Dr. Erica Pounds joins Dr. Andy Roark to answer a question about if, when, and how discipline and disciplinary actions should be systematized across practices in a multi-site organization. Is it fair that some people have stricter managers than others? Should everyone in every location expect the same response if they come up short in an important way? Let's get into this!

ABOUT OUR GUEST: 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. On the personal side, 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. LINKS DO NOT MISS OUT ON THIS WORKSHOP: RECRUITING AND RETAINING MILLENNIALS with Dr. Tierra Price Did you know millennials are currently the largest generation in the US and the largest generation currently in the veterinary workforce? If you’re hiring veterinarians for your practice, you need to know how to attract and retain this pool of talent! Dr. Tierra Price has supported practice owners in creating successful applications geared toward millennial veterinarians. This experience, combined with her own experience in her recent job search as a new graduate, has led to a compilation of factors to consider in order to recruit and retain millennials in veterinary medicine! In her workshop, we will cover: Traits that characterize the millennial generation Factors millennials consider when looking for jobs How to build an irresistible job offer for millennials Live and virtual, this interactive workshop provides an engaging learning experience.

Mentioned in this episode:

Uncharted Practice Owner Summit at NAVC SkillShop

Owning a veterinary practice comes with challenges no one teaches you in school. The Uncharted Practice Owner Summit, hosted at NAVC SkillShop in Orlando, is a hands-on leadership workshop designed to help owners strengthen their teams, improve operations, and make confident business decisions. This small-group, working session focuses on real-world tools and honest conversations, not passive lectures.

Register for The Uncharted Practice Owner Summit Today!

Zoetis - Simparica Trio

Learn more about Simparica-Trio!

This week on the Uncharted Podcast, Dr Andy Roark and practice management super geek, Stephanie Goss, tackle another awesome submission to the Uncharted Podcast mailbag. This week's email comes from a practice owner who has babies everywhere at their practice! They have experienced maternity leave before on the team but that was one person at a time. They are currently juggling 4 people on a small team of less than 15 who are out on leave or going out on leave in the next few months. Plus they have a couple team members who have shared with the team their current desire to become pregnant. This practice owner loves babies and is also wondering how in the heck to survive when 1/3 of the team is out on leave at once?! Given that more of the team is likely going to take leave over the coming months and years, this practice owner is trying to figure out a plan for right now AND think about future planning. They asked some wonderful questions of Andy and Stephanie about how to prepare. Let's get into this...

Do you have something that you would love Andy and Stephanie to role play on the podcast - a situation where you would love some examples of what someone else would say and how they would say it? If so, send us a message through the mailbag! We want to hear your challenges and would love to feature your scenario on the podcast. Head over to the mailbag and submit it here: unchartedvet.com/mailbag

Mentioned in this episode:

Uncharted Practice Owner Summit at NAVC SkillShop

Owning a veterinary practice comes with challenges no one teaches you in school. The Uncharted Practice Owner Summit, hosted at NAVC SkillShop in Orlando, is a hands-on leadership workshop designed to help owners strengthen their teams, improve operations, and make confident business decisions. This small-group, working session focuses on real-world tools and honest conversations, not passive lectures.

Register for The Uncharted Practice Owner Summit Today!

This week on the Uncharted Podcast, practice management super nerd, Stephanie Goss, is joined by a very special guest co-host. Debbie Boone, CVPM joins the podcast again, this time to discuss a topic near and dear to Stephanie's heart - the art of client care. For those of you who haven't met Debbie, let us introduce her. Debbie is a CVPM and Fear FreeSM Certified. She has worked for the veterinary profession for more than 35 years. Debbie's business, 2 Manage Vets Consulting, helps practices develop extraordinary team communication and business skills, enhancing patient care, improving profitability, and increasing practice value. She strives to improve the lives of animals by using her expertise to improve workplace culture and the well-being of veterinary professionals. Debbie recently published her first book, Hospitality in Healthcare and Stephanie wanted to take the chance to talk with Debbie about hospitality and what lessons we can learn and apply inside our practices when it comes to making clients feel welcome and invited in to our practices. Let's get into this...

Do you have something that you would love Andy and Stephanie to role play on the podcast - a situation where you would love some examples of what someone else would say and how they would say it? If so, send us a message through the mailbag! We want to hear your challenges and would love to feature your scenario on the podcast. Head over to the mailbag and submit it here: unchartedvet.com/mailbag

Mentioned in this episode:

Zoetis - Simparica Trio

Learn more about Simparica-Trio!

Uncharted Practice Owner Summit at NAVC SkillShop

Owning a veterinary practice comes with challenges no one teaches you in school. The Uncharted Practice Owner Summit, hosted at NAVC SkillShop in Orlando, is a hands-on leadership workshop designed to help owners strengthen their teams, improve operations, and make confident business decisions. This small-group, working session focuses on real-world tools and honest conversations, not passive lectures.

