Are you a SuperTech?October 10, 2014I have been very fortunate to work with some good technicians. Sometimes, I have the pleasure of working with technicians who are exceptionally great at what they do. They just get it. They are the few. The proud. The SuperTechs. In honor of National Technician Week, here are 20 characteristics of this rare breed of technician. 1) They are improvers. SuperTechs always try to improve the “system.” They constantly and spontaneously look for ways to make things better and more efficient. SuperTechs solve problems that you didn’t even know you had. For example, without prompting, SuperTechs will redesign your operating room and make it magically look much more spacious. 2) They are lifesavers. SuperTechs keep you out of trouble. When you treat a 4-month-old dog with an infected bite wound that would benefit from enrofloxacin, SuperTechs gently remind you that it may cause cartilage damage. 3) They have superpowers. SuperTechs use secret superpowers to feed the stubbornly anorexic, tame Cujo and restrain the most fractious of cats. Phil Zeltzman, DVM, Dipl. ACVS, CVJ Are you a super vet tech? 4) They are perfectionists. I once agreed to euthanize a surgery patient on the table if the suspected tumor had metastasized throughout …
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Ch-Ch-ChangesOctober 8, 2014 #86495329 / gettyimages.com Often I wonder what it would feel like to be really old, and to know how the world was 70, 80, 90 years ago … so much has changed. Even in my lifetime, only moderately old, I can see change all around me. Take for instance, work. My dad’s generation was a “career” generation, where a person (usually a man back then) would settle into a company and see his career all the way through with that same company, comfortably retiring when “really old” hits. Contrast this to today’s generation, when the people entering the workforce (and now it’s about equal, men and women) are not out to make a career necessarily with one company. Instead of the “career” generation, this generation is more like “live and let live” … they are more apt to change employers multiple times, sometimes just in one decade, and follow their skills and interests wherever they may take him or her. They are more focused on what they want to do when they are OFF work, than sometimes what they’re supposed to do AT work. This means big …
Error of OmissionSeptember 12, 2014Usually, when we get in trouble for something, it is because we DID something. An error of omission is different, though, because the trouble is about the thing you did NOT do that you should have! It can often take the shape of delivering less than stellar common courtesy to others. For example, we had a fence installed around our backyard (so our dogs could run “free” … Joy just keeps eating the plants, and Georgie has since become blind—well, technically “eyeless” with surgical removal of both—so I’m not sure we met our expectations), but that’s a different story. Anyways, the fence company needed to make a return trip toward the end of the installation to permanently affix the three gates. They told me, upon leaving the first day, to expect them the next. Fortunately, I work at home so I did NOT have to take the day off to meet them but, nonetheless, they never showed. I called their office, asked when they WILL be at my house, and mentioned to the phone representative that it would have been nice to have at least gotten a call, so I wasn’t waiting around all day. She did seem sorry. However, …
Silliest Client Behavior ContestAugust 28, 2014 I try really, really hard to remain politically correct in this blog. But I do have to share a few stories that portray some of the silliest client ideas and behaviors. Some were my clients. Some were my colleagues.’ All paid dearly for their mistakes, and so did their unfortunate pets. 1) The sister of one client thought it would be funny to play a practical joke. She covered a tampon with ketchup and mustard, and put it in a hotdog bun. Unfortunately, Poopster* the poodle, who had an especially ferocious appetite, got a hold of the hotdog before her owner and swallowed it within seconds. He later had a gastrotomy to retrieve the foreign body. 2) A couple gave Sheba* the Shih Tzu a bath and thought it would be a good idea to put rubber bands on the dog’s ears. Strangely, the ears didn’t like this treatment and started to necrose (see picture). Sheba later had bilateral otectomies. 3) An Amish owner had a friend call his vet clinic to explain that his large breed dog was ADR. Our colleague asked him to bring his dog in. He eventually found a ride, and …
Are You Paying It Forward?August 14, 2014 “Pay it forward” is a phrase you hear a lot these days, and we’re all pretty familiar with the concept. Basically, when/if someone does something nice for you, you are supposed to turn around and do something nice for another person, to keep that spirit of giving alive. Here’s an example: I was going through the Dunkin Donuts drive-thru, and I was second in line at the window. When that car pulled away, and I pulled up, they let me know that the driver had actually given me the doughnut they bought. Well, okay, it was really a free doughnut for them because they got a coupon for completing the survey, but she used it to get a free doughnut to give to the person behind her. Turns out, I was told that she is diabetic so she can’t eat the treat, but always goes to the trouble to complete the online survey and give that donut away to someone else. In my experience, both the getting and the giving are pleasant. She felt good giving me the doughnut, and I felt good receiving it. Either way, your heart smiles, and so does someone else’s heart. You …
