Watch Your Mouth, Part 3March 13, 2013I've talked about what to say and what not to say to clients before, such as in my previous blogs, Watch Your Mouth 1 and Watch Your Mouth 2. I have some additional thoughts about the vital topic of communicating with clients. I've heard several more team members talk so loudly (or laugh, or use four-letter words) that clients waiting in rooms must hear them. How embarrassing … To a grieving or worried client, laughter might seem insulting or heartless. And to any client, cursing is probably a huge disappointment. Routine There should be no such thing as a “routine” surgery or procedure. Such was the opinion of a surgeon I worked with. The word routine was forbidden in surgery reports and any client communication. His concern was that if something goes wrong, you don't want a judge or a friendly member of your state board asking you: “So is it routine for you to have a dehiscence after a ‘routine' laparotomy?” This surgeon preferred the word “standard.” A procedure described in a surgery book is standardized. When multiple surgeons perform a surgery in the same manner, it is a …
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122-Foot Screen To Show Live Surgeries During AAHA ConferenceMarch 12, 2013 The Live Surgery Suite sessions are to be performed remotely at Mississippi State University and at the Veterinary Specialty Hospital of San Diego. Attendees will be able to watch a tibial plateau leveling osteotomy, a pediatric spay and neuter, a bone marrow aspiration and biopsy, a joint tap, a chest tube placement, a jugular catheter placement, an esophagostomy tube placement and an endotracheal wash. A panel of experts onstage will walk the audience through what is being shown, display the equipment used and answer questions, said John Fritschler, AAHA's director of education. The viewing is to be done on a 122-foot-wide by 22-foot-tall high-definition screen. “No other conference has anything like this available,” Fritschler added. The videos will be added to AAHA's online Learning Library at www.aahaeducation.org and may be accessed for free or for a fee, depending on the viewer. “Our new learning environment allows us to promote adult learning with in-depth, interactive presentations on relevant and practical topics,” said Michael Cavanaugh, DVM, Dipl. ABVP, executive director and CEO of the Lakewood, Colo., association. The Live Surgery Suite is …
The Pluses And Minuses Of Corporate PracticeMarch 7, 2013 Ted Sprinkle, DVM, has been in the veterinary field for more than 20 years, and in that time he’s owned three small animal practices and an equine practice. Dr. Sprinkle, owner of Wilmington, N.Y.-based Pet Partners, knows one thing for sure: The industry is changing, and he believes he can help veterinary clinic owners change with it. “From my perspective, corporate affiliate practices are the future of primary care practice,” Sprinkle said. Pet Partners owns 36 practices, with several holdings in Denver, in Texas and on out to the East Coast. “Most of the veterinarians who sell to Pet Partners are individuals who are looking to get back to practicing medicine and looking at doing away with all the management and administrative burdens they carry,” he said. A top reason independent clinic owners sell to corporations is the benefit of unburdening those owners of their management responsibilities, say many who are familiar with corporate practices. What else do corporate practices offer vets? “We offer a consistent emphasis on medicine,” Sprinkle said. “We try to tend to inspire veterinarians to come back and practice the way they remember it.” While clinic owners are of interest …
A Lesson From SpamFebruary 27, 2013 So any of us who have email are familiar with the word “spam,” although I’m not certain where we came to identify this “meat” product with unwanted emails … a mystery. Regardless, we have learned that spam is something we don’t want, and is potentially dangerous to the unassuming public. So if we all know this, how come we continue to be inundated with unwanted spam emails? Must be that someone, somewhere, is still gullible enough to believe … and that’s all it takes. For example, for quite a while I was barraged by emails regarding, well, methods to "increase the male delivering power” for lack of a more appropriate term. Of course that may have not appealed to me personally, but what if I was a man looking for the “magic wand” to increase my virility? Given the amount of emails I received, I’m thinking that someone must have taken these companies up on their offer, or they wouldn’t be so persistent in repeating the email push. Now, those emails have all but disappeared, and instead I’m hearing from a whole bunch of well-known celebrities claiming weight loss miracles. Now, having always had issues with …
Handling Adverse Client Interactions With Grace And Aplomb...or BurnoutJanuary 28, 2013 Last month one of my veterinary school colleagues took an early leap into semi-retirement. Though he offered many reasons—including his partner’s enviably well-paying position at an investment bank—the soul-sucking stress of practice had clinched it. While he relished the challenges of patient care, he admitted that daily exposure to adverse client interactions had killed his commitment to veterinary medicine. Client communication, he claimed, was to blame for his burned-out brain. Depending on where you work, your practice style and your personality’s fundamental makeup, you, too, may be at high risk for the same. Altercations with clients lead to bad moods, sleepless nights and doubtless contribute to depression. The stress of this kind of interpersonal strife surely helps explain our high burnout rate—not to mention our well-documented suicidal tendencies. It’s one of the most glaringly inconvenient ironies of our profession: Many of us honed in on vet med because dealing with humans … well … it kinda sucks at times. And yet helping animals, by and large, cannot be accomplished without them. So what’s a stressed-out, would-be-misanthropic veterinarian to do? While I can’t claim to have any …
8 (More) Things Vets Do That Make No SenseDecember 20, 2012Last January, I wrote about the strange things that veterinarians do in everyday practice. I’ve compiled eight more strange things along with suggestions to improve patient care and make practice life easier. 1) Placing the E-collar after extubation Trying to place an Elizabethan collar on a recently extubated patient may go smoothly, or it may be an exercise in frustration for the technician—and utter terror for the patient. Lee, a technician in Pennsylvania, learned this tip the hard way. “I was asked to place an E-collar before extubation,” Lee said. “Since I had never heard this request, and because I had 10 other things to do to recover my patient, the request never really registered. “Once my patient was awake, I tried to place the cone, but he started thrashing around,” Lee continued. “After multiple attempts, the only way we were able to place the E-collar was by giving him propofol. I felt really bad that we had to do this, so now I always place the E-collar on my patient’s neck before extubation, while he’s still sleeping on the surgery table. There is no downside, and it makes everybody happier.” 2) Speaking of E–collars… As a surgeon, I see E-collars as …
Giving Patients The Royal Treatment When It Comes To PrivacyDecember 19, 2012 So the big news lately is the pregnancy of Kate Middleton, and her subsequent health issues. But then a different story flooded the airwaves when two radio DJ’s posing as the Queen herself asked for an update on Kate’s condition via phone. I won’t even pretend to know exactly how this all happened, but suffice it to say that the screening process of phone calls was not present or sufficient, and the update on Kate’s personal condition went out on the radio waves. This leads me to wonder, how are WE doing with screening who is hearing what, and upholding basic privacy and confidentiality of our patients’ and clients’ information. Hang out in any veterinary practice lobby, and you can get a good idea of how to answer this question…likely not too well. It’s not difficult for the front office staff to sense an invisible barricade between what gets said behind the counter and what can be heard in the lobby. Guess what, if you’re up front, you are ALWAYS “on stage,” as Disney would say! Other people can hear you, and what you say …
Two Giants Died This YearDecember 18, 2012 Besides splurging on silly gifts and empty calories, December is often a month to reflect. As I look back at 2012, I regret the loss of two giants, two legends, two geniuses. They may not be “mainstream” in the veterinary world, but they are national heroes to the rest of the (business) world. I am referring to Stephen Covey and Zig Ziglar. Stephen Covey was an 80-year-old best-selling author, businessman, professor and motivational speaker who wrote several must-read, life-altering, world-wide best-sellers. Sadly, Covey died on July 16, 2012, from consequences of a bicycle accident that occurred in April. Covey had nine children and 52 grandchildren! His most famous book is the classic “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People,” which sold more than 25 million copies in 38 languages. Amazingly, the book was written in 1989, or 23 years ago, but it is still very up to date. Nobody ever listened, but I’ve always said that the book should have been entitled “The Seven Habits of Highly Happy People.” The book presents several principles critical for success in our professional and personal lives. Covey tackles time management, …
The Power Of A Caregiver's Tone Of VoiceNovember 28, 2012 I bet you didn’t realize that everything you say matters...it does, to whoever hears it. As caregivers, our words are even more powerful than “regular” words, especially to those we are caring for at the time. Here’s an example. Before I became pregnant, I was diagnosed with endometriosis. I needed day-patient laparoscopy to “clear out the cobwebs,” so to speak (I know, this story borders on TMI, but I’m OK if you’re OK!). While the doctor ensured me that complications were “rare,” of course I had to be one of the rare few who ended up back in the emergency room that night because of my inability to urinate (thanks for an irritated urethra from the indwelling catheter during surgery). Let me tell you, those blocked Tom’s that we see, they are most certainly in pain…I know from personal experience! So I was admitted and catheterized, and put on some type of muscle relaxer, to get me “going” again. That next night, I was frustrated. I had not been able to urinate much on my own still, so I had to get catheterized a couple of times. At 11 p.m., with my spirits low, the nurse came …
Therapy Lasers Improve Patient CareNovember 27, 2012 Therapeutic lasers’ popularity continues to grow as pet owners seek out alternative healing and pain control techniques for their animals, laser therapy manufacturers say. Kristen Grady, director of sales for Grady Medical Systems of Temecula, Calif., said that while it’s difficult to estimate, about 10 percent of clinics practice with laser light therapy, in general. And approximately 5,000 Class IV laser machines have been purchased in the veterinary market in just the last three years, said Phil Harrington, DC, CMLSO, manager of training and clinical support for K-Laser USA of Franklin, Tenn. It’s interesting to note that although some specialty clinics and certain universities are investing in the modality, most clinics adding therapeutic laser therapy to their regimens are general practices. “These clinics are seeing wounds, dermatology cases and animals experiencing osteoarthritic pain—all conditions the laser can greatly improve,” said Grady. “The use of the laser can also be tied in to post-operative healing. For these reasons, laser is definitely not just for specialty hospitals.” Carl Bennett, marketing director for Companion Therapy Laser by Lite Cure based in Newark, Del., and James D. Shanks, veterinary …