Register for The Uncharted Practice Owner Summit Today!

This week on the Uncharted Podcast, Dr Andy Roark and practice management super geek, Stephanie Goss, tackle another awesome submission to the Uncharted Podcast mailbag. This week's email comes from a practice owner who is trying to wrap their brain around the varying degrees of "burn out" being discussed/felt by their team. It seems like there is no burnout profile that fits everyone on the team who is feeling that way. So this practice owner is asking Andy and Stephanie to walk through the concept of burn out and help them understand "What “burn out” really is; what kind of signs or symptoms someone who is burned out might experience; what someone else might observe in a burned out person (how we can recognize burn out in our team members); what employers or managers can to do help prevent their team from getting burned out; and how employers or managers can support team members who are burned out, without transferring the responsibility/burden on to other team members, leading to more burn out..." These questions were absolutely fantastic and Andy and Stephanie dove right in to the deep end of this conversation. Let's get into this...

Mentioned in this episode:

Zoetis - Simparica Trio

Learn more about Simparica-Trio!

Uncharted Practice Owner Summit at NAVC SkillShop

Owning a veterinary practice comes with challenges no one teaches you in school. The Uncharted Practice Owner Summit, hosted at NAVC SkillShop in Orlando, is a hands-on leadership workshop designed to help owners strengthen their teams, improve operations, and make confident business decisions. This small-group, working session focuses on real-world tools and honest conversations, not passive lectures.

Register for The Uncharted Practice Owner Summit Today!

This week on the Uncharted Podcast, Dr. Andy Roark and practice management geek, Stephanie Goss, are in our mailbag to tackle a question from an associate vet who is struggling with a peer. Their fellow associate seems to be having a hard time. Let's get into this...

Do you have something that you would love Andy and Stephanie to role play on the podcast - a situation where you would love some examples of what someone else would say and how they would say it? If so, send us a message through the mailbag! We want to hear your challenges and would love to feature your scenario on the podcast. Head over to the mailbag and submit it here: unchartedvet.com/mailbag

Mentioned in this episode:

Uncharted Practice Owner Summit at NAVC SkillShop

Owning a veterinary practice comes with challenges no one teaches you in school. The Uncharted Practice Owner Summit, hosted at NAVC SkillShop in Orlando, is a hands-on leadership workshop designed to help owners strengthen their teams, improve operations, and make confident business decisions. This small-group, working session focuses on real-world tools and honest conversations, not passive lectures.

Register for The Uncharted Practice Owner Summit Today!

Zoetis - Simparica Trio

Learn more about Simparica-Trio!

This week on our bonus episode of the Uncharted Podcast, practice management nerd Stephanie Goss is joined by special guest, Dr. Phil Richmond. When Stephanie saw this letter in the mailbag, Phil was the first person who came to mind to tackle this topic with. Dr. Philip Richmond, DVM, is the Founder and Chief Consultant of Flourishing Phoenix Veterinary Consultants, LLC. As a practicing vet, he champions a positive work culture, emphasizing psychological health, safety, and wellbeing in veterinary settings. He has taken pivotal roles in both state and global initiatives to promote workplace wellbeing in veterinary medicine. Among his roles, Dr. Richmond has served as Chief Medical and Wellbeing Officer for Veterinary United and currently chairs the Florida Veterinary Medical Association's Professional Wellbeing Committee. Beyond his advocacy, he contributes as a writer, speaker, and podcast guest, and has earned various certifications in positive psychology, workplace wellbeing, and suicide prevention. Stephanie and Phil are taking on an email from our mailbag that addressed the concern that one of the most stressful instances for vet professionals can be when they have to downgrade treatment, or euthanize due to the owner not being able to afford treatment. We immediately knew this would be an amazing discussion about wellbeing in our practices along with how we can support clients from a financial planning perspective. This episode is brought to you all ad free today, thanks to our friends at CareCredit. Let's get into this...

If your practice is not talking to clients about ways to pay for care, including the CareCredit health and pet CareCredit card, please consider accepting it in your practice! You can find out more about how your practice can help empower a lifetime of care, together, here. https://www.carecredit.com/providers/animal-healthcare/ Australian Workplace Psychosocial Hazard Standards: https://www.safeworkaustralia.gov.au/safety-topic/managing-health-and-safety/mental-health/psychosocial-hazards National Standard of Canada for Psychological Health and Safety in the Workplace (the Standard): https://mentalhealthcommission.ca/national-standard/ Additional Canadian Standard Resource Page: https://mentalhealthcommission.ca/what-we-do/workplace/workplace-healthcare/

UVP - 256 - How Do You Stop Oversharing? by Uncharted Veterinary Community

Mentioned in this episode:

Zoetis - Simparica Trio

Learn more about Simparica-Trio!

