VETgirl On The Run
Why Invest in Developing Communication Skills in Veterinary Practice: Part 1 with Dr. Jane Shaw and Dr. Jason Coe
Who says nothing in life is free? That girl is here to prove that statement wrong. For 14 glorious days, you can have access to all the webinars and resources your heart desires for absolutely nothing, not a zip. In the best part, you don't even have to enter a credit card. So really, what are you waiting for? Take advantage of this amazing offer and get your learn on. As they say, knowledge is power, and with That Girl, you'll be unstoppable. Hi, Vet Girl, and super excited to speak with two brilliant veterinarians who are experts in client communication and communication and veterinary medicine. And so that's what we're going to be talking about today, because not all vet schools teach this. And this is one of the most important things when it comes to day-to-day interaction of being in the clinic. Today, I'm really excited to be joined with Dr. Jane Shaw and Dr. Jason Coe. And to just so our Vet Girl audience knows a little bit about you, do you guys mind giving us a brief intro of who you are, where you work, and what you do now? Dr. Shaw, do you want to start us off? Sure. I'm a professor and university distinguished teaching scholar at Colorado State University College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. And the predominant part of my job is teaching veterinary students communication skills. I also do research and practice environments on how communication impacts outcomes. And then I run continuing education workshops called Frank in the summers to help veterinary practitioners and veterinary professionals own their communication skills. Awesome. Thank you so much. And Dr. Coe. Yes. Thanks for having us. So my role at the Ontario Veterinary College is similar to James. I am a professor there, and I have a research program called Relationship Center Veterinary Medicine at the Ontario Veterinary College, where we explore many aspects of the social side of veterinary medicine. I also, similar to Jane, teach in our DVM program. And so through all four years, oversee the communications curriculum with some heavy emphasis in our second and third year. And so I'd say my responsibilities are supporting student veterinarians, supporting veterinary professionals that are hopefully listening to this podcast and the development of their communication and relationship skills, as well as continuing to build that evidence-based to support what we're doing in veterinary practice every day to really achieve the outcomes we want for ourselves, our practices and our clients and patients. Awesome. Well, thank you for all that you guys do. I know many people who've gone through Frank and love it. And it's something that not all schools emphasize or teach or have the time to do so. And obviously it's so important when it comes to veterinary communication, it's changed so much over the years from COVID to being curbside to not having that face-to-face interaction where you can pick up on body language to even things like moving to an electronic medical record where your back is to the pet owner while you're typing. So today I'm really excited to talk about why we need to invest in developing communication skills in veterinary practice. So first thing, why develop communication training in my veterinary practice? Why? Is it worth it? That's a great question to start off with, Justine. I think that that's always the first question you want to answer when you're thinking about bringing this training into veterinary practices and the thing that I can share with you is that there's over 40 years of research in human medicine looking at physician patient communication and over 20 years of research that Jane and I both had the privilege of contributing to veterinary medicine, looking at the impact of physician patient in human medicine and veterinarian or veterinary professional client communication on outcomes of care. And those would be things that most people in veterinary practice when they wake up in the morning go into practice or trying to achieve for themselves their teams and ultimately their clients and patients. So things like improving understanding of information in the recall or the ability to remember the information that we share with a client or a pet parent. Also just accuracy and efficiency and gathering information. We know that a comprehensive history is going to be important for setting up our whole trajectory of how an interview goes and we know through research that there are certain things we can utilize to really enhance that gathering of information in a much more efficient and accurate manner. And then things like client satisfaction are satisfaction I mean think any veterinary professional can relate you go in you connect with a client you feel good at the end of the appointment you go and you don't necessarily connect with that parent you leave it questioning wondering what's going on and then things like client adherence where we create a plan together that both us and the client are invested in and the ultimate goal of all of those outcomes is to impact patient health and so again evidence towards impacting patient health through this. I would just conclude that all of those lead to a very robust and healthy practice financial environment and practice performance and practice performance then feeds the bucket that allows us to take better care of our colleagues our patients and our clients because a healthy practice financial performance then brings resources that allows us to be able to offer even greater services to clients and the patients that we're caring for. Awesome point and be able to invest in our staff and being able to develop that communication training probably extends beyond the veterinary clinic to like life family partners spouses so so important. Now how does effective communication impact appointment efficiency I'm all about efficiency and you know in the ER it's very very different from being able to turn that preventive medicine appointment in 15 to 20 minutes. What can we do when it comes to effective communication? I think this is one of the greatest misperceptions of veterinary communication work. I think the common thought for most veterinarians of veterinary professionals is that