Central Line: The AAHA Podcast

Welcome to Central Line, the official podcast of the American Animal Hospital Association. We are so excited to bring you these conversations to help you and your entire team simplify your journey towards excellence – which we know encompasses so much more than the medicine. In each episode, our host, Dr. Katie Berlin, talks with thought leaders and experts in hospital management, workplace culture, mental health, communication, and, of course, patient care, for advice on tackling the most persistent pain points in veterinary medicine today. We hope veterinary professionals in all roles, from client care to practice owner, will enjoy and benefit from these conversations.

Join us as Central Line takes you to the heart of exceptional veterinary care.

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Guest: David Ballard, PsyD, MBA, MA

Episode Description:

When an entire profession is struggling, it’s a problem that will take more than self-care to solve. David Ballard, PsyD, MBA, the former head of the American Psychological Association’s Office of Applied Psychology, has spent much of his career focusing on how to create psychologically healthy workplaces in professions facing many of the same challenges we do in veterinary medicine.

Dr. Ballard has ventured into vet med by way of Veterinary Visionaries, where nearly 50 organizations are collaborating right now to find ways to improve wellbeing and mental health in the profession as a whole. This episode will leave you believing that you could be a changemaker, no matter your role in your workplace.

Find out more about Veterinary Visionaries, including how to log into the solving platform to share and vote on ideas, https://veterinaryvisionaries.org/. The top four ideas split a $5000 cash prize! Be sure to log in before the platform closes on May 27, 2022.

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Find all of AAHA’s most up-to-date Guidelines, including resources for your clients and team, at aaha.org/guidelines.

Send us feedback or questions anytime at [email protected].

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Generously supported by CareCredit

Guest: Debbie Boone, CVPM

Episode Description:

Just talking to Debbie Boone, CVPM, makes you feel calmer – it’s easy to see how she built her career out of helping people communicate better. But she maintains that anyone can learn skills like active listening and de-escalation, and she gives some terrific tips for implementing these skills in practice. While we intended this conversation to speak directly to our colleagues in client service, Debbie’s advice will ring true for anyone who deals with people on a regular basis (so... that’s all of us).

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Find Debbie on Facebook and at 2 Manage Vets Consulting, and check out one of our favorite books, Crucial Conversations, which Debbie says should be required reading for the entire planet.

Find all of AAHA’s most up-to-date Guidelines, including resources for your clients and team, at aaha.org/guidelines.

Send us feedback or questions anytime at [email protected].

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Generously supported by CareCredit

Guest: Eric Garcia

Episode Description:

Companies with strong branding don’t take breaks from advertising just because their popular products are out of stock – and, according to our guest, Eric Garcia, veterinary practices shouldn’t take breaks from marketing themselves just because there’s no extra room in the schedule right now.

Eric is a digital marketing expert and sought-after voice on the veterinary speaking circuit, and he recommends that practices take a data-driven approach to marketing themselves.

This conversation isn’t just for practice owners and managers – Eric outlines some simple things anyone in the practice can do to improve the day-to-day client experience (because that’s marketing, too!) when the schedule is packed.

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Get in touch with Eric on Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn, by email at [email protected], or on his website.

Find all of AAHA’s most up-to-date Guidelines, including resources for your clients and team, at aaha.org/guidelines.

Send us feedback or questions anytime at [email protected].

Listen where your favorite podcasts are found:

Generously supported by CareCredit

Guest: Garth Jordan

Episode Description:

Veterinary medicine is a field full of problem solvers – we are all experts at working together to troubleshoot tough cases and doing our best with what we’ve got. Garth Jordan, CEO of AAHA, believes that solving the big issues that affect all of us will take teamwork on a much larger scale. Garth joins us to talk about Veterinary Visionaries, a project designed to allow us to help each other solve the most persistent problems facing the veterinary profession today.

Find out more about Veterinary Visionaries here.

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Find all of AAHA’s most up-to-date Guidelines, including resources for your clients and team, at aaha.org/guidelines.

Send us feedback or questions anytime at [email protected].

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Guest: Tasha McNerney, BS, CVT, CVPP, VTS (Anesthesia and Analgesia)

Episode Description:

We’ve got pain on the brain around here, thanks to the release of the 2022 AAHA Pain Management Guidelines for Dogs and Cats – good thing Tasha McNerney, CVT, CVPP, VTS (Anesthesia/Analgesia), never gets tired of talking about pain. Tasha joins us to share her insight on involving the whole team in the management of pain, what she’s learned in her time teaching vet teams, and why, when our credentialed technicians are thriving, our practices and the rest of our teams are more likely to thrive too.

Find Tasha on Facebook and at Veterinary Anesthesia Nerds.  

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Find all of AAHA’s most up-to-date Guidelines, including resources for your clients and team, at aaha.org/guidelines.

Send us feedback or questions anytime at [email protected].

Listen where your favorite podcasts are found:

Generously supported by CareCredit

Guest: Caitlin DeWilde, DVM

Episode Description:

We’ve all had a perfectly good day ruined by a bad online review. It can be tempting to shun social media entirely to avoid the negativity, but then we lose what can be a big-time builder of client loyalty and trust. Caitlin DeWilde, DVM, of The Social DVM, gives us great advice for improving how we receive and respond to reviews – both good and bad! - and for reshaping our social media protocols. (It’s OK if you don’t have those. Start here!) 

Get in touch with Caitlin at The Social DVM and check out the podcast she co-hosts at #IVETSOHARD.  

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Guest: Alison Gottlieb, CVT, VTS (ECC)

Episode Description:

Alison Gottlieb, CVT, VTS (ECC), joins us this week to help us celebrate the release of the 2022 AAHA Pain Management Guidelines. Ali served as a member of the task force behind these Guidelines, and she’s passionate about pain (and all things feline). Her main takeaways when it comes to managing pain in pets: We need to be proactive, and we need to work together.

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Find all of AAHA’s Guidelines, including resources for your clients and team, at aaha.org/guidelines.

Send us feedback or questions anytime at [email protected].

Listen where your favorite podcasts are found: