Lift your clinical game with our RACE approved clinical podcasts. Get your first two weeks free at ⁠vvn.supercast.com⁠  for more clinical confidence and better patient outcomes, or check out our Advanced Surgery Podcast at cutabove.supercast.com. 

Get case support from our team at specialists in our Specialist Support Space.

Contact Credabl  for questions and help around personal and professional finance for medical professionals, and apply for their $10000 Helping Hands Business grant here.

If you’ve ever wondered about starting your own veterinary practice, then this episode is for you. We speak to Dr Amber Christie and Brooke Goodwin, a vet and vet nurse team who are the owners of a brand new clinic, about the highs, the challenges the lessons learnt from building their new practice. 

Dr Amber is on new practice number four, and she tells us what they're doing differently this time around - from the practicalities of setting up the practice, like practice design, business structure, and finance, to how they’re thinking about things like boundaries, values, and growth. Brooke shares her perspective from a first time business owner’s point of view, and tells us how they are making the vet nurse/business owner structure work for them and for their clients. Finance specialist Caroline Willemse from Credabl took care of the money side of practice ownership for Amber and Brooke, and she joins us to answer common questions and bust some myths about business finance. 

Topics and Time Stamps

05:21 Balancing Personal and Professional Life as a Practice Owner

10:49 The Importance of Flexibility 

16:15 Designing the Perfect Vet Clinic

19:51 Financial Planning and Support for New Practices

30:22 Misconceptions and Realities Starting a Vet Practice: 

31:17 Choosing Your Path: Independent vs. Group Practice

31:38 The Joy of Building from Scratch

32:58 Financial Considerations for New Practices

34:48 Renting vs. Buying: Pros and Cons

36:18 Fixed vs. Variable Borrowing

38:51 The Unique Partnership: Vet and Nurse Co-Ownership

46:00 Picking Your Values and Goals

54:33 The One Question

We love to hear from you. If you have a question for us or you’d like to give us some feedback please get in touch via our contact from at thevetvault.com, or catch up with us on Instagram.

And if you like what you hear, please share the love by clicking on the share button wherever you’re listening and sending a link to someone who you think should hear this. 

You’ll hear a lot of complaining and blaming of leaders for everything that’s wrong with veterinary science. But the reality is that leading people is a very hard job, especially in a profession as complicated and nuanced as veterinary science. So this episode is for our leaders. We hope that it helps make your job of making our profession better just a little bit easier.

David Liss is the Director of West Coast Operations for Veterinary Emergency Group (VEG), and in this episode he’ll tell you about the three essential ingredients of great veterinary teams, and what this has to do with The Avengers and how they defeated Thanos! David also shares his strategies for giving hard-to-hear feedback, and tells us why goal setting is so important for building a great team and how to get the team excited for these goals. But we start with what might be the most important question: how do you, as a leader, stay motivated to keep motivating others?!

This episode was recorded live at IVECCS 2023, the conference of the Veterinary Emergency and Critical Care Society. Join me at IVECCS 2024 for MUCH more content like this, and more ECC clinical content than you could ever wish for. 

Get access to our highlights and key takeaways sessions, plus the show notes, from all of the conferences we’ve attended this year by joining our Vet Vault Nerds at vvn.supercast.com for more than 500 short sharp and practical podcasts in Small Animal Medicine, Surgery and Emergency and Critical Care. 

If you need expert help with those tricky cases that you can’t refer - we have a team of specialists on standby to provide you with some extra brains. Contact them here. 

Topics and time stamps

02:54 Motivation and Inspiration in Leadership

11:14 Back to the Avengers: Team Dynamics

15:43 Setting Goals and Achieving Buy-In

19:19 Profit: It's not a dirty word!

21:26 Handling Difficult Conversations

29:30 Carrot or Stick? Motivators

What if I told you that your clients never have to worry about when they inject their diabetic cats with insulin, and still maintain beautiful glucose control? And timing insulin with meal times: forget about it!

Those are just some of the things you’ll learn about in this episode about using basal insulin in veterinary diabetic patients. We also discuss:

• Why you don't need fancy diets for good glucose control.

• How traditional glucose curves not necessary for monitoring diabetic cats on basal insulin.
• Great tips for using continuous glucose monitoring devices.

Dr Linda Fleeman is an internationally renowned veterinary expert on the treatment of diabetes, and is regularly invited to write textbook chapters and speak on this topic at international forums. Linda has worked in both university referral practice and general small animal practice, with her primary focus for more than 20 years being all aspects of diabetes in dogs and cats. She completed a Residency in Small Animal Medicine, followed by a PhD on the clinical management of diabetes mellitus in dogs.  She’s held positions as Lecturer in Small Animal Medicine at the University of Queensland and Senior Lecturer in Small Animal Medicine at the University of Sydney before deciding to return to private clinical practice back in 2010. She currently does her work through Animal Diabetes Australia, the only diabetes-specific veterinary clinical service in the world, where she and her team pioneer ground-breaking diabetes treatments and management strategies and help practitioners better manage their patients through her consulting service.

Join our Specialist Support Space for case support for your tricky from our team of specialists, including diabetes case help from Dr Linda.

Subscribe to our RACE approved clinical continuing education podcasts for the show notes for this episode, a follow up session on managing diabetic dogs with basal insulin, plus hours of diabetes content with veterinary endocrinology guru Prof David Church, and over 450 other episodes in Medicine, Surgery and Emergency and Critical Care.

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

Our guest for today Is Dr Ivan Zakharenkov, or Ivan Zak as he’s better known. Ivan is a veterinarian and an entrepreneur committed to creating products that empower healthcare teams to live their passion.

If you haven’t heard of Ivan then there’s a fair chance that you have heard of, or possibly use his brainchild on a daily basis in your hospital: Ivan was the founder of the now-ubiquitous veterinary software Smartflow. It was Ivan’s personal journey as a practicing veterinarian for 12 years that led to the development of Smartflow, and eventually to his current mission.

Early in his career, Ivan experienced severe burnout, and it was that experience that has led him to explore the psychological triggers of burnout and business methodologies that veterinary organizations can apply to work against them. Researching this topic, Ivan obtained an MBA degree in International Healthcare Management and wrote a dissertation “Implementation of lean thinking to improve employee experience.” Today Ivan is leading Veterinary Integration Solutions, a technology company helping veterinary groups implement an operating framework for sustainable integration of practices with a special focus on burnout prevention.

Our conversation covers some of the highlights of the findings of the burnout study and his thinking about solutions to burnout. What I love about Ivan’s thinking that has flowed from the study is that the focus is not on how we as individuals can get better at preventing burnout - instead it focuses on the causes of burnout at a management and leadership level, and on practical solutions.

Ivan talks openly about his experience with burnout and how to identify it, we discuss the 6 triggers of burnout and strategies to mitigate it, Ivan gives us an inside perspective on how corporate veterinary practice works that might surprise you, and we talk about money and it’s role in job satisfaction and burnout, and much more.

https://vetintegrations.com/

Go to https://thevetvault.com/podcasts/  for the show notes, to get your hands on the answers to ‘the one question’ from our first 20 guests, and to check out our guests’ favourite books, podcasts, and everything else we talk about in the show.

If you want to lift your clinical game, subscribe to our clinical podcast series at https://vvn.supercast.tech for weekly short and sharp high-value clinical updates that you can consume on the go.

