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Pearls of Practice

Share your tried-and-true tips

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Save that date!

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That old line

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Fish for ways to wow veterinary clients

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3 tips for chronic ear infections

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Our Current Issue

Client Relations

Take the sting out of a diabetes diagnosis at your veterinary practice
By: Mandy Stevenson, RVT
Be supportive of pet owners when they're faced with their cat's diabetes diagnosis. Use these communication techniques to ease the burn of this challenging disease.

Ask the Experts

When veterinary clients diss their dogs
Q: Sometimes when we mention a pet needs to lose weight, clients blame the animals. How do we keep these conversations positive?

Fighting a five-finger discount in your veterinary practice
Q: We have an inventory item that has repeatedly been short when counted. It's a very specific eye medication ordered in limited quantities, and only a handful of clients use the medication. One of the clients has recently been sent to collections, and she happens to be related to a team member. I fear that the missing medication is walking out of the clinic in the hands of an employee. How would you recommend that I approach this employee? We are prepared to fire her for the crime, but we have no proof that she's the culprit. Help! —Suspicious of sticky fingers

Team safety

5 steps to cleaner hands
Use this advice from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to wash your hands the right way every time:

When work makes you sick
Sick over work—literally? Whether you only pick up the occasional pet mess or you're in the back treating animals every day, you need to know how to control zoonoses.

Communication Strategies

Adjust your attitude to make way for service
It's time to adjust your cat-titude to make way for service that leaves pet owners purring. Consider this advice to come up to scratch when clients visit your practice.

Professional Growth

4 ways to be a great reviewee
Consider this advice to stay positive when you're being reviewed at your veterinary practice.

Zoom in on a perfect annual review
By: Bash Halow, CVPM, LVT
Whether you're the reviewer—or the reviewee—it's time to embrace a new outlook on employee reviews. Hint: The manager may be doing them wrong.

Pearls of Practice

The VHMA Files: Got an idea? Run with it!
On the road to veterinary practice improvement, carefully crafted solutions that involve the team win the race.

Microchips: What's your role in the veterinary practice?
Help make sure you're spreading the microchip message and improve the chances lost pets will find their way home:

Practice life: The ABCs of a clean veterinary team
Editor's note: Practice Life is a new column designed to offer tools to help your practice manage daily challenges, big or small, more efficiently

Our Previous Issue

Ask the Experts

2 ways to pay fairly in veterinary practice
Q. Illinois law states that I receive time-and-a-half for overtime, which is more than 40 hours in a work week. But when I work 35 hours one week, then 45 hours the next week, my boss doesn't pay me overtime because it balances out to 80 hours in a pay period. What's right, and what should I do?

Ask Shawn: Shine light on a moonlighter
For the past few years, our veterinary practice's kennel business has been declining. I recently learned that an employee pet-sits for clients on the side. The other day a client approached me in an exam room asking if I was the employee who offered pet sitting. When I told him we board pets at the clinic, he said, "Oh dear, I hope I don't get someone in trouble." In fact, the moonlighting employee gave him a tour of our kennel just last week. I realize some people want a more personal approach, but the fact that the pet sitting is a secret going on behind the owner's back bothers me. Help! —Blindsided by boarding

Pearls of Practice

Dog bite prevention: What's your role in the veterinary practice?
By: Mandy Stevenson, RVT
You can handle their bark, but you don't want a bite. Firstline Board member Mandy Stevenson, RVT, offers tips for how each team member can stay safe in practice:

Dental corner: Correcting a congenital cleft palate in your veterinary practice
This veterinary hospital team works together to rid a Rhodesian ridgeback of a congenital cleft palate.

Sample script: 3 responses to veterinary clients who resist vaccines
Consider these three ways to overcome client objections with advice from Liza W. Rudolph, BAS, CVT, VTS (Canine/Feline), a technician with the internal medicine service at Saint Francis Veterinary Center in Woolwich Township, N.J.:

Use laminated pictures to save steps in your veterinary practice
Our kennel technicians would spend time running back and forth between our food display and food room, and they would often forget what they went back to the food room to get.

Team safety

How to support pregnant co-workers in veterinary practice
By: Rachael Simmons
Use this advice to help out your veterinary practice's super-mommies-to-be.

Oh, baby! 8 risks to avoid in your veterinary practice during pregnancy
Whether you're expecting or you work with someone who is—or might one day—review this list of risks in veterinary practice and plan how to keep everyone in the workplace safe.

Patient care

3 remarkable stories of veterinary rehab recovery
What do a pit bull suffering from fibrocartilaginous embolism, a Labrador retriever with chronic severe elbow dysplasia, and a beagle with ventral slot decompression have in common? These precious pooches are rehabilitation success stories that teach us to never give up hope.

Team Training

10-minute drill: parasite prevention
These three game-winning plays will take your veterinary team members through their paces with activities to refresh your parasite prevention skills and educate clients.

Professional Growth

4 lessons in workplace rights
By: Portia Stewart
Understand your workplace rights—whether you're a veterinary team member or manager—in four lessons from top employment attorneys.

Part 1: Raise clients' awareness of pet weight problems

dvm360

Part 1 of a six-part online learning course about making successful pet weight loss recommendations.

Part 2: Prepare your team

dvm360

Part 2 of a six-part online learning course about making successful pet weight loss recommendations.

Part 3: The perfect weight-loss appointment

dvm360

Part 3 of a six-part online learning course about making successful pet weight loss recommendations.

Be in Firstline

Share your tried-and-true tips

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Hindsight is 20-20: What can you see now?

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Tell us about your best days at work

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Have you made yourself an essential employee?

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Canine Colors

BizQuiz: Test the true color of your temperament at work

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See what shade your—and your team members'—work temperament is with this short quiz. Then learn how to best blend with other shades by checking out a few colorful examples.

4 true colors: Why your personal hue matters

Sometimes veterinary team members clash. Decrease the collisions and their effects by gaining a better understanding of your team members' temperaments.

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A new profiling program adapted specifically for veterinary use recognizes veterinarians and team members' temperaments by color: blue, green, gold, and orange. Find out which one you are.

What colors are your clients?

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The color-based profiling program isn't just for building more effective team relationships. You can also use it to improve your interactions with clients.

2 case studies: Canine Colors in action

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Two examples show how understanding team members' temperaments can head off conflict and encourage goodwill.

Resources for senior weight loss

Teach clients about canine weight loss

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Give this form to clients with overweight dogs to help them understand the ins and outs of weight loss.

Teach clients about feline weight loss

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Give this form to clients with overweight cats to help them understand the ins and outs of weight loss.

Age and obesity go hand in hand

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Study shows extra pet pounds add up with old age.

The perfect weight-loss visit

Team members must start fighting obesity the minute an overweight pet waddles in the practice door.

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Start fighting obesity the minute an overweight pet waddles in the practice door.

Fight the giant

Pet obesity is a big problem, but that doesn't mean you should throw in the towel. By educating clients—and your team members—you can knock out this debilitating condition.

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Pet obesity is a big problem, but you can knock out this debilitating condition.