Weekly Veterinary Industry Review #13

 

It’s Friday, October 23rd, 2020. Welcome to round 13 of the Weekly Veterinary Industry Review, brought to you by GeniusVets. This week we discuss how to handle negative online reviews, pet obesity and anxiety, and we end with a heartwarming tale of a man who opened up his home to hundreds of animals during a hurricane. So let's get to it…

 

 

Veterinary Business News

Keeping you at the forefront of veterinary news regarding products, personnel, and conferences...

 

How to Combat Compassion Fatigue

• Veterinarians are particularly prone to what’s been coined “compassion fatigue”.
• From the article: “The constant roller coaster of emotions that comes from euthanizing a long-time patient, then celebrating a new puppy exam, followed by treating a complex medical issue, creates extreme emotional highs and lows throughout the day. Because of this, there continues to be research into the causes of burnout, compassion fatigue, and the higher-than-usual rates of mental health concerns in veterinary medicine.” - Dana Novara, DVM
• This fatigue manifests itself in unhealthy ways such as depression, increased alcohol intake, psychosomatic complaints, and trouble sleeping, and has been linked to the high suicide rate in this field.
• The treatment they suggest is tied to the acronym L.A.S.T.:
  • Listen - Don’t compartmentalize but, instead, listen to your body
  • Accept - Don’t judge your reaction such as crying; accept it
  • Seek - seek a plan or solution, whether that’s talking to a colleague or taking a walk
  • Test - test out your solutions to see what works best.
  • Article posted by Today’s Veterinary Practice

     

 

What Veterinarians Need to Know About COVID’s Effects On Their Future

• We’re all likely tired of hearing about COVID-19 but, with the numbers surging once again, it’s important to look at how this is causing burnout, compassion fatigue, and other ill effects among veterinary professionals.
• This article also notes that there are certain reasons for the uptick in business: pent-up demand, increased disposable income, and more time spent at home.
• Also, unfortunately, the notion that more pets were adopted isn’t quite right—while adoption rates at shelters have increased, the adoption trend isn’t quite as substantial as we thought and, in fact, more animals were adopted last year.
• As Dr. John Tait noted in his Webinar Wednesday episode with GeniusVets, the article warns that practices should be saving and planning for the economic downturn.
• From the article: “The most likely scenario is that the economy could begin to resemble ‘back to normal’ as early as the third or fourth quarter of 2021, but it could be as late as the end of 2023. When recovery does happen, we expect it to resemble a U-shaped pattern: We’ll have experienced a permanent loss of economic output (GDP level), but the economic trajectory ultimately will have resumed to what it was before COVID-19.” - Matthew Salois, PhD
• Article posted by dvm360

   

 

Practical Tips to Handle the Inevitable Negative Review(s)

• Some reviews are worse than others—this article notes the case of the Australian veterinarian who fought a horribly toxic review and won but still ended up having to sell his clinic.
• The article gives five tips to combat online negative reviews:
  • 1. Head it off by apologizing for what you feel is appropriate
  • 2. Field the review by directly asking the person what you need to do to get them to remove it
  • 3. Contest the review, particularly if it violates the site’s terms of service
  • 4. Get loyal fans of your practice to find the review “not helpful”
  • 5. Hire a consultant that specializes in online reputation defense
• Article posted by Veterinary Practice News

   

   

 

Calling All Aspiring Cat Medication Masters

• A 90-minute workshop will be held twice on Wednesday, October 28th to cover the following objectives:
  • 1. Proper positioning to safely and successfully administer a pill.
  • 2. Medication desensitization techniques
  • 3. How to train cats to willingly eat medications.
  • 4. Common pitfall avoidance including inappropriate restraint and “dry pilling.”
• From the article: “Are you worried about members of your staff being bitten by feline patients? Are you concerned about the stress level some feline patients experience while being medicated in your clinic? If the answer to any of these questions is ‘yes,' then you need to learn more about the workshop by Dr. Andy Roark and Ingrid Johnson CCBC…”
• Article posted by DrAndyRoark.com

   

 

Cutting Edge Parakeet Hernia Surgery Takes Place at Kansas State University

• From the article: "Kansas State University says a pet parakeet was recently sent to the exotic animal services at its Veterinary Health Center after its veterinary prescribed an unsuccessful pharmaceutical treatment for a mass under the bird’s tail.”
• Neta Amber and David Eshar, who performed the surgery, noted that they realized after inspection that it was the bird’s uterus that was the organ that had the hernia, and they spayed her at the same time. 
• The surgery is believed to be the first of its kind.
• Article posted by WIBW

   

 

Valuable Pet News For Your Clients

Topical stories your clients will want to hear...

 

Pet Obesity Day Has Passed, But the Need to Discuss it With Clients Hasn’t

• Although we somehow missed observing Pet Obesity Day on October 14th, this article notes that it’s always an important topic to discuss with clients.
• It’s important for clients to know that obesity in their pets can lead to serious health issues, such as diabetes, arthritis, decreased life expectancy, high blood pressure, and cancer.
• A somewhat shocking statistic to pass on from the article: “The majority of cats and dogs in the United States are overweight or obese – 59.5 percent of cats and 55.8 percent of dogs.”
• The article also notes that pet owners should realize that, just as with humans, their dogs need to eat fewer calories than they burn, and that obesity becomes more common in old age because of arthritis and other age-related conditions.
• Article posted by NationalToday.com

   

 

How to Help Pet Owners Deal With Cat Anxiety

• What many of your cat-owning clients might not realize is how anxious cats are due to so many of them living indoors and not being allowed to follow their natural instincts.
• From the article: “‘Cats in a chronic state of anxiety can get sick, so this is correlated with urinary disease, with GI disease, even with skin disease and dental disease,’ says Dr. Liz Bales, VMD.”
• Cats will often hide when anxious.
• The following are some tips Dr. Bales offers in the article that might be helpful for your clients, too: hide food to channel their natural hunting instincts, avoid the instinct to give your cat too many feline friends as they are solitary animals, avoid hiding their litter box away, give the kitty space, and keep up with regular vet appointments.
• Article posted by Catster.com

   

 

Not-So-Human-Interest

Lighter pet stories to provide much-needed cheer in difficult times...

Man From Mexico Takes Hundreds of Animals Into His Home During Hurricane Delta

• With Hurricane Delta bearing down on the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico in early October, Ricardo Pimentel - who runs a shelter called Tierra de Animales - opened his home to chicks, bunnies, cats, a flock of sheep, a hedgehog, and 300 dogs!
• From the article: “‘It doesn’t matter if the house is dirty, it can be cleaned,’ Pimentel said. ‘The things they broke can be fixed or bought again, but what’s beautiful is to see them happy, healthy and safe, without wounds and with the possibility of being adopted.’”
• After posting a photo of the animal crew online, people from around the world donated thousands of dollars to Tierra de Animales and offered to help clean up the mess.
• Article posted by Fox News

 

Have something newsworthy in the veterinary field? Reach out to us at [email protected]. Enjoy our weekly veterinary industry review, coming to you each Friday afternoon.