The Vet Vault: Veterinary Career, Clinical Skills & Wellbeing

Have you ever found yourself in a moment in your career where you knew: ‘This is definitely not it. Something has to change!’ 

Dr Tannetje Crocker’s career is as multifaceted as a diamond, and just as brilliant, and in this episode she’ll show us that if you approach your career with intention and heart that the grass CAN be greener. This episode of the Vet Vault is for every veterinarian who's ever felt the tug of 'what if’.  Dr. Crocker's story is a masterclass in crafting a veterinary life you love, and in this conversation we unpack pivotal career decisions, learn about cultivating confidence, resilience, and optimism in the field of veterinary medicine while fiercely advocating for self-care and vulnerability, the intricacies of balancing family life with multiple roles, and we get a peek into Tannetje’s social media career.  

Dr Tannetje Crocker is a speaker, social media personality and a practicing ER veterinarian for Veterinary Emergency Group in Dallas, TX, as well as the practice owner of Alta Vista Animal Hospital in Fort Worth, TX who finds her joy in supporting her fellow veterinary professionals, both virtually and in person, through her various endeavours.

Topic List:

10:28 Why Tannetje's content resonates with so many people.

11:37 Doing things that scare you often leads to good opportunities.

17:34 Is the grass sometimes a little greener on the other side?

24:04 Dr Crocker’s different hats.

27:40 Doing things out of love.

30:25 Learning to escape the tall poppy syndrome.

32:55 The fear associated with change.

34:56 Working in an Open Concept Veterinary Hospital.

37:10 Work life integration rather than work life balance.

42:45 What would Dr Crocker do if she wasn’t a vet?

44:53 Dr Crocker’s most popular social posts/podcasts.

50:04 Why does Dr Crocker keep her social presence positive?

52:50 Self care and vulnerability.

58:27 What would be the title of the movie of Tannetje’s life?

Tannetje's resources:

Podcast - Six Minutes

Podcast - Terrible Thanks For Asking

Podcast - The Derm Vet

Podcast - The Cone of Shame

Conference - Unchartered Veterinary Conference

Join our community of Vet Vault Nerds to lift your clinical game and get your groove back with our up-to-date, easy-to-consume clinical episodes at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠vvn.supercast.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

V⁠⁠isit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠thevetvault.com⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠for show notes and resources related to this episode.

Connect with us through our online ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Vet Vault Networ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠k for episode highlights, clinical resources, discussions, questions and support.

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for Hubert's favourite clinical and non-clinical learnings.

Dr Jane Heller is the epitome of a mutlti-faceted vet career: she’s a Veterinary Epidemiologist with an interest is in infectious disease epidemiology, with particular reference to antimicrobial resistance and the potential for zoonotic transfer of pathogens between animals and humans. Her career has included a stint in private practice and at the University of Sydney, specialist training in Veterinary Epidemiology and Public Health through a PhD and a residency at the University of Glasgow, and a faculty position at Charles Sturt University as an Associate Professor in Veterinary Epidemiology and Public Health. In addition to her teaching, writing and research Jane also implemented a wellness program for the undergraduate veterinary students and has a deep interest in supporting student and veterinary mental health. Outside of her role at the university she is also the founder and director of Heller Consulting - her private consulting business where she gets to utilise her wide range of skills for the benefit of animals and humans. 

In this conversation we cover what a career as an epidemiologist could look like (not as boring as you might think!), and Jane tells us about the work of the AMR Vet Collective - a non-for profit that informs and educates around responsible antibiotic usage, including sharing resources to help you achieve better antimicrobial stewardship without making your work life harder or compromising outcomes for your patients. We discuss how to affect behaviour change, whether its around how vets use antibiotics, or getting vet students and veterinary teams to care about their wellbeing. Jane also shares openly about how her work in the student wellness space challenged her personally, and what she learned from those challenges. (Oh, and we unpack the deeper lessons from Ted Lasso, which we could do an entire podcast series on!)

Topic List:

10:00 Epidemiology is essential in healthcare.

14:50 Communication is always key.

21:34 Importance of antibiotic stewardship.

32:41 Awareness of responsible antibiotic use.

35:37 Change is difficult but necessary.

39:10 Changing antibiotic prescribing.

44:21 Behaviour change requires tailored messaging.

52:43 Supporting student wellness is crucial.

60:00 Facilitating and empowering employee engagement.

63:00 Prioritise work-life balance and fun.

70:09 Importance of promoting kindness in education.

74:24 Empathy fosters understanding and support.

79:30 Importance of setting boundaries.

84:30 Normalise seeking counselling and support.

Jane's resources:

Nagkoski twins burnout book

Antimicrobial sterwardship CPD

Join our community of Vet Vault Nerds to lift your clinical game and get your groove back with our up-to-date, easy-to-consume clinical episodes at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠vvn.supercast.com⁠⁠⁠⁠.