communication takes too long. I don't have the time for this is probably one of the most common phrases that we hear or how do I make time for this and actually using the communication skills one of my colleagues and dear mentors Dr. Sam Romano will say go slow to go fast. So use the communication skills to go slow up front to build rapport to get a full agenda for the appointment to get a complete and thorough history to then go faster in the second half of the appointment because then you know the client you know the priorities you know some of their perceptions of what you're talking about and maybe identified some of the barriers to your plan and when you have that information you can kind of really make some good headway in the second half and have good purchase and buy in from the client. And that buy in is so important and again I think that was the hardest thing during COVID curbside right it's harder to have that client communication again over the phone versus in person when they can see you or they can see you you know heading their pet right showing that you care about the human animal bond all right great great information. Now how does communication training impact staff retention and professional wellness I think all of us know right now we're having a major problem in veterinary medicine with staff retention. Yeah that's a great question as well justine and I think that we've done some research that shows that if you supported an individual's engagement which includes professional development opportunities it's going to lead to greater satisfaction less burnout within your team as well as professional efficacy so they feel positioned to do the job that they're entitled so I really think that you know the whole idea of impacting retention and professional wellness comes back to you if we support the individual that supports the team we support the team that has impacts on the culture which just has this element that fosters a desire for staying with the team where you feel good about it obviously there are times where other factors come in that you can't control like your specimens or whatever that might be at the end of the day I think if we can invest in our team which includes investing in the individuals then that can have a big impact for sure on retention and the wellness of the overall team. I'll add too that I think a strong communication toolbox is one of the greatest preventative medicine tools we have for our professional wellness so if we feel confident and competent in handling some of those difficult conversations and those difficult conversations are with clients but also some of those difficult conversations are with our colleagues and managing conflict in the practice setting that if we feel skilled and capable of handling those conversations I kind of have this metaphor that when conversations don't go well we chuck them in our backpack and then pretty soon we have a pretty heavy backpack that we're carrying around all day and if we can have really effective conversations in the first place they don't even get in our backpack and we don't carry them and we don't have sleepless nights and we don't you know gnaw on these concerns we can just let them go and move on to the next thing. The thing that I would add there is coming back to that whole why investing communications training at the beginning where I think as Jane's talking about veterinary professionals likely can identify with those interactions that go well if the communication element to it and those that you know have been a struggle and the impacts that has on them directly and so again to Jane's point continuing to hone these skills at the individual and practice level is going to set up for more of those successful interactions which just creates that positive culture the retention that we were talking about earlier as well. Awesome information all right Jane so you just started talking about how to have that healthy practice culture which all of us want right and unfortunately it can be quite a struggle and that's why we're seeing staff lead how can these communication skills be used to grow a healthy practice culture? It goes back to what you said at the very beginning justine that we take these skills home and to work with us not just a client and so when we're in the treatment area when we're starting our day when we're ending our day when we have emergencies when we have time crunches the way we communicate with each other is the backdrop for our personal satisfaction with our our positions are we working in a healthy cooperative teamwork type of an environment or are we working in a competitive toxic talking behind each other's back environment and so open communication and Jason could talk even more about this as being accurate and timely and respectful and understanding each other's roles and really creating an environment of support where we're all trying to have a shared goal and move towards a common mission of serving our patients and clients each day working with each other instead of against each other and just to build on James Point I think the communication skills that we often talk about in the context of client interactions are the same communication skills we can use in our team interactions to foster that understanding respect and it always all through sort of that achieving of communication that is consistent frequent and problem solving rather than finger pointing which I think is also an important piece to it all and I think it's hard especially in the ER because it's already a high stress situation and people are running around so someone may be blurting out or yelling out I don't want to say command but like an order right a treatment order in the back is turned everybody's frazzled so again really really important that we make sure that we implement those communication skills in whatever practice we're in. Now what does it take to implement an effective communication training program? Yeah so I'll start and then I'll pass that off to Jane as well because I'm sure Jane has some great ideas from Jane's own experience around that. I think the first thing is coming to a recognition that communication skills can be developed and learned and so again it's not an inherent attribute that we possess it is something that can be developed and learned and anyone