From Stage Manager to Vet Technician: Nicole Dickerson's Surprising Career Transition

Vet Life Reimagined brings Nicole Dickerson, RVT, VTS (ECC)! Nicole has an interesting and unique vet tech career path. Her first career was as a theatre stage manager. Then she entered vet life as a Registered Veterinary Technician and then a VTS in Emergency and Critical Care. Now she has found a brand new opportunity and it was through her speaking and teaching.

In Nicole’s fun, engaging way, she shares some fascinating parallels between stage theatre chaos and emergency room urgency. Nicole has worked with some very famous people from Mandy Patinkin to Carrie Fischer! You'll see scenes from Les Miserables to The Lion King Broadway productions.

So, whether you're a veterinary technician craving veterinary career inspiration, a veterinarian curious about improving communication skills, or anyone who just loves a good story, get ready for an amazing episode with Nicole Dickerson!

Resources:
🌐 Vet Life Reimagined website
💡 Episode on YouTube
🎶 Beryl & Nicole's music on YouTube
🐈‍⬛ 🎙️ Nicole's Cat Disgusted podcast
🎶 Nicole's band, Portmanteau Quartet from Humboldt

Transcript

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[00:00:00] I seem to perpetually put myself in this position where I'm the one in the room who knows the least. And so like when I was stage managing, I was always, I was early in my life. So I was often the youngest in the room, often the one kind of learning things as I went. Then I became a veterinary technician in my thirties, went back to school.

Here I am again, like knowing nothing, like, like now I'm the oldest in the room. And now here I go again. Welcome back to Vet Life Reimagined. Today, we get to dive into a career path so unique it could be an opening act all its own. Our guest, Nicole Dickerson, is a registered veterinary technician and a VTS in emergency and critical care.

And before all of that, Nicole was a theater stage manager. An interesting fact is that this isn't a tale of two different worlds. In Nicole's fun, engaging way, she shares some fascinating parallels between stage theater chaos and an emergency room urgency. In addition to swapping spotlights for surgical lamps, Nicole's fascinating career path has taken her to a position managing a team in a university [00:01:00] research setting.

She also holds the one and only seat for the California VMA. for technicians and she is a great entertainer. She hosts the podcast called Cat Disgusted and she's a musician. I love Nicole's energy and passion. So whether you're a technician craving career inspiration, a vet curious about improving your communication skills because she's an expert, or anyone who just loves a good story, get ready for an amazing episode with Nicole Dickerson.

Oh, let's see. So I will take you back. I will take you back to what I refer to as my previous life, which is when I was a stage manager for the theater. And so I did that. So when I was in. This is like the Time Warp of the Dwayne's World Time Warp, but this is like way back in high school, I learned what technical theater was.

I had no idea what it was. And basically what technical theater means is it means all of the people that are in charge of what makes the magic [00:02:00] happen on stage. So what the audience sees is they see like, Les Mis is a good example. So Les Miserables has the big barricade, right? They got that giant piece of scenery that moves in and collapses and turns around and the table spins around and people are running on Fontaine has long hair in the beginning and then it's all cut short because she has to sell it.

Right? So her hair changes on state back and forth. All the people that are in charge of making that type of theatrical magic feel very real are all technical theater people. And that was where I learned that existed was in high school because the technical director at the theater was really enthusiastic and really passionate and he involved a lot of us in doing a lot of that backstage magic.

So that was like the when my eyes were opened to what that was. So I decided that I was going to major in theater arts and lighting design in college, much to my parents chagrin. and abandoned the idea of doing something more science y. Like, originally I thought maybe I'd do marine biology, or [00:03:00] biology or zoology or something, like my mom did.

But then I fell in love with the magic of theater, and that's what I wanted to do. And it seemed like you could actually make a living doing that, which I didn't know was possible. And that's how I fell in love with backstage work and with stage management. And so when I went to college, That was where I then realized, again, that being a lighting design major means that you're doing, the majority of what you're doing is actually not in the room where the magic is happening.

You're actually more at the drafting table. You're choosing gel colors. You're going to like maybe one or two run throughs if you're lucky. But really what you do is you live your life perpetually in what's called tech week or hell week, which is means that's when all the technical elements are coming together.