We love to hear from you. If you have a question for us or you’d like to give us some feedback please leave us a voice message by going to our episode page on the anchor app (https://anchor.fm) and hitting the record button, via email at thevetvaultpodcast@gmail.com, or just catch up with us on Instagram. (https://www.instagram.com/thevetvault/)

And iff you like what you heard then please share the love by clicking on the share button wherever you’re listening and sending a link to someone who you know will enjoy listening.

We’re back today with another full-length vet interview, and it’s a corker!  We’re exploring the ins and outs, the ups and downs and the and the joys and struggles of a career in emergency practice, with Dr Lorna O’Dowd.

You’ll pick where Lorna cut her teeth in mixed practice from her lovely Irish accent. Since her early career in Ireland, Lorna did stints of smallies locum work interspersed with volunteering in all sorts of exotic locations around the world. She finally put down her roots here in Australia, where she followed a path that saw her working and teaching in the emergency department at the University of Melbourne for the past decade.

At the time of recording this episode, she’d just started a new ECC job in a private specialist clinic, which leads us straight into a great conversation about change, dealing with new jobs and teams and the associated stresses, how to pick a team that fits with your values, and how to add value to your team. We talk about imposter syndrome, burnout, being a good mentee, and... death - when our patients die, with or without our help - a very important topic that we haven’t really touched on before on the podcast. And of course, we couldn’t talk to a fellow ECC geek without asking her for her best tips on how to survive a career in emergency practice with shift work and high-stress situations.

Enjoy!

This episdoe is a bit of a hybrid between our standard performance episodes and a clinical one. We speak to Dr Randolph Baral, who owns and works in a feline-only practice in Sydney, Australia. But Randolph doesn’t just like staying up to date with what’s new for his patients - he prefers to stay at the forefront by doing his own research. This has led to him gaining his memberships feline medicine, a pHD in clinical pathology, being a regular contributor on VIN, and authoring a string of publications and articles on all things clin path. We talk to Randolph about the benefits of niche practice and about being a researcher while also being a clinician and practice owner, but the bulk of our conversation is around Randolph’s insights around his pet topic: variation in blood results, how we interpret our blood results, and more specifically BETTER ways of thinking about our results. Now, a quick word of warning - some of the things Randolph talks about might hurt your brain a bit when you first hear them, but I guarantee that once they click into place you’ll wonder how it is that you never thought about things in this way. This episode is supported by Heska Australia. https://www.heska.com.au Heska is the most exciting new player in the in-house lab equipment market in Australia. They offer top of the line machines and proven reliable results, but with significantly reduced spend on consumables, with savings of 30% or more compared to other dry-slide analysers. Pay less, get more, no tricks. Go to https://thevetvault.com/podcasts/ for the show notes, to get your hands on the answers to ‘the one question’ from our first 20 guests, and to check out our guests’ favourite books, podcasts and everything else we talk about in the show. If you want to lift your clinical game, subscribe to our clinical podcast series at https://vvn.supercast.tech for weekly short and sharp high value clinical updates that you can consume on the go. We love to hear from you. If you have a question for us or you’d like to give us some feedback please leave us a voice message by going to our episode page on the anchor app (https://anchor.fm) and hitting the record button, via email at thevetvaultpodcast@gmail.com, or just catch up with us on instagram. (https://www.instagram.com/thevetvault/) If you like what you heard then please share the love by clicking on the share button wherever you’re listening and sending a link to someone who you know will enjoy listening.

I recently had the privilege to be interviewed by my podcast/business coach, James Whittaker. James is an author, film producer, entrepreneur, all-round great guy and host of the Win The Day podcast. We thought we'd share it with you here on the Vet Vault, because 

A - If you're a podcaster and you get handed a well-executed pre-edited bit of audio then you'd be a fool not to use it.

B - We discuss a few things in the conversation that we think could be of value to some of you.

C - Maybe it's time you got to know us a bit better!

Enjoy. Hugh

Check out James' podcast at https://jameswhitt.com/podcast/

If you have a podcast or a digital business, or you're considering starting one...this is where I learnt a lot of what I know:

https://wearepodcast.com/events 

Highly recommended. As a member of the tribe, I get a 20% discount code to share with friends: use the code VET for your discount. 

You know that virus that the entire world hates at the moment? Yes - the C-word. Well, us vets have hated it for a long time, because it’s been killing our feline patients relentlessly in it’s mutated form of Feline Infectious Peritonitis long before the rest of the world ever heard the name 'corona'. Well, that might be about to change... 

In this episode, we share some highlights of a recording we recently released on the Vet Vault Clinical small animal medicine podcast with our resident medicine specialist, Dr Dave Collins. Join in to find out all the details about some new treatments that are showing very high cure rates for FIP. It's simply too important not to share. We hope you find it as enlightening as we did, and please remember to share it with your colleagues so we can get the word out there. 

Dr Dave also gave us access to some detailed notes on everything we know about Remdesivir, one of the drugs we talk about, including a comprehensive treatment protocol. If you want to get your hands on these go to www.thevetvault.com and subscribe to our mailing list, and we'll send them to you. 

In the full episode, we also cover the ins and outs of diagnosing FIP, which you'll know can be a challenge in itself. Go and check it out at vvn.supercast.tech. 

Dr Sarah Heath is an RCVS and European Veterinary Specialist in Behavioural Medicine and was made a Fellow of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons in 2018. She is an External Lecturer in small animal behavioural medicine on the veterinary undergraduate course at Liverpool University. In 2019 she gained her Postgraduate Certificate in Veterinary Education and became a Fellow of the Higher Education Authority. She is a Certified Clinical Animal Behaviourist under the ASAB accreditation scheme and registered as a Veterinary Behaviourist with the Animal Behaviour and Training Council. 

She sees clinical cases across North West England and has a special interest in the interplay between emotional and physical illness in dogs and cats and particularly in the role of pain. She promotes the recognition of emotional health issues in companion animals and the role of the veterinary profession in safeguarding the welfare of animals in this context. Sarah lectures extensively, at home and abroad, on behavioural medicine and is an author, co-author and editor of several books.  

Basically - when it comes to anything behaviour related - she REALLY knows her stuff. And you don’t get this good at assessing behaviour without learning a few other things - about people, clients, our profession, and yourself. Join us in this far-reaching conversation with a Sarah about career longevity, connecting with clients and with the greater animal care community, Sarah’s self-care challenges, behaviour medicine as a career and much, much more. 

Go to https://thevetvault.com/podcasts/ for the show notes, to get your hands on the answers to ‘the one question’ from our first 20 guests, and to check out our guests’ favourite books, podcasts and everything else we talk about in the show. 

We love to hear from you. If you have a question for us or you’d like to give us some feedback please leave us a voice message by going to our episode page on the anchor app (https://anchor.fm) and hitting the record button, via email at thevetvaultpodcast@gmail.com, or just catch up with us on Instagram. (https://www.instagram.com/thevetvault/) 

f you like what you heard please share the love by clicking on the share button wherever you’re listening to this and sending it to someone who you know will enjoy listening to this.

