TRANSCRIPT 🔗
Dana: do want to dive in a little around your work in compassion in the veterinary space. And I know that you've talked on other about your story and your work and work with Alana and your work at Grove in identifying compassion fatigue and how you guys handled that as a hospital. What would you say ⁓ compassion fatigue looks like maybe on a team level, but also on an individual level that someone could see externally.
Charles Hurty, DVM: Yeah, so certainly, fatigue, know, very caregiving profession specific. ⁓ it's and you know, we're starting to think like now ⁓ what you're to see ⁓ along with compassion fatigue you're going to start to see some terminology called empathy fatigue. And there's been some recent work that sort of teased out what part of the brain ⁓ is engaged when we're having compassion and what part of the brain is engaged when we're being empathetic ⁓ showing empathy. And ⁓ they're is that the areas of the brain that get depleted are those parts of the brain that are more geared towards empathy. ⁓ But I you're gonna see this sort of as a ⁓ fine tuning of definitions, but certainly compassion fatigue, ⁓ you know, we are... exposed to high emotion ⁓ And that describes a vet clinic, right? We're in a rapidly changing environment. There's there's happy emotions, there's sad emotions, extreme emotions. Sometimes we're operating in the middle, but oftentimes we don't get that opportunity to be in the middle of that emotional spectrum. And so when we're exposed to, say, repeated let's just say euthanasias or ideal situations where cases might not go ⁓ to plan or we're diagnosing cancer or something very quality of life affecting. That exposure, if we're not having ⁓ some kind outlet to recover and recharge, we're going to experience compassion fatigue. And the thing about compassion fatigue and And we can compare that to burnout, compassion fatigue in and of itself ⁓ actually come on pretty quickly. It be a matter of days or even a single day where it's just been one of those days and you ⁓ arrive the end of that day just completely exhausted. ⁓ the it takes a physical, an emotional, mental, it operates in all of those different areas. and you can feel depleted, you know? And so you will see this in a person as they may be a little more irritable or little bit more emotional, maybe easy to cry or easy to get angry, you know, some kind of ⁓ social that isn't what it used to be. ⁓ So something in the way that that individual...
Dana: Mm-hmm.
Charles Hurty, DVM: is experiencing that day. And usually it's going to be in a place of more negative emotional feelings and the inability to process them because you've just been sort of bombarded over and over and over without the ability to take a break or release or recover. team can certainly experience that ⁓ and that can look like less I mean, it can be a very subtle sign. I love being in the clinic and hearing, you know, if I'm in the doc box, the office and I hear laughter, or if I hear people really, you know, just having a good time, that's a good sign. if you've got people who are easy to laugh, easy to share a good story,
Dana: Yeah.
Charles Hurty, DVM: maybe having enough time to pull aside and have a conversation. I find that good. I know a lot of, a lot of people find that irritable because like, well, they should be working, you know, and, I'm like, no, I like signs of laughter, of laughter and that kind of thing. And your clients can hear that. if you can hear that in the, in the office, clients who might be waiting in an exam room, they can hear that too. And one of the most rewarding things for me,
Dana: I love that. Yes.
Charles Hurty, DVM: In my practice is if I go into an exam room and there's a client who actually makes a comment about, this is a, this is a happy place. that's just, it feels so good. Right. and you're like, wow, okay. And you need to, as a leader, you need to lean into that, right? Like don't let that client get away from you. You need to like ask them a few more questions and, ⁓ take that so lean into your wins, but,
Dana: Such a win. Yeah.
Charles Hurty, DVM: But yeah, I think that hearing those happy sounds and ⁓ compassion fatigue starts to take over, there is a tendency towards cynicism, a bit more negativity. You know, we're kind of like, ⁓ you in the trenches, so to speak. ⁓ That's of the expressions that we'll use. It's always good to have that kind of a phrase ⁓ that someone can ⁓
Dana: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Charles Hurty, DVM: on the team that you know immediately what that means. Like if I hear I'm in the trenches, that means that person needs some support. Like you have to listen to that and don't shine it on. And so if you're ⁓ if there's not a lot of laughter, even if it's just a lot of quiet, I think that sometimes that can be ⁓ something lean into and pay attention to.
Dana: Certainly not an official metric, but when I was in practice, I used the laughter metric. I especially knew who my loud laughers were. And I was like, ⁓ good, Bex is laughing today. They're leading the team. Like it was kind of a snowball effect. But had also a treat dispenser, like we had in the exam rooms, but I would put a rotating candy in it and you could see as it was going down. And I would say on most days it would go down by a fifth of the canister. ⁓
Charles Hurty, DVM: Mm-hmm. ⁓ nice.
Dana: on days where all of a sudden it dropped by a lot. A lot of times I felt like that was a stress response within my team. So I would make a point ⁓ of out and seeing, you know, are we having just a high stress case? Are we backed up? Are there ways that we could edit? It was obviously, you know, in management you want to be getting up and going out on the floor regularly, but it was like a, ⁓ need to this because five people just grabbed a handful of M&Ms in a short period. And maybe that's just...
Charles Hurty, DVM: ⁓ huh. Interesting.
Dana: Maybe I was Pavlov-ing my team to chocolate when they were stressed. But love
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the laughter metric, and I feel like that's such a wonderful ⁓ to when someone says, you can tell people want to be here, or I love the environment here, I love the vibe here. And so I hope people who are receiving that feedback take a moment to appreciate the work. That doesn't happen in a vacuum or by accident. That speaks volumes about
Charles Hurty, DVM: Yeah.
Dana: the culture that you're building in that practice.
Charles Hurty, DVM: well, I the, I love the treat depletion metric that you use. I mean, these are different types of things that can really be useful ⁓ on front line for people and and practices to gauge things. So I love that. never even thought about that as a thing, but good kudos to you for paying attention to what happens with the level of the treats. I ⁓ think that's awesome.
