Veterinary Team Training

Senior pets are special. Every moment with them is special. How can we help them when they come into our hospitals? Let's talk about ways we can provide the best care to our older pet patients. 

How the hell did I get here?! I ask that question several times a week. I was told there was no market for a veterinary leadership book so I took a leap of faith and self published Oops, I Became a Manager two years ago today (09/12/2020).

Up until 2020 I mostly hid myself from the veterinary community, but once I published the book I had to put myself out there. It's been a fun, scary and crazy two years and I am humbled and in the debt of everyone who supported my little book with a unicorn on the cover.

I decided to sit back and reflect on "how the hell did I get here" in this podcast starting with my wrong choice of college major and now sitting with a book that keeps making the best seller list and recently won a gold medal in the Reader's Favorite Book Awards.

Pinch me. All I can do is say thank you. You are the reason I wrote the book and you are the reason a second book is coming soon.

What the heck is quiet quitting? Is it happening at your hospital? 

Is it a good thing or bad thing? There's two sides to every story so let's dive in to this catch phrase created by individuals on Tic Toc. 

Here's your shift differential now good luck on the overnight shift. After more than a decade of pulling overnight shifts I realized one thing. Money can't buy sleep or quality of life. What else can we do for our overnight team members? Let's dive into some ideas to help support the overnight team.

Thank you to everyone who filled out my online survey where I asked, "Besides money, what else can we do for our overnight staff?" You came up with some great ideas!

Not sure what a Veterinary Technician Specialist (VTS) is? Interested in obtaining your VTS credentials? Does it pay more? When and why should a vet tech/nurse think about getting their VTS credentials? Let's dive into VTS.

Not everything needs to be done right now! If you are like me and you also have a high sense of urgency, then hopefully this podcast will give you some ideas of ways to move slower, enjoy like more and calm the F down!

Medical mistakes happen.  The reality is almost everyone at some point in their career has made one. Most of them do not result in patient harm, but unfortunately some do. Let's talk about medical mistakes, how to record them, how to respond to them and what some of the most common ones are. 

A dog was hit by a car. The owner cannot afford the care of the dog. Do you offer that owner the option of surrendering their pet to the veterinary hospital? If not, how do you manage this situation?

The practice of offering a pet owner the option to surrender their pet is a common one. This podcast dives into the pros, cons and personal experience with surrendering.  

Nursing managers, supervisors, directors of nursing and chief nursing officers are every day positions in human healthcare. Registered nurses wouldn't even dream of having a hospital administrator as their boss. And a doctor overseeing the nursing team in a human healthcare facility?! No way!

In veterinary medicine it's common to have veterinary technician/nurse managers & supervisors in almost all vet hospitals, but are they really allowed to be a leader? Too often they are not provided the full autonomy to perform their job to their best ability. And what about those higher level positions like CNO/DON but for veterinary technicians/nurses? They are almost non-existent. Why? 

Why do we treat veterinary technician manager/nurse leaders as less than? 

Too often leaders complain about their toxic team. They see the turnover. They see the gossip. They hear the complaints.

Sometimes leaders will have a meeting and talk about how they want the team to be happier, have a less negative attitude and decrease gossip. The team agrees during the meeting, but nothing changes. Why? One meeting won't cut it. Change takes time, a lot of time.

Stop complaining, create a real plan and start fixing your team.

For my blog on this topic visit: https://www.vetteamtraining.com/post/your-team-is-broken-stop-complaining-and-fix-it