The 7 Deadly Veterinarian SinsAugust 8, 2014 Not that I’m the poster child for veterinary practice … nor am I even remotely in the running for clinician of the year. I have too many bad habits, ingrained biases and pent-up resentments. I commit far too many set-in-my-ways sins and give in to more than my share of slothful indulgences to preach from any pulpit. So much so that “Do As I Say, Not As I Do” might as well be the headline for this month’s column. With last month’s column dissing physicians fresh in our heads, I’m here to tell you there’s a whole lot more we could be doing to improve the quality of our results. That’s something we can all get behind, right? Trouble is, we’ve all got our own ideas of what’s sinful and what’s not. Which is why I make no apologies for my list. Here’s my current list (you never know, it may change next week): 1) NOT Speaking Our Minds For Fear Of Client Retribution Do you tell clients they’re killing their pets with all that food they insist on feeding? That their puppies hail from less-than-reputable sources? Their dog needs to wear a muzzle …
NAVTA Co-Sponsors Heartworm CE Course, Vet Tech ContestJuly 30, 2014 The National Association of Veterinary Technicians in America (NAVTA) is partnering with Merial Ltd. on a client education campaign and with Pets Best Insurance Services on a nationwide contest. The Merial partnership involves a continuing education course designed to teach veterinary technicians to have effective conversations with pet owners about the importance of year-round heartworm disease prevention. “Empowering veterinary technicians with the tools and knowledge needed to offer sound advice is paramount to Merial’s commitment to pet health,” said Sarah Cloud, a marketing director with the Duluth, Ga., drug maker, which produces the heartworm preventive Heartgard Plus. “With NAVTA’s approval, Merial is now able to offer this course to all veterinary technicians.” The free online course, available at JoinPowerOf12.com/education, is RACE approved for one continuing education credit. The material also addresses misconceptions and miscommunication. “This course provides simple tips on how to make that conversation more constructive and truly showcase the need that year-round protection serves,” said Julie Legred, CVT, NAVTA’s executive director. Also announced July 25 was the “Why I Love Being a Vet Tech” contest, which asks veterinary technicians to write a short essay explaining how they …
Must-Have Summer Reads: 5 Books Featuring VeterinariansJuly 10, 2014 Follow Veterinary Practice News on Twitter at @vetpetnews. Have you ever picked up a novel and read the back cover only to discover the protagonist is a veterinarian? It’s possible you purchased it for that reason. You read it, either reacting to the inaccurate portrayal of a veterinarian’s job or perhaps you were pleasantly surprised that the author had done his research. Or maybe a veterinarian wrote the book, relaying tales from her experience. You related to it, shared her experiences by reading about them. As a book lover who also happens to write for a veterinary magazine, I couldn’t help wondering about these books about veterinarians. I discovered Goodreads’ list of 135 and narrowed it down to the following five, in no particular order (based on descriptions and reviews): goodreads 1. The Rhino with Glue-On Shoes: And Other Surprising True Stories of Zoo Vets and their Patients: Edited by Lucy H. Spelmand and Ted Y. Mashima, "The Rhino with Glue-On Shoes” is a collection of stories by exotic animal …
What Do They Teach In Vet School?July 10, 2014 A few years ago, John Taylor Gatto, multiple-time New York City Teacher of the Year and one-time New York State Teacher of the Year, wrote a scandalous, revolutionary, irreverent article about what schools should teach students. He starts the article by listing a set of 10 critical skills suggested by one of the schools at Harvard (“perhaps the School of Government,” he ponders). Here is the list: The ability to define problems without a guide. The ability to ask hard questions that challenge prevailing assumptions. The ability to work in teams without guidance. The ability to work absolutely alone. The ability to persuade others that your course is the right one. The ability to discuss issues and techniques in public with an eye to reaching decisions about policy. The ability to conceptualize and reorganize information into new patterns. The ability to pull what you need quickly from masses of irrelevant data. The ability to think inductively, deductively and dialectically. The ability to attack problems heuristically.* * You probably should check out the meaning of this word if you were to learn, well, heuristically. If you did that, you would learn that heuristic relates to …
7 Reasons You're Better Than A PhysicianJune 20, 2014Sure, we’re veterinarians so we’re biased. Nevertheless, it’s true that plenty of you will concur that our clients are often better served by our kind than by our physician cousins. I got to thinking about this after writing my last column detailing my many misadventures related to a Rottweiler-induced broken nose. Fielding the glut of collegially sympathetic comments I received in its aftermath, I realized our clients have lots to be grateful for compared to their encounters with our physician counterparts. 1) Cost Intelligence Concerns Let’s be honest: Physicians often have no idea how much their services cost. Unless they’re working in a fee-for-service environment (my nose-mending plastic surgeon, dentist and dermatologist are three exceptions), they’re typically clueless as to the price of their services, the diagnostics they recommend and the drugs they prescribe. Even after Massachusetts installed a law requiring physicians and hospitals to disclose their fees, receiving even a rough estimate from a provider or hospital in advance of a procedure, for example, is essentially impossible. In fact, a recent NPR report revealed that securing an estimate for something as standard as an uncomplicated vaginal delivery was almost …