Dana: I'm a hangry low blood sugar person, I always, I was one of those, like the snacks were always well stocked, and I always made sure outside of the candy that there were like cheese and fruit and crackers or something because we all get busy, we all face stress doing that while you're low blood sugar. It's just a recipe for disaster. So it was kind of an evolution of our culture. We had a whole cheese culture thing at TVH. curious ⁓ you're, as leader, how do initiate a conversation someone to check in? Because I know sometimes we don't have the internal awareness when we're struggling and it can take a trusted person in a non-confrontational way to say, hey, are you doing okay? Because I'm noticing these things.
Charles Hurty, DVM: Yeah.
Dana: But that's kind of a daunting conversation to have. Do you have recommendations on to approach someone and what's ⁓ a to do that that's gonna be well received?
Charles Hurty, DVM: Yeah, well, I think that what you're leaning into here is another observation skill. And that is something that leadership really needs to do. They need to listen and not just listen and be observant, but also have some ideas in place for action, right? And so if you, like you just said, you know when one of your team members is... happy and laughing and affecting the team in a positive way. And if you're checking in on that situation and that person is not, you know, in their normal way, then yeah, okay, maybe something's going on. And I think that that's a cue that a lot of people, the leadership team and practices need to pay attention to. ⁓ Sometimes obvious, that person's very quiet, or ⁓ it may not as obvious. But I think that kind of understanding, some body language that might be expressed. I think of an example of, we had a, a technician assistant who was like always a very, happy ⁓ go lucky, ⁓ serve client of person. suddenly she was ⁓ really irritable. Like, like, Whoa, okay. was, that was not a normal expression.
Dana: Hmm.
Charles Hurty, DVM: And so in that scenario, rather than, you know, and this happened in our pharmacy area, you know, in front of everybody and whatnot, know, just sort of real subtly, you know, get
their attention and say, hey, can we just, can we have a quick conversation? Or even now you can text them, right? This is a safe place. You can talk to me. I'll listen. And let's see if we can figure a few things out. Because oftentimes people just need a little validation. They to be heard, just like our clients, right? I mean, that's, you know, their fears and concerns need be validated and ⁓ the experiences the feelings of our team members need to be validated as well. So.
Dana: And that's a good training segue, because I feel like it's much more common maybe within a culture to add a veterinary clinic to identify, hey, we're non-judgmental. So if someone has financial restrictions on affording care for their pet, we're going to find a compassionate way to meet them where they are. We're going to find a treatment plan that cares for them as best we can.
Charles Hurty, DVM: Mm-hmm.
Dana: And once you kind of created that conversation, now I need you to expand that to yourself, to your team. How can we approach each other in a non-judgmental way? Because it's so easy. I feel like it's with all these kind of empathetic givers that find themselves in veterinary medicine where it's like, oh, we want to go the extra mile for the client. And then I'm like, yeah, what are we doing for yourself? How are we taking care of yourself? So it creates like a little bit of like a
Charles Hurty, DVM: Yeah. Yeah.
Dana: a bridge so you buy in with the concept and then it's like, okay, and now I want you to share that with your coworkers. If they're having a bad day, know them well enough to say, hey, do you need to talk or, know, what's going on? You seem a little off today. I just, guess from personal experience,
Charles Hurty, DVM: Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah.
Dana: I've been relieved if I've been struggling and maybe not identifying it for myself to have someone who is non-judgmentally saying, hey, I know you and this seems off. Are you OK? It's almost like a release, like, know what? You're right. I've holding this inside and it's so heavy. And I'm happy to someone else sees it maybe can help me with it. So.
Charles Hurty, DVM: Yeah, no, for sure. I think that that's a critical point. And one of the things that when have our team meetings and ⁓ one the headers for our clinic at the top is about compassion for our patients and our clients. But actually, right ⁓ before I put patients and clients ⁓ on that, it's for and our team members and our clients and our patients. Because like you said, if you're not If you're not there or there's something that's heavy and you're not able to past it, ⁓ the downstream effect of that? Well, you could pull the team into that ⁓ inadvertently ⁓ purposefully if you go down that path. But patient outcome ⁓ might less and the client experience might be less ⁓ than And we've missed now an opportunity to educate a client in a very meaningful way. ⁓
Dana: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Charles Hurty, DVM: will that patient get the preventative care or the
types of services that they need to be healthy and maintain that human animal bond. if you can really think downstream, if we're not taking care of ourselves in that caregiving capacity, it affects the entire flow of the whole workflow.
Dana: ⁓ yeah, mean catastrophic thinking hopefully for the better, but we need good people in this industry with long careers. So if prioritizing our care as a hospital, as a industry and on an individual level allows good compassionate people to stay in this field for a 30, 40 year career versus feeling overwhelmed and burning out after five years, that's what we.
Charles Hurty, DVM: Mm-hmm.
Dana: we need to prioritize. When you put it in that kind of term, like who's not here because they care for patients and want to improve patient care? Who's not here because they want see this industry grow and flourish? And when you put it in that, how can you not prioritize caring for our team, caring ourselves? So I love what are some, guess I want to rewind really quickly. ⁓
Charles Hurty, DVM: Right. Right.