Like the costumes get put on for the first time. The lights come on for the first time. The actors are often on stage for the first time because they've been in a rehearsal hall the rest of the time and it's these 12 hour days and they're relentless and it's there's opening night. That date is not moving around.

So there's going to be butts in the seats at that time. Everybody's got to get the work done. So as a lighting [00:04:00] designer, you're perpetually in that week because that's when you do the majority of your work. And I was like, Oh, Hmm, maybe that's not what I want to do is spend my life in what's colloquially termed as hell week.

But then I also realized that lighting designers aren't in the rehearsal room really. They're in tech week for sure, but they're not really there watching the process happen along the way. And that's what I found really fascinating and like the story of how. the actors came, what they are, what the audience sees on stage.

And what I realized was there is a technical person that's in the room for that entire process, and that's the stage manager. And the stage manager also gets to call all of the light cues. So that was part of what I really liked about line design was creating the cues, writing all of the, there's two things that move on stage, actors and lights.

And so like the way that the lights would like move around people and highlight certain things. And that's how you make. disappearing acts happen, like the Harry Potter musical that was in San Francisco. So much of that [00:05:00] magic has to do with the trick of the lights and where they are and drawing your attention.

I realized that as a stage manager, I could still be very involved in that. In fact, directly involved in that because now I'm in charge of calling where all those cues happen. And in lighting design in small theater, oftentimes the designer is the one who's calling their own cues. And so that's how I realized like that.

I really liked doing that and stage managers do that all the time. So I'm like, Oh, cool. Here's a job that I can do. So I shifted my focus there. And then after college, I was stage managing at some small theaters around some small ones in San Francisco stage managed at a little tiny theater. That's still in existence today called the Western stage in Salinas, California, home of John Steinbeck.

And what I did was I worked towards becoming part of the union, the actors equity union. And that's the same union that employs actors and stage managers. Cause we're in the room at the same time. That was really a mark of success when you were stage managing was getting to be part of that union because then your health care gets covered and you're under union contracts, you're in [00:06:00] charge of all of the actors who are on stage and their union hours and everything.

So that was a really big. That was a big time marker in my career when I finally became part of the union. And then I operated as a freelance stage manager for about 10 years, 11 years. And I just did the rotation of Berkeley Rep and ACT and California Shakespeare Theater and Orinda, pretty much all in the Bay Area.

I had one little tiny TV stint, which was in New York and Orange, New Jersey, where I stage managed Carrie Fisher's Wishful Drinking HBO special. Oh, wow. It was a trip. That was actually when I was in tech school though. So I like count that as like the weird sidebar one, but I did, I did that for 10 years and had some amazing experiences.

Of course, there's still people that I'm just. deeply close to today that are part of that whole part of my life, but stage management is like air traffic control. You have to be cool. You have to keep your cool no matter what's happening. That's why the Les Miserables is a good kind of idea to illustrate like how [00:07:00] technical theater works is because stage management, the way that everything moves on there, if you imagine that barricade coming into how big that is, someone's got to time that correctly because it's got to come together right at the center at the same time to make sure that actors aren't going to get Pushed by it, but also be lit correctly.

So you don't see like lines and kind of things that are going to get in the way that are part of the mechanics, but also the turntables got to be facing the right direction when that happens. And all the actors have to get queued as to when they can enter when everything's safe, and then they have to sing a song.

So the band has to know when the scene shift is done, right? So all of that has to get coordinated somehow. by air traffic control. And that was me. So like, I'd have a bank of cue lights. I'm like switching little lights to, you're talking the whole time. Sometimes you have to talk and switch lights and all people are doing is watching a green and a red, like green means go red means stop.

Like it's, so you're talking the whole time, but you're also like flipping cue lights. And you're also Watching a monitor that might be somewhere that's in an infrared [00:08:00] camera where you can see in the dark, but nobody else can to get clearances from when people are going to be out of the way of something coming in.

So they don't get their head chopped off as like somebody swings in from backstage. So it's very complex and it's all happening in real time. So that part of the urgency of that, I loved that. I thought that was the best thing ever. That was the coolest part of my job was running the shows like that. So then.

