year-old Red Heeler Rani.
Capacity for Trust: Developing an Effective Team Using Trust Building Behaviors
Communication is crucial in developing a successful team. How can you create communication practices that build trust and drive performance? Trust starts with psychological safety between you and your team. In this workshop, Dharti Patel will highlight how trust builds effective teams that perform better. Dharti will review communication strategies that can build psychological safety in the workplace to develop trust among your teammates. Learn to interpret facts from feelings, the values expressed by our direct reports, and how to utilize this tool to help communicate better with difficult situations or confrontations. Set a stronger foundation for building trust with your teams.
Dharti Patel, DVM
Medical Director Summit
For over 20 years Amanda has worked as a veterinary technician in various capacities. Her interest in behavior led her to join Dr. Feltes at The Behavior Clinic in 2009. She graduated from the AAHA Distance Education Program (Cedar Valley College) and attended Ashland University majoring in History and Geology, completing an additional degree in business in 2021.
As the Practice Manager, Amanda is often behind the scenes handling the day-to-day business of keeping TBC running, supporting our referring veterinarians, and working with the TBC team to assist our clients and their pets.
A nationally recognized speaker in veterinary behavior and Fear FreeTM Approved Speaker, Amanda enjoys teaching veterinary team members how to implement and develop behavior care as a team. When not at work, she enjoys hiking, reading, and hanging out with her husband Scott, their 2 German Shorthaired Pointers (Brego & Moose), and the family clowder.
Unleashing Team Training Success
When it comes to training, timing matters! Animal behavior expert Amanda Schwarzwalder is taking her extensive knowledge of animal behavior and has applied it to create successful training techniques that lead to positive outcomes for her team. She will share how she implements timely feedback, breaks down complex tasks into smaller, manageable ones to support collaborative learning, and creates optimal training environments. This interactive workshop will help you find time for training and make that time as effective as possible.
Amanda Schwarzwalder, RVT, KPA CTP, VTS (Behavior), CVPM
Team Leads Summit
Megan Brashear, BS, RVT, VTS (ECC) graduated in 2000 with a BS in Veterinary Technology and obtained her Veterinary Technician Specialty in Emergency/Critical Care in 2004. She has enjoyed working in emergency and critical care since 2000 and is the Senior Manager of Veterinary Nursing at the Purdue University Veterinary Hospital in West Lafayette, Indiana. Here, Megan truly enjoys the opportunity to work with veterinary nursing supervisors as well as teach and train technicians and students in the hospital. She loves to travel and lecture sharing her knowledge with veterinary technicians and nurses around the world.
Thriving Not Just Surviving Veterinary Medicine
Veterinary medicine is not always a walk in the park. There are days that it is hard! In her general session, Megan Brashear will share her personal story of successfully managing complete professional burnout. The techniques she implemented brought her back to finding fun and fulfillment in veterinary medicine and helped others on the team do the same.
Megan Brashear, BS, RVT, VTS (ECC)
Team Leads Summit
Dr. Quincy Hawley is a 2013 graduate of NC State's CVM and has been in small animal practice and relief veterinarian since graduating. Most notably, he is an internationally recognized speaker who presents on well-being and burnout preparedness for veterinary professionals.
After overcoming his own bout of veterinary burnout, he cofounded Get MotiVETed Veterinary Wellbeing Solutions LLC to help all members of the vet community to enjoy life and vet med instead of enduring through them.
Dr. Hawley is also one of the co-creators of Get MotiVETed University – the world’s first school of well-being specifically for veterinary professionals, which houses the Veterinary Burnout P.R.E.P. Certification Training Program. Through the Get MotiVETed platform, Dr. Hawley hopes to make poor well-being and burnout things of the past for the entire global veterinary community!
