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VN tips: client communication
While we know nurses join the veterinary profession for their love of animals, there is so much more to their job description. Veterinary nurses wear many hats covering so many important roles within the clinic.

As with veterinarians, client communication is a vital component of their job and can often be one of the most challenging.

Conveying compassion

Client communication is a vital component of a veterinary nurse’s job.

One thing I have learned to appreciate about nurses is their endless supply of compassion for their patients. Having the ability to convey this compassion to an owner is a sure-fire way to develop a positive relationship, which is the veterinary dream.

Admitting a beloved pet to hospital can be a stressful time for owners. They don’t understand what happens behind the scenes, they just know their pride-and-joy is disappearing into the unknown with someone they have likely never met.

Owners have a tendency to ask nurses questions they were either too shy to ask the vet, or too overwhelmed to remember to ask during their consultation, so I decided to ask the nurses at Animal Emergency Service how they reassure our clients during the admission process.

Offering reassurance

Here are some tips our nurses find useful when dealing with clients:
- Introduce yourself and let them know their pet is in exceptional hands.
- Know the pet’s name and why it is at the hospital.
- Understand the procedures their pet is undergoing while in your care.
- Let them know they are welcome to call and you will be happy to inform them how their pet is getting on while in hospital.
- Never tell them everything will be fine. You can never be sure with medical procedures, but reassure them they are in the best hands possible – their pet is being treated as if it was your own pet in hospital.
- Make them feel their pet is special. Most clients are under the impression their pet is the only patient in the hospital and is essentially the most important pet you’re dealing with that day.
Let owners know their furry friend is comfortable and relaxed in hospital, and receiving an abundance of love. Happy patients make for happy clients and if anyone can reassure an owner his or her pet is receiving the love it deserves, it’s a warm-hearted nurse – just another reason nurses are known as the hearts of our clinics.
May 9, 2022
Thank you to ‘incredible’ nurses during VN Awareness Month

Veterinary nurses – the doting advocates and voices for the pets in our practices and hospitals.

As a vet in a busy emergency hospital, I have the utmost appreciation for our team’s incredible hard work and the compassion they show – not just for our patients, but towards each other.

Special thanks, this month, has to go to the incredible veterinary nurses of this world. The compassionate way they carry themselves in the clinic and all the hard work they do always leaves me feeling inspired.

Thank you

“Optimistic, thorough and empathetic.”

Nurses are optimistic, thorough and empathetic – but, most of all, they are the doting advocates and voices for the pets in our hospital. The love, care and kindness they display every shift is incredibly inspiring and, as vets, we really couldn’t do our job without them.

So, rather than a tip this week, I would like to say thank you to veterinary nurses – thank you for supporting us, supporting owners and, most of all, supporting the pets in our care.

In the spirit of Veterinary Nursing Awareness Month, I decided to ask the nurses from where I work – Animal Emergency Service – about their experiences; what they think about being a veterinary nurse and what keeps them coming back day after day.

VN views

Together, we will discover what they find most challenging, how they overcome these obstacles and what tips they have for nurses around the world to make the most of their nursing careers.

Over the next few posts throughout May, I will compile a collection of useful tips our nurses find important in maintaining good mental health, a gold standard of veterinary nursing and positive client communications. I will discuss useful tips on how best to overcome the physical and emotional challenges seen in so many clinics worldwide.

Watch this space…

May 2, 2022
Social media, pt 4 – content creation

Goals, targeting and platform are really important, but the most important aspect is, of course, content – what will you actually say and will your audience see it?

Generating content can be really time-consuming, but one thing I’ve learned is I tend to overthink it – a simple image or short video can really speak to people; it doesn’t always have to be profound or polished.

However, a plan needs to be in place to make it work. Think about who will create your posts – internal staff or external, and if external, how well do they know your business? Most posts should have an action you want people to take, so make it really clear if it’s a click, sign-up or watch. Plus, think about who will schedule it and who will monitor it.

Mix it up

At our hospital, we try to be consistent and post three times a week on the same days and times – although when we started, we did experiment with different days and times to see where we got the most engagement from our audience.