Sidebar 10 years later, you only get one day off a week. It's really hard to take vacations as a freelance person because you're not paid for those. You just have to take your breaks around your gigs. I was getting a little burnt. I started working at a circus dinner theater, because that's what you do when you need a break, is you work in a frickin dinner theater with trapeze artists flying around your champagne.

But it was a bit of a lateral move because it was not a union contract, but it had more days off a week. And because I had more days off a week, I could shift my focus. In other places, like, what do I want to do next? And I [00:09:00] started volunteering at the SFSPCA in San Francisco. And what I would do is socialize the cats, and I'm not even really sure their programs like structured the same way anymore, but I would sit with these cats that were shelter animals, weren't up for adoption yet, and read the paper with them or play with little cat toys with them and just get them used to humans.

But I learned that there were these very efficient humans and scrubs that would come in and take them for things. Come on kitty, it's time for your day to get vaccines, or come on kitty, it's time for b And they were always so nice, but incredibly efficient, and they would go off to the hospital side, which I never saw.

I was like, that's an interesting thing, and they're like, my age. And so then, while I was volunteering there, I started volunteering at what's called the CAT claw clipping clinic, which I think is still in existence. I'm not totally sure, but basically what you do is that for 20 bucks, you could bring your cat and get all its claws clipped.

And that is a unique slice of society that comes in for that service. So that's where I learned how to handle cats. That's where I learned how to talk to lots of [00:10:00] different people about the, about what their needs were and their animals and various backgrounds. I really enjoyed that. Handling cats. I found had a similar sense of urgency and swift decision making that actors need.

So there was this weird parallel between it where it was like, Whoa, like this is the same and people management like is a very similar skill set. I realized I'm like, that's interesting. So then. Fast forward to my own cat getting attacked by a dog at two in the morning while I was in San Francisco working at the crazy dinner circus.

So I had to take him into emergency and I was so upset and I was so tired and in tears. And here comes this veterinary technician with a low set ponytail of efficiency and her stethoscope around her neck and very like business, but kind. And she triaged my kitty. Got set was gave him a cute little exam like being [00:11:00] like, oh, I love the tabby guys.

Oh, that's a wound Okay, I'll go ahead and get the doctor and we'll see what the next step is like very kind but also Sensing the urgency because he did have a pretty deep wound that penetrated into his abdomen. So that was not good and He had surgery. Everything was great experience He was fine But I remembered that person and I was like she stage managed the hell out of my tragedy That is exactly what she did.

She like calmed me down, but she was very efficient. She reacted in the moment She knew where the priorities were and I was like I could do that I could do that. I could do that with animals. And then it would be back to like meeting of the, of where I was before I went to college interested in sciences.

And so I went back to school. I got my associates of science. I started working at Berkeley dog and cat hospital. I abandoned stage management except for very brief one offs, which is like the celebrity season. Cause that's when I did Carrie Fisher's show. That's when I did a show with Mandy Patinkin at Berkeley Rep.

Then he knew that I was a [00:12:00] veterinary technician student. Like he knew that I was moonlighting to do the backstage work. And he would like, ask me like what my favorite animal was. And then I would say, I don't know, Mandy, cats. And he's, no, I'm your favorite animal. You're supposed to say, Mandy Patinkin is your favorite animal.

I'm like, Oh, okay. Thank you. Yes. Mandy Patinkin is my favorite animal. Thank you, sir. So I just did. I did as much as I could. I went into it knowing nothing. Started working full time at Berkeley Dog and Cat, knowing that they were hiring. I told them, you're hiring someone who knows. I've drawn blood on my own cat once.

I don't know how to put in IV catheters. I don't know how, I don't know how to do a lot of stuff you guys know how to do. And they were like, whatever, you understand our crazy, it's fine. So then I just started working there full time and that's what, I really grew up in that hospital. That's, that's the place that I learned how to do this job.

And I got my RBT license while I was there. And then after working there for about five or six years, I transitioned to a specialty only hospital because they were a mix between GP and ER. And it was when I was in the specialty hospitals that I got my [00:13:00] veterinary technician specialist credential in emergency and critical care.

Cause it just made sense. I'm like, this is the same thing. It's still triage. It's still urgency. It's still deciding in the moment what's most important to do. And it's still making decisions with humans swiftly and with confidence. And a lot of times like in, in really high intensity situations. So it felt familiar in that way.