who puts their mind to it can so recognizing that it's then finding who are the champions within your practice so you can identify a group of champions that are invested in communication to really support the development of that training and then I think it's investing recognizing that communications training is really behavior change and so we don't expect a puppy or kitten that maybe has a behavioral issue we're trying to address that we address that in a single bit it's something that we plan over time and work with the client on and continue to coach and take the feedback and what's working and what's not in refine and so again we need to look at communications training is not a attending one session and we're going to be a different communicator it is a developed intentional plan of how that's going to happen over time and through that we know that we can have an impact and help people in developing where they are today and becoming an enhanced communicator tomorrow and so again I think it is really about having a plan and intention and recognizing that it is a learned skill. Jade? I think some of the core ingredients as I was listening to you Jason is vulnerability being vulnerable with yourself and being vulnerable in front of your team self-awareness being aware of what you think your strengths and your areas of development are being a receptive to feedback and so being open to hearing from others we all have blind spots that we're not aware of especially in our nonverbal communication and then humility I guess is another component of that vulnerability right the humility to say this is what I'm working on this is a hard thing for me I'm having struggle being able to change this behavior and then developing the support and partnership around it so a supportive environment and non-judgmental environment and having a buddy right having a learning buddy and a coach who can help you through that and support you through that and it's a constant as Jason said it is a I love my colleague I'm working with right now says I'm a work in progress we are all a work in progress and it's that humility and vulnerability to go I am continuing to grow and develop these skills and Jason and I have this conversation with each other all the time we do this for a living we breathe and drink this every day but I still mess it up and so is that humility to go that I'm going to mess it up and the thing I tell my students is the most important thing is not being perfect it's about making the recovery so we're not going to be perfect at this and when we do mess it up being able to back up and say I'm so sorry I caught myself you know I caught myself giving you so much information and you must be overwhelmed let me stop how are you doing this and just back it up and being able to say okay I can do this differently and fix it in the moment great great points thank you so much for that information all right so how do I go about developing communication coaches in my veterinary practice coach development is a large task to tell you the truth for someone who's been developing coaches for many many years for training our students and it's also I'll have to say one of the most rewarding things that I get to do and so it's so rewarding because in the moment you get to see the awareness bulb go off and you get to see people take a risk and be a courageous learner and try something else and put it into practice and so being a good coach has a lot of different skill sets one is knowing the skills that you're working on so your colleagues are working on so being able to have awareness of the skills being a good coach means asking not telling so many of us like to have the answers and like to fix things and so instead giving the question back to the colleague that we're working with and asking them how might they accomplish that and it means being a facilitator putting our agenda aside and really supporting that person and their agenda so what are they trying to do and really being focused on partnering with them yeah I really appreciate Jane's acknowledgement of coaching being more about asking than telling and that is a real shift I think for a lot of people and how we approach things I think as veterinarians you know we have knowledge we want to share that knowledge in an appointment room and so we tell clients what they need to know or we feel they need to know yet we know there too it's more about asking first and then informing based on what we understand from them and I think coaching is very similar where we want to kind of work with an individual step back from that expert in-charger role standpoint and really foster a relationship where we're supporting the person where they are and where they need or want to go rather than where we think they need to go and so it is a whole different way of approaching things from you know a teacher to becoming a coach you know it's interesting when you were talking about your colleague saying I'm still a work in progress I actually saw that on a food server as a pin and I thought it was so cool right because we can all use that or identify that we all need constant self-improvement which brings me to my last question how do I serve as a role model for effective communication in a stressful ER or to busy veterinary clinic I think one of the other misperceptions we have is that a lot of us our self-perception is we are good communicators and we are we wouldn't be where we are in the profession right now if we didn't have good communication skills and at the same time I think we think that we learn communication by osmosis of watching and being demonstrated and we know that that just fosters unfortunately more bad habits and so being a really good model is really being intentional and purposeful about using your skills it goes back to what I was saying earlier about being vulnerable and being self-aware and saying oh my gosh I just did this it also means admitting to your team man I cannot ask an open-ended question to save my life right being really honest and open with your team to say this is something I'm working on too or I really struggled with empathy for a long time here's what helped me develop that skill and so it's being that self-aware vulnerable and open and then also receptive to the feedback of your colleagues right that you are not and