We wanted to share one of the episodes from our clinical series of podcasts to give you an idea what they are about. This one is from a series we did on brachycephalic obstructed airway syndrome (BOAS) with specialist surgeon Dr Bronwyn Fullagar and Dr Mark Tenenbaum, a GP vet who works in a practice that has a strong focus on brachycephalics. Regardless how you feel about bulldogs and all their flat faced friends - the reality is that you WILL have to deal with them. This episode is from our surgery series, but don’t be put off if you’re not the surgeon who’ll be doing upper airway surgery. There’s a lot of value here for any vet around a general approach to dealing with the brachys in hospital: from safe handling and sedating, all the way to waking them up and managing them post-op for any surgical procedure, not just airway surgery. If you want to hear part 1, 3 and 4 of the BOAS series to learn more about the pathophys of BOAS, how to decide which ones need surgery, how to assess them for surgery, what can go wrong, how to actually DO the surgery, and much much more, and if you want access to summarised show notes that you can refer back to later, then we’d love you to check out the vet vault clinical at https://vvn.supercast.tech. Enjoy!

Here’s the link to our brand new clinical continuing education podcasts: https://vvn.supercast.tech. Subscribe before the end of January 2021 to lock in your subscription at a 30% discounted early bird rate. Now - our guest:  Dr Mark Kelman is a man on a mission. He’s a veterinarian, independent scientific researcher, social philanthropist and investor who has had a wildly varying career. From charity work to private practice to working in pharmaceuticals, a quick PhD, and now as a researcher and co-founder, director and CEO of his own charity. Paws for a Purpose is a social enterprise charity for people in need and their pets. The charity raises funds and awareness for various issues including Canine Parvovirus. Currently, he is leading a research-and-intervention project with the goal of eradicating Parvo. Yes, we said eradicate! Mark is also a board director of Pets In The Park – a charity helping the homeless to care for their pets.  Our conversation with Mark meanders all over the veterinary profession. He tackles some of the biggest issues that we face as vets, like trying to find a balance between our duty of care with our need to earn a decent income, and career diversification as a key for career longevity. Mark shares his journey with us and tells us why he still loves working as a vet, and much much more. Ultimately it’s a hopeful conversation about taking action, big dreams, and the small steps that get you to those dreams.  Go to https://thevetvault.com/podcasts/ for the show notes, to get your hands on the answers to ‘the one question’ from our first 20 guests, and to check out our guests’ favourite books, podcasts and everything else we talk about in the show. We love to hear from you. If you have a question for us or you’d like to give us some feedback please leave us a voice message by going to our episode page on the anchor app (https://anchor.fm) and hitting the record button, via email at thevetvaultpodcast@gmail.com, or just catch up with us on Instagram. (https://www.instagram.com/thevetvault/)  And if you like what you heard please share the love by clicking on the share button wherever you’re listening to this and sending it to someone who you know will enjoy listening to this.

Just a quick chat to say hi and let you know what we’ve been up to, plus Hubert shares an important letter that we’d received at the Vet Vault from a listener who is NOT a vet, but a client. You may need to hear this - I know that there are many days that I do.

If you’re thinking we’ve been slow to release new episodes then you’d be right! Hubert is travelling around Australia with his family for 6 weeks, so the Vet Vault will be taking a 6 week break. We’ll be back towards the end of the year with a tonne of new content and the official launch of our clinical podcast series. We miss you already!

You know when you see that case, usually some sort of traumatic injury , where something feels a bit 'off'. Maybe the story doesn't fit the injury, or it's the third time you've seen this patient in the last few months. Whatever it is - there are alarm bells...

In this episode forensic veterinarian Dr Elizabeth Pearlman tells us why it's so important that you listen to those alarm bells, how to get better at hearing them, while sharing a structured plan for what to do about it to help us bring a bit of light to the darker aspects of human-animal interactions, without compromising your own wellbeing.

Dr Elizabeth Pearlman is a forensic veterinarian for the ASPCA’s Veterinary Forensic Science Center in Gainesville FL. A childhood of watching Animal Cops on Animal Planet sent her on her path to veterinary science and eventually a Masters degree in Veterinary Forensic Science. She has practiced as a private practice emergency veterinarian and as a staff veterinarian for the Houston SPCA, and In 2018, she joined The ASPCA full-time as a forensic veterinarian. In her position, she assists law enforcement agencies nationwide with the identification, documentation, and collection of forensic evidence from crime scenes, live animals, and deceased animals. Additionally, she authors reports based on her findings and testifies in court as an expert witness.

In this episode Liz gives us a peek into the career of a forensic vet. She shares practical advice and resources on how to deal with cruelty and neglect cases, including evidence gathering, documentation, reporting, working with law enforcement and even how to get over your fear of being an expert witness in court. If you feel like this might be the job for you - Liz also lays out a few possible career pathways for us.

Topic List:

01:56 - The Reality of Forensic Veterinary Work

02:26 - Case of Suspected Chicken Abuse

03:42 - Abby's Case: A Deep Dive

07:43 - Impact of Forensic Work on Animal Welfare

08:14 - Veterinary Forensics Education and Reporting

11:07 - Another Case Study: Khaleesi

14:07 - Discussion on Non-Accidental Injuries

16:12 - Overview of a Forensic Vet's Role

18:53 - Forensic Veterinary Opportunities in the U.S. and Abroad

22:31 - Educational Resources and Career Paths in Forensic Veterinary Medicine

25:54 - Handling Suspicions of Animal Abuse in Practice

28:33 - Emotional Challenges in Forensic Veterinary Work

36:01 - Importance of Detailed Documentation in Suspected Abuse Cases

38:21 - Court Appearances and Testifying as a Forensic Vet

40:08 - Maintaining Emotional Health in Forensic Veterinary Roles

43:56 - Closing Thoughts and Stoic Philosophy in Veterinary Practice

Resources from Dr Pearlman:

• Aspcapro.org

• ASPCA One Pagers (PDFs are downloadable on this site)
• Minimum Standards and Best Practices for the Clinical Veterinary Forensic Examination of the Suspected Abused Animal

Continuing Education Opportunities:

• International Veterinary Forensic Sciences Association

• Florida International University – Professional Science Master’s in Veterinary Forensics

• VMX
• VIN

• Vets are welcome to visit Dr Pearlman and her team in their facility for case review/mock necropsy practice. If interested, email Dr Pearlman directly at Elizabeth.pearlman@aspca.org or submit a request.

Trial our clinical subscription for free at ⁠vvn.supercast.com ⁠to access the show notes for this episode and to listen to all 500+ of our clinical episodes. Get help with your tricky cases in our ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Specialist Support Space.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 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 from the week.  Join us for a snow conference in Japan or in Wanaka with Vets On Tour: email vetsontour@gmail.com for details. (And tell Dave I sent you for your 10% discount!) 

This episode is a special bonus episode for our student contingency. We chat to Nada Blagojevic (@dogtornada on Instagram). Nada is a final year vet student at Adelaide University and co-creator of Hashtag Vetschool. #Vetschool is a compilation of study tips and a survival guide of sorts made by an international group of vet students, for vet students. In this conversation Nada gives us a few of her favourite tips from the guide and some of her own wisdom. Enjoy! 

Get your copy of this fantastic study guide here: https://hashtagvetschool.com. 

Go to https://thevetvault.com/podcasts/ to get your hands on the answers to ‘the one question’ from our first 20 guests, and to check out our guests’ favourite books, podcasts and everything else we talk about in the show. We love to hear from you. If you have a question for us or you’d like to give us some feedback please leave us a voice message by going to our episode page on the anchor app (https://anchor.fm) and hitting the record button, via email at thevetvaultpodcast@gmail.com, or just catch up with us on Instagram. (https://www.instagram.com/thevetvault/) If you like what you heard please share the love by clicking on the share button wherever you’re listening to this and sending it to someone who you know will enjoy listening to this.