We find what works best is cute, informative and surgical (or gory) posts. However, no winning formula exists – expecting something to go viral is almost a guarantee it will not. The best advice is you have to mix it up, try new things and see what works best, but don’t stop experimenting and learning.

Permission to post

The most important aspect in a veterinary practice, if you are showcasing pets, is consent – always ask permission before posting. It is one of our key policies and we have a robust process, using consent forms and telephone calls, to ensure clients are happy with us telling their story.

For us, in emergency, this is essential as we deal with some of the sickest of sick pets. With this in mind, we tend to wait until they have been discharged from our care for a number of weeks and follow up with a call to see how the patient is before we consider releasing videos or case studies.

Make sure they also know the posts are for the purpose of education and prevention.

Make sure you are prepared to respond to questions and comments.

Back and forth

Always remember, too, that social media is a two-way street. When you open yourself up on social media, be prepared for questions, comments and reviews that come your way.

Set aside time – and have a policy in place – for answering and responding. This is especially true for the negative ones, which, inevitably, despite best intentions, every practice will get.

Done well, and with the right time, team and money invested, social media in the veterinary industry is a brilliant way to showcase the fascinating, inspiring, sometimes strange and utterly rewarding work we do each and every day.

April 27, 2022
Social media, pt3 – choosing the right platform
Understanding which social media platform will work for your practice really depends on your key audience and the type of content you want to share.

Loads of social media platforms exist and I sometimes find I’ve just got the hang of one, only to be encouraged to try a new one. It’s easy to get caught up in the next big thing, but considering we also need to do our demanding jobs, it is important we get it right and don’t waste our time.

Each channel is different, so should be used in different ways. My advice is keep it simple and master a few channels, rather than doing most of them.

Choosing and using the right platform

To help find the best social media platform for you, start by asking yourself these four simple questions:

Why?

It is important to ask what the overall motivation is. Each platform has its preferred type of audience and style; therefore, look at what you want to achieve and go with the platform that can offer the best return.

Do you want to increase traffic to your website, increase search engine optimisation (SEO), create a community with clients, or reach new people? Once you know your social media goals, the platform you should be using will become obvious.

Also, give each platform time. They take time to grow – especially organically.

Which?

“Facebook is by far the largest social media platform and is great for reaching the pet and veterinary communities,” says Gerardo.

Research each platform to identify which one offers the biggest audience reach, how easy is it to reach them and what style – photos, text, video or blogs, for example – works best.

Facebook is by far the largest and great for reaching the pet and veterinary communities. Plus, content remains on there – like a mini website – for years. Other channels such as Instagram, Google+ and Twitter have a quicker and more visual approach, but content gets old very quick. Google+ and Twitter are also good for improving SEO, so they are worth considering for your strategy.

LinkedIn is tailored more to business-to-business, Tumblr for blogging and Reddit as a discussion forum. If you want to engage with a younger demographic then Snapchat and Instagram are best, while Pinterest has more female users.

We have found it is better to focus on a couple of platforms with equal benefits on engaging with our audience, reaching local pet owners, and increasing web traffic and enquiries.

When?

Think about when you will be posting. Look at each platform to see when people are online – before work? After work? At lunch?

If you find your audience is online outside of work hours then, to take the stress out of it, go for platforms with a simple scheduling tool, such as Facebook, so you can schedule posts in advance – saving you having to think about things each day.

Only commit to what you can – a post every day may sound good, but in reality, it may be a stretch too far. Do two or three posts a week to begin with and alternate days on each channel. That way, you will have content live on most days of the week.

Also, it is important to think about how many users will have access to each platform, how will you monitor who is responsible for what, and who will be responding to comments and messages.

How?

Focus your time. It is worth investing a little time to understand what the platform can really offer – if you can, watch tutorials, read blogs or ask an expert.

With Facebook, once I really looked at what it could do versus what we were doing, I found we were not taking advantage of its full potential.

Most social platforms are constantly updating and evolving what they offer, so keep up to date and make sure you get the most out of them.