Dana: What is a very simple way to discern between burnout and compassion fatigue? Because I think they are used interchangeably and maybe are symptoms of a similar pattern, but they are distinctly different. ⁓
Charles Hurty, DVM: Yeah, so I think I would think about compassion fatigue in that very caregiving ⁓ ⁓ we don't really ⁓ compassion fatigue happening in industries or different careers there isn't a huge caregiving component. so thinking about burnout, burnout comes from it is a workplace term and it can happen in any workplace. And so it tends to be more on the systems and the different parts ⁓ a and things that are not happening in a workplace. Compassion fatigue, repeated ⁓ compassion and prolonged compassion fatigue can certainly contribute to the state of burnout. But burnout also It's physical, it's emotional, it's mental. what it ultimately boils to is we've lost our purpose and we've our sense of self. So you find folks feel trapped. ⁓ This is not Burnout is really a state of suffering. And it... is not something that happens instantaneously. It's from repeated exposure to ⁓ emotions, without ability to recover. you're, you know, the classic is ⁓ you, you come the job, you think you're going to, ⁓ you know, be to function at a super high level and you can, and you can stay late every day. ⁓ And you can, and you can make all those phone calls. You can do all those medical records and you can spend all that time. can take your work home and you can get online and work until 1am. And then you start to like, it starts to like kind of fall apart a bit. you're not really taking any sort of time for, for yourself. And then you go back to work thinking, okay, I'm going to be ready to rock and roll again, but you're up till 2am doing medical records. And then the whole day starts again. And now you've got like.
Dana: Yeah.
Charles Hurty, DVM: a euthanasia, another serious case, a hospitalized case, you're plugging away, you're plugging away. And over time, really start to, just not feel ⁓ present Like some might say that, know, just emotionally they're, they're, they're numb. You ⁓ don't like going work, but you're kind of just going through the motions. But you're in a very slippery place, a very fragile spot.
Dana: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Charles Hurty, DVM: ⁓ data that continues to come out ⁓ that ⁓ this industry, ⁓ not just veterinarians, it's our licensed veterinary technicians, it's our CSRs and our tech assistants. Everybody a member of that team is susceptible to if we're not really paying attention to it. we know that the studies are showing, ⁓ depending on study that you read, 50 to 80 a level of burnout is happening. And ⁓ number to me is just tremendous. It also is found in our human health care colleagues. And so again, this high caregiving, high emotional situations and careers, we're more susceptible. And I think that's one thing to point out is that in the veterinary profession, ⁓
Dana: Yeah.
Charles Hurty, DVM: We are, when we compare ourselves to the general population, our burnout rates are way higher than the general population. And I think that ⁓ thing we have done in this field, ⁓ and need to find ways ⁓ to this, is we're not really letting people know that that's a thing ⁓ when join the veterinary profession. We're not trying to scare anybody away, ⁓ but...
Dana: Yeah.
Charles Hurty, DVM: It is a risk, right? It's an occupational risk. And we spend so much time protecting our physical bodies from dangerous situations and we get training on that, but honestly, we don't get a lot of training when it comes to ⁓ the impact of what we're going to experience. ⁓ And where we really need to ⁓ find upstream solutions to
Dana: ⁓ yeah. To the...
Charles Hurty, DVM: to making sure that people know how cope and deal and ⁓ ⁓ these things are happening.
Dana: Yeah, that's a, passionate about this. Specifically with our career veterinarians ⁓ and I've seen more specifically around DVMs, but I would assume that it in roles. It's like those first five years in the veterinary industry are difficult. And I think the most recent study I looked at was talking about, it was calling it through the lens of like,
Charles Hurty, DVM: Mm-hmm.
Dana: career satisfaction or job satisfaction and it was like the first three years just feeling less and less satisfied, less and less engaged, less and less confident in their career path. And then there was some dissipation of that after around year five. But I mean, that's not.
Charles Hurty, DVM: Yeah, sure.
Dana: What we want is if you can survive, if we can separate, you know, our whoever can stuff it down or thrive and figure out how to manage for themselves, they then eventually, you know, become out of it. We need to be intentional around that. And so I would love to see more education in university spaces and career programs and then just more awareness.
Charles Hurty, DVM: Right. Yeah.
Dana: at a hospital and
industry level, particularly when we're welcoming new people into the industry on what supports that we can create for them, checking in, not just like, you ramping production? Are you expanding your skills as a devium? But also like, how are you clocking off? Are you answering your phone when you're not here? Are you doing notes at home? Are you charting at home? gonna IP whitelist you, like for yourself. Those would maybe be extreme examples, but.
Charles Hurty, DVM: Yeah.
Dana: We need to come up with, we come up with ramp plans and onboarding plans. And part of that needs to be helping, especially early career veterinary industry professionals navigate how they're going to interact with the space to the constant pull to just dive in ⁓ lose yourself in the work.
Charles Hurty, DVM: Yeah. you mentioned really great example of how to approach this. You mentioned education. And I think that, you when we're looking at solutions for this kind of thing, we have to go as far upstream as we can. I think that when I look at the veterinary ⁓ ecosystem right now, There's a lot of downstream solutions, right? There's some peer groups, there's processes that seem to rely more on the individual finding a way to get help. And we can move it upstream a little bit, I call it midstream, to put clinic infrastructure in place. And this is what you're talking about as far as onboarding, critical point. And I think re-onboarding and having those check-ins.
Dana: Yeah.
Charles Hurty, DVM: But having that culture within the clinic that really and honors ⁓ problem is critical. But going even further upstream, like you mentioned, all of those training pipelines, the ⁓ technician schools, at the education, and really in place some foundational language ⁓ on mental health literacy, boundaries, what is burnout, how do you know when it's happening, ⁓ what of self-assessment tools are available. We have so many technological innovations now that we can put a self-eval app right someone's phone that they can periodically check in with and say, whoa, okay, there's some things happening here. This is not the way I was answering these questions you know, four or five months ago. And so there's a lot of support. and if you just give people the vocab, some of that literacy, let them know some of the occupational risks. and they go into it ⁓ with foundation, then your midstream clinic stuff, they're going to know why you're doing that. Right? I mean, they're gonna, and they're going to say, okay, this, or even if you're going into a clinic to say, okay, this, where am I going to work?
Dana: Yes. you
Charles Hurty, DVM: Like, okay, here's a clinic that is like really geared up to like make sure that I'm taken care of. And they have laugh metrics and they have a cookie, treat jar metric that they check into. That's amazing. And they all wear ⁓ and they ⁓ in with each other and they do, ⁓ know, a lot of self care stuff versus like, you know, go to a clinic and ⁓ they're upfront with
it, but.
