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 of specialists in our ⁠Specialist Support Space⁠.

What if you asked the head of a famous business school for some veterinary business advice, but instead of telling you about a new system to increase productivity or some new marketing hack, he tells you to ‘focus less on the business side of veterinary practice’? 

"You have to stop imposing a managerial mindset on these types of businesses - a 'business mindset.' Managerialism has seeped into everything - into industries where it shouldn't be. "

An interview that started with the goal of helping vets get better at having difficult finance conversations quickly detoured into a discussion about:

- The philosophy of veterinary business,

- Why the managerialism  that works in some industries doesn’t always translate well into ours, and

- What true success could look like. 

(Don’t worry - we do also get insights on how to make those money conversations less stressful!) 

Dr Paul Harrison is the Director of the MBA program and Co-Director of the Better Consumption Lab at Deakin University's School of Business, and Adjunct Professor at Sacred Heart University in Milan.The MBA program that Paul designed for Deakin ranks 1st in the world for class experience. Paul is a renowned  international speaker on issues related to consumer behaviour, public health and well-being, governance, and marketing.  

Topics and Timestamps

Money Conversations: Challenges and Strategies 04:50

Balancing Business and Values in Veterinary Practice 07:29

Rethinking Success: Beyond Financial Growth 12:17

Exciting News: Clinical Podcast Updates 17:24

Embracing Uncertainty and Value 19:32

Controlling the Customer Experience 24:08

Philosophical Approaches in Business 24:29

Understanding Customer Needs 25:45

Money Conversations in Veterinary Practice 27:15

Human Decision-Making in Emergencies 34:05

Emotional Management in Emergencies 40:30

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 form 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. 

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 of specialists in our ⁠⁠Specialist Support Space⁠⁠.

If you scroll through any veterinary chat group you won’t have to scroll for long before you see a conversation along the lines of:  “My career as it is now isn’t really working for me, but I don’t know what my other options are.  I feel… stuck.”

So how do you become unstuck?

Dr Jess Moore Jones is a bit obsessed with what keeps vets engaged and fulfilled, and she helps individuals and teams figure out how to create resilient and thriving cultures and careers through  her business, ⁠Unleashed Coaching and Consulting⁠, and in this episode we unpack a few of the talks she presented at WVAC 2024: 

• The choices we make: taking back the power as veterinary professionals to be in control of our own resilience and our own wellbeing.
• YOU ARE NOT STUCK: helping veterinarians discover that a meaningful, fulfilling career (and life) is possible.

Jess shares her thoughts on where the line is between being a good team member and having healthy boundaries, why being selfish in the short term can be generous in the long run, and we talk about the ‘four doors’ available to you with every challenging situation. We discuss Jess' first steps to becoming ‘unstuck’ from your career rut, and we ask the big question: are the new generations of vets ‘soft’, or just wise?!

Join Dr Jess on 28 November 2024 for her online ⁠Women in Veterinary Leadership Summit. ⁠

Topics and Time Stamps

02:21 The Generational Debate: Are Younger Vets Soft?

03:43 Resilience in Veterinary Medicine: Good vs. Toxic

10:30 Balancing Boundaries: Soft vs. Hard

15:15 Long-term Resilience vs Short-Term People-Pleasing

20:02 Career Coaching: Moving from Stuck to Fulfilled

22:55 Challenging Traditional Work Structures

23:34 Discovering Your True Self

25:06 Overcoming Fear and Taking Action

26:22 Exploring New Opportunities

29:05 The Power of Choice in Your Career

34:27 Mindfulness and Self-Awareness

36:01 Choosing Your Perspective

40:31 Embracing Negative Emotions

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 form 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. 

If you work in emergency practice, or you're considering it, then this episode is for you. ⁠Dr Brooke Schampers ⁠and ⁠Dr Taleta Hompas ⁠are ECC veterinarians with more than two decades experience between them who create resources and coach others on how to thrive as an ECC shift worker through there ⁠EMV4Life⁠ program. In this episode they will tell you:

• How to better structure your shifts to optimise for sleep and health.
• How to navigate the swing between night and day shift.
• How Taleta manages shift work as a parent of young children.
• How to increase productivity on shift to reduce cognitive load and stress and get you out the door sooner.
• How to bring more joy into your emergency shifts.  

We discuss what there is to love about emergency vetting, what to consider if you are thinking of a career as an ECC vet, and what other challenges there are beyond sleep and shift work.

