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An Inspiring Clinic Visit

Phil Zeltzman, DVM, Dipl. ACVS, CVJ

I recently visited a well-established practice owned by Dr. H, who, shall we say, is a “mature” veterinarian. The clinic has grown over the years from one to four exam rooms. The total surface area has doubled.

It was a very interesting experience. Here are a few highlights from our conversation:

• After performing thousands of spays over the years, he overtly tells his associates that he never wants to perform another one.

• He says: “A certain segment of the population seems to own pit bulls in great proportion, and since they don’t have the discretionary income to take care of them, they seem to routinely end up with parvo.” He adds, in a very non-politically correct way: “Owning a pet is not a right, it’s a privilege.”

• “When we first started a local Veterinary Medical Association, I attended every single meeting,” he continues. “Sure, I wanted to learn something, but I mostly wanted to meet other vets. And interestingly, they progressively stopped being ‘the competitor down the road.’ They became respected colleagues, some even turned into friends.”

• As we walked through the treatment room, an X-ray was displayed on a view box. Although he is a seasoned clinician, our colleague was humble enough to give credit to one of his nurses, who had seen a fracture he had missed on an X-ray.

• Here is a classic Dr. H expression I really liked. Again, it’s not exactly politically correct, but I found it very funny. Can you picture a toy dog held under a client’s arm? Sometimes, from their secure location, they try to bite everything in sight. He calls these dogs “armpit piranhas.”

• To finish our visit, Dr. H showed me a special room in his clinic. “One of my pet peeves is a receptionist picking up the phone, rather than welcoming and helping clients when they walk in the door,” he admits. “To help receptionists totally dedicate themselves to clients, we dedicated a room to communication.”

The communication room, or phone room, is where team members triage incoming calls. They also call clients to pass along test results, for appointment reminders and for callbacks.

Dear reader, if you can arrange something similar at your clinic, your client satisfaction will likely skyrocket. If you don’t have a dedicated room, a simple desk in a quiet area will suffice. The idea is to allow receptionists to focus on “physical people” and communication team members to concentrate on “telephone people.”

A communication room will greatly improve staff morale because being a receptionist—juggling incoming clients, outgoing clients and incoming calls—is immensely more stressful than most people think.

What is impressive about our colleague is that although he is close to retirement, he is totally passionate about our profession and has an inspiring energy. More of us should be like that.

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