Dana: Yeah.
Charles Hurty, DVM: You know, hey, we're just, you just, you gotta get the feel, right?
Dana: And ⁓ not that we should need to make a financial argument for why should be doing this, but you talk about recruiting. So hot right now. Difficult to find ⁓ DVMs. ⁓ I've had ⁓ some ⁓ not upbeat during interview processes led some really bonds I ⁓ just inviting ⁓ the difficult questions. How are you going to support me as I start my career or as I further my career? What does this hospital do to encourage employee engagement outside of our, like those are questions that we should be inviting on the hospital level and we should have an onboarding plan and you're going to find people want to work, more excited and will work longer, ⁓ turnover in those environments that ⁓ those systems in. in place. have, I guess, kind of circling back. ⁓ Burnout very structural and as a manager, I can think of some low-hanging fruit, sure that we're checking in after busy times, setting non-production, maybe like personal life goals that I can support them with as a manager to encourage them with work-life balance, not texting or reaching out to employees after work hours. There's a lot of things that we can do to mitigate or at least not reinforce some of the industrial pressures. But when it comes to compassion fatigue, don't know how to take the high emotions out of medicine or how to be a euthanasia-free hospital or a hospital that never has a heightened customer because they're dealing with their own emotional burdens. ⁓ How can support these less, I guess more of the compassion fatigue ⁓ aspects of these on a hospital level? They're a little trickier for me to thumb down.
Charles Hurty, DVM: Yeah, well, think, I think ⁓ there's some really easy things I think that, that we can do to improve that. and think having leadership define the, like say, Hey, we all work in a, a pretty wild place. Like this is a magical place. Let's make it a magical place, but Hey guys, ⁓ this is, this is emotion and you're going to go through a lot of different emotions and
Dana: Okay.
Charles Hurty, DVM: You need to, one, just recognize that that's gonna happen and let people know that you recognize that. So you're gonna be that caring leader. And I think just allowing people the ability to communicate or to check in on how they are experiencing that day. There are some things I think leaders can do. You know, when we're looking at that schedule if you've got a, a ⁓ who is signed up for, ⁓ know, hopefully not, but it does happen for five, six euthanasias that day. That's something that before maybe even happens. that's something take note of and to, and to check in with that person, because if they're experiencing that, they need to have ⁓
Dana: ⁓ December.
Charles Hurty, DVM: thinking about them in a positive way, in a supportive way. Hey, what do you need? Like, you need an extra half hour of time to just go decompress after this? Or let's figure out how to this. Or
was this too much? Like, and be honest, like be honest with me. I'm listening because I want to act on what you tell me. Was that much? And if they're yes, as leaders, we need make some adjustments there. think also there's actually a science to appreciation. And what I mean by that is just recognizing somebody's good work or recognizing what they've experienced that day. Now they don't need to be in a state of compassion fatigue. They could be on cloud nine, having just worked with a great case and their favorite client. But if you walk up, to them and say, gosh, you know, I really appreciate your attitude today. It's awesome. You're doing so great. that person, you know, you're there. If you're doing that on a regular basis, that person has an 80 % more likely to stay and not leave a business. Now that's not just veterinary medicine. That's across, everywhere. there's actually this weird paper and I can't quote it. ⁓ specifically, but it was something like, even if you yelled at somebody, they feel 30 % better that like, Hey, they even know I'm alive. Like they, didn't even know that they knew I was here. So recognizing people. Right. But, if we just recognize people and show that gratitude and that appreciation on a regular basis. And I think for a leader ⁓ really just a team member in general.
Dana: The... The dog that would rather be hit than ignored, so to speak.
Charles Hurty, DVM: ⁓ I love it when people, when my team members tell each other that they're doing a great job. mean, that is to me a huge win, because that's somebody feeling safe enough to do that and their in that way. ⁓ and so goes a long way. And as a leader, think even before we, if it doesn't come natural, even before you walk into the building,
Dana: Mm-hmm.
Charles Hurty, DVM: just take two minutes in your car and say like, okay, I'm gonna walk in the room. I'm gonna say happy, I'm gonna say good morning and be pretty positive everybody. And then I'm gonna make sure by noon that I'm gonna tell three people or four people that I appreciate their work today. The recharge of the battery on that is tremendous. And science there. This is like peer reviewed stuff. ⁓
Dana: Love it.
Charles Hurty, DVM: And the, the, you know, in our, in our practice, we do have some call outs that we can, we call them kudos. I think some of the people in our practice call them Kujo's. but these are just little ⁓ slips of and ⁓ in it, you, you write their name down and your name down and give them some appreciation for what they did. And you put that in their, wall pocket and then they find that kind of randomly and feel really good about that.
Dana: Mm-hmm. Cool job.
Charles Hurty, DVM: And then collectively those things get added up at the end of a month and you know, we have a team member of the month. So appreciation goes a long way. And the other thing that I feel we can do to get in front of compassion fatigue and that high emotion, we're going to experience the emotions and we should, we're human beings and we don't want to run away from how feeling. We need to appreciate what we're feeling.
Dana: Love that.
Charles Hurty, DVM: But one thing that we can do is really make sure that people are taking their breaks. And so we have a program within our clinic called the Take a Break Initiative. We call it TABI. And this is also very well understood and studied and peer reviewed. A 10 to 15 minute break within two hours of walking in the building is one of the most impactful things.
Dana: cute.
Charles Hurty, DVM: that you can do for a person to end their day in a good way. then also protecting their lunch. ⁓ should have a one hour lunch and they need to go on it. And ⁓ in industry, that is like a really ⁓ hard to do, but it needs to happen. ⁓ And we frame this as there should be no break ⁓ shamers and should have no lunch guilt.