How to Burnout Proof Your Life and Vet Experience as a Team Leader
Veterinary professionals in all roles are prone to burnout, and likely will experience it at some point in their careers. It’s time to take a proactive approach! In this workshop session, Quincy Hawley will share his team’s 5-step process that will guide you toward a burnout proof experience in veterinary medicine. Bonus: it requires no permission and no money to implement! This framework can be applied to your own career and shared with your team.
Quincy Hawley, DVM
Team Leads Summit
Fueled by childhood dreams of being a keeper at his own zoo, Dr. Bourquin realized from a young age his path – a career in veterinary work. His journey began with graduation from Cornell University, the No. 1 school in the U.S. for veterinary medicine. After 13 years as a Boston veterinarian, he founded Boston Veterinary Clinic in 2012, placing an emphasis on trust, compassion, and top-level patient care. Embraced by the pet-loving community and with the aid of like-minded veterinary professionals, the practice has grown to 5 locations, each focusing on the best medicine possible with accreditations from AAHA, Fear Free, and Cat-Friendly Practices.
Beyond the Stethoscope: Navigating the Diverse Roles of a Chief Medical Officer
Building a culture that can embrace change is imperative. Life in veterinary practice is constantly challenging you to adapt. Staff shortages, people leaving the industry, financial woes for our clients and us, corporate competition, on-line pharmacies, keeping up with tech, etc. When faced with change, one has to be able to identify a problem, discuss underlying issues, formulate a plan, and reassess for improvement, just like in any medical workup. In this workshop, Brain Bourquin will pull from his experience as a Chief Medical Officer and delve deeper into how to manage the complexities of being a CMO from medical excellence, leadership, fostering culture, promoting work life balance by example, and still have time to sleep.
Brian Bourquin, DVM
Medical Director Summit
My name is Dr. Erica Pounds, and I am an Area Chief of Staff for Banfield Pet Hospital in the Tennessee Market. I graduated from Mississippi State University in 2008 with a B.S in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and then went on to receive my DVM from the University of Tennessee College of Veterinary Medicine in 2011. I started with Banfield Pet Hospital following graduation and will be celebrating 12 years with the practice in August!
My clinical interests include dermatology, internal medicine, and of course preventive care! Throughout my career with Banfield, I have been able to grow and develop from an associate DVM to Area Chief of Staff and even spent time as Interim Director of Veterinary Quality. I have a passion for development and love being able to see my hospital teams grow and achieve their goals!
I am the mom of 4 amazing little boys and thrive in the land of Legos, Superheroes, and Soccer! I love running Spartan races with my husband and brothers. I am a big-time quilter and my sewing room is one of my most favorite retreats!
Don't Screw This Up: How to Effectively Communicate and Cascade Ops Info Through Your Teams
Medicine and Ops are not opposed to one another, but oftentimes it may feel that way when messages are not communicated clearly and the teams don’t understand the “why” behind a certain initiative or decision. To be successful, every Medical Director must have the understanding and buy-in from the medical providers in their practices. In this workshop, Erica Pounds will talk about how to effectively deliver an ops-driven message in a way that keeps quality medicine as a central focus to resonate and engage DVMs and paraprofessionals in the conversation.
Erica Pounds, DVM
Medical Director Summit
Rebecca May is the Business Development and Personnel Manager for Happy Tails Emergency Clinic in Greensboro, NC. She has an undergraduate certificate in Veterinary Practice Management from Penn Foster and is currently preparing to take the Certified Veterinary Practice Manager (CVPM) national exam. She is an active member of the Veterinary Hospital Managers Association (VHMA), the Triad Hospital Managers Group, and the Veterinary Managers Group of the Carolinas. Rebecca is also a member of the Society for Veterinary Medical Ethics, the Human-Animal Bond Association and is a Fear Free Elite Certified Professional. Rebecca has written content for CattleDog Publishing and Aspire Vet. Her interests are emergency and critical care medicine, leadership, staff development, Fear Free and low-stress handling techniques, and canine and feline enrichment.