Contact us⁠ to find out about our Vet Vault/EMV4Life resource bundles to help you up skill and navigate life as an emergency vet.

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.

Topics, Time Stamps and Chapters

00:00 Intro

03:22 Why ECC? What’s to love about it? 

06:38 Are Certain Personalities Better Suited for ECC

15:39 The Impact of Shift Work on Health

22:21 Brooke’s Routine for Sustainable Night Shifts

32:51 Balancing ECC Work with Family Life

46:18 Setting Yourself Up for Long-Term ECC Careers

50:32 Rostering

54:17 Increased Productivity On Shift

01:06:17 Finding Your Joy in Veterinary Work

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. 

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.

Topics and Time Stamps

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. 

07:35 The Role of Compassion and Innovation12:08 Leadership and Management in Veterinary Practices17:55 Addressing Risks and Governance24:51 The Importance of Communication and Training43:23 Implementing Change in Veterinary Practices44:04 The Role of Coaching and Mentoring44:56 Different Models of External Support46:27 Cross-Industry Learning and Its Benefits56:06 Delegation and Managing Multiple Roles01:00:31 The Importance of Trusted Networks01:09:15 Balancing Client Relationships and Clinical Work01:17:13 Innovative Solutions for Veterinary Practices01:23:55 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

et access to our clinical podcast series with our ⁠⁠⁠30% off IVECCS Special.⁠⁠⁠

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

Hands up if you still remember much of the statistics you learned back in vet school… Some of us have looked at way more P nappies than p-values since our student days!

But this is veterinary SCIENCE after all, and part of science is reading the occasional paper. Reading papers—beyond just the abstract and the conclusions—and with at least a little bit of discernment, does involve some degree of understanding statistics, just to make sure you’re not being misled.

So, in this episode, we’re talking about statistics, and we have the best person for the job. (Don’t skip it because of that word—I promise it’s actually quite fun!)

Dr. Steven Epstein is a Professor of Clinical Small Animal Emergency and Critical Care at the University of California, Davis. His research interests include CPR, diagnostic testing in the emergency room, and antimicrobial resistance patterns, and he loves a bit of statistics.

Join us for an easy-to-understand, practical, and entertaining update on statistics, recorded live at IVECCS 2024. You’ll even learn a nifty tip to help you (finally!) remember the difference between sensitivity and specificity!

Sign up for our ⁠⁠⁠free weekly newsletter⁠⁠⁠ to hear about my favourite 3 lessons I learnt in that week from making the podcasts.

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

In a world of Amazon and Uber-level convenience, where digital disruptors are changing the way the world interacts and how we do business, why do we think that the vet profession won't be impacted?

"We're facing a lot of disruption. There is this class of digital disruptive dis-intermediators that are emerging and trying to displace the position of the veterinary clinic. Many of them explicitly have the mission to become the most trusted, most convenient touch point in the pet care journey."

Dr Thom Jenkins is the co-founder & CEO of PetsApp, a client engagement platform the streamlines client interactions, and in this episode he'll show you why the veterinary profession is, and should remain, at the heart of animal care, why disruptors  think they can compete for the role of ‘most trusted’, and how they’ll do it. You’ll hear how practices are integrating telemedicine and online services with the physical touch points of traditional bricks and mortar clinics, how we’re our own worst enemies when we overpromise and underdeliver, and how a tech-savvy vet sees the role of AI in the future of veterinary science. Thom also tells us about his experiences of working as a vet in China.

Please give us your feedback on how to make the podcast better by answering 12 questions here.

Join me at the combined ASAV/VBG Conference on 12-16 August on the Sushine Coast, or, for our US listeners, at IVECCS in St Louis on 7-11 September for more emergency and critical care content than you ever imagined possible!

Join our nerds for better patient outcomes and more clinical confidence by signing up for our RACE approved clinical podcasts at vvn.supercast.com for a free 2-week trial.

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 email at [email protected], or catch up with us on Instagram.

And if you like what you hear then 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. 