Dana: Hmm. Yes No. My last question kind of on this topic is, I recently read, ⁓ it's When We're In Charge, is ⁓ a leadership guide for next generation leaders. ⁓ And she frames it in the millennial Gen Z thing, which I would cast aside. I thought it was an interesting thought experiment on how leadership are kind of changing. ⁓ one of the points that ⁓ ruminates is setting expectations boundaries and what we can provide as a manager. feels like because workplaces. Occupy so much of our physical and mental space ⁓ that we kind look to our workplaces for a lot of solutions. So within the context of compassion, fatigue, and veterinary medicine, are there limitations to what we should be taking on as a leadership, as you know, a leader in a hospital as a manager, what is a fair balance on we can provide ownership in and how can we communicate ⁓ that our teams in a sympathetic way?
Charles Hurty, DVM: Yeah, like leadership boundaries, like not taking on too much because, mean, the person who's taking all this on can certainly burn out. They're susceptible to burnout too, we know that. Yeah.
Dana: ⁓ yeah. been there and I think we've all or most of us who've been in leadership position have found ourselves on, I'm gonna flippantly kind of call it a side quest of like helping someone access housing and so helping someone through a breakup, helping someone things that we're holistic people. We realize that it all impacts our work and we want to honor and create space for the totality that is that person. But is there a limit to with what we should be engaging in in a workplace?
Charles Hurty, DVM: Gotcha. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I, I, I think so. I, do feel that, sometimes as a leader, it's feeling Let's not say it's feeling wrong, but if you're feeling like you are going too far or you're going like finding housing. Now that's situation, we'll just use that example. I mean, in our neck of the woods, housing ⁓ is huge deal. So we are all always on or helping to find housing, but that's just, you know, I think that's just a, it's a baseline. But yeah, I think if you were finding out that someone was having troubles at
home
Dana: It's a huge deal.
Charles Hurty, DVM: that we're certainly affecting their work in the clinic, but you're not gonna solve everybody's, you know, all their issues. Now, I would say that there is ⁓ shift in mindset for what employees are these days. You know, the legacy thinking is that well-being and a healthy workplace might be really...
Dana: Mm-hmm Mm-hmm.
Charles Hurty, DVM: geared towards the individual or the individuals within that workplace. And now we do know that there is a forward thinking, do see the employer as significant influence on not only the employees' wellbeing, also the wellbeing of like their dependents and such. And so I feel that there is an opportunity for us to really look at the benefits packages. I know maybe that wasn't the angle we were going to, you were expecting there, but I do feel like there are some really interesting ways to ⁓ employees, team different forms of support through different types of benefits that we have available.
Dana: No, I'm here for it.
Charles Hurty, DVM: I'll use the example I'll on the ⁓ EAP or the Employee Assistance Program.
Dana: I was going to say EAP, everyone should have it. It's a lower cost to the clinic and the benefits are numerous.
Charles Hurty, DVM: They are. And I think that what happens with EAP, at least in the setting of mental health, a lot of people, there's this like stigma about asking for help. And so we don't see the EAPs used very often. I think like the use rate is like two to 5%. But it speaks to your other idea about onboarding. So like when someone is joining the practice, they need to know what that is and that it's not just a mental health. It's for elder care, supports, ⁓ types of different services are available through the EAP. Now, is that a benefit that is useful for our younger employees? Is it something that's better for our, you mentioned, know, the boomers and Gen X and whatnot. It may not be a benefit that's useful to everybody. So I really think we...
Dana: Yeah.
Charles Hurty, DVM: One, think we can prop up the EAP on some level, but I think there's also an opportunity to look at some other types of benefits, looking at some of these different apps and different companies that function in say a wellbeing space. have all types of different companies emerging right now that are just looking to provide the services that we're talking about. So I think that... Having the ability to talk about what's available to ⁓ team member ⁓ critical because you might not have in your toolbox the types experience and language to help somebody who is having XYZ problem at But you do have access to an EAP program and spending some additional explaining what that is and say, hey, this is really
Dana: Mm-hmm.
Charles Hurty, DVM: This can be very useful. And if it's not the place for in your situation, they probably can help find what you need or they will direct you to the next place. and ⁓ think the, the ⁓ about EAPs specifically, I think one of the best things that a leader can do is a team member's hand while they navigate that process. So I don't think that's outside of. the job description, ⁓ because if you can't help them, but you can, you can help them ⁓ this step. And I think it's taking that step or dialing that phone number or hitting the button. That's what they have a hard time doing. So if you can build the trust with that person who's having an issue, I don't think you're going to overextend into their private life, but you can certainly say, I'm here to help you do this. Let's move forward together. ⁓
Dana: Yeah.
Charles Hurty, DVM: And so looking at all those words left unsaid, if we can frame it as man, This is going to really improve things. If I can approach this situation and at least just open a dialogue, you're going to get towards hopefully some resolution and a more connected experience.
Dana: I agree. just, I guess a shout out to anyone listening or a challenge. If you have EAP available to your team, call the number yourself and just go through that process. They're very nice people.
Charles Hurty, DVM: Yeah.
Dana: And just kind of anecdotally, I had I think one of, ⁓ The better parts of my career was when I had an employee, because I was trying to be transparent enough at some point to say, I want to let you guys know that I was struggling, and I reached out, and I used this, and I just want to remind you guys that this exists. we saw our utilization go up, because the way my EAP communicates is they tell us what percentage of our employees are using resources, but never who or what they were using. That utilization went up, and then months later, I had someone who came to me and said, hey, You mentioned starting therapy and using EAP. I've now been doing it for several months and I'm changing some major things in my life and I wanna thank you for doing that. So in the moment, I didn't have an agenda or it was literally like a line item on a meeting, but it created that normalization and that doorway for people to go, it's not just the card that we hand out when we're having a bad day or the magnet that's on the fridge. Like these are things that people in my community are using. ⁓
Charles Hurty, DVM: Yeah.
Dana: and they're not getting their hair burned off. Like, you know, it's safe. I can reach out to these resources too.