V⁠⁠isit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠thevetvault.com⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠for show notes and resources related to this episode.

Connect with us through our online ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Vet Vault Networ⁠⁠⁠⁠k for episode highlights, clinical resources, discussions, questions and support.

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for Hubert's favourite clinical and non-clinical learnings.

Join us as we chat with the incredible Dr Dennis Wormald, and discover why he wants us to take another look at the word - difficult - when it comes to our patients.

Dennis is not your run-of-the-mill vet; he's a bona fide canine behaviour enthusiast and his fascination with understanding and addressing the quirks of our four-legged friends began long before he donned his vet hat. Back in the day, he was knee-deep in biomedical science with a major in neuroscience, and he even dabbled in the world of addiction neuroscience. As a general practice vet, Dennis found himself increasingly drawn to the world of behaviour, so fast forward to 2017, he earned himself a PhD in canine anxiety and he's also now proudly a member of the ANZCVS behaviour chapter. Since 2021, he's been focusing solely on behaviour referral practice, and Dennis didn't stop there. He's also the mastermind behind ABADog.com⁠—a platform he originally created to supercharge his own behaviour consultations. Think of it as your one-stop shop for gathering every essential nugget of behaviour history and turning it into a tailor-made action plan for each patient. In 2023, Dennis decided to add the title of "author" to his bio, with the release of "A Dedication to Difficult Dogs: A Heartwarming Tale Shedding Light on Canine Mental Health."

Topic list:

14:51 Anthropomorphizing can be beneficial.

ABAdog signup with 2 bonus coupons for Vet Vault listeners

Join our community of Vet Vault Nerds to lift your clinical game and get your groove back with our up-to-date, easy-to-consume clinical episodes at ⁠⁠⁠⁠vvn.supercast.com⁠.

V⁠⁠isit ⁠⁠⁠⁠thevetvault.com⁠⁠⁠ ⁠for show notes and resources related to this episode.

Connect with us through our online ⁠⁠⁠⁠Vet Vault Networ⁠k for episode highlights, clinical resources, discussions, questions and support.

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter ⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠ for Hubert's favourite clinical and non-clinical learnings.

Get up and running (or working!) with a 10% discount for ⁠⁠⁠⁠Tarkine⁠⁠⁠ shoes⁠, the official shoe of the Vet Vault by using the code Vetvault at checkout.

How much time have you committed over the course of your veterinary career to get better at teaching? I'm betting that for most of you, the answer is: not much. Why? Because we're not teachers, right? But maybe we need to think again. Most of us in the veterinary profession spend much of our working lives trying to transfer and translate information. Isn't that, in essence, teaching?

Dr Toby Trimble spends a most of his time coming up with better ways to teach. Toby is the founder of Trimble Group, a film production company reinventing education for animal health, making it less like PowerPoint and more like Netflix. He focuses on making education engaging, visual, and memorable. With his team, Toby has created over 800 CPD videos and live broadcasts in the UK, Europe, Asia and Australia. He's also a specialist in veterinary anaesthesia and analgesia and an Assistant Professor of Veterinary Anaesthesia at the University of Nottingham.

In this conversation, Toby delves into why we should — and how we could — all be better teachers and communicators. He reflects on the lessons dyslexia taught him about teaching and about our perceptions regarding our own limitations. He discusses why a lot of online teaching falls short and how it can be so much better, the concept of using marginal gains to secure an edge in exam prep and in life, and so much more. 

Topic list:

01:18 Better communication through visual storytelling.

Join our community of Vet Vault Nerds to lift your clinical game and get your groove back with our up-to-date, easy-to-consume clinical episodes at ⁠⁠⁠vvn.supercast.com.

V⁠⁠isit ⁠⁠⁠thevetvault.com⁠⁠⁠ for show notes and resources related to this episode.

Connect with us through our online ⁠⁠⁠Vet Vault Network for episode highlights, clinical resources, discussions, questions and support.

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter ⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠ for Hubert's favourite clinical and non-clinical learnings.

Get up and running (or working!) with a 10% discount for ⁠⁠⁠Tarkine⁠⁠⁠ shoes, the official shoe of the Vet Vault by using the code Vetvault at checkout.

How do we make 'resilience' more than just another buzzword and resilience training not just a box to tick for the HR department?

Assoc. Prof. Sarah Guess is a specialist in Small Animal Internal Medicine and Associate Professor at Washington State University where she teaches internal medicine. Outside of her clinical work her interests and research are in educational psychology, resilience and wellbeing, and elements of clinical supervision and resident training. Sarah has presented her research on resilience at the national level and is known for her mixed-methods approach to research, and she was the recipient of the 2021 Zoetis Distinguished Teacher Award and the 2020 Wescott Award for clinical teaching.