This is now where I have been a veterinary technician is now longer than I was a stage manager, which I always thought was weird. So, so now I'm at year. 12, I think? Almost 13 because I graduated from tech school in 2010. So now my career has taken another weird turn, uh, which is after lecturing. Because as a VTS, you really have a huge amount of information that you have to absorb.

And I was just so inclined to share that with everyone. I was like, I can't be the only one who knows all of this. Like I'm just a technician like everybody else. Like I [00:14:00] want everyone else to learn what I learned so that you know the whys of things. Why does the pulse ox have a wave that looks the way that it does?

I can tell you that. You can look at it, sure, and be like, Oh, the pulse ox is working. Yeah, but do you know why? Do you know why this is? It's because it's actually really fascinating. And you can nerd out like that. And I found that people really wanted to engage with that type of thing. So I started doing some lecturing.

I wrote a couple articles and I really liked it. And then someone came to one of my lectures who worked in research and then thought, Hey, you're a smart, engaged person who really cares about. People's like, veterinary technicians lives and their careers and how they live them. And you should become a supervisor in my research facility.

And I was like, that's insane. Thank you, but you leave your name and number. I'm sure I know somebody who might be interested, but then they started telling me about how many days off there were that were paid, how many paid holidays there are in the UC system, how [00:15:00] my decisions would be pretty independent in terms of running my team.

The salary was almost a full, like more than a third higher of what I was making at that time. And I was like, wow, maybe I'll just, maybe I'll just see, maybe I'll just see, I'm not going to write this off right away. I also love human medicine, like I love it. I'm really glad that I don't do it every day, but I love the stories.

I'm a huge. ER fan, like I read all of the Henry Marsh books and all of the Atul Gawande books. Like, I just love that stuff. And this is like human medicine adjacent. So then I started working in research. Now I supervise a team that is in charge of the anesthesia and the procedures for all of the animals that are bigger, bigger than a rat, which is the best gauge I can say.

And also, I'm now, I seem to perpetually put myself in this position where I'm the one in the room who knows the least. And so [00:16:00] like when I was stage managing, I was always, I was. Early in my life. So I was often the youngest in the room, often the one kind of learning things as I went. Then I became a veterinary technician in my thirties, went back to school.

Here I am again, like knowing nothing, like, like now I'm the oldest in the room, trying to learn everything. And now here I go again into another state where I've put myself in this other environment where like all of the species that I was familiar with are not there. So now it's all these new species I have to learn.

And everyone else that I'm working with has various levels of experience. So now once again, I'm in this state of learning and also learning how to work in a university, which is its own bureaucratic entity. So that's what brings me To where I am today, speaking with you about the crazy journey. And there's still more, but I want to go back because first of all, when you were describing what it's like to do the stage direction, I was already, I could already feel the tension [00:17:00] and the stress.

And that's coming from someone who didn't want to do emergency medicines. That's right. And it's an important distinction too. So a lot of people want to think of it as a director. Like a lot of people want to think of the term as like a, like my own parents actually would say, Oh, you're going into directing, but it's different.

So when you're a stage director, that's the idea person. And I think this is why I think this is actually a parallel in veterinary medicine, which is why I bring it up. So the director is the one think of. Julie Tamer, right? With the Lion King. So Julie Tamer is the director and she also happens to be a costume designer.

She's an overachiever, but she's the eyeball in the room. So when, when they have, so circle of life, and then there's like baby elephants and like people dressed with giraffe heads and everything and they come on. Julie Tamer's the one. Who is saying, Oh, I love that baby elephant that should come in first.

And then behind that one is going to be these two giraffe things. And then behind the two giraffe things, that's when the [00:18:00] lights are going to go out on the other side so that we don't see what's happening over there. And then the hyenas are going to pop up in the back. That's and then she's, so let's see how that looks.

And then everyone has to shuffle. Okay. And then, but here's the thing, that's a room of 60 people. So when she's doing that in technical rehearsal, where it involves lights, costumes, sets. All that, right? Somebody has to say, when she says, I want this to happen like this, then she's going to turn to me. And I'm going to be like, okay, ladies and gentlemen, we're going to go back to page four, top of scene two.