Charles Hurty, DVM: think it's a great, a great idea for folks who are in that position to hand out that EAP, call that number. I think that's a fantastic recommendation just so they know what it is. Right.
Dana: looking at you were mentioning there's some more technologies and applications of technology that can help in this space. we're very AI forward here at Digitail. ⁓ Do have any examples ⁓ of, platforms or groups that are using AI in, in a progressive way?
Charles Hurty, DVM: Mm-hmm. Yeah. I I, you know, I think that, you know, what Digitail is doing, in, the platform that you guys are created is, is tremendous. I mean, you're embracing the,
the AI technology. and I mean, I'm an early, I am ⁓ certainly early adopter the AI medical record, you know, soap and I've used a lot of different programs for that. And I say, and I don't to sound like I'm overstating this, but I really truly believe this, that the medical documentation function and the client phone function for just note taking, it's changed my life as a And you know, I've been in the field for 24 years and I've seen a lot of different things. So of my first jobs, the records were three by five inch note cards. ⁓ I'm I'm like, what, like, what this? Like ⁓ I've never thought about or considered, you know, and, and so you know, medical records and then the ⁓ electronic medical record and
Dana: Yes, Rolodexes!
Charles Hurty, DVM: You know, electronic medical records are like a love hate relationship. Yes, you can read it, but ⁓ my gosh, it takes so long to generate these records and you can template and template and template. but you know, it's like you'd end your shift and then the day began again. You'd had to do all your medical record documentation. You had to get to your phone calls. You had to do all your notes. it would be three, four hours of additional work if you couldn't, you know, and oftentimes you just can't keep up with it during, ⁓ the workflow because you're just, ⁓ much going on. but the ability to do the, ⁓ ambient ⁓ recording, create the soap notes and to be able to template that up into a very specific format, and to have that integrate, you know, with the ⁓
Dana: Yeah.
Charles Hurty, DVM: practice management software. it's given me personally, I think hours in a day. And it used to be, you know, the, the, the dialogue that I would talk to my team about, you know, in terms of just us being busy is like, we would have these meetings. I'm like, where can we, like, literally where can we find minutes in our day? to make changes to make us a little bit more efficient and not efficient to, know, make more money. was efficiency for me was I want to find time for you all to be able to be creative, be innovative, think about solutions, take your breaks, and really like enjoy what you're doing and not just run through your day and then be exhausted. Right.
Dana: Yeah.
Charles Hurty, DVM: but in a matter of months after adoption, was like, we went from minutes to finding hours and. ⁓
Dana: Yeah.
Charles Hurty, DVM: the impact ⁓ quality of life ⁓ is and so I'm a big fan of that kind of technology. And I find that there is a really, key connection to be made between giving that time to a person and having that person then ⁓ be able to get to family, get the gym, go for a walk. hang out with your own animals, kids, and finding that better balance in your life. So I ⁓ have leaned the AI-driven technology that it's honestly, I mean, I guess if we want to go and talk about AI a little bit, I mean, we certainly can do that, even ⁓ just ⁓ radiology.
Dana: Yes. Yeah.
Charles Hurty, DVM: you know, looking at different, technologies there, in the, the human side, you know, I've just, I've just, completed a, global public health, program. ⁓ And, I was the veterinarian in that field, in that group, in the cohort. And it was all, ⁓ you know, MDs and ⁓ whatnot and policy makers all the world. It was really, ⁓ really incredible. but.
Dana: Mm-hmm.
Charles Hurty, DVM: there was a big chunk of this was dedicated to AI and how it's integrating into public health and healthcare. I was surprised to learn that a lot of the radiology on the human side, being all filtered through AI on that side. And I think we're gonna see that be something that becomes more readily adopted on that side. I think there was some reluctance with some of the early radiology programs.
Dana: Yeah.
Charles Hurty, DVM: But now deep learning models are pretty better than anything we've ever seen in the past. But even diagnostics in the clinic, the new equipment from and IDEXX looking cytologies and analyses and urinalyses in clinic, better for patients, right? We get these quicker. we can get interventions going at a lot, much quicker. So our outcomes for our patients are better and our client experiences are better. So I'm a big fan of ⁓ looking at technology. And I think too, one of the pillars that we need to be looking at is just literacy of technology our industry. ⁓ And ⁓ think been a little technology averse. ⁓
Dana: You Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Charles Hurty, DVM: know, adverse in vet mad. I think we, we, we see different things, but we're pretty slow in my opinion. and it's the technology changes are happening so rapidly now that, in order to be out in front and part of the conversation, really teaching, technology literacy, is, is, is a big part of, ⁓ what we're experiencing right now.
Dana: Yes, I agree. I do up on ⁓ certain ⁓ of hesitancy within AI think the word words AI ⁓ can feel threatening ⁓ or, big. guess what would be ⁓ two parts? ⁓ there spaces you never want to see AI?
Charles Hurty, DVM: Mm-hmm.
Dana: that we need to corral it? then ⁓ would you say to ⁓ that are reluctant to adopt AI just ⁓ because that fear of the unknown or that ⁓ newness it?
Charles Hurty, DVM: Yeah. ⁓ think in terms of adopting it, I think one of the ideas that get thrown out there is that the AI is going to take over all medical decisions. I think people also ⁓ that their ⁓ ability to think through the problems might change. But I think biggest ⁓ concern I hear is that, I don't want AI doing all my medicine. And for ⁓ the way I approach that is, well, I utilize the AI ⁓ as a to accomplish a task that's a very repetitive task in my day.
Dana: Mm-hmm.
Charles Hurty, DVM: and so these very labor time consuming tasks of, ⁓ record generation, to me, what, when I ⁓ ask the to do that, I'm not asking it to make clinical decisions for me. I'm just asking it to take my words and my brain, that I, ⁓ know, just kind of put out into the universe during a physical exam or an appointment and to put it on paper for me so that I can
then take a look at that and make sure that, you know, I did say those things. And so I also say there's a filter, right? There's a human filter and I believe in that human filter because, know, we hear about AI hallucinations and they get some words wrong.