Uncharted Practice Owner Summit at NAVC SkillShop

Owning a veterinary practice comes with challenges no one teaches you in school. The Uncharted Practice Owner Summit, hosted at NAVC SkillShop in Orlando, is a hands-on leadership workshop designed to help owners strengthen their teams, improve operations, and make confident business decisions. This small-group, working session focuses on real-world tools and honest conversations, not passive lectures.

Register for The Uncharted Practice Owner Summit Today!

This week on the Uncharted Podcast, practice management geek Stephanie Goss is joined by special guest, Amanda Schwarzwalder, CVPM, RVT, KPA CTP, VTS (Behavior). When Stephanie saw this letter in the mailbag, Amanda was the first person who came to mind to tackle this topic with. For over 20 years Amanda has worked as a veterinary technician in various capacities. Her interest in behavior led her to joining The Behavior Clinic in 2009. 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. 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. With such a well-rounded resume, it makes perfect sense that Amanda has a whole alphabet soup behind her name. Stephanie and Amanda are taking on an email from our mailbag that came to us from a technician in training who is worried about their comfort level with animals. While this might seem strange to some people in veterinary medicine who are lovers of ALL creatures great and small, Amanda and Stephanie talk through the concerns from a practical, clinical and personal level because there is a lot to this seemingly simple concern. We're not brushing it off, let's get into this...

Do you have something that you would love Andy and Stephanie to role play on the podcast - a situation where you would love some examples of what someone else would say and how they would say it? If so, send us a message through the mailbag! We want to hear your challenges and would love to feature your scenario on the podcast. Head over to the mailbag and submit it here: unchartedvet.com/mailbag

Mentioned in this episode:

Zoetis - Simparica Trio

Learn more about Simparica-Trio!

Uncharted Practice Owner Summit at NAVC SkillShop

Owning a veterinary practice comes with challenges no one teaches you in school. The Uncharted Practice Owner Summit, hosted at NAVC SkillShop in Orlando, is a hands-on leadership workshop designed to help owners strengthen their teams, improve operations, and make confident business decisions. This small-group, working session focuses on real-world tools and honest conversations, not passive lectures.

Register for The Uncharted Practice Owner Summit Today!

This week on the Uncharted Podcast, Dr. Andy Roark and practice management geek Stephanie Goss are in our mailbag to tackle a question from a practice manager who is wondering about fraternization. Now while Stephanie's mind immediately went to a specific kind of fraternization (and we do talk about that one!), the email was targeted at how to go about handling your friendship as a leader with only certain members of the team. They have tried to keep work and personal separate but are wondering how to handle things if one leader does hang out with someone(s) from the team outside of work. Or if two people working together do wind up dating! Let's get into this...

Do you have something that you would love Andy and Stephanie to role play on the podcast - a situation where you would love some examples of what someone else would say and how they would say it? If so, send us a message through the mailbag! We want to hear your challenges and would love to feature your scenario on the podcast. Head over to the mailbag and submit it here: unchartedvet.com/mailbag

Mentioned in this episode:

Uncharted Practice Owner Summit at NAVC SkillShop

Owning a veterinary practice comes with challenges no one teaches you in school. The Uncharted Practice Owner Summit, hosted at NAVC SkillShop in Orlando, is a hands-on leadership workshop designed to help owners strengthen their teams, improve operations, and make confident business decisions. This small-group, working session focuses on real-world tools and honest conversations, not passive lectures.

Register for The Uncharted Practice Owner Summit Today!

Zoetis - Simparica Trio

Learn more about Simparica-Trio!

This week on the Uncharted Podcast, Dr. Andy Roark and practice management geek Stephanie Goss are diving in and grabbing another email from our mailbag. We received a wonderful email of gratitude from an Australian veterinarian who said "You don't know me from a surgical scrub brush, but you saved my life." After drying their eyes, Andy and Stephanie managed to pull out the meat and potatoes of this email where our veterinarian was asking for ways that they could help locally and how we could effect change globally in veterinary medicine when it comes to how we handle learning about and managing failure. This is a powerful tool worthy of serious discussion and Andy and Stephanie really enjoying diving in to some of the facets of this very multi-faceted conversation. Let's get into this...

Do you have something that you would love Andy and Stephanie to role play on the podcast - a situation where you would love some examples of what someone else would say and how they would say it? If so, send us a message through the mailbag! We want to hear your challenges and would love to feature your scenario on the podcast. Head over to the mailbag and submit it here: unchartedvet.com/mailbag

Mentioned in this episode:

Zoetis - Simparica Trio

Learn more about Simparica-Trio!

Uncharted Practice Owner Summit at NAVC SkillShop

Owning a veterinary practice comes with challenges no one teaches you in school. The Uncharted Practice Owner Summit, hosted at NAVC SkillShop in Orlando, is a hands-on leadership workshop designed to help owners strengthen their teams, improve operations, and make confident business decisions. This small-group, working session focuses on real-world tools and honest conversations, not passive lectures.

Register for The Uncharted Practice Owner Summit Today!