Let's take it from line blah, blah, blah. And then, and that's on the mic, so everyone can hear me. And go ahead and wait for me to say start, so please hold. And then I'm going to get on headset, then I'm going to talk to everybody else, going to be like, okay, so what I think that means, guys, is that you're going to have to come from the other side because she switched the side that the lights are going dark on.

Are you able to do that? Oh yeah, I think I can do that. I'll just run over on this other side. Great. And let's make sure that we change that in the paperwork later. I'm going to go ahead and call this light cue a little bit later. And then the line designers, that fade is going to happen at 20 seconds instead of 10, so you can actually [00:19:00] call it in a different place, which is going to be here.

I'm like, where do you want it? Right there? Okay, cool. And then I get back on the mic. Okay, we're ready, ladies and gentlemen, and go ahead. And then. Baby elephant comes on giraffe, blah blah blah blah blah blah. And Julie Tamer watches that, right? And she goes, Oh, that was horrible. Why did we do it that way?

We're going to go back to the way that we did it before. Oh, okay. No problem. Okay, we're going to go ahead and restore Q blah blah blah. And then so that's the cycle. So she, so the director is the idea person and then I implement it as best I can with everybody else. And I think that's really similar to veterinary medicine because the doctor is the one who has a plan.

So they're going to say. This cat needs orthopedic surgery. You're like, okay, let's make a cost estimate for X, Y, and Z. And then there's the technician who then is going to organize the cost estimate for the client. You're going to get that cat into CCU. You're likely going to have the conversation with [00:20:00] the surgeons about their scheduling.

And this is part of RVT utilization is that the technician is 100 percent able to do all of those things. A veterinarian shouldn't feel the need to do a lot of those things. Because they're there just to run the plan. So I think it's similar in that way. And that's why they call it a stage manager instead of stage directors.

Because you're not actually the one who has the initial idea. But without you, that idea does not come to fruition. It will sit forever in the dark. That is a good analogy though, so I'm glad you did bring it up because I, it also reminded me of the moment that I realized I wanted to be a veterinarian.

And for the longest time, I thought I wanted to be a dolphin trainer and have the hot, sexy job, right? They're in their wetsuits, diving with the dolphins, they're dancing to music. I just thought that was so cool. And I did a career camp at SeaWorld where I got to see all the different positions. And then suddenly I see this lady come out in her polo [00:21:00] and she looked at an animal and said, I need that one.

And then everybody went and got it. I'm like, I want to be her. Yeah. Who's that? Doesn't that make you say, who's that person? And she's not in front of the audience. Like she's, but yet she seems to know the most. That's what I liked about those people. I was like, you're not in the front and center, but without you, nothing happens.

I was like, Oh, okay. I see. I see. And that's how I met emergency technicians, actually. When I was at Berkeley Dog and Cat, there was always this shift of people that came in the late afternoon, because they were like 3 to 10 or like 3 to 11 or something. And they would come in and they'd quietly restock the supplies, quietly restock the drawers.

They'd set up a little catheter setup, which I always thought was interesting. I'm like, what are they setting up for? Because nothing was All the surgeries for the day were done. I'm like, why are they setting up stuff? But then, if two smoke inhalation cats come screaming through the door from a fire that happened down the street, those technicians who I had just seen stalking drawers, [00:22:00] they were like, they were on it like lightning.

I was like, that's why the catheter's there is because you never know what's coming. You always have it set up and they would do it in seconds. They never lost their cool. Like, they were always so streamlined and so efficient. And it was like they knew it was going to happen. But they didn't. They were just comfortable in the not knowing and being prepared.

And I was like, who are these people? And I just naturally gravitated towards them. I used to follow, there's a couple of them that would come in and unfortunately, none of them are there anymore. But as is the case with a lot of veterinary technicians, like little baby me, like 12 years ago, I just followed those people around like puppies.

I like a puppy. I was just like, Oh my God, what are you guys? You guys are amazing. All younger than me. So you're the magic maker. So you're the one that makes it happen and has that amazing experience. And by the way, my parents just saw the Harry Potter show and told me it was just the coolest thing they had seen.