Dana: Yeah. happens.
Charles Hurty, DVM: Yeah, those things are going to happen, but it takes me like 30 seconds to find that and fix that. it also allows me to subtract or augment if I'm ⁓ filter. ⁓ so the spent typing, I'll even ⁓ that when looking at some of my notes, I'm like, ⁓ yeah, I did say, I did say that. ⁓ and ⁓ know, and, it doesn't come up with the You could ask it to come up with rule outs and you could ask it to come up with different, you know, a bunch of differentials. that's not really how I utilize it. And honestly, if you were ⁓ it to come up with some different differentials beyond your main idea, which you've communicated, it might actually pull up an answer that says, ⁓ my gosh, I really need to think about that. And so it can capture, some of the.
Dana: Mm-hmm. Right.
Charles Hurty, DVM: cognitive misses that we might make. But it's also, it's not making decisions. So if it came up with something and you felt, that's really interesting, well, it's your decision to either pursue that or not. And so it's not dictating what you do, but it's helping you be more effective. the other, the other part of it that I really like, so I'm an extroverted person and I really like talking to my clients and
Dana: Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm
Charles Hurty, DVM: When I, I have seen this and ⁓ can you that this is a very real experience for me, is I went from trying to take notes ⁓ on that I would then go, you know, whatever type in or have my technician type it in. I don't even worry about that anymore. I might give myself a buzzword here and there just to focus my ⁓ thought process, that's my old workflow. But I connect to the, I connect to the client better.
Dana: Mm. Mm-hmm.
Charles Hurty, DVM: And so if I'm not thinking about, my gosh, I got to generate this medical record. I'm creating an experience for that client. I'm connecting to the client. They're getting a better education. when it comes to a problem that we're addressing and I get to actually spend more time with the patient and hands on. And I love my patients. mean, there's ⁓ million of me holding little dogs. love little dogs. And the more time I get to do that in a room.
Dana: Yeah
Charles Hurty, DVM: with, with, a person and a patient, the better. ⁓ And I that when I'm leaning on ⁓ the medical record I'm in there with that person, not thinking about my medical record. ⁓ And ⁓ me, one of the biggest rewards. mean, just think of, cause they're now adopting this ambient technology in human healthcare. ⁓ And I can.
Dana: ⁓ yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Charles Hurty, DVM: I can track my appointments with my physician and it's gone from her just looking at the computer and typing while I'm sitting there, not connecting, to having a virtual ⁓ in
some other state who I would say hi to, which then made the connection a little bit better, to using ambient AI. ⁓ And the for me as a patient is better.
Dana: Great.
Charles Hurty, DVM: And I think we routinely hear that from patients that are surveyed is that when there's that ability to show compassion and connection, the patient experience is so much better.
Dana: Yes. So if you had a magic wand, would you want to see AI going ⁓ specifically ⁓ veterinary medicine?
Charles Hurty, DVM: Yeah. So, this is something I've thought about for ⁓ for a while. ⁓ Now, I don't think it's outside the of to actually have ⁓ an AI ⁓ assistant or agent that's a member the team. what I mean by that is, here's an example. you've got a client in an exam and the technician's done their thing, the tech assistant, the veterinarian's been in, Now we've got some downtime. Maybe we're reading a cytology or AI is reading a cytology or we're doing something with some blood work and the, and the clients in that room. Well, that client, are they doing in that room? They're on their cell phone. So why can't we have a screen in a room? That's an AI That's actually part of our caregiving team answering questions for that person in the room. ⁓ can't we. ⁓
Dana: Yeah. scrolling their phone. Yeah. Love that.
Charles Hurty, DVM: pull Taylor Swift music up play something relaxing. Yeah, right. know, play something relaxing for that client. And then, you know, and it could, and the AI could even remember like they're back there. They come back next week. Like, Hey, you want to listen to some Taylor Swift again? Or, like, you know what? We're doing ear stuff, right? Let me walk you through how to clean ears ⁓ or, know, how are you feeling about your appointment today? I mean, people talk to their
Dana: a little photo booth moment. ⁓ I love that. Yes.
Charles Hurty, DVM: They're, chat bots now, right? I ⁓ I that as a function that can save again, a lot more time. Now it doesn't have to end there. Like they can say, are you with your explanation on cleaning a dog's ears through this video? And I'll show you how to do it. and. know, and that may it. And so you've saved now the technician some time on, on doing that ear cleaning or.
Dana: Mm-hmm. Yes.
Charles Hurty, DVM: you know, or whatever the task might be or how to pill your cat, maybe the AI agent. Cause now it's like, I mean, think about it. You can do the explanation, which is great. And we still, that's still a default, but a lot of times you're sending someone to a video on YouTube on how to do sub-q fluids on your cat. Well, what if you actually had a clinic generated approved AI agent that they could bring up at home. You click on the link on your email and it will say, Hey,
Dana: Yeah.
Charles Hurty, DVM: let's talk about how to give sub-q fluids again. Do you have any questions? I mean, that to me seems like a very powerful thing. And it may not be something that we're ready for right now, but I feel like that could be something that really functions in the future the technology is better and better and people are more accepting of that kind of interaction.
Dana: Yeah. And the proactiveness of AI too. So we could say, hey, we have a newly diagnosed diabetic. Let's go check in in 48 hours and say, do we need to review how we're taking like a glucose check? ⁓
Charles Hurty, DVM: Yeah.
Dana: We just have a couple minutes so I want to end, I always want to end with something tangible for our listeners so I'd love to do some tactical takeaways. Do you have, what would be three actionable steps that our listeners could take to Either better integrate AI into their practice or if you want a bonus, integrate AI to issues of compassion fatigue in practice.
