Caffeinators, you know we don't often have guests at the Vet Tech Cafe that aren't credentialed technicians, but when we do, it means it's an important conversation. This is one of those episodes. Caitlin Palmer came by recently and she is a career CSR and is on the President's Advisory Board for the North American Association of Veterinary Receptionists, NAAVR. Did you know that existed? Some amazing people have started that organization and we talk a lot about it and the role of the CSR, and also that sometimes contentious dynamic of the front vs back of the hospital. There is some real wisdom and entertainment in this episode, don't miss it!

Show Links:

https://naavr.org/

https://www.myvetcandy.com/blog/2025/8/4/from-vet-receptionist-to-comedy-queen-how-caitlin-palmer-is-helping-to-revolutionizing-veterinary-education

Our Links:

Check out our sponsor https://betterhelp.com/vettechcafe for 10% off your first month of therapy

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If you would like to help us cover our podcast expenses, we'd appreciate any support you give through Patreon. We do this podcast and our YouTube channel content to support the veterinary technicians out there and do not expect anything in return! We thank you for all you do. 🐾

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/vettechcafe

We just finished up the NAVC HiVE conference in Anaheim CA!  Have a listen to our recap and look out for future HiVE conferences coming to your region!

Caffeinators, you've been asking for him for years, and we were finally able to have Walter Brown come by the Vet Tech Cafe! We recently had lunch with him at IVECCS and had a long discussion about axolotls there, so we talked about his love of exotics, and tarantulas in particular. We also talked about content creation and how all of that came to be for him, which is a wild story. He's also very passionate about bringing veterinary medicine to inner city schools as a career option, so we talked about all that too! We covered so much ground in this one, and this could easily turn into a series of episodes.

Our Links:

Check out our sponsor https://betterhelp.com/vettechcafe for 10% off your first month of therapy

Follow us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/vettechcafe

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Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/vet-tech-cafe

Like and Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMDTKdfOaqSW0Mv3Uoi33qg

Our website: https://www.vettechcafe.com/

Vet Tech Cafe Merch: https://www.vettechcafe.com/merch

If you would like to help us cover our podcast expenses, we'd appreciate any support you give through Patreon. We do this podcast and our YouTube channel content to support the veterinary technicians out there and do not expect anything in return! We thank you for all you do. 🐾

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/vettechcafe

Caffeinators, you know we strive each year to sit down with the sitting President of NAVTA, so buckle up because here we go! Beckie Mossor recently came by to tell us what NAVTA is working on, talk about their recent demographic survey, and also talk a bit about National Vet Tech Week, which has morphed a bit over the last several years. We also talked about another project she's heavily involved in, the Veterinary Industry Giving Tree. As always, it was wonderful to chat with her and see what she, and NAVTA, are up to!

Our Links:

Check out our sponsor https://betterhelp.com/vettechcafe for 10% off your first month of therapy

Follow us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/vettechcafe

Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vettechcafepodcast

Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/vet-tech-cafe

Like and Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMDTKdfOaqSW0Mv3Uoi33qg

Our website: https://www.vettechcafe.com/

Vet Tech Cafe Merch: https://www.vettechcafe.com/merch

If you would like to help us cover our podcast expenses, we'd appreciate any support you give through Patreon. We do this podcast and our YouTube channel content to support the veterinary technicians out there and do not expect anything in return! We thank you for all you do. 🐾

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/vettechcafe

Caffeinators, can you believe it's time to kick off Year 7 of the Vet Tech Cafe?! And you know what that means, our annual check in with Liz Hughston! This is an important one, as she's "retiring" from vet med. She'll still be active in some areas, but has already began scaling back in many others, and will continue to do so. So we talked about retirement from vet med and what that looks like, and also the dissolution of the National Veterinary Professionals Union, and the difficulty there. She thinks this might be her last episode with us, but we'll try to convince her to come back next year to see how retirement is actually going!

Our Links:

Check out our sponsor https://betterhelp.com/vettechcafe for 10% off your first month of therapy

Follow us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/vettechcafe

Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vettechcafepodcast

Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/vet-tech-cafe

Like and Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMDTKdfOaqSW0Mv3Uoi33qg

Our website: https://www.vettechcafe.com/

Vet Tech Cafe Merch: https://www.vettechcafe.com/merch

If you would like to help us cover our podcast expenses, we'd appreciate any support you give through Patreon. We do this podcast and our YouTube channel content to support the veterinary technicians out there and do not expect anything in return! We thank you for all you do. 🐾

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/vettechcafe

Welcome to the Taproom!  Today's topics: Jeff is back to work!  And we tackle the topic of Vet Tech Week.  Thank you all for your feedback on National Vet Tech Week.  We tried to go through all your comments and comment on them with our thoughts.  Let's keep the conversation going as we move in to Vet Tech Week.

