This week on the podcast, Dr. Andy Roark and Stephanie Goss are sharing a conversation they recently had with a group of managers who was struggling with something that feels familiar to us all at this point. These managers are short handed. And a lot of them came into their roll from the team side so they have the skills to fill in on the floor when needed. Their teams are really getting frustrated and/or angry with them when they refuse to cover gaps in the schedule in order to get their own j...
Mar 09, 2022•1 hr 3 min
This week on the podcast, Dr. Andy Roark and Stephanie Goss are walking through their take on a conversation that Stephanie recently had with a fellow manager. This manager reached out, at their wits end, asking “Please, tell me there is some sort of training/tools I can use because my team is struggling with acting like we are all team players! This every person unto themselves thing has GOT to stop.” We thought it would make a great podcast conversation to have with you all so let’s get into t...
Mar 02, 2022•55 min
This week on the podcast, Dr. Andy Roark and Stephanie Goss are tackling a mailbag letter from Dr. The Earth Is Round. This veterinarian is frustrated with a few clients that do not seem to believe in science. Dr. The Earth Is Round is wondering “What do I do when they are angry about wearing a mask during a pandemic spike, don’t think vaccines actually work, and only want to do what is “natural” (like giving antlers to chew for dental health)? How do you talk to these people?” Let’s get into th...
Feb 23, 2022•1 hr 6 min
This week on the podcast, Dr. Andy Roark and Stephanie Goss are tackling a mailbag letter from a practice manager who is wondering how to handle an issue with a specific team member. This team member is a wonderful technician, who is generally well liked by the team. They seem to have one (little) habit that gets them into (sometimes BIG) trouble. They put themselves into situations sometimes that are unnecessarily risky - trying to do jugular blood draws by themselves, for example. The rest of ...
Feb 16, 2022•51 min
This week on the podcast, Dr. Andy Roark and Stephanie Goss are tackling a challenge from a practice manager who has quite the challenge and an incredible opportunity on their hands. This manager previously had a practice owner who didn’t deal with any of the interpersonal conflicts, gossip or lack of communication skills on the team. Now they have moved on out of the picture and this manager is being supported by leadership to address the issues. They have been approaching the gossip and lack o...
Feb 09, 2022•1 hr 1 min
This week on the podcast, Dr. Andy Roark and Stephanie Goss are tackling a mailbag letter from a practice manager. The entire world is struggling these days with short tempers, disgruntled with life attitudes, frustrations shared publicly about things that weren’t always so public before. Everyone in veterinary medicine has been impacted by at least one grumpy or short tempered person since this pandemic began - Andy and Stephanie both certainly understood where this manager was coming from. The...
Feb 02, 2022•1 hr 6 min
This week, Dr. Andy Roark and Dr. Dave Nicol talk about Nicol’s co-authored research piece Leadership Actions and their Effects on Practice Culture. They discuss the importance of culture, why it is so rarely prioritized, what effect increasing corporatization is having on veterinary workplace culture, and which actions leaders take (or don’t take) that most directly impact clinic culture. LINKS: Leadership Actions and their Effects on Practice Culture: https://www.vetxinternational.com/new-stud...
Jan 26, 2022•51 min
This week on the podcast, Dr. Andy Roark and Stephanie Goss are joined by Melissa Gutierrez, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Pets Best Insurance Services. We are super excited to talk with Melissa about an interesting question regarding pet health insurance, which is “Is people insurance the problem with pet health insurance?” Let’s get into this… Links: Upcoming events: https://unchartedvet.com/upcoming-events/ April 2022 - Registration is now open! In celebration of 5 years servin...
Jan 19, 2022•35 min
This week on the podcast, Dr. Andy Roark and Stephanie Goss are tackling a mailbag letter from a practice owner whose inquiring mind wants to know: how do I get my associate(s) to be more productive and still support work life balance? The ask by this practice owner is being influenced by the fact that they seem to produce more revenue in 3 days than an associate can produce in 4 days a week. The practice is growing and profitable and everyone is onboard with the idea of expanding their hospital...
Jan 12, 2022•1 hr
This week, Dr. Andy Roark and Stephanie Goss have a bonus episode for you! We recently sat down with Joey Campagna, the head of Marketing and Business Development for Cubex. We wanted to talk with Joey because the hiring environment is so difficult and it seems like everyone is short-staffed. So in an effort to find solutions to help offload some tasks that might be automated, we’ve been talking a lot about CUBEX inventory management and the possibilities to leverage the system as sort of an inv...