How a No-Blame Culture Approach Can Safeguard Against Medical Errors and Other Mistakes
This session will take the guesswork out of identifying causes of medical errors and other mistakes in veterinary practices. Rebecca May is a practice manager at an emergency practice in North Carolina. Her use of an Incident Decision Tree has helped her to follow up on errors that inevitably occur in veterinary medicine with a clear look at the roles of the people involved and the systems they are working within. Building a “No Blame” approach to addressing medical errors will alleviate fear of giving and receiving feedback and improve your team’s overall response when things go wrong.
Rebecca May
Culture Conference
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.
Practice Leaders Summit: Partnership Matters – Real-Life Case Studies in Veterinary Practice Management
The “Partnership Matters” program is a dynamic and interactive session designed specifically for veterinary practice owners and managers attending the summit. The session revolves around the essential relationship between practice owners and managers, exploring real-life case studies that address common challenges encountered in veterinary practices. Engaging in small group discussions, participants will have the opportunity to share their experiences, learn from peers, and exchange best practices, all with the aim of enhancing the partnership dynamics and achieving greater success in their practices.
Stephanie Goss
Practice Leaders Summit
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.
REGISTER NOW!
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.
REGISTER NOW!
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.
Register Now!
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.
Register Now!
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.
Register Now!
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 recently passed her exam to become 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.
Uncharted Culture Conference – The Accountability Ecosystem: Cultivate a Culture for Success
Holding people accountable for their actions sounds like a recipe for turnover to many, but in reality, having clear expectations and goals will lead to staff longevity. In this 2-hour, interactive workshop, Maria Pirita, CVPM will share a 3 part ecosystem that will help you build a culture of accountability in your practice. As an experienced practice manager, Maria can help you effectively create this ecosystem at your practice with an action plan and living documents that can evolve with your processes. Whether you need to get started with managing accountability or figure out effective metrics to track how things are going, this workshop will cover how everyone in your practice will contribute to this ecosystem’s success!
Team Leads Summit – Motivating Your Team: Crack Inspiration's Code
Without a motivated team, a day in the clinic can feel like you’re stuck in the mud. In this workshop session, Maria Pirita is going to guide you through the psychology behind motivation, and techniques to motivate your team led by those concepts, and then help you identify the best ways to apply what you learned! Get ready to crack inspiration’s code and get your team motivated to be as great as you know they can be.
Practice Leaders Summit – Boundary Blueprint: The Secret to Building a Dynamic Duo
Practice Managers have to master the art of balancing their own needs with those of their leaders and teams. Setting boundaries with their boss looks different than the boundaries they would set with their team. During this workshop, we’ll go over the different types of boundaries and how they apply to the specific role of Practice Managers. We’ll also dig in deep to what their own personal values and boundaries are in order to communicate them better with their leaders which in turn creates a dynamic duo of a relationship.
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.
Register Now!
Jason Szumski
GSD Shorthanded Speaker
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.
The role of a medical director in a veterinary hospital requires a delicate balance between various responsibilities, including managing change, fostering doctor development, maintaining a busy patient appointment schedule, and finding joy in the practice. In this engaging and interactive presentation, Andy Roark brings together veterinarians to discuss the unique challenges they face in their roles as medical directors and share their strategies for overcoming these challenges. Walk away with valuable insights, practical tips, and a sense of camaraderie as you explore how to effectively manage change, nurture the growth of team members, maintain a thriving patient-centered practice, and rediscover the fulfillment that comes from practicing veterinary medicine.
Practice Leaders Summit: Partnership Matters – Real-Life Case Studies in Veterinary Practice Management
The “Partnership Matters” program is a dynamic and interactive session designed specifically for veterinary practice owners and managers attending the summit. The session revolves around the essential relationship between practice owners and managers, exploring real-life case studies that address common challenges encountered in veterinary practices. Engaging in small group discussions, participants will have the opportunity to share their experiences, learn from peers, and exchange best practices, all with the aim of enhancing the partnership dynamics and achieving greater success in their practices.
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.
Register Now!
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
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