Did you guys miss me last week?
I was away at a Continuing Education Conference in Orlando. I love learning new things.
Plus, we saw Styx in Concert and partyed with them after the show.
Honestly I found them to be a little stiff.
But you should have heard my bongo solo.....
The North American Veterinary Conference is the biggest conference for vets in the united states. This year there were 7,000 veterinarians and 6,000 other parts of the veterinary team (techs, practice managers etc). The conference was 5 days long and lectures started at 6:30am and ended at 7pm. Mary, Vicki and her husband went with me. Mary and Vicki had been to other professional conferences before (Mary is a nurse practitioner and Vicki spent 14 years as a dental assistant) and they immediately mentioned a couple things....
1) Vets actually go to the lectures and the rooms are packed...
2) Vets are much more down to earth than the experiences that they have had
3) We are a nerdy bunch
I warned Vicki in advance that with 10 lectures to choose from every hour and about 10 hours a day of lectures, that after 5 days you will have too much information and there is a tendency to put it all away and try to make a time to look at it later. To make an experience like this matter, you have to choose things to implement change immediately in order for it to feel as good as it can. I challenged her to choose 3 things to implement change with in the next two weeks.
I chose my things in the hotel room
Hang on Kindred Spirits...here is what I have planned this year....
Tea and Chi--when I first started doing acupuncture, I did group sessions in the evening. I would make tea for the humans and I would place the needles in the pets. Great friendships were made and I really liked it. I'm going to start it again in March.
Lyme vaccines--I went to a lecture on spread of lyme disease by an epidemiologist from Cornell. He had no connection to the vaccine companies, I checked (ok, maybe I'm a little jaded). Its time to add Lyme vaccination to our routine shots. There are areas of New York that currently have 80% of their dogs positive for lyme, and just 3 years ago it was 20%. This year we jumped to 15%. We are on the cusp of a huge increase. There are now 3 choices for the vaccine, one clearly is more targeted and has less reactions. You know that I want to minimize vaccines whenever possible. I'm just not able to avoid this vaccine in good conscience. I will keep you all posted...we need to implement vaccination for most dogs in this practice.
I gave alot of thought this time about the quality of presentation and its affect on my connection to the subject matter. We are literally inundated with information now with the internet. Having someone give us the information with a 50 minute talk appeals to the way our brain has taken in information for 10's of thousands of years...by story telling.
For this reason, I will be starting monthly talks on relevant information for pet owners in our area. For instance....
What is new in flea control?
Lyme disease..what does the dog owner need to know?
Diabetes: Why has it increased by a factor of 10 in the past 15 years in cats?
Litterbox problems and how to solve them
You guys add the rest. I'll need a place to give it...the practice is too small. I need to hold 30-50 people. Anybody got ideas?
Some other topics will lend themselves better to evening discussions with those of you that have pets with certain problems. For instance, Feline asthma is on the increase, and there are several new therapies that show promise.
MRSA is a huge problem in humans (Methcillin Resistant Staph Aureus) Although this is not a common problem in veterinary medicine, we now have the same characteristics of antibiotic resistance in common veterinary bacterial infections. I've found about 6 patients with this problem this year, and I have information for all 6 of you. In addition, I will do a 50 minute lecture on that as well.
One last thing, there are also new products at these conferences, an area I usually avoid. But this year, I found a few things that are simply too cool to not get.
1st, I got a lens that fits on the microscope so that we can capture cells to show on a computer screen. With this I can email the pictures to you, or I can send them to a specialist without sending your pet. The lens was $270, so I have added $2 to the cytology charge. I figured you guys would be ok with that. :)
We met with representatives of a company that has made software for you as clients to be able to access your pets records on our computer anytime. In addition, this would allow the emergency clinic to access your pets records. We are currently testing this on our own pets and hopefully will launch it in the next few months for everyone. Of course, our biggest concern is to make sure that the information is 100% safe. We control the access and they guarantee no access to anyone but our clients. Signing up would be optional and at no charge to you. The cool factor was just too good to pass up checking it out!!!
One last thing...I found a group called the Association of Human Animal Bond Vets. I joined it. They had a series of talks one day on Ethical Considerations of the Human Animal Bond, Keeping your Heart in what you do, Pain Management, etc. It was like being in a room of me's. Except of 150 people there were only 5 guys. Anyway, one of the things that they asked us to do an excercise around was putting more energy into the things we like most about practice.
One of the surprises of what I like best about Kindred Spirits is writing this email Sunday nights. I love the feedback I get and I love the community that it brings together. At first I struggled with how much to share, but as any of you have been on the email list for any length of time have seen, I decided to let it flow openly and honestly. Of all the things I do that make me feel unique, this ranks at the top.
Sitting on the floor and getting hair on my pants would be number two.
They encouraged us to put more energy into the things that we liked.
My pants have enough hair, so I'm all set there.
So, encourage your friends to join my email list. You hit Forward to a Friend and then they hit Join our Email list .
Its that easy.
And don't be afraid to email me back if something hits a nerve. I gotta tell you that being a vet sometimes is emotionally exhausting..but checking my inbox and seeing you guys responding back makes me smile.
Singing "Come Sail Away" at the top of my lungs makes me smile too.....