And now I'm very envious, but they said it was cool. Very [00:23:00] magical. They said, but that's what you do. And I love that. That is a way that we can describe veterinary technicians as well, as you're the magic makers. That's right. That's right. That's right. But I can only imagine, like you said, you, it really did sound like air traffic control of having to communicate, like, to everyone.

And I'm sure you have to do it pretty quickly because you just have people standing around. And again, you have to flip it back. So you used a term that, when we first met, On navigating a communication puzzle, and that was a way, because I challenged, I was like, okay, how does someone who was air traffic control of the stage goes into emergency medicine, and then goes into a university research setting, like, to me, I was like, I feel some disconnect, but you described it as.

Even in the university setting, navigating a communication puzzle. [00:24:00] So, like, big topic here. I can't, you have to be good at communicating for all of this to work. So, what is that like for you? Like, how do you see that? What are some of your biggest AHA is when it comes to communicating with other human beings, which I think is one of the hardest things that we do as humans.

Absolutely. No, that's really true. And I, I feel like I, my, what I'm doing now is almost like full circle with my two separate lives because when I was stage managing, that's all it is communication. When I was doing it back in the day, like nowadays there's, there's like email chains and there's Slack channels and you could have like a.

Uh, not like an Instagram or a TikTok, but things like that, like there exist these mechanisms of communication that didn't exist when I started. I was still putting paper memos in boxes when I first started, like at the Western stage. That's like a thing of the past now. There's been some advancements in the technology of how communication happens in the theater, which has been really [00:25:00] advantageous, but also social media has really Messed that up because all of a sudden people's private lives are also in the public, which when you're an actor can be really scary because there was a thing about reading reviews of your own show.

Some people like would deliberately avoid reading reviews of their own show because it steals your ability to work because all of a sudden you doubt yourself. Like when I worked with Olympia Dukakis, like she's one of my favorite people that I worked with and she never read her own reviews. It steals your hunger to work.

It makes you think you can't do it. So I will never look at my own reviews and I feel like nowadays that's really difficult to do. It's almost impossible for you to shield yourself from that because of social media. There's a couple things about communicating now in stage management that are very different than when I was doing it.

But it has always been like your grand central station, the rehearsal schedule comes from you. A lot of the navigating of interpersonal relationships within the cast, you're, you're also be in charge of, not necessarily in charge of, but people will come to you with problems. So then you have to [00:26:00] navigate a path forward for people to share the stage together or share a dressing room together.

That's usually the origin of all drama. So there is, there's definitely that in stage management. And then when I was working emergency. It shifted a little bit where then I was communicating with clients. And so then, you're like the voice of, oftentimes the voice of like sanity and reason in an otherwise very chaotic situation.

Like, if I'm riding the gurney doing CPR on your dog, you are not in a mentally good place. Like, that is a horrible place to be as a client. And so then, my role became the one who could come into the room and explain to you what was going on. And explain to you, A lot of times you're with cost estimates, right?

So this is why this is going to cost 8, 000. But you would also have to be really sympathetic and compassionate in understanding where people are coming from. So I think that's a big part of communicating effectively with other human beings is really understanding their life experience and maybe [00:27:00] what parts of that life experience may have led them to the types of decisions that they're making or the types of questions that they may have.

Now I'm in this position where I'm doing veterinary medicine, but I'm also managing a team. So I feel like now I've come full circle where it's the vet med side, but it's also the stage management side, because now I have to integrate those two worlds together to manage a team that's doing veterinary medicine.

So, but I do think that there's so many, there's so many different paths that will lead to you and it doesn't really matter what you're doing. You could be in charge of a pencil sharpening company for whatever it is, but everyone is going to come to you from a different direction and will have had, have their own lived experience.

And I think part of being a good communicator is to be open to what those experiences are. It may not be yours. It's going to be a lot easier if it is. It's going to be a lot easier if it's your own shared experience. That's like a shortcut. But God, it's rarely that. It's rarely that. You have to think of all the other things.

[00:28:00] And I'm really fortunate to I think it's really fortunate. I find it really exhilarating to work in an environment where there's a lot of different communities and cultures that all work together. The husbandry team in a research setting is massive. Cause if you have to think of if a building or a room is going to contain like hundreds of thousands of mice, who do you think's feeding those little guys?