Dr Kathy Anderson has been a practice owner for almost 5 years, and under her guidance, the practice has grown from a 2 man business to a bustling 6 vet practice and has seen a remarkable increase in revenue. Which is impressive in itself, but if I told you that she chose to enter ownership when she had two very young kids, one of them a 2-year-old who wasn’t even sleeping through the night, you’d probably think she’s crazy, right? But here’s the thing - she’s loved her journey and still loves practice ownership and veterinary work. You’d have to look long and hard to meet someone with her level of positivity and enthusiasm for work. 

Our conversation with Kathy covers all aspects of pursuing balance, like how to ensure time off for yourself, Kathy’s tips for happy teams and profitable business, the practicalities of mixing young kids and owning a business, and guilt... something that most parents/ business owners would be all too familiar with. We chat about self-care and our responsibilities in caring for others, about the role of telemedicine in Kathy’s practice, and much much more. 

Go to https://thevetvault.com/podcasts/ to get your hands on the answers to ‘the one question’ from our first 20 guests, and to check out our guests’ favourite books, podcasts and everything else we talk about in the show. 

We love to hear from you. If you have a question for us or you’d like to give us some feedback please leave us a voice message by going to our episode page on the anchor app (https://anchor.fm) and hitting the record button, via email at thevetvaultpodcast@gmail.com, or just catch up with us on Instagram. (https://www.instagram.com/thevetvault/) If you like what you heard please share the love by clicking on the share button wherever you’re listening to this and sending it to someone who you know will enjoy listening to this.

Here’s another sneak preview of our upcoming clinical podcasts with this episode on the diagnosis of immune-mediated haemolytic anaemia. IMHA is one of those diseases where timely recognition and treatment can mean the difference between a patient that lives and one that does not, but it can be a challenge to diagnose. We’ve roped in Dr Dave Collins, a medicine specialist from North Side Vet Specialists in Sydney, to help you to create a solid plan for diagnosing and saving these patients. This episode is the first of a three-part series on IMHA. The other two will be available on the Vet Vault clinical medicine podcast soon. 

Head to https://thevetvault.com/podcasts/ to subscribe to our email list and we’ll send you the summarised notes for this episode and let you know when the clinical podcasts go live. 

We’ve also partnered again with our friends at Heska Australia. Heska is the best thing that’s happened to the in-house lab industry in Australia in a very long time. Check out they’re full range of diagnostic toys at heska.com.au, and make sure you look into their Reset Programme to see how you can get all of their top of the range in house lab equipment - for free! 

Click on this link: https://www.heska.com.au/vet-vault-podcast-imha/ to get access to the most recent consensus statement on the diagnosis of IMHA. This is a document that includes all the details of pretty much everything anyone knows about how to diagnose these cases. 

We love to hear from you. If you have a question for us or you’d like to give us some feedback please leave us a voice message by going to our episode page on the anchor app (https://anchor.fm) and hitting the record button, via email at thevetvaultpodcast@gmail.com, or just catch up with us on Instagram. (https://www.instagram.com/thevetvault/) If you like what you heard then please share the love by clicking on the share button wherever you’re listening to this and sending it to someone you know who will enjoy listening to this.

Hazell Mullins is young and energetic and a little bit glamorous, but she’s also a very hardworking hardcore cow vet in her home country of Ireland. She shatters the stereotype of the tweed-hat-wearing bearded farm vet and is one of the fore-runners of what is the next generation of leaders in the large animal veterinary field. We chat to her about how things have changed for female farm vets over the last few years. Hazell tells us about the day to day life of an Irish farm vet, why spring is scary when you’re a cow vet on the British Isles and gives us her tips for preparing for periods of high stress. We discuss surviving on call, the merits of post-grad studying, using social media as a tool, and she tells us about her podcast, Vet Space Ireland, plus much much more. 

Go to https://thevetvault.com/podcasts/ to subscribe to our mailing list to check out our guests’ favourite books, podcasts and everything else we talk about in the show. 

We love to hear from you. If you have a question for us or you’d like to give us some feedback please leave us a voice message by going to our episode page on the anchor app (https://anchor.fm) and hitting the record button, via email at thevetvaultpodcast@gmail.com, or just catch up with us on Instagram. (https://www.instagram.com/thevetvault/) 

If you like what you heard please share the love by clicking on the share button wherever you’re listening to this and sending it to someone who you know will enjoy listening to this.

It’s not every day you get to interrogate one of your friends, but in this episode, that’s exactly what Hugh gets to do. Dr Ruan Bester has chosen a career journey that is a bit different to that of most of his classmates: instead of opting for a career at home or in one of the ‘normal’ choices like the UK, Aus or the US, Ruan was drawn to working in Asia, where he eventually started his own practice in Macao. (If you’ve never heard of Macao before you’re probably not alone: Macao is a small island off the coast of China about an hour away from Hong Kong by ferry, and is the gambling capital of Asia.) Outside of work, Ruan loves fast things: aeroplanes, race cars and motorbikes. But mostly he LOVES just being a vet. 

We catch up with Ruan to talk about changes that he perceives in the profession, about sustaining your passion for the job, what life is like for a vet in Macao, and all sorts of weird animals, including flying turtles! Join us for a highly entertaining, slightly alternative look at our incredible profession, with Dr Ruan Bester. 

For the show notes or to check out our guests’ favourite books, podcasts and everything else we talk about in the show, click on the webpage link on the episode page wherever you listen to us or visit the podcast website at https://thevetvault.com/. 

We love to hear from you: if you have a question that you’d like us to answer then leave us a voice message by going to our episode page on the anchor app (https://anchor.fm) and hitting the record button, via email at thevetvaultpodcast@gmail.com, or just catch up with us on Instagram. (https://www.instagram.com/thevetvault/) 

If you like what you heard please share the love by clicking on the share button wherever you’re listening to this and sending it to someone who you know would enjoy listening to this. 

In this bonus episode we answer some listener questions. One of our listeners brought it to our attention that, because of Covid, many people who are considering studying veterinary science are not allowed to see practice. How are they supposed to know what life as a vet is like?! They have some questions: What does the day to day life of a vet look like? What do you look for in a veterinary student that makes you think they will become great vets? What do you wish you'd known when you entered the profession? 

So we've teamed up with Dr Louisa Graham to answer some of those questions for our pre-vet listeners. We hope it helps! 

We love to hear from you. If you have a question that you’d like us to answer with the help of our guests, leave us a voice message by going to our episode page on the anchor app (https://anchor.fm) and hitting the record button, via email at thevetvaultpodcast@gmail.com, or just catch up with us on Instagram. (https://www.instagram.com/thevetvault/) 

If you like what you heard please share the love by telling your friends and colleagues to check us out.

ECC specialist Dr. Rob Webster gives a beautiful explanation of the key principles of fluid therapy for shock patients, with a focus on the ‘dry’ hypovolemic patient.

Victoria Johnson is a specialist veterinary radiologist and the founder and director of VetCt, a global leader in teleradiology and telemedicine. We dig deep into diagnostic imaging as a career choice: the how’s, the why’s and the why not's, and everything else you wanted to know about it. Victoria tells us her secrets to maintaining a healthy relationship when your significant other is not only a vet, but also your business’s partner - a situation that is not at all rare in our profession. And of course, I can never resist asking a fellow parent,  especially a parent who is such an accomplished business owner, about how they balance parenting with caring for what Victoria calls ‘the other child’ - your business. We also get some pro tips from someone who’s been immersed in working remotely with teams over Zoom long before Covid forced the rest of onto video conferencing on how to successfully communicate remotely without losing the human touch. 