Also, if you find one platform isn’t working out, don’t be afraid to close the account.
- Next week, we will be looking at the all-important content and how to get it right.
April 25, 2022
Social media, pt 2 – targeting your audience
Last week, we discussed core goals for social media within a veterinary practice. This time, I want to look at target audience – how to define them, how to reach them and how to keep them engaged.

Getting the audience right is essential. Otherwise, you are just wasting your time and money – and who wants that?

You need to put yourself in their mindset – sometimes, we want to share something from the practice; however, is it really of interest to the pet-loving public?

“Keep it simple” is the best advice I was given. Social media posts tend to have a short shelf life – blink and you miss them, so make your point quickly and make sure the intended audience knows to pay attention.

What? When? How?

You always have to think about what your audience wants to know, how it wants to know it and when it will be online to see it. By profiling your main audiences, you can then create images, video, wording and tone that is going to engage them.

As with most things, having a strategy in place for each audience group is important. When you start, you want to experiment with timings of posts, style, and content and creative, but after a while, you will see a clear outline of who, what and when works for you.

Hashtags are a type of metadata tag used on social network and microblogging services that make it easier for users to find messages with a specific theme or content.

It is important to use the insights on your chosen platform – from that, you can learn which posts are the most liked, most shared, the demographics of your audience and the times that seem to get the most engagement.

Reaching the right people

Make sure you have researched hashtags, locations, interest groups, ages and keywords. Also, when you add an image, video or blog, make sure your tagging and keywords are accurate and up to date.

Many social platforms and networks reward a page for relevance and authentic content. This is even more important for paid content – it may be tempting to get likes and follows from the cheapest targeting; however, it is better to build an audience of those who may need your service and are relevant.

Also, regularly profiling your audience may show a potential audience group you are missing – such as, perhaps, a younger demographic, a location that doesn’t engage or an industry angle.

Striking the right balance

My book The MiniVet Guide is aimed at helping students through their studies and in clinical practice – so a key audience for me is veterinary students. I love sharing tips, tutorials and surgical videos to help them in their journey as they become a vet – and their response has been incredible.

I quickly discovered what engaged them and what didn’t – even if I sometimes want to post something different, you have to find the right balance between what you enjoy sharing and what the audience wants to see.
- Next week, I will look at what platforms to use and how to get the most out of them.
April 18, 2022
Social media – getting your practice online
For the next month, I want to move away from the clinical and medical aspects, and focus on some other demands and challenges part of everyday veterinary life. So, over the next four weeks, I will look at the main considerations when planning social media campaigns for your veterinary practice.

As a director of a number of emergency animal hospitals, it is also part of my role to produce content, develop a strategy and oversee our social media presence.

Of course, I am not solely responsible. I am lucky to have a great team surrounding me, which is crucial in making social media work in your practice – it has to be a team effort with everyone understanding, and sticking to, the agreed rules, strategy and objectives.

If I am honest, I was unsure about our hospitals – and me, personally – venturing out on social media; however, after a couple of years, it had proved both rewarding and essential in raising awareness of our work and profession, and in connecting with our clients and pet-loving public.

In this four-part series, I will look at four key aspects in making social media work for your practice. The first aspect is goals, or motivation for getting your practice online socially.

Goals and objectives

Firstly, the whole practice must agree and commit to a set of shared goals and objectives, and all be on the same page when it comes to what they want to achieve and how to go about it.

Without a plan or strategy in place, no direction, teamwork or accountability exists. Plus, it is hard to know you have been successful, if the practice hasn’t agreed what successful means to them.

Secondly, for the most part – although it is nice to get a little fame and recognition – the main motivation for any vet practice when sharing what they do socially is that it comes from a place of training and education. We all want to educate pet owners in preventive measures and help them keep their pets safe and healthy.

I also find in the veterinary industry, misinformation and misconceptions can exist about the work vets actually do, so this is our chance to show and educate people what it is really like behind the scenes, by showing real life stories and cases – even the tough ones. This has been a favourite aspect of mine – I love being able to share what we do behind the scenes, and the reaction has been incredible.

Thirdly, in a veterinary practice, social media offers a unique opportunity to strengthen and enhance the client bond, and be a constant source of accurate and important pet health information. Being able to have that two-way street with our clients is also essential for us to continually improve and learn.

Public awareness

Emergency practices don’t have clients as such; they only need us when their pet is in a critical state. So, what we want is for the public to know our name, what we do and, most importantly, where we are in case, one day, they need us.

Social media has been integral in allowing us to reach and engage with people before they actually need us.
- Next week, Gerardo will be looking at targeting and its importance in creating return on investment on your social media efforts.
April 11, 2022
Join us for VN Happy Hour: finding your nursing niche

THEME: Finding your nursing niche: how developing a nursing specialism can enhance your clinical career

DATE: Thursday 28 April

TIME: 8pm

Join us for this month’s VN Happy Hour while we discuss finding your nursing niche!

The event will include guest speakers including Emma Gerrard, Jack Pye and Abi Edis the discussing everything from how to find your niche to career diversification.

VN Happy Hour is a free monthly event from VN Times. For information on forthcoming VN Happy Hour events, follow us on Facebook.

To sign up for this months event click here https://tinyurl.com/nursingniche

April 1, 2022
Catharsis, enemas and colonic irrigation for acute oral poisoning
Great news for those who hate enemas: you may not have to do any of these ever again. This is the consensus by both the American Academy of Clinical Toxicology, and the European Association of Poisons Centres and Clinical Toxicologists.

The theory behind these procedures is legitimate – reducing systemic exposure of a toxicant by accelerating gastrointestinal tract (GIT) expulsion. But this is assuming the toxicant is absorbed very slowly, undergoes substantial enterohepatic cycling, or undergoes slow reabsorption in the lower GIT – all of which are uncommon characteristics of the types of toxicants veterinary patients are exposed to.

In fact, most toxicants of veterinary interests are generally rapidly absorbed in the upper GIT and absorption are not affected by catharsis.

Lack of evidence

No clinical evidence exists to support the use of a cathartic alone, or in combination with activated charcoal, to reduce the bioavailability of drugs or to improve the clinical outcome of poisoned patients. In fact, some evidence shows systemic exposure is increased following oral dosing of sorbitol, with activated charcoal, in canine paracetamol poisoning cases.

Similarly, no evidence exists that enemas and/or colonic irrigation improve clinical outcome in the treatment of oral poisoning.

The risks can be quite high with these procedures, with patients at risk of:
- haemorrhage (in the case of anticoagulant vitamin K antagonist rodenticides, for example)
- electrolyte destabilisation
- bowel perforation
- rectal prolapse
- phosphate toxicities (cats)
The risks simply do not outweigh the benefit (or lack thereof). In fact, repeated dosing with combination preparations containing sorbitol and activated charcoal is not recommended.

This may be the most exciting news in veterinary medicine!
March 28, 2022
Intoxication: decontamination advice
Building on from last week’s blog on telephone advice, this is what I advise owners they can do at home if their pet has been exposed to a toxin.

Figure 2. The patient’s blood gas analysis and electrolyte panel. Note the sodium concentration.

The main exposure routes are ocular, dermal and gastrointestinal.

Ocular

Acids and alkalis cause the most severe effects, as they can cause ongoing damage for some time after initial contact.

Eye irrigation

Avoid contact lens solution as this can cause further irritation. Instead, I recommend:
- tepid water, saline or distilled water
- 20 to 30 minutes (ideally)
- rinse from medial to lateral, to avoid contamination of the other eye
Once the eye(s) have been flushed, recommend the animal be taken to the veterinary clinic for further assessment. Corneal ulceration can be difficult to see with the naked eye.

Dermal

Owners need to take precautions to protect themselves from contact with the toxin. The aim here is for owners to remove as much of the toxin off the skin of their pet without exposing themselves to it.

The most common method is bathing or rinsing with a mild dish soap in warm water. If it is a dry power and it safe, vacuuming off the powders may be tried, unless risk of aerosolisation of the toxin is high.

Gastrointestinal

Oral exposure

Ideally wearing gloves, instruct the owner to wipe the inside of the lips and over the gums using a damp dish cloth to try to remove any toxin remaining on the mucous membranes. Warn the pet may try to bite and, if it does, to stop immediately.

Ingested toxins

Inducing emesis depends on the type of toxin, but, either way, I do not recommend emesis induction to be performed at home. I have seen disastrous effects from salt slurries (Figures 1 and 2).

Emesis induction is most safely performed in a clinical setting where the medications that can be administered are safer and more effective.

Seizures

Nothing can be done at home to stop a seizure. If a toxin is causing a pet to seizure then it is unlikely they will stop, so will require medications. The pet will need bringing into the clinic immediately.

I suggest owners do not try to put their fingers in their pet’s mouth, as they are very unlikely to choke on their own tongue.

Wrap them in a blanket to help prevent injury to the owners. Once in the car, keep the head slightly down – if they do vomit or have large amounts of foam then it is allowed to fall out of the mouth, not build at the back of the mouth and lead to aspiration.
March 21, 2022
Don’t limit yourself

Fourth year at vet school seems to finish before it’s even begun – and that’s not a romanticism.

It’s only six months (running from September to February), so even if you factor in time spent on exams, it sort of feels like cramming a whole year into just half the space of time. Like too much butter over too little bread.

Short year

There are many maladies of fourth year that nobody quite prepares you for.

For starters, exams come before Easter (so you don’t even get a chocolate fix while revising), there’s no real summer holiday (unless you count an overseas EMS placement) and – the scary part – it’s the stepping stone between being a plain ol’ student and basically being an actual vet.

Despite these curveballs to the regular programming of the vet course, I believe fourth year has been my favourite so far. However, I’m not sure if it’s the nostalgia after intercalating for a year, the delicious lack of biochemistry and 9am dissections, or the slow and almost intangible sensation of everything coming together.

Mixing bowl

It’s most certainly a scary jolt when you realise that, academically speaking, the university staff have essentially taught you everything there is to teach you. There are no more ingredients to becoming a veterinary professional – all that’s left is to mix them all together and hope you come out fully baked.

It’s also a familiar type of “scary” – like holding your unopened A-level results envelope, or moving out of home and into halls. It’s a precipice of the unknown, but there’s also a lot of potential there. Staring into the jaws of final year is a humbling experience and it feels like the beginning of the end of a very long journey.

Looking back, the past five years seem like a blur and despite the fact most of the friends I started university with are now working 9 to 5 and getting on the property ladder, I can’t quite believe I’m already here. Is it really that time already?

Limitless

Academics aside (you know, the actual important bit), I’d say my takeaway from my time so far probably boils down to just one point: don’t limit yourself.

This applies to every aspect of life at vet school – from trying different clubs and sports in your first year, to keeping your options open when it comes to what type of vet you actually want to be. For example, when I first started writing for Vet Times as a wee 19 year old, I knew down to my bones that I wanted to be a farm vet… until I didn’t.

That’s not to say that cows aren’t still the cutest things that fill me with absolute joy, because they do. It’s even become a sort of car game among my vet friends to point out fields of them on long journeys. The fact of the matter is, I don’t know what I want to be any more, unless there’s an option for everything?

Growing confusion

I never really considered myself an exotics enthusiast, or a conservationist, or a wildlife welfare advocate until halfway through my veterinary degree, and with each passing EMS placement I become more and more torn as to which area I’d like to branch into.

“Don’t limit yourself” is also applicable to your life and interests outside of the course, to giving yourself a much-needed break during the revision period, and not being scared to ask questions of that vet who knows everything now, but was once just like you.

Don’t miss out

It makes for a very cheesy motto, but if you get too caught up in where you think you should be going when you first start vet school, you might miss out on some really incredible opportunities along the way.

It’s natural for you to end up being a very different person at the end of the course than you were when you first applied (a culmination of all of those years and experiences) – I know I certainly am.

March 16, 2022