Jan 10, 2022•37 min
This week on the podcast, Dr. Andy Roark and Stephanie Goss are tackling a mailbag letter from a technician who is looking around at our field and wondering - How do we compete with other industries? In a time where more and more employees are looking for flexibility in their schedules, in their work environments, in their benefits and in their roles within companies, how does veterinary medicine redefine ourselves and shake up the status quo in a way that allows us to remain competitive and ada...
Jan 05, 2022•54 min
This week on the podcast, Dr. Andy Roark and Stephanie Goss are weighing in on a recent conversation that Stephanie had with a fellow manager. This manager has a technician on their team who is excellent at their job, high skills and overall well liked by the team. However, it seems like they have a teeny, weensy little flaw in that they are one of the most pessimistic people that this manager has ever encountered. Most of the team shrugs it off as “This is just Kelly, being Kelly” and yet there...
Dec 29, 2021•54 min
This week on the podcast, Dr. Andy Roark and Stephanie Goss are tackling a mailbag letter from a soon to be veterinary technician. Our soon to be tech is about to begin their program externship experiences and is looking for a little guidance on how to choose a practice that feels like the right fit for them. They are asking themselves (and us) “How do I know if it’s a place I should stay away from?”. They shared that they have procedures/processes that feel ethically right and wrong to them to ...
Dec 22, 2021•50 min
This week on the podcast, Dr. Roark and Stephanie tackle an email from the mailbag. We received a note from a multi-site Medical Director who is feeling very frustrated with the way that their practice managers are running team meetings. Meetings happen once a month and seem to have become a two hour laundry list of things to lecture at the team about, sometimes the same topics over and over. Our medical director is wishing that the meetings would become something that the team not only wants to...
Dec 15, 2021•1 hr 6 min
This week’s episode is brought to you, ad free, by our sponsor - Pets Best Pet Health Insurance. This week on the podcast, Dr. Roark and Stephanie have the pleasure of spending some time with their friend, Dr. Peter Weinstein. Our conversation takes a winding path through some timely and relevant topics in veterinary medicine - There is a lot of chatter about money right now in veterinary medicine, in a variety of contexts. We wanted to talk today about where we are when it comes to pet owners p...
Dec 08, 2021•47 min
This week on the podcast, Dr. Roark and Stephanie tackle a topic from the mailbag. We received an email from Dr. It’s Not the End of the World. They are struggling with a CSR on the team who seems to catastrophize everything. Every client they speak with seems to be upset about something and yet when the team jumps in to help, the clients seem to simply be in need of help with something. Dr. It’s Not The End of the World wants to know - Isn’t helping clients why we are here? And how do we help t...
Dec 01, 2021•1 hr 4 min
This week on the podcast, Dr. Roark and Stephanie tackle a letter from the mailbag. We received a note from a veterinary technician who is feeling very frustrated with the language that our industry is using to describe ourselves and communicate the pain and frustration we are all experiencing, outwardly to the rest of the world. This technician feels like they see conversations happening where we vetmed people say “This is a field meant for broken people” and they disagree. Andy and I are in th...
Nov 24, 2021•1 hr
This week on the podcast, Dr. Roark and Stephanie tackle a letter from the mailbag. A practice owner wrote in, feeling very frustrated by an associate doctor on their team who is struggling significantly with self confidence and their belief in themselves as a good doctor. It seems like any time someone on the team asks questions about a patient’s care or double checks a drug dose or asks to look at x-rays and discuss what the doctor is seeing, Dr. Sensitive takes those as personal affronts and ...
Nov 17, 2021•1 hr 1 min
"This week on the Uncharted Veterinary Podcast, Dr. Andy Roark and practice management goddess Stephanie Goss celebrate 100 episodes by wildly disagreeing on what to do when a scathing review comes in on the weekend. This is a really fun episode, not just because the advice is candid and the discussion real, but because you get to see how Andy and Stephanie really work in their own team, and how they collaborate to get to the best outcome. Check it out!"
Nov 10, 2021•52 min
This week on the podcast, Dr. Roark and Stephanie tackle a series of questions posed by a Practice Manager. The manager is wondering how to get the team to take accountability and problem solve BEFORE they panic. Let’s get into this... Links: Upcoming events: https://unchartedvet.com/upcoming-events/ LAST CHANCE TO REGISTER - This Sunday, Stephanie is leading a workshop on Communication - Communication Foundations - A Little Less (Ineffective) Conversation, A Lot More Action! You can find common...