There's a whole teams of people from all various backgrounds. And so I re I really find that type of. integrating of people really exciting. And a lot of that is just being able to talk to each other. It's a huge, that's a huge part of it. Yeah, that is huge. I am so grateful. And you have to have patience too.

Huge, yes. It's listening in addition to being open to take other people's perspectives coming in and it can be extra challenging even if you Rank high on empathy, right? It can be really hard when you're stressed when [00:29:00] there's a lot going on You're thinking about other things you're tired it's It's hard.

I'm a fixer. I don't like things hanging in the balance. That really bothers me. Like unanswered questions, like directionless energy, that, that, that like pings my big red flag in my head of must fix the thing, must solve the problem. And for me, I have to work really hard at that. Like you brought up listening skills.

I feel like one of the things that I'm really continue to work on is to just. Not say anything to just be quiet and let the person who is in front of me who's having. Who is needing my help in whatever way that is, whether they need guidance or they need assistance in something they're already doing, or whether they need ideas that I find that I continually work to just listen and just absorb what their story is that they have, that they're telling and not to jump in and fix it right [00:30:00] away, not to jump in and finish the sentence right away.

Like, even if someone is having trouble articulating what it is to more ask questions. Rather than, so I think what you're saying is this, and finishing what the statement is. I think remaining open, which can be really difficult because for me a lot of times that means the question is going to remain unanswered for another day or week or whatever, which is, but that's what's necessary.

Not everyone moves at the same speed that you do. I tend to want it done now. I tend to want it fixed now, but not everybody's like that. And you have, and, and that doesn't mean that it's the right thing all the time. And your own needs do matter, but you must be able to triage yourself a little bit in that sometimes your own comfort level, if you're not sitting in a hundred percent comfortable space with someone else communicating about a really difficult topic, that's sometimes okay.

That's okay. That's doing the work. Doing the work can be uncomfortable and that's okay. You [00:31:00] can sit in that. That's okay. It doesn't have to be fixed and smooth all the time. Part of the work that you're doing is working through that with another person. And that's a really difficult place for human beings to be.

Oh, yes. And work and home and everything in between. Yeah, that's right. Across the board. Yeah, across the board. Yes. I wanted to continue to talk a little bit about technicians in an emergency. I saw that you spoke at IVACS back in September. In Colorado and your talk was entitled, you can do anything, why ER technicians are the most useful humans on the planet.

And so that first line, of course, too, you can do anything is such a theme on Vet Life Reimagined is I believe that. People in our industry can't really do anything, but I was curious if you don't mind sharing a little bit of the heart of that message when it comes to the veterinary technicians. Oh, [00:32:00] yes.

I'm so glad you brought that up because that was the first talk that I, it was the first in a lot of ways. It was the first talk that I ever gave with someone else. So I had a partner for that, which is my dear friend, Kelly Foltz. Kelly Foltz is also an RVT, actually, I think she's, I think she's either LVT or CVT.

but credentialed veterinary technician. She lives in Alabama. She's also a VTS ECC like me. And we met through IVEX conferences and just being in similar circles and in the VTS ECC community. So that was the first time. Oh, and we had a mutual, we have a mutual friend who I worked with at one of the specialty hospitals.

So it was through that mutual friend, actually, that we first, that's right. I forgot about that. It was through that mutual friend that we first met, like we're at the same dinner table together and we were like, Oh, cool. You're awesome. Friends forever. Love it. So that was the first time that I'd given a lecture with another person.

I'm very grateful that it was Kelly because she's amazing. And what we decided was we really wanted to highlight, because both of us are now doing jobs where, you know, my clinical work on the floor has gone down [00:33:00] quite a bit because I'm much more administrative management now. She's pretty much a hundred percent, um, administrative and, and management and training and writing SOPs and that kind of thing.

But we both feel really good about where we are in our careers. And so we wanted to be able to share that with other technicians because what's happening is people are getting burnt out and they're leaving the field entirely. Yeah. It's like. Forget it. I'll work at Trader Joe's and that's real for a lot of people.

That's not necessarily wrong. If you got to get out, you got to get out. I'm not, I don't judge that at all. But before you do, if you think that there's no other option, we would like to let you know that there is. Like there are options to remain within veterinary medicine. that are healthy for you that you can tailor to what your needs are and you don't have to abandon it entirely.

