The Three Mistakes We Make

As I work to research stress and anxiety in our profession and talk to veterinarians about their daily struggles, it becomes clear to me that most of our stress comes from our expectations about, and interactions with our clients.  I have been doing this job for a long time and it seems that client interactions have become more and more tense for us.  We stress about correct diagnosis, treatment success, and surgery skill, but the things that seem to hit us the hardest are the things our clients think about us, say to us, and how they treat us on social media.

 

As I have been working through these thoughts, it occurred to me that there are three main reasons that we mentally struggle with our clients.  Three assumptions that we make about them, that if we could think differently, we could do a better job at managing our stress. 

Our first mistake when dealing with clients is that we assume that they know more than they know.  Sure, they often “Dr. Google” their pet’s symptoms and sometimes they are in the ballpark, but they really don’t have medical knowledge to discern whether their research makes practical sense, or understand diagnostic tests will be needed to confirm that Dr. Google diagnosis.  When I ask them questions about diet, symptoms, length of illness, or past medical history, I often get answers that do not add up.  For example, I see a mammary mass on a dog that is encompassing one quarter of the abdomen and the client tells me that it just popped up in the past few weeks.  I know that this cannot be true.  I know that this really means that the client is busy with everyday life, so they did not see anything wrong until it was seriously wrong.  If I choose to be upset by this fact, I will cause myself undo stress.  If I accept that this is where we are, and I can do my very best to make proper treatment recommendations from this place in time, I can proceed without taking on any anxiety about it.

The second mistake that we make when dealing with clients is that we assume that they want the very best and will do the very best for their pet.  We think we know “best”, but clients get to decide what is best for their pet and their situation.  Best is a matter of opinion.  We may not always agree with the choices that our clients make when it comes to their pets, but our job is to give them the options that we have been trained to give.  We need to allow them to make the choices for their pet and their family.  It is not up to us to judge their decisions.  We are there to support them in whatever decision that they make, without taking on the emotion.  We should assume that they will do what they believe is best for their pet.  We can love them through any “best” decision.

The third mistake that we make is that we assume that clients know how difficult our job can be.  We know that we are not God and cannot save every life. We understand our limitations.  We assume that clients realize this as well.  We think that they know we are doing our very best to help them in every situation.  They may actually think that we make a lot of money and are living richly off of the dollars that they spend in our hospitals.  They may think us uncaring when we give them a treatment plan that they cannot afford.  In reality, we are caring individuals that are doing a very difficult job and taking this all home with us.  We are causing ourselves undo stress and anxiety over every one of their pets’ problems. They do not see our pain.  Continuing to communicate with the public about how difficult some of our days can be is the first step in bridging this gap.

So, if you are a veterinary client reading this, or a working veterinarian, realize that we all care about the same thing: loving and healing pets.  Clients, you need veterinarians to be healthy and whole to help you. Veterinarians, you need your clients to continue the valuable work that you are passionate about.   We have a difficult job as veterinarians, but pet owners have a difficult job as well.   We are on the same team and we should treat each other with respect, compassion and understanding.

Being open to each other makes us better humans.

Dr. Julie Cappel

If having a soul means being able to feel love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals are better off than a lot of humans.

— James Herriot

Truly caring people know they have to take care of themselves first.
 - Marty Rubin

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Client expectations: Are we losing our patience?

In a service business like ours there are many opportunities for failure of expectations and client disappointment.  When people call into a veterinary hospital and they are unaware of the inner workings and complexity of the profession, they may think that having a doctor call them back is as simple as us sitting at our desk just waiting to return phone calls. In reality there are days when I never even see my desk or sit in any chair. 

Expectation is defined as, “a strong belief that something will happen or be the case in the future” and “a belief that someone will or should achieve something.”

I think the second definition is what gets veterinarians into trouble.  Client’s belief that something should happen the way they think it should happen.

Veterinary receptionists spend their day answering calls from concerned pet parents while they try to decipher the emergent from the ordinary.  They ask questions designed to read the minds of the clients on the other end of the phone, and without seeing the pet, decide how soon they need to squeeze them into an already packed schedule.  The doctors, working 10-12 hour days, are required to see patients that are ill, provide vaccinations, perform surgery, interpret radiographs, record everything -in detail - into computer charts, approve and write prescriptions, prescribe and dispense drugs, perform blood and urine tests, and then analyze and report those tests results to the clients.  These working doctors also have families and homes that they need to attend to.  At our hospital, we currently have two nursing mothers, who have to pump and store breast milk several times a day while keeping up with everything else.

Veterinarians and their technicians do what in human medicine would be done by a small army of people, and we do it all while the client waits.  When was the last time your human doctor called you back the same day, or reported your blood test results the next day?  

Our clients are most often very appreciative of our caring kindness, but sometimes there is a disconnect between what the client expects will happen, and what actually happens.  Then they may become angry either posting an ugly online review or hit us up with a frustrated phone call.  We hate that!  We are really trying to do our very best to make everyone happy, and an angry client is not our goal.

So, what can we do to help meet our client’s expectations?

We must improve our communication about the workings of the hospital and set boundaries.  Clients may get angry when we don’t do everything exactly the way they want us to, but if we communicate our boundaries, we let them know going in, what we can handle.  Clients don’t know that we have 8 other people to call, have a big surgery waiting, or have to run and pick up our kids from school in 20 minutes.  It is our job to communicate by saying, “Ms. Richards, I have only 5 minutes tonight to give you your pet’s results, but if we need longer than 5 minutes, I would be happy to call you again tomorrow so we can discuss further.”  Clients are thrilled to hear from us and love to spend time talking about their pet, so it is up to us to communicate our boundaries, and then have the mental strength to enforce them.  If clients get angry, we can calmly tell them that we are sorry that we have not met their expectations, however we are doing our very best for their pet.   Being honest with clients is the key to protecting yourself.  We need to take a lesson from our human doctor colleagues and train our clients to respect our free time so they understand what expectations should be.

It starts with honest communication by every member of the veterinary team to set the proper expectations.  Clients expect us to provide quality care for their pets while being kind and honest.  When they have unreasonable expectations about how we should schedule our time, it is up to use to set our boundaries and then let them decide whether they want to continue to work with us or move on to another caregiver.

“Assumptions are the termites of relationships.”―Henry Winkler

“Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.”―Bill Gates

Dr. Julie Cappel

Join me on The Veterinary Life Coach Podcast!  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-veterinary-life-coach-podcast-with-dr-julie-cappel/id1451549730