Find out more about Victoria’s work at https://www.vet-ct.com/au/small-animal/telemedicine-diagnostics/. 

For the show notes or to check out our guests’ favourite books, podcasts and everything else we talk about in the show, click on the webpage link on the episode page wherever you listen to us or visit the podcast website at https://thevetvault.com/. We love to hear from you. 

If you have a question that you’d like us to answer with the help of our guests, leave us a voice message by going to our episode page on the anchor app (https://anchor.fm) and hitting the record button, via email at thevetvaultpodcast@gmail.com, or just catch up with us on Instagram. (https://www.instagram.com/thevetvault/) If you like what you heard please share the love by telling your friends and colleagues to check us out.

Roz Lindsay’s career started as a veterinarian. After several years of working in clinical practice in both the UK and Australia, she transitioned into a career in human pharmaceuticals. This is where her interest in business, management and leadership was peaked, with a particular focus on the inner workings of teams within the healthcare professions. Fast forward to the present: these days Roz is an accomplished trainer and facilitator in her learning and development company for healthcare teams. (https://engagingpotential.com.au) She has a passion for people development with particular interests in leadership, team development and the neuroscience/psychology of human interaction. Her background in veterinary science with the subsequent years of experience in sales, customer service, operations and management in healthcare services outside of vet gives her a unique perspective into the challenges we face in our profession and is why we loved having her as a guest in the show and why we know you’ll love her content. 

Roz talks us through her decision to leave clinical veterinary practice and gives some fantastic advice on how to think through the decision for anyone considering leaving the profession. We talk about stress as a neurophysiological response rather than “ just” an emotion, and we explore the concept of 'good stress'. Roz gives us her views on the most common causes of dysfunctional teams in the healthcare sphere, where sayings like ‘all nurses eat their young’ are tragically commonplace, and we talk about the biggest killers of good teams. 

For the show notes or to check out our guests’ favourite books, podcasts and everything else we talk about in the show, click on the webpage link on the episode page wherever you listen to us or visit the podcast website at https://thevetvault.com/. 

We love to hear from you. If you have a question that you’d like us to answer with the help of our guests, leave us a voice message by going to our episode page on the anchor app (https://anchor.fm) and hitting the record button, via email at thevetvaultpodcast@gmail.com, or just catch up with us on instagram. (https://www.instagram.com/thevetvault/) 

If you like what you heard help us spread the love by telliing your friends and colleagues to check us out.

In this episode of our business and leadership series with Dr. Shibly we speak to Dr. Zach Lederhose. Zach was about 2 years out of university and just 26 years old when he took the plunge into practice ownership. Ownership is a long term goal for many vets, but most of us feel that we need a certain level of age or expertise before we can even begin to consider it. But is that necessarily true? In our conversation we cover career progression, plateaus, pivots, and taking the road less travelled. Zac talks us through his decision making process leading to him buying the practice, and talks us through some of the challenges he’s faced. He gives advice on how to prepare yourself for a leadership role and how to prepare your new team for change. We talk about making ‘good’ mistakes, creating your ‘inner circle and how to put processes in place to guard against burnout. And if you’re already a business owner or a more seasoned vet - don’t be fooled by Zac’s age: this episode offers some sound business principles.

You know that feeling when the ‘not breathing well’ patient gets rushed to your crash bench, and you stand there with your stethoscope trying to look like your planning, but actually, you’re just panicking... You have to do something, but what? Where do you begin?!  This is exactly why I loved this conversation with ECC specialist and Director of Animal Emergency Australia, Dr Rob Webster, about the 6 steps that will help you localise the problem in the respiratory distress patient. Because once you localise it, you have a DD list, and you have a plan. Dr Rob guides us through the first minutes of assessing the respiratory distress veterinary patient and shows us how to quickly assess breathing patterns and sounds to help you pin-point and fix the problem. Trail our clinical subscription for free at vvn.supercast.com to access the show notes for this episode and to listen to all 500+ of our clinical episodes. Get help with your tricky cases in our ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Specialist Support Space.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 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 from the week.  Join us for a snow conference in Japan or in Wanaka with Vets On Tour: email vetsontour@gmail.com for details. (And tell Dave I sent you for your 10% discount!)  Topic list: 5:49 Step 1: Evaluate respiratory effort. 11:31 Step 2: Is the breathing noisy? 20:22 Step 3: Is the chest wall intact? 28:16 Step 4: Is the breathing fast and shallow? 36:27 Step 5: Fast and shallow, but with nothing abnormal on lung imaging. 38:01 Step 6: Non-respiratory causes.

In this episode, Alice talks about imaging of the gi tract when you suspect gastrointestinal bleeding, and specifically the use of capsule endoscopy. This is not an entirely new technology, but for a long time, it’s been very limited in it’s usefulness to veterinarians. However, in recent years advances in tech in this field has significantly increased its utility. Alice talks us through when to use it, how to use it, what it’s not good for, and what it’ great for. 

Our guest for this episode is brought to you by ALICAM. ALICAM is the world’s first veterinary capsule endoscopy unit. It’s a revolutionary way to easily image the gastro-intestinal tract with unsurpassed detail and accuracy, and is achievable at any level of practice. 

Find out more at https://www.fourlimb.com.au/alicam.

Professor Alice Defarges is a professor of small animal internal medicine, and in this episode, she tells us how to work up and successfully diagnose cases with non-haemolytic anaemia, and specifically, GI bleeding.  Our guest today is brought to you by ALICAM. ALICAM is the world’s first veterinary capsule endoscopy unit. ALICAM is distributed in Australia by Fourlimb Surgical Solutions.  To find out more about Alicam and to get a listener discount on your first order, go to www.Fourlimb.com.au/Alicam.

If you’re anything like us you might have some preconceptions about surgery and surgeons. Our guest for this episode, Dr Bronwyn Fullagar, will flip those ideas of yours on their heads. Bronwyn is a board certified specialist surgeon who has a different take on what it means, and what it takes, to be a surgeon. When there is not a global viral pandemic she travels the world as a locum surgeon, and in between work stints she shares her skills at several charity organisations in some pretty awesome locations. We dig deep into a career in surgery: what it takes, what it looks like - the good and and the bad, including some practical advice on how to become a surgeon . She gives us her tips on how to stop ‘post-op panic’ about things going wrong with your cases, and she shares with us about finding her passion, loving the journey, picking your mentors, how working in the US compares to a career in Australia, and much much more. For the show notes or to check out our guests’ favourite resources, click on the webpage link on the episode page wherever you listen to us, or visit the podcast website at thevetvault.com If you have a question for us we’d like you to leave us a voice message by going to our episode page on the anchor app (https://anchor.fm) and hitting the record button, or via email at thevetvaultpodcast@gmail.com, or just catch up with us on instagram. (https://www.instagram.com/thevetvault/) We’d love to hear from you! If you like what you heard, then please help us to spread the word by subscribing to the podcast (it’s free!), and by telling your friends about us.

In part 2 we cover secondary coagulopathy, including the coagulation cascade. Bruce gives us the most simple and memorable explanation of that Y-shaped beast that you’ll ever hear, and we learn how and when to use the tests of secondary coagulation: Activated clotting time, APTT and APT. We get deep into the weeds of the most commonly seen causes that will disrupt the coagulation cascade, and Bruce also clarifies some of the ‘unusual suspects’ - the congenital factor abnormalities. 