In this episode she shares what she is learning and teaching around fostering resilience in a way that does not just rely on shifting the responsibility onto the individual to 'be more resilient', but rather focuses on the context that our resilience will challenged in. We talk collaborative relationships, workplace culture, model behaviour and we detour into the things that can improve personal resilience.

This one is essential listening in particular for anyone who is in a leadership, support, mentoring or teaching role.

Topic list:

12:08 Importance of non-punitive error culture.

16:25 Mistakes are expected and respected.

23:49 Resilience in education psychology.

26:33 Focus on faculty well-being first.

33:01 Importance of collaborative mentorship.

39:39 Resilience - it's trained, learned and necessary.

49:59 Embrace growth from negative experiences.

53:20 Exercise is an incredible tool.

56:10 Personal resources that foster resilience.

70:48 Keep showing up, even when it's hard.

Join our community of Vet Vault Nerds to lift your clinical game and get your groove back with our up to date easy-to-consume clinical episodes at ⁠⁠⁠vvn.supercast.com, ⁠⁠⁠visit ⁠⁠⁠thevetvault.com⁠⁠⁠ for the show notes and resources for this episode, and connect with us through our online ⁠⁠⁠Vet Vault Network.⁠⁠⁠ for episode highlights, discussions, questions and support.

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter ⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠.

Get up and running (or working!) with a 10% discount for ⁠⁠⁠Tarkine⁠⁠⁠ shoes, the official shoe of the Vet Vault. (discount automatically applied at checkout using this link).

The Drive Podcast with Peter Attia.

Funny Cuz It's True Podcast with Elise Myers.

For todays IVECCS highlight episode we’re sharing a full interview instead of a highlights reels to give you a better idea of what exactly I’ve been up to with the incredible IVECCS speakers. This one recording is a conversation with Dr Claire Sharp about pro-kinetics, a topic that I thought would be a quick 10 or 15 minute discussion, but Dr Claire’s knowledge goes much too deep for that! She guides us through decision-making around when you should be using them, what you should look at BEFORE you start them, we detour into a great discussion around pain control as it pertains to finding the balance between sufficient pain control and ileus, and a pro’s guide of the different pro-kinetics and how to use them. 

If you like this conversation you’ll love our clinical podcasts and the associated show notes in our searchable database. Check out our almost 500 episodes in ECC, Medicine and Surgery at vvn.supercast.com, or use this link to access our exclusive (and very short lived!) ⁠⁠40% off forever discount⁠⁠.

Our supporters at Tarkine shoes⁠⁠ are also offering a 30% off the world's most eco-friendly high-performance running shoes/work shoes to our listeners during IVECCS. (Code automatically applied at checkout with this link). 

We've wrapped up day three at ⁠IVECCS⁠, and what an incredible day it was! Today featured Dr Amanda Cavanagh who provided invaluable tips on ensuring safe sedation in various situations, including a thorough review of popular sedation and anaesthetic drugs. Dr Shane Bateman discussed innovative business models that offer a comprehensive spectrum of care, while Prof. Michael Schaer engaged us in a fascinating discussion on the use of antivenom in American snakes versus Australian snakes.

Dr Paul Aldridge shared practical advice on managing the challenging scenario of post-trauma abdominal bleeding when it's not bleeding from the spleen. Dr Matt Booth delved into strategies for retaining ER veterinarians within your practice, and Dr Leo Londono explored the topic of whether our patients truly require intravenous fluids following an NSAID overdose. And last but certainly not least, Dr Temple Grandin shared some tips for neurodivergent veterinarians.

On the couch I was joined by Dr Ellie Lester and Dr Lisa Brumby - both from Animal Emergency Australia where I get to do my clinical work. 

Check out Dr Booth's Vet ⁠Schedule Survey, to be heard on how you’d like to have your shifts structured as an ECC vet. Don’t forget about our 40% off forever discount on Vet Vault Clinical subscriptions which is available for the duration of IVECCS, as well as 30% off the world's most eco-friendly high-performance running shoes/work shoes from Tarkine shoes (code automatically applied at checkout with this link). 

Content guide:

Dr Cavanagh: 1:58

Prof Bateman: 7:20

Prof Schaer: 11:20

Dr Booth: 15:37

Dr Aldridge: 20:35

Dr Londono: 27:49

Dr Temple Grandin: 33:34

It’s the end of the second day of our special ⁠IVECCS⁠ series where we share a short highlights reel every day from our conversations with the amazing speakers at IVECCS '23 about what is new and what’s important in the land of emergency and critical care. 

