Leadership

Managers should take the lead in finding ways to pay veterinarians more and get them additional free time. Their well-being is at stake.

Practice managers and veterinarians share the goal of producing healthy patients, happy clients and team members, and a thriving business. However, their starkly different vantage points sometimes leave managers and doctors struggling to understand one another. The recently published Merck Animal Health Veterinary Wellbeing Study quantified and gave insight into why veterinarians experience lower levels […]

Severance agreements can be worthwhile when cutting ties to a team member, but employers need to be careful with the terms and cognizant of applicable laws.

Have you ever terminated an employee? Whether the act was related to performance, a practice reorganization or another issue, navigating the process can be challenging. In these situations, a severance agreement can be a helpful tool for employers, but many don’t understand how or when to use them. Here are answers to eight commonly asked […]

Adhere to five core principles to build a resilient veterinary team and practice.

To survive and thrive in today’s fast-changing, volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world, veterinary practices need to be resilient. We are living with a new set of rules regarding the way we work. To survive and thrive, practices must be purposeful, agile, tenacious and balanced. They must be nimble and adaptive, always reinventing to remain […]

You have several options when online critics go public about your practice. You can ignore them, fight back or learn from the experience.

Many people today use social media accounts to keep in touch with friends, read the news, scroll through pages of cute animal pictures, and more. We also use online resources to make everyday decisions such as selecting a doctor, restaurant or movie. Service providers, whether a hair dresser or plumber, are chosen in many cases […]

Compassion, curiosity and courage are a potent antidote to the common fears that can paralyze us as human beings.

We’ve been focusing lately on the first two components of emotional agility: compassion and curiosity. Now, we turn our attention to the final component, courage. “Courage is the most important of all the virtues because without courage, you can’t practice any other virtue consistently.” — Maya Angelou As Maya Angelou suggests, courage is an essential […]

Modest improvements in benefits or pay, or both, can pay off when it comes to recruiting and retaining employees. An incentive program can help.

Has hiring employees gotten harder lately? Not just finding veterinarians, but also veterinary nurses and other team members. Naturally, low unemployment is one reason for the problem. Another is the fact that we have underpaid veterinary employees for quite some time. I don’t think any practice purposefully underpays team members. Instead, we do it because […]

The clock is ticking on implementation of new guidelines designed for the proper handling of hazardous drugs in oncology and other settings.

Cancers occur in domestic animals, particularly household pets, at almost the same level as they do in humans. The methods of treating our mammalian companions do not differ drastically when compared to how we treat human oncology patients — namely via the use of chemotherapy drugs. These drugs are cytotoxic and anti-neoplastic, posing considerable risk […]

A support position doesn’t have to be a lifetime job. You have other options in the veterinary field if you’re motivated to do something else.

Working in a veterinary practice is an enviable career choice. It is a calling for many of us as well as a profession many are drawn to. The career choice is often reinforced when someone’s reaction upon hearing what you do is “Oh, that’s awesome!” or “Lucky you.” How many of us can make our […]

When we are sincerely curious, we unlock new fields of possibilities.

Our most recent column [“Wholeness and Self-Compassion,” February/March 2019] explored the importance of acknowledging our wholeness as a first step to finding peace in the present moment. While presenting on the topic of wholeness at VMX 2019, what became clearer to us than ever before was that members of the veterinary profession struggle with the […]

Veterinary clinics are not immune to workplace favoritism. Playing favorites with co-workers might not be illegal, but it can hurt morale and create resentment.

Here are a few comments heard when I asked veterinary nurses, receptionists and associate veterinarians if they had encountered favoritism at their practice: “Favoritism is a way of life here.” “Favoritism is an everyday thing.” “I suffer daily from not being a favorite.” What is favoritism, and is it even legal? If a practice manager […]