This episode is brought to you by Heska; THE most exciting new player in in-house diagnostics in Australia. Heska aims to change the way you think about and run your in-house diagnostics to save you both time and money while increasing your standards of care. Best of all, you don’t pay a cent for the analysers - you only pay for the test you perform. It’s that simple! Pay less, get more, no tricks. 

Go to heska.com.au/vetvault to claim your Vet Vault listener exclusive offer of $5000 with of consumables.

In our two-part series on coagulation, we talk to Prof. Bruce Parry, a former clinical pathologist from the University of Melbourne. In part 1 we cover primary coagulation. We talk everything platelets: how to accurately pick cases of thrombocytopaenia, pro-tips to make sure you get to the right answers, and common pitfalls. We also look at the buccal mucosal bleeding time test: how to do it, and what information it will provide. 

We’re also excited to introduce you to our first-ever sponsor: our guest expert is brought to you by Heska, the most exciting new player in in-house diagnostics in Australia.  Heska aims to change the way you think about and run your in-house diagnostics to save you both time and money while increasing your standards of care. Best of all, you don’t pay a cent for the analysers; you only pay for the tests you perform. It’s that simple. Pay less, get more, no tricks. 

Go to Heska.com.au/vetvault to get access to a special offer that they’ve created exclusively for Vet Vault listeners, which gives you $5000 worth of free consumables.

Paul Ainsworth is the founding director of the Lincoln Institute, which is a leadership and development organisation for veterinarians and veterinary teams. He is a highly sought after executive coach, facilitator and key note presenter.  Paul is a graduate of the Australian Defence Force Academy, University of New South Wales, the Royal Military College Duntroon and was awarded the prestigious Sasakawa Leadership Scholarship by the Australian Graduate School of Management’s Executive MBA program. As an infantry officer Paul has seen international service in 5 foreign countries, culminating in leading an international military observer unit in one of the words harshest environments. Paul has safely lead teams out of crossfire, negotiated the release of hostages, reopened international borders that had been closed due to hostile acts and provided humanitarian relief to communities suffering oppression. On resigning his commission, he was appointed Director of Property at ALDI Foods where he oversaw the roll-out of a large number of supermarkets. His appointment as their first Director in Australia ensured his place in establishing the culture of one of the world’s largest food retailers. Paul has over 30 years of leadership experience across all socio-economic and geopolitical boundaries making him highly sought after as an instructor and facilitator to all levels of business. In this episode Paul tells us epic stories about leadership success and failures. He talks about fear, and the antidote to fear, the art of mindful transitioning as the solution to burnout, having difficult conversations, but more importantly how to prevent the need for difficult conversations. We discuss the biggest challenges a new leader will face in their role and how to avoid those pitfalls, plus how senior leaders can help new leaders fill with roles successfully, and much much more. For the show notes or to check out our guests’ favourite books, podcasts and everything else we talk about in the show, click on the webpage link on the episode page wherever you listen to us, or visit the podcast website at thevetvault.com. Connect with us by leaving us a voice message on our episode page on the anchor app (https://anchor.fm) and hitting the record button, via email at thevetvaultpodcast@gmail.com, or just catch up with us on instagram. We’d love to hear from you! If you like what you heard, then please help us to spread the word by subscribing to the podcast (it’s free!), and by telling your friends about us.

What do you do when you are facing something overwhelming? That surgical procedure, that difficult conversation, that business idea... are you spurred into action, or do you feel paralysed? In this quickie Dr Rob shares his thoughts on facing up to the scary and sometimes seemingly insurmountable obstacles on the road to success.

Our guest for this episode is a true veterinary virtuoso, so much so that’s it’s hard to pick just one single job title for him. Dr. Adam Christman is a practicing small animal veterinarian in the same practice where he started his veterinary career as a 14 year old kennel hand, as well as at a local animal shelter, but his veterinary journey has taken him on many interesting paths. These include completing an MBA, regular public speaking, a career in media, social media influencer, published author, Disney aficionado, and most recently to his new role as the veterinary director for DVM 360 and the Fetch conferences. We start our conversation with Adam with an important topic that is very close to my heart: Daschunds! 

However, the episode does not peak here as you might expect - we cover a wide range of other topics, like Adam’s secrets for when you’re feeling stuck in your career and how to make sure you have a smooth relationship with one of the most precious resources in practice: your nurses. We talk personality types, the brand that is YOU, maintaining energy levels and much much more. Did we mention the daschunds? 

For the show notes or to check out our guests’ favourite books, podcasts and everything else we talk about in the show, click on the webpage link on the episode page wherever you listen to us, or visit the podcast website at https://thevetvault.com/. If you have a question that you’d like us to answer with the help of our guests, leave us a voice message by going to our episode page on the anchor app (https://anchor.fm) and hitting the record button, via email at thevetvaultpodcast@gmail.com, or just catch up with us on instagram. (https://www.instagram.com/thevetvault/) We’d love to hear from you! If you like what you heard, then please help us to spread the word by subscribing to the podcast (it’s free!), and by telling your friends about us.

If you did a little victory dance - and let’s face it, we all did - when it was announced that vets are an essential service during the early days of the covid outbreak, then perhaps we should talk about how you value yourself and the services you offer? Dr. Shibly joins us again to talk about value: how most vets shoot themselves in the foot on a daily basis when it comes to demonstrating value to our clients, and strategies to fix this. Listen carefully for the two words you should never use in front of your clients!

Dr. Alex Hynes is a force of nature: whether she’s on the floor in the emergency hospital, leading her team as a company director, showcasing our profession to the world on the Bondi Vet television show, mentoring the thousands of young vets who look up to her, or taking care of her daughter, you can’t help but be inspired by her passion and energy when she crosses your path. In our long awaited episode with Alex we talk to her about where she finds her motivation and whether she ever has bad days. Alex gives us a master class on connecting with our clients: what they need from us, how to effectively give them what they need and how to demonstrate value in what you do. We talk about how things are different during the time of Covid-19 and how you and your business can stand out as a shining light in these potentially dark times.

We're experimenting with something... I found a software that magically translates your voice into any language of your choosing, and I'm dying to see if I can use it to get some Vet Vault vibes into the non-English speaking veterinary world. So, as a trial run, we had this conversation about renal physiology and the many ways in which we, as vets, misunderstand and misinterpret the link between urine specific gravity and azotaemia translated into Spanish. Then we had a Spanish speaking vet cross-checked it and fix any mistakes, and here is the final product. So, for our Spanish-speaking colleagues: I'd love to know - how did we do? How did the AI do? Is this useful/sensible? And mostly, would you like to get more of them? Let us know what you think at info@thevetvault.com.

Dr. Brooke gives some fantastic advice on finding confidence, even when you don’t necessarily feel it, and how to deal with ‘looking too young to be a vet.’