Today I had the pleasure of interviewing 6 world-class specialists, talking about decontamination for toxins with Dr Virginie Wurlod, creating businesses with a culture that protects mental well-being with Josh Vaisman & Dr Marie Holowaychuk, point of care ultrasound in the blocked cat with Prof Marc Seitz, surgical tips for wounds and for septic peritonitis with prof Karen Tobias, cool stuff for treating pancreatitis with Prof Harry Cridge, and reducing cognitive load in veterinary practice with Dr Rebekah Donaldson. As you can imagine - I’m like a kid in a candy shop, and you'll have some epic content coming over the next few months, but for now, here are our daily highlights of little nuggets that I’ve pulled from each of these conversations. 

Here's a link⁠ for our 40% off IVECCS discount to our clinical podcasts.

The Vet Vault is supported by ⁠Tarkine Shoes⁠ - the world's most eco-friendly high-performance running shoe, (and also my favourite high-performance work shoe!) They've given us a 30% discount for all Tarkine purchases during IVECCS. Use code Vetvault at checkout when you purchase your Trail Devils, or anything else in the Tarkine store.

For the next few days IVECCS is taking over the Vet Vault, or the Vet Vault is taking over IVECSS, I’m not sure which is which! We’ll post a short highlights reel every day from our conversations with the amazing speakers at IVECCS '23 about what is new and what’s important in the land of emergency and critical care. 

Today we chatted with Dr Gregory Lisiandro about what’s different when you’re doing a AFAST or TFAST scan on a cat vs a dog, and why we should stop doing something called flashing when we do FAST scans... We have two very cool tricks from Dr Elke Rudloff for diagnosing GI foreign bodies and for treating intussusception, and we wrap up the day with Dr Raegan Wells talking about snake bite diagnostics.

I'm joined by my colleagues from Animal Emergency Australia, Australia's biggest Emergency Veterinary Group, Dr Tom Wright and Dr Will Crosby for the conversation with Dr Lisiandro.

Here's a link for our 40% off IVECCS discount to our clinical podcasts.

The Vet Vault is supported by Tarkine Shoes - the world's most eco friendly high performance running shoe, (and also my favourite high performance work shoe!) They've given us a 30% discount for all Tarkine purchases during IVECCS. Use code Vetvault at checkout when you purchase your Trail Devils, or anything else in the Tarkine store.

Here's a little nugget of wisdom for you: 'Do what you can with what you have where you are.' I stumbled upon it a while back, and it's like a bite-sized version of stoic philosophy. It's a solid life motto, especially in the world of veterinary work, and it neatly sums up what you're about to hear.

Meet Dr Warwick Vale – a name you've probably heard in the Aussie veterinary scene. He's not just the ex-President of the Australian Veterinary Association; he's also a rockstar in equine medicine, a business-savvy company director, and a go-to consultant in the veterinary world. Oh, and did I mention he's a total jack-of-all-trades when it comes to hobbies? Dr Warwick played a key role in kickstarting the AVA's Thrive program, a fantastic initiative focused on keeping vet pros in tip-top shape with industry guidelines. But let me spill the beans on why we're talking to him today. It all started with a listener who said, 'You gotta talk to Warwick.' I don't take those recommendations lightly. The reason isn't the thousands of animals he's helped or the boards he's served on; it's the deep impact he's had on one incredibly grateful person. Just one.

Join us in this conversation as Warwick tells us how to live and practice veterinary medicine with heart and camaraderie, smashing through the fear barriers around our comfort zones. We chat about everything from overthinking to embracing your quirks for a happier career, and how trust and connection can be the cure for fear-based practice.

Topic list:

03:14 The art of rolling with the punches.

07:34 What's so different about veterinary medicine now?

14:21 A day in the life of Warwick's Vale.

16:48 The importance of customer service in a veterinary clinic.

26:01 Stopping to smell the roses.

31:27 Warwick's impact on mental health in the vet industry.

36:36 Prevent, promote, protect and workplace culture.

46:44 The responsibility as a vet: impacting others on an individual and industry level.

55:57 Walk the journey with others.

60:17 Choosing love over fear.

62:19 Is part-time vetting the new normal?

63:55 Warwick's favourite podcasts.

66:02 Warwick's one piece of advice for new grads.

Join our community of Vet Vault Nerds to lift your clinical game and get your groove back with our up to date easy-to-consume clinical episodes at ⁠⁠vvn.supercast.com, ⁠⁠visit ⁠⁠thevetvault.com⁠⁠ for the show notes and resources for this episode, and connect with us through our online ⁠⁠Vet Vault Network.⁠⁠ for episode highlights, discussions, questions and support.

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter ⁠⁠here⁠⁠.

Come help us create some live clinical content at ⁠⁠⁠IVECSS '23⁠⁠⁠ in Denver, Colorado from 7-11 September.

Get up and running (or working!) with a 10% discount for ⁠⁠Tarkine⁠⁠ shoes, the official shoe of the Vet Vault. (discount automatically applied at checkout using this link).