Topics and timestamps

05:30 Bad Decisions, Good Stories: Dr. Jenkins' Adventures

11:21 Veterinary Career in China: Challenges and Opportunities

21:51 The Future of Veterinary Medicine: Challenges and Solutions

35:48 Managing Expectations in Veterinary Practice

36:01 The Culture of Martyrdom in Veterinary Medicine

36:46 Setting Realistic Expectations for Customer Delight

38:52 The Role of Disruptors in Veterinary Medicine

40:47 Balancing Quality, Convenience, and Cost

42:29 The Importance of Physical Touchpoints

45:35 Leveraging Technology for Better Client Communication

50:47 The Role of AI in Veterinary Practice

56:37 Addressing Bottlenecks in Veterinary Business

01:09:55 Final Thoughts and Advice for New Graduates

Ah, those liver enzymes... sometimes they are up when you don't expect them to be. Sometimes they're up a bit... but not that much, so you don't know if it's actually significant. Or sometimes they're way out of whack, but you're not sure what that means exactly, or what to do next.

In this episode, Small Animal Medicine Specialist, RCVS Course Director and clinical reasoning guru Prof Jill Maddison helps us take a fresh look at  liver enzymes. We review what each enzyme tells us in dogs and in cats, how to interpret changes in both the 'well' patient with the surprise finding on bloods, and in the sick patient, and Prof Jill clears up common misconceptions and pitfalls around ALP, ALT, GGT, and bile acids.

This clinical episode has been unlocked for you by Vetnostics Pathology, one of the largest veterinary pathology groups in Australia with the most veterinary pathologists and veterinary medicine consultants. Vetnostics is the new nationally aligned name of what used to the SVS Pathology Network ( (Vetnostics NSW/ACT, Vetpath Laboratory Services WA/NT, ASAP Laboratory Vic , QMLVetnostics Qld/NNSW and TML Vetnostics Tas), with a new consolidated website (www.vetnostics.com), but the same exceptional quality diagnostics, same extensive courier network and same veterinary pathologists and veterinary medicine consultants on other the end of the phone or email to talk you through any tricky results and cases. 

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.

Get help with your tricky cases in our ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Specialist Support Space.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

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

Episode Topics and Timestamps

05:01 ALT and ALP: Detailed Analysis

05:40 Challenges in Diagnosing Liver Disease

06:40 Liver Enzymes in Cats vs. Dogs

20:44 Bile Acids and Liver Function

26:51 Pre-Anaesthetic Liver Checks

36:35 Understanding Cholangitis in Cats

36:53 The Complexity of Diagnosing Liver Disease

37:45 The Role of Blood Tests in Wellness Checks

38:11 Interpreting Reference Ranges

40:53 Case Studies: Real-World Examples

42:05 The Challenges of Wellness Screening

44:21 The Importance of Biopsies

55:14 Biases in Diagnosis

Be part of the conversation to help shape the Vet Vault with your feedback.

Many of us dream of building a practice, and then one day selling it and walking off into the sunset, minus responsibilities, and with our money problems solved. But what actually happens after what’s supposed to be ‘the big goal’? Who are you when you’re no longer the boss, and what’s next? 

In this episode, ⁠Dr Wolfgang Dohne⁠ tells us how he re-invented and reinvigorated his career post the sale of his practice.  He also give shares what he’s learnt about being a professional locum vet: the pro tips, the pros, and the cons, and what working in telemedicine has taught him about telemedicine as a career option, and also its potential role in our everyday lives in clinical practice. 

Join us at Science Week for the most cutting edge conference topics out there.

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.

Get help with your tricky cases in our ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Specialist Support Space.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

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

Topics and Time stamps

04:41 Balancing Work and Personal Life

13:47 The Decision to Sell and Its Impact

23:30 Embracing Locum Work and Telemedicine

28:16 Tips for Successful Locuming

35:22 Overcoming Locum Anxiety

35:45 Essential Tools for Locum Success

36:31 Navigating Different Practice Management Systems

40:51 Building Strong Relationships with Nursing Teams

44:25 Introduction to Telemedicine

48:50 Practical Applications of Telemedicine

53:01 Integrating Telemedicine into Practice

Veterinary Ramblings

Furthest North

This little bonus episode is for a very select audience of brave souls who have already completed the written part of their Australia New Zealand College Of Veterinary Scientists membership exams, and are due to sit oral exams in a few week’s time. It's made from snippets of conversation about how to get into the right head space for the oral exams, with tips on last minute preparation, and what to expect in the actual exam.

Our guests are specialist surgeons and former examiners Dr Chris Tan and Dr Mark Newman, and former membership candidates Dr Justin Ward and Dr Stephen Mansour, and they deliver on the nuggets of wisdom that might help get you over the line. (Or at least stop you from wetting your pants on exam day!)