Dr. Dan Phillips earned his veterinary degree from North Carolina State University in 2011 and then completed an internship focused on small animal emergency and internal medicine at Tufts Cummings College of Veterinary Medicine. Since then he’s been working as a small animal practitioner near Chicago, and for the last 4 years has served as the primary extern and preceptor director for his group of practices. I had to look up what a preceptor is, and google summarises it as someone who teaches, supports, counsels, coaches, evaluates, serves as role model and aids in the socialization to a new role, which is a pretty good description of Dan’s passion. In fact, he feels so strongly about the importance of mentoring that he partnered with Drs. Dan Markwalder and Adam Conroy from Markroy consulting and the 7S society to create a new venture called Vet Mentor Solutions. With VMS they aim to mentor confident, effective and productive veterinarians through a comprehensive video library of practical small animal techniques and client communication skills.   In this episode Dan demonstrates why he’s qualified to help guide the next generation of vets into the profession: we cover topics like how to effectively give feedback, how to avoid worrying about being judged when you put your opinions out there, teaching to learn, and why goal setting is one of the most important skills you need to develop. We put Dan’s mentoring skills to the test when we ask him how to ask for a pay increase, and Dan gives one of the best summaries we’ve ever heard of how to select the practice you want to work in, and how to interview for culture. His explanation, like all of the content in this episode, won’t just resonate with young vets, but also serves as a useful reminder for practice owners and managers about what to keep in mind when creating positions for less experienced vets.

We talk COVID government bail-outs, financial strategies and HR do’s and don’ts in another business and leadership episode, with Paolo Lencioni - vet turned accountant and veterinary financial management guru. Paolo’s company - APL accountants, helps veterinarians manage every aspect of their business through through careful financial monitoring and tailor-made advice, so he has his finger on the pulse of veterinary business and has a wealth of knowledge to share. He gives us his insights into how to plan and react to save your practice during these tricky times. Some of the information relating to government financial support is specific to Australia, but a lot of the thinking and strategies discussed in this episode are universal, so there’s definitely still value here for our non-Australian listeners. If you need some guidance for you business get in touch with APL accountants at https://aplaccountants.com.au.

Welcome to the Vet Vault business and leadership series with veterinary practice owner and business coach Dr Shibly Mustapha. In this series we’ll explore ways to make veterinary practice sustainable and profitable. Shibly is an owner of a multi-practice group in Australia. He is actively growing his business, and shares with us the same up-to-date lessons and a no-excuses approach that inspires his own coaching clients. In our first episode of this new series we start with the elephant in the room: Covid-19 is disrupting businesses everywhere, including veterinary practices. But is it as bad as it seems? Will it affect your business? How do we respond to it, and are there potentially things to be gained from all of this? To check out the show notes click on the webpage link on the episode page wherever you listen to us, or visit the podcast website at https://thevetvault.com/. If you have a question that you’d like us to answer you can leave us a voice message by going to our episode page on the anchor app (https://anchor.fm) and hitting the record button, via email at thevetvaultpodcast@gmail.com, or just catch up with us on instagram. (https://www.instagram.com/thevetvault/) We’d love to hear from you! If you like what you heard, then please help us to spread the word by subscribing to the podcast (it’s free!), and by telling your friends about us.

One message that we hear time and time again from our guests here at the VetVault is that success, or happiness, or fulfilment or performance or whatever you want to call it, starts in your head. In this episode we explore what’s happening inside that head of yours, and how we can influence it for the better. Veterinarian, public speaker and coach Dr Katie Ford graduated from the University of Liverpool in the UK in 2012 and gained her certificate in medicine in 2016. Externally she was very successful: she had a great career, she was a successful clinician who was loved by clients, she was one of the youngest vets ever to pass the certificate synoptic exam. The future looked bright, but internally things were a bit more complicated. She was at the mercy of her perfectionist imposter brain. That voice inside her head, the one that keeps you at work hours and hours after your shift ended while you double and triple check everything, was telling her that she was a fraud, and that she would never be good enough. With the power of mindset, consciousness and an understanding of the internal workings of her brain, Katie turned her life around. She has trained in Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT), Broadband Consciousness and also completed programmes under the father of personal development himself, Bob Proctor of the Proctor-Gallagher Institute. Katie is passionate about positivity in practice, awesome workplace culture and career fulfilment. She currently practices as a locum veterinary surgeon across the North West, finding joy in meeting and influencing her colleagues in practice and though official coaching for vets and nurses on a 1:1 and group basis. Join us as we talk to Katie about imposter syndrome - what it is and how to identify and deal with it, about ways to train your mind and trick your body through visualisation, why we should be happy to sometimes be a failure, how to celebrate your wins without depending on them for your self-worth, and much more. For the show notes or to check out our guests’ favourite books, podcasts and everything else we talk about in the show, click on the webpage link on the episode page wherever you listen to us, or visit the podcast website at https://thevetvault.com/. If you have a question that you’d like us to answer with the help of our guests you can leave us a voice message by going to our episode page on the anchor app (https://anchor.fm) and hitting the record button, via email at thevetvaultpodcast@gmail.com, or just catch up with us on Instagram. (https://www.instagram.com/thevetvault/) We’d love to hear from you! If you like what you heard, then please help us to spread the word by subscribing to the podcast (it’s free!), and by telling your friends about us.

We strive for that elusive 'work-life balance', but are you sure what exactly you're chasing? Nigel Marsh points us in the right direction in this week's quickie. 

The first time you meet Dr. Charles El-Hage, you’ll think to yourself: “who the heck was that guy?! There’s something about him that makes me want to speak to him a some more.” And then, when you ask someone about him you’ll see their face light up with a smile, and they’ll say, “oh that’s Charlie, he’s great. Let me go introduce you.” So, let’s introduce you... When he’s being Dr. Charles El-Hage he is a Lecturer in Veterinary Clinical Medicine and Surgery at the University of Melbourne. After decades in large animal practice he returned to the Equine Centre where he worked as a clinician for three years, and then later as a lecturer whilst completing his PhD. He has a range of equine interests including virology, immunology, toxicology, endocrinology, parasitology and theriogenology. He is currently researching infectious conditions of horses and immunological responses. In 2016 he completed a PhD, and he has published original research and reviews on multiple equine diseases. When he’s being Charlie he’s an inspiration to scores of students, a front-line charity worker and champion for animals in developing countries around the globe, more recently in Indonesia, he’s a traveller, adventurer, father, competitive long distance runner and friend to many. Travel with us through Charlie’s career as we talk about bad bosses, great clients, creating connections, his charity work, his thoughts on finding the best place to give your gifts to the world, mindset, and much much more.

Today we're digging deep into the Vault to bring you this slightly alternative view from Dr Oliver Liou. We can get very focused on being high achievers and all round awesomeness, but is that always good for us? In this Vet Vault quickie Oliver talks about the flip side of being exceptional, and how to deal with the fallout of becoming 'too good' at your job. 

In this episode we tackle a subject that is not necessarily directly veterinary related, or is at least not limited to our profession, but still a critical topic to discuss because of the impact that it will have on all of us, and more importantly, because of the impact that veterinarians can have on it: climate change. If you’ve ever looked around your workplace and thought to yourself: “ This can’t be good for the environment. I really should do something about it.”, or if you are concerned about climate change, but you’re not sure where to start, then this episode is for you.  We speak to Ben Cox, a founder and a driving force behind an exciting new charity called Veterinarians for Climate Action. Ben comes from a sustainability, engineering and business background and is passionate about climate change because of the impact it will have on future generations and the natural environment.  He helped to create Veterinarians for Climate Action as his tool for taking action and inspiring others to do so.  VfCA’s mission statement is to inspire the veterinary profession to advocate for and achieve climate action within and beyond our industry. This will benefit both our profession and the animals we care for, ensuring a sustainable future for all.  In this episode Ben explains to us why we as vets are important in this arena, and how we can be particularly valuable and have a big impact in the push for action on climate change. We talk about what they are doing through the charity; what we can do, including how to have conversations about climate change; what influences the public’s opinion on the matter and how we can change it, and what we can do on a practical level in our own workplaces.  Ben is practical, pragmatic and hopeful, and definitely someone who you can put your support behind.  Please enjoy, Ben Cox, and get ready to make a change.  Check out Ben and his team here (https://www.vfca.org.au/home), and follow them on Facebook.  For the episode show notes or to explore  our guests’ favourite books, podcasts and everything else we talk about in the show, click on the webpage link on the episode page wherever you listen to us, or visit the podcast website at https://thevetvault.com/ If you have a question that you’d like us to answer with the help of our guests you can leave us a voice message by going to our episode page on the anchor app (https://anchor.fm) and hitting the record button, via email at thevetvaultpodcast@gmail.com, or just catch up with us on Instagram. (https://www.instagram.com/thevetvault/) We love to hearing from you! If you like what you heard, then please help us to spread the word by subscribing to the podcast (it’s free!), and by telling your friends about us. 