Our Links:

Check out our sponsor https://betterhelp.com/vettechcafe for 10% off your first month of therapy

Follow us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/vettechcafe

Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vettechcafepodcast

Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/vet-tech-cafe

Like and Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMDTKdfOaqSW0Mv3Uoi33qg

Our website: https://www.vettechcafe.com/

Vet Tech Cafe Merch: https://www.vettechcafe.com/merch

If you would like to help us cover our podcast expenses, we'd appreciate any support you give through Patreon. We do this podcast and our YouTube channel content to support the veterinary technicians out there and do not expect anything in return! We thank you for all you do. 🐾

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/vettechcafe

Caffeinators, you know we love to talk about veterinary technicians doing awesome things, and this episode with Sara Hunt is no different! We talk about her VTS in Diagnostic Imaging and how she's using that to perform ultrasounds! She actually started long before the VTS(DI) existed, but is now putting her title to good use! She takes us through training academies to perform ultrasounds, the inception of her Academy, and how she utilizes her training in her role. It's a fascinating discussion we know you'll enjoy!

Show Links:

https://avtdi.org/

Our Links:

Check out our sponsor https://betterhelp.com/vettechcafe for 10% off your first month of therapy

Follow us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/vettechcafe

Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vettechcafepodcast

Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/vet-tech-cafe

Like and Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMDTKdfOaqSW0Mv3Uoi33qg

Our website: https://www.vettechcafe.com/

Vet Tech Cafe Merch: https://www.vettechcafe.com/merch

If you would like to help us cover our podcast expenses, we'd appreciate any support you give through Patreon. We do this podcast and our YouTube channel content to support the veterinary technicians out there and do not expect anything in return! We thank you for all you do. 🐾

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/vettechcafe

Caffeinators, we are going to the South Side of Chicago to Fly the W for this episode and talk about all things shelter medicine. Carla Hubbs is the supervising veterinary technician of animal care and control in a very large, open intake municipal animal care and control facility. We talked about unique challenges and perceptions of shelter medicine she wishes her non-shelter colleagues were aware of, some of the unique situations she's worked with, and of course public perception as well. We covered A LOT of really important shelter medicine ground in this one, as well as Carla's committee work to help get title protection in the State of Illinois. Don't miss it!

Our Links:

Check out our sponsor https://betterhelp.com/vettechcafe for 10% off your first month of therapy

Follow us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/vettechcafe

Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vettechcafepodcast

Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/vet-tech-cafe

Like and Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMDTKdfOaqSW0Mv3Uoi33qg

Our website: https://www.vettechcafe.com/

Vet Tech Cafe Merch: https://www.vettechcafe.com/merch

If you would like to help us cover our podcast expenses, we'd appreciate any support you give through Patreon. We do this podcast and our YouTube channel content to support the veterinary technicians out there and do not expect anything in return! We thank you for all you do. 🐾

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/vettechcafe

Caffeinators, you know we talk about mental health. A lot. For this episode, Dr. Marie Holowaychuk reached out to us to talk about her book and mental health and well being in our space and this episode is not to be missed. We must say it comes with a trigger warning that we do discuss, albeit very briefly, suicide, so if you are struggling please reach out via *988 or another resource. Through this episode, we spend a lot of time looking at mental health and research among the veterinary technician community and burnout specifically, and how do we start to turn these ever-important conversations into actions that can generate results. A lot to unpack in this one!

Show Links:

https://988lifeline.org/

https://acompassionatecalling.com/

https://revivingvetmed.com/

https://marieholowaychuk.com/

Our Links:

Check out our sponsor https://betterhelp.com/vettechcafe for 10% off your first month of therapy

Follow us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/vettechcafe

Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vettechcafepodcast

Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/vet-tech-cafe

Like and Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMDTKdfOaqSW0Mv3Uoi33qg

Our website: https://www.vettechcafe.com/

Vet Tech Cafe Merch: https://www.vettechcafe.com/merch

If you would like to help us cover our podcast expenses, we'd appreciate any support you give through Patreon. We do this podcast and our YouTube channel content to support the veterinary technicians out there and do not expect anything in return! We thank you for all you do. 🐾

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/vettechcafe

Dave and Jeff at IVECCS in San Diego!  Recap of our conference experience.  We loved seeing all our caffeinators... too many to mention.  We've got some great guests lined up from networking this past week that we're very excited to talk to.  Were you at IVECCS?  We'd love to hear how your experience was!

Our Links:

Check out our sponsor https://betterhelp.com/vettechcafe for 10% off your first month of therapy

Follow us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/vettechcafe

Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vettechcafepodcast

Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/vet-tech-cafe

Like and Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMDTKdfOaqSW0Mv3Uoi33qg

Our website: https://www.vettechcafe.com/

Vet Tech Cafe Merch: https://www.vettechcafe.com/merch

If you would like to help us cover our podcast expenses, we'd appreciate any support you give through Patreon. We do this podcast and our YouTube channel content to support the veterinary technicians out there and do not expect anything in return! We thank you for all you do. 🐾

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/vettechcafe