Charles Hurty, DVM: Yeah, yeah. Well, I think, terms of integrating AI, first thing would be, to, ⁓ I think, your team, like who, like, what do know about it? Just get some baseline information. Are people scared of it? Are people like, why haven't we done it yet? or are people using it already? Like you may be, they already are. So kind of get a figure out like ⁓ what's your landscape look And that's pretty easy.
Dana: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Charles Hurty, DVM: something else a leadership team should do is look into your state and federal, get with the state and federal laws ⁓ to recording people. Like do you have to notify and in what way? You know, that's some really, ⁓ I think some early adoption stuff that's information that's really important. So you're not breaking the law. You know, don't wanna ⁓ record somebody.
Dana: Yes.
Charles Hurty, DVM: let alone their child that might be in the room. There's a whole lot of federal laws about that. So like know ⁓ you have to ask in the room, if it's okay, or if you have to ask if it's okay, because each state is different. So some real basic, you know, who's, who's literate, who's scared. What are the laws? and if do have some folks who are into it, get them using it ⁓ and create couple metrics, just easy metrics. I want you to kind of tell me. ⁓
Dana: Mm-hmm. Right. Yeah.
Charles Hurty, DVM: you know, score how you're feeling about it. What's the product look like, like the notes, and then how much time do you think is being saved? So those are some real quick and easy. And then if they're collecting that data, you can bring that back to the team and say, Hey, you know, Alana was using this and she six last week using AI. So, ⁓ you know, let's, let's talk about that. And then ⁓
Dana: Love. Huh?
Charles Hurty, DVM: figure out how to navigate forward. ⁓ I ⁓ think there is some reluctance. I guess the other, just as an aside, the other part of the reluctance is understanding energy consumption. ⁓ I that there's a lot of ideas out there about where we're affecting.
Dana: Mm-hmm.
Charles Hurty, DVM: the significant energy draw by using the AI technology. And this AI technology is a little different terms of, you know, it's not chat GPT necessarily. but I think that that's another
part that companies need to be prepared for as well in terms of answering those questions. and then I guess in terms of, ⁓ yeah.
Dana: Absolutely. And we deserve innovation on those fronts.
Charles Hurty, DVM: Well, I think in terms of utilizing AI in the, clinic for burnout, is just really leaning into the amount of time that is saved and then ⁓ kind of ⁓ folks ⁓ how that time can be, better spent. ⁓ and you're saying like, cause I think a lot of people I've also heard like, well, you want us to just have more time to see more patients.
Dana: Mm-hmm.
Charles Hurty, DVM: And the idea is not, I mean, we definitely want to help as many patients as we can, but this is where the conversation about boundaries comes into play and and being resilient. So we really want to use that time in an effective way. And you're not pushing this get more out of them. You're really kind of introducing this idea to.
Dana: Right.
Charles Hurty, DVM: enrich their experience within the clinic and to move forward as a group a way that we all feel good about. mean, so that's my take.
Dana: Yeah, I love that. Do you have two tools or resources that people can look to for guidance on some of the topics that we today?
Charles Hurty, DVM: Yeah, I think that a lot of the coming from, like if you looked up Adam Grant and just looked up all of his stuff, there's some really interesting stuff there. I would also direct people towards a book. I'm not going to have the author's name at my fingertips here, but ⁓ Compassionomics is great book ⁓ about it's compassion in the human healthcare field, but how compassionate acts when we really lean into those, our patients have better outcomes, but you also have that caregiver high from it. And so that's a really interesting book to pick up.
Dana: Hmm.
Charles Hurty, DVM: And I'm always a huge fan of anybody who can connect with, ⁓ Brene Brown's material, any of her, podcast material, her, I have her audio, her books audio. And I just, ⁓ play those, every day, a lot, cause dare to lead is ⁓ a great resource. and, know, we utilize, you at,
Dana: I love that. It's a-
Charles Hurty, DVM: Ted, for different types of Ted talks. I mean, this, this is a leadership tidbit and depending on much time you have or, or, running appointments, but I'll, or running your, team meetings. I will, I like to find ⁓ work related Ted talks. usually like 10 or 11 minutes long and I'll share those with the team. Sometimes we'll play those ⁓ at ⁓ a team or just share them on a Slack app.
Dana: Yes. Yeah.
Charles Hurty, DVM: Like, hey guys, check this out. This is like, you know, like the meaning of work and different things like that. so I really like bringing in other perspectives, for to kind of digest and think about, rather than hearing me or Alana or Dr. Fitzgerald talk, you know? So, and I think that, I think the team likes that too.
Dana: Yeah. Let's go! Give us an opportunity to listen to some Taylor Swift or platform Brene Brown, you know? There's always... That's it. That's the key takeaway. Use AI so you have more time for Taylor Swift karaoke.
Charles Hurty, DVM: That's right. ⁓ yeah. There's always Taylor's Square. Have karaoke parties. That's ⁓ that's a that. That's it. And you know, I always, liked, I like to share this cause I think this actually got some people on stage at our last karaoke party is karaoke. it is an opportunity to be extremely vulnerable. but it's also an opportunity for your people to show you complete support for doing that, whatever it is on stage. And so there's this like, there's this like,
Dana: That's it. Great.
Charles Hurty, DVM: Yeah, it's like this great leadership exercise and team building thing. And, and, know, everybody goes in there with support and cheering and you're vulnerable, but you're getting support. It's great. It's great. And that's become sort of our regular deal. So if you never have done a karaoke party, I would recommend everybody check it out.
Dana: Perfect karaoke parties! Well, I'm gonna end us on that high note, if you will. Thank you so much for your time. This was such a wonderful discussion. I'm hoping that you and I can have many more, because this was useful and insightful and vulnerable, and I really appreciate your time and expertise.
Charles Hurty, DVM: Okay. Hey, I appreciate you and I'm happy to talk you whenever, ⁓ whenever you want to talk, Dana.
Dana: Yeah.