We revisit our very first guest with a story from Louisa about the early days in her career that demonstrates a vital career lesson.

'Resilience' can be a very loaded word: where is the line between 'toxic resilience' that relies mostly on stubborn grit and self-sacrifice, and a deep sustainable resilience that stems from a much deeper place?

Dr Geoff Wilson is intimately familiar with resilience: veterinarian down to the core, Dr Geoff lives a vast and varied life split between being a family man, veterinarian, practice owner, entrepreneur, and expeditionist. Highlights from Geoff’s adventurer career include completing the longest solo, unsupported polar journey in human history, the fastest solo, unsupported crossing of Antarctica, the first to cross the Torres Strait by kiteboard, the first and only wind-assisted crossing of the Sahara Desert (2009), and the first wind-powered crossing of the Simpson Desert in Australia. Geoff’s newest adventure, Project Zero, is a net-zero docu-series documenting a voyage that explores some of the world’s most isolated and vulnerable environments and the visible impact of global warming on these landscapes, and engaging with the world’s leading climate scientists, advocates and initiatives.

You'd think that for someone like this, the challenges of working in veterinary science would be insignificant, but that's not the case. In this conversation Geoff takes us on a journey through the peaks and troughs of his own experiences in vet life, and beyond, shedding light on the dangers of pushing ourselves too far and the pitfalls of 'toxic resilience', vs utilising passion, purpose, and persistence to help shape true resilience. Geoff helps us explore how vulnerability, optimism and a service mindset support resilience, and he opens up about a unique program at his group of practices, VetLove, that is designed to cultivate 'unicorns' – exceptional vets who thrive under the weight of demanding expectations, and how they are trying to find that delicate balance of nurturing growth without breaking spirits.

Topic list:

03:29 From Polar Expeditions to Veterinary Practice: Jeff's Unique Journey

04:27 Cultivating True Resilience in the Veterinary Field

13:21 The Vet Love Resilience Program: Shaping Exceptional Veterinarians

35:49 Addressing the Challenges of Modern Veterinary Practice

35:49 The Importance of Support and Community in Veterinary Medicine

43:58 Navigating Difficult Clients: Zero Tolerance

45:38 Transforming Customer Service

46:55 Building a Positive Work Environment Amidst Challenges

51:44 Redefining Veterinary Education and Practice for Future Generations

54:20 The Power of Positivity

01:05:23 Balancing Passion with Personal Well-being

01:24:17 Final Thoughts: Embracing the Veterinary Profession with Optimism and Resilience

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.

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Join us in Japan or in Wanaka with Vets On Tour: email vetsontour@gmail.com for details. (And tell Dave we sent you for your 10% discount!)

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We were introduced to Dr. Dan Markwalder when we interviewed to Dr. Cody Creelman, who kept referring to him as one of the best mentors out there. Seeing as we’re all about mentoring here we knew that we had to have him on the show, and Dr. Dan certainly has the experience to make him an absolute mentoring guru:

He founded his first hospital at age 28, and has grown that business into an eighteen practice success story with the help of good partnerships and through fantastic mentoring relationships. He still practices in the clinics that he owns, and he is still passionate about mentoring veterinarians of all ages in all aspects of their careers. Dan speaks throughout the United States to veterinarians and practice managers on the importance of developing a culture of mentoring at a practice level, and frequently lectures to both SCVMA and VBMA chapters at numerous veterinary colleges throughout the United States. 

He also the Mark in Markroy Consulting - a consulting service that offers coaching and workshops on aspects of practice management like leaderships skills, bridging generational gaps the practice, and team culture. Dan’s most recent venture, Vet Mentor Solutions, aims to share the mentoring model that has been so instrumental in assisting many new graduate veterinarians to achieve their individual goals, as well as help them in raising their personal production, with the greater global veterinary community though an on-line mentoring platform (vetmentorsolutions.com) 

Dan’s insights in this interview on what mentoring actually means, and how we can, and should, apply it in our own workplaces has given me a lot to think about in my own workplace. And if you’ve ever wondered about whether you should consider practice ownership you really need to hear what Dan has to say on the topic. He discusses topics like choosing your business partner, setting the culture of your practice, what it looks like to be a good practice owner, and much much more.

To see the show notes or to check out our guests’ favourite books, podcasts and everything else we talk about in the show, click on the webpage link on the episode page wherever you listen to us, or visit the podcast website at https://thevetvault.com/.

If you have a question that you’d like us to answer with the help of our guests you can leave us a voice message by going to our episode page on the anchor app (https://anchor.fm) and hitting the record button, via email at thevetvaultpodcast@gmail.com, or just catch up with us on instagram. (https://www.instagram.com/thevetvault/) We’d love to hear from you!

And if you like what you hear, then please help us to spread the word by subscribing to the podcast (it’s free!), and by telling your friends about us. 

For people who are feeling overwhelmed: that’s normal. One of the main messages I want to get out to the vets is to normalise the enormity and the depth of emotion that they’re going to experience. Because it’s new. And to not pathologise it. 

We live in a world where when we have an emotion we almost want to give it a Broadway musical: “Why am I feeling sad today? Let’s focus on that sadness.”  But in actual fact - it’s not a healthy way to deal with day tot day emotions. So when people are going to bed and they are reliving what they’ve experienced and they are fatigued and they’re thinking:  “My goodness, I’ve get to get up and face this again tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow…” and on top of that they’ve lost their own properties, or they’re still at risk of loosing their properties.

To feel overwhelmed - can I just say: A HUNDRED PERCENT NORMAL!

Welcome to our third and final episode talking about dealing with trauma, loss and grief in a crisis situation, and specifically as it relates to the bushfire catastrophe that we are currently experiencing in Australia, with our super-star social worker Liz Crowe. In this episode Liz speaks to us about the weeks and months after the firestorm has passed: what happens once the crisis has abated and the world has stopped talking about it, but the victims, and those who went to help them, are left to pick up the pieces and deal with what they had experienced? The advice from this episode goes far beyond this particular situation: Liz gives some invaluable input into burnout and compassion fatigue in everyday life, and how to deal with it. 

Here are those resources again if you want to read more about Liz' work:

https://lizcrowe.org/about/

https://www.stemlynsblog.org/wellbeing-for-the-broken-part-1-liz-crowe-for-st-emlyns/

https://www.stemlynsblog.org/wellbeing-for-the-broken-part-2-st-emlyns/

Treatment advice for burn wounds and smoke inhalation: https://www.animalemergencyservice.com.au/news/vetapedia/emergency-burns-info/

The Australian Veterinary Association Benevolent Fund to provide assistance to affected veterinarians: https://www.ava.com.au/donate/