Picture this: a perfect sunny afternoon in the park. You’re on the grass, barefoot, tossing a Frisbee around. It glides through the air in beautiful, lolling arcs, back and forth between you and your partner, but then, this graceful and pleasant experience is interrupted in a terrible way. As the Frisbee nears your outstretched hand, the light plastic disc suddenly transforms into a cold hunk of iron–a shot put ball. Catching a 16-lb hunk of metal is a lot different from catching a Frisbee, obviously. You can imagine most people would prefer one over the other, and there’s a reason Frisbee is a team sport, whereas shot put is a one-person game. It’s also a perfect analogy for communication styles–not my own but shamelessly stolen from Jane Shaw and Jason Coe, in their textbook on veterinary communication, Developing Communication Skills for Veterinary Practice.1 Drs. Shaw and Coe break down clinical communication into two styles: The Expert and The Partner. They describe how veterinarians can choose either style in communicating health information. Each one can be thought of as hurling a piece of sporting equipment at a partner, albeit in very different ways. The Expert is a shot putter, heaving a dense ball of information with maximum effort toward the client. The Partner lightly and thoughtfully passes ideas and thoughts back and forth between themselves and their clients. At first glance, being an expert is what you are supposed to be, right? After all, the client came to you for help. If they do not want your expertise, what do they want? A free month of heartworm prevention? Possibly. However, the point is, The Expert’s communication style is the equivalent of a biomedical lecture–dense with information, but not necessarily digestible. We spend a lot of time thinking this way as veterinarians, but treating your client like a lawn full of fresh sod to hammer with shot put balls does not actually lead to better health outcomes. The Expert is knowledgeable, but they do not have much time for dialogue. A speech packed with terms like “monoclonal antibodies” and “dysbiosis index” tends to lose a lot of folks’ attention. Experts pack in a lot of relevant information but end up sacrificing retention. More importantly, it reduces the quality of the veterinarian-client relationship. You might think, so what? But it has been shown (and bears a moment’s reflection) that improved client relationships lead to better satisfaction for both pet owners and veterinary personnel, as well as improved compliance (i.e., better health care for animals).2 Now compare The Partner’s style, which leads with curiosity. Partners pause and reflect, sending back small, easily handled pieces of information as though they are throwing a Frisbee. In other words, the conversation is, well, actually a conversation. That means the client participates, getting a chance to contribute and feel heard. You might think that opening Q&A time to your clients sounds about as fun as smearing compost on your body and lying down in a seagull colony. It’s completely understandable–we’re busy people! You might have 15-minute appointments, 20 cases on your schedule, and a tech who just called in sick. Slowing down and inviting Mrs. Jones to speak about her theories on the origins of Fluffy’s diarrhea might be enough to make you start Googling “non-clinical careers for veterinarians,” but here’s the deal: The Partner model, while seemingly slow and laborious, is actually faster in practice. A 2006 study showed that the Partner-model appointments were 13 percent shorter³—and over a 200,000-appointment career,⁴ that adds up. It is not every day you come across a way to save yourself half a million minutes. Just like a drop of lidocaine on a cat’s arytenoids before intubation, the wisdom of using The Partner style ends up saving you a lot of frustration. Plus, it is just plain old better medicine. Taking the time to make clients feel seen and heard makes them more likely to follow through on our recommendations. They are more likely to trust us with relevant information. It prevents confusion, backtracking, and that thing where the client says, “Wait, what are we doing?” just as you’re reaching for the doorknob. The reality is that communication styles are just tools, and just like every other tool, from a scalpel to a linear accelerator, knowing how and when to use them makes all the difference in medicine. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach. The Expert is awfully handy in high-stakes emergency situations, when decisions must be made rapidly. If a situation is severe and urgent, light and relationship-building conversations are about as useful as a personal essay contest would be on the sinking Titanic. Sometimes there’s no time to build rapport—you just have to move. When the only ethical option is fast, decisive action, pick up the shot put and switch on Expert mode. But honestly, even in emergency practice, the number of true, red-alert, seconds-counting, crash-cart-flying-across-the-room cases is relatively small. The vast majority of veterinary interactions fall into a lower-stakes category: skin problems, weight loss, arthritis, diabetes, weird coughs, picky appetites, and the existential dilemma of which ear cleaning solution to use. For these situations, consider playing Frisbee. Even if you are a massive introvert whose ideal day in the park is secretly watching the squirrels rather than playing Frisbee, understanding communication styles will make you a better animal doctor. For the most part, pets are attached to their owners, and modern veterinary medicine is moving into an era of relationship-centered care.5 It does you no good to alienate the humans on the other end of the leash. Thoughtful flexibility lets you match the style to the moment. If it is not the time to be the Partner, that’s okay! Some clients don’t want to play Frisbee. They would rather have a whoppingly dense ball of information lobbed in their general direction. If that’s the case, go for it. However, veterinarians are probably over-reliant on shotput. In one study, we used the Expert style 46 percent of the time, compared to only 16 percent for the Partner style.3 We have to because the human-animal bond is changing, and to protect animal health, we need to get better at understanding this dynamic. We are not just diagnosing and treating anymore, we are navigating a messy world of human emotions. Plus, you know what? It is pretty fun to play Frisbee! Give it a try, and you will see that this light back-and-forth, although it may not satisfy your urge to explain the Krebs cycle 15 times a day, may make your job more enjoyable. Collaboration with clients is the path forward. Of course, you may be rolling your eyes so hard right now you’ve just pulled your m. superior oblique. Isn’t the job hard enough with all this touchy-feely stuff? Who has the time, the bandwidth, the patience, and the interest in other humans to worry about “relational dynamics?” Can’t we just do the medical part, and let everyone else figure it out? Playing the Expert with every case, with every client, is the actual time waster. If you are not listening in a dynamic way to your clients, on some level, you are already alienating them, at least partially. That will erode the relationship faster than accidentally misgendering a gonadectomized pet. So, don’t deliver monologues. That’s what villains do. Show your trustworthiness by asking questions, pausing, and allowing your clients to speak. Then, listen—not just for their answer, but for their intention—because communication is not just about throwing facts at people. Communication is about conveying ideas, and that only works when people are ready and comfortable to receive that information. No one wants a shotput to the face when they came to play catch. Greg Bishop, DVM, is a small animal veterinarian and a part-time veterinary technology instructor in Portland, Ore. Dr. Bishop also creates the monthly cartoon series, “The Lighter Side.” The author’s opinions do not necessarily reflect those of Veterinary Practice News. References Shaw JR, Coe JB. Developing Communication Skills for Veterinary Practice. John Wiley & Sons; 2024 Mar 26. Lue TW, Pantenburg DP, Crawford PM. Impact of the owner-pet and client-veterinarian bond on the care that pets receive. Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association. 2008 Feb 15;232(4):531-40. Shaw JR, Bonnett BN, Adams CL, Roter DL. Veterinarian-client-patient communication patterns used during clinical appointments in companion animal practice. Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association. 2006 Mar 1;228(5):714-21. Shaw JR, Adams CL, Bonnett BN, Larson S, Roter DL. Veterinarian satisfaction with companion animal visits. Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association. 2012 Apr 1;240(7):832-41. Coe JB, Adams CL, Bonnett BN. A focus group study of veterinarians' and pet owners' perceptions of veterinarian-client communication in companion animal practice. Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association. 2008 Oct 1;233(7):1072-80.