Nov 03, 2021•49 min
HOF Episode 113 This week on the Uncharted Veterinary Podcast, Dr. Andy Roark and Practice Management Goddess Stephanie Goss go to the mailbag: “We are short staffed and getting shorter by the minute. Where do you find good people? We need to hire at least 1 person in every role. Our morale is at an all time low and people are burnt out. We need to save the ship before it goes down.” AND “Alrighty!! I’m in a pickle! I canNOT seem to get Veterinary Technician applicants. I have posted on Indeed, ...
Oct 27, 2021•54 min
This week on the podcast, Dr. Roark and Stephanie tackle a topic they were discussing with a colleague recently. This colleague is in a position where they bought a practice a few years ago that came with a handful of toxic team members. Those people have self ejected or been weeded out and the team has been working in synergy for some time. However the last few months, the griping and the passive aggressive comments have snuck in. People are eye rolling at each other and biting each other's hea...
Oct 20, 2021•59 min
This week on the podcast, Dr. Roark and Stephanie discuss a question that a colleague recently asked to get advice from their fellow leaders. Moving Up Manager asked for advice in making the transition from managing a small mom-and-pop GP practice that has long term clientele and lower prices to managing a brand new high-end, boutique ER/Specialty practice. They were looking for advice on how to handle the different types of client service issues that may be unique to each type of practice as we...
Oct 13, 2021•49 min
This week on the podcast, Dr. Roark and Stephanie tackle a topic from the mailbag. Dr. Fed Up writes in and asks for help with letting go of their guilt over giving their notice at their new practice. Dr. Fed Up was hired as a new grad and promised support and mentorship. Fast forward to the present where they are often working alone with no other DVM present in the building and tackling a full surgical caseload that they don’t feel confident tackling. Dr. Fed Up wants to quit and move on to som...
Oct 06, 2021•59 min
This week on the podcast, Dr. Roark and Stephanie tackle a topic they were discussing with a colleague recently. This colleague is in a position where they are managing an awesome veterinarian - they are providing solid, high quality care, the clients and team adore them and everything is pretty great. Except that this veterinarian seems to be at the clinic CONSTANTLY. They are working 3-4 hours after their shift has ended each day. They are not only making themselves available to their team, th...
Sep 29, 2021•1 hr
This week on the podcast, Dr. Roark and Stephanie tackle another topic from the mailbag. We received an email from a practice owner who is frustrated with a member of their team who always seems to have an excuse for their mistakes or breaking protocols. They asked Andy and Stephanie: “How do I help them self-reflect a little better and to take ownership of things rather than blame it on something or someone else?” Get ready for some serious discussion on how clear is kind. We will also cover th...
Sep 22, 2021•49 min
This week on the podcast, Dr. Roark and Stephanie tackle another topic from the mailbag. We got an email from a relief vet who was wondering how they can better support the practices they work at. They want to know how to prepare ahead of time and both ask the right questions of the practices they are working with and get the needed information from the practice to make sure that it is a good fit for them/their style! They want “practices to be relieved when I come, not feel relief when I leave”...
Sep 15, 2021•1 hr 4 min
This week on the podcast, Dr. Roark and Stephanie tackle a topic that we recently had the chance to talk through with someone at a workshop we hosted. An associate vet is in the process of buying in to their practice. They are super thrilled. But they feel like there might be an elephant in the room. The elephant is going to be named “Sam” and we find out that Sam is related to the office manager at the practice. Sam isn’t doing their job well - lots of mistakes and lack of ownership. They also ...
Sep 08, 2021•53 min
This week on the podcast, Dr. Roark and Stephanie tackle another topic from the mailbag. We received an email from a new grad associate who has a problem. They love their clinic. They like the owner, the manager, the clients are fantastic and they really enjoy working with their team. Except there is a secret lurking in the shadows. This clinic has a tenured associate who sometimes turns from the very nice Dr. Jekyll into a loud, swearing, angry Dr. Negative Nancy Hyde. Our new grad has tried a ...
Sep 01, 2021•59 min
This week on the podcast, Dr. Roark and Stephanie tackle another topic from the mailbag. Someone reached out and asked a very simple and yet very complicated question. What do we do when they know we won’t fire them? When we are short handed, desperately in need of bodies, they act atrociously and break all the rules because they don’t fear any consequences. What do we do? Let’s get into this... Links: Upcoming events: https://unchartedvet.com/upcoming-events/ Sept 1, 2021 from 2-4pm Eastern tim...
Aug 25, 2021•52 min