everyone in the team is an expert it's a shared expertise in working on this skill yeah it's interesting as I think about that question as well thinking about just the overcoming so there are going to be people that feel like they're great communicators and to James Point I think that I mean everybody has something they bring to the table that is very effective and there's blind spots I think that was James word earlier on as well that we're not aware of I also think that you know when people come to communications training and think about taking that back to their practice there's sometimes this feeling of imposter syndrome where I couldn't be a role model I'm working in developing my own communication skills and I think the thing I would echo from what we've shared already is that there are not experts in communication we're all a work in progress in terms of developing our communication skills Jane talked about her and I over the last number of years if you've been between ourselves had communication gaps that we've had to kind of close and repair in relation to that and so I think part of it is recognizing there is not an expert in that we can all continue to support each other and trying to demonstrate and when it doesn't go the way that we maybe had intended the closest I see as people getting to expert in communication is taking those moments and turning them into either a self-teachable moment even more so though a teachable moment for others so identify it talk about it and use it as a how could we or us or I approach that differently so again it becomes an opportunity for coaching love it thank you so much you know it's again something that we don't always get taught I know for me and Jane knows this also having been taught at Cornell I remember in our community practice service that's where I learned most of the communication it was you know where we basically got to run the room as a third or fourth year vet student and there was a video system that would air into a back room with a community practice service doctor was watching our communication style and would you know often give us a feedback on how we can improve that so I always say the more you practice the better and I actually always help forth your vet students and even interns that they'll learn the medicine but oftentimes when they're on clinics what I want them to learn is the doctor spiel because that's what's the most important we oftentimes don't always get to hear it as a specialist I don't hear other specialists giving the quote unquote spiel and I remember once having a case when I was on faculty at University of Minnesota and the neurologist was gonna follow in after me and he said oh do you want to come in I was like oh that's kind of weird but sure and it was my first time hearing his spiel about intervertebral disc disease and it was just a really cool opportunity even as a a credit list to be able to hear another doctor spiel so again sometimes you hear it and you're like mmm that's not the way I'm going to communicate and sometimes you hear someone's style and you're like yeah yeah I really like that so there's always things that we can pull from different conversations that we have every day now I did want to talk to you having authored a book before I know how much work goes into authoring books and I understand both of you guys authored a book called developing communication skills for veterinary practice and I was wondering if you could just give me a little information about the book where people can get it and why it's important for general practitioners for emergency doctors for all our staff to be able to check this book out in terms of the nuts and bolts you can purchase the book on Amazon so it's listed there it is intended to be really a guidebook to walk you through learning and developing 20 communication skills it also has a section on how to coach and how to develop coaching and I was thinking about this earlier in relation to how do you develop a coach the first step is learning the skills and the second step is then learning how to coach the skills and so the book kind of follows that progression it has learning activities so that you can practice the skills both if you were kind of wanting to work on this solo and also you could run an entire practice team through the book it has exercises to work as a team and to be able to work through the skills and teach each other the skills Jason do you want to talk about it the research behind the book yeah so I think that what I would add is that it is from a very skill-based approach so just team share question about how transferable Jane mentioned it is not only in the context of client interactions but also team interactions and then it could be across disciplines in relation to the practice of veterinary medicine given that Jane and I have over the last 20 years contributed fair bit to the evidence behind communication in veterinary practice we've also taken the opportunity to kind of take spotlights of the research that we and those that we've worked with have done and promote how that really can be used to inform how we engage with that client to achieve those outcomes I talked about at the beginning of the podcast and so again really trying to make an all-encompassing taking a skill-based approach so it's transferable to all these different contexts that you were asking about and then I think the piece that you know Jane and I came to later in developing the book was the idea of including a coaching chapter it is very much about here's the starting point and then here's how we bring this and we use this with others in our practice team so that everybody has the opportunity to benefit from it well huge congratulations on the book I know how much work it was and it's not a typical book because it's not a medical textbook but again so so important when it comes to I don't want to say surviving but surviving daily veterinary clinic life right this is something we do every single day and again always helps us to be a more well-rounded person in family life and family interactions you know relationships thanks for all that you guys do really really looking forward to part two of this podcast and really appreciate it thanks Trustee thank you Justine thank you vet girl [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]