And so what we talked about was different types of mindsets that you can have in veterinary medicine that can be helpful to you. If you're going to have a fixed mindset. If you make a mistake, you have to hide it because everyone's going to judge you [00:34:00] for it and you're going to be wrong. And, but if you have a more open mindset about it, like I've made a medical error, I'm going to tell the doctor right away and we're going to learn from this as to why I made it, triage it a little bit, let's everyone learn from how the anatomy of this happened.

Then it's a little bit. It's a little bit of a different way to move through your career if you have an open mindset where you're always going to be an asset to the team no matter what you bring to the table versus constantly feeling like you're going to hide your skills because you're afraid someone's going to compete with you or you're going to be judged.

Those are two very different places to be. So we talked a little bit about about the growth mindset and fixed mindset and that's a very truncated version of that. If you look up fixed mindset growth mindset, there's much more to be had on the interwebs. So we talked a little bit about that. The you can do anything part came from if you wanted to do something else, say you were working emergency, and it wasn't meant to talk people out of working emergency, but if you needed a break from it, or you felt like you needed to Give yourself a little bit of air to do something else to put [00:35:00] that down for a while.

I like that term. Just put that down for a while and pick up something else that you are the perfect candidates to do anything else in the hospital because no other technician in the hospital is required to know every single department and what happens in every single department because if a seizing animal comes in you're automatically gonna think okay Depending on what this is, like it's maybe going to go to neurology, maybe it's going to go to internal medicine, and maybe it's diabetic and that's why it needs to go to internal medicine instead of going to neurology because it has a brain tumor.

But all of those are different departments in the hospital. So all of a sudden the emergency technician is not only navigating the clinical problems that are happening in real time, but you often are going to be the one who's navigating. where the openings in the schedule are in other specialty departments in order to get your patient in, you have to advocate for your patient because if you've got like a ruptured gallbladder, you can't sit on that.

So if internal medicine comes back to you and says, yeah, we'll schedule it for tomorrow. All of a sudden you're the one who's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, [00:36:00] no, no, no. So So Transcribed by https: otter. ai By, by default, you have to be a good communicator. You have to be able to navigate all those other departments and be sensitive to what their needs are.

So if you want to make some moves into other areas of veterinary medicine, emergency technicians are perfect for that because they already know, they already have the skillset for all those other departments. They just maybe don't do it full time. And also those are the departments where an emergency technician is really going to learn new things.

So get to your growth mindset where it's not a competition and no one's going to judge you. If you have the growth mindset on and you're working in neurology or internal medicine, you're going to see some cool stuff. Internal medicine's got to get urine on some cat that has a microscopic bladder. I remember this one tech putting on one of those 2 inch 25 needles on the end of the syringe and was optimistic.

Boop, boop, boop, boop, and got that bladders. I was like, look at you with your tiny long Lancet thing in that tiny bladder. I'd never seen that before. I saw that in internal medicine. I was like, awesome. Putting a [00:37:00] bivalve cast on like in surgery where they put the, like the fiberglass bivalve cast on a leg.

I learned how to do that from a surgery technician. Nobody in emergency taught me how to do that. But that was because I was moonlighting with an emergency patient after hours in the surgery department, and they were like, it's four o'clock, let's go ahead and do this. And I just was there. So I'm like, Oh, I'll hang out and help you do this and learn a new thing.

So that was where me and Kelly tried to. tried to come from was like, we want people to have long and fruitful careers in veterinary medicines as veterinary technicians, but also be able to survive it. And part of that is knowing your own worth. Like knowing that you as an emergency technician are the most awesome, useful person in the hospital.

And don't let anyone tell you different. And it also means that you can do whatever you want to do. Find the path that works for you. But just think about it a second before you go work somewhere else or abandon the field. Kelly's been doing this for, oh my goodness, over 20 years. And just a little bit of perspective.

When I was [00:38:00] working at Berkeley Dog and Cat, I went to my first ever conference in Las Vegas at the Western Veterinary Conference. And I used to go to Kelly's lectures about cats and neonates, and I thought she was so cool. And I'd been an RBT for a year or two, and now we lectured together at, at IVEX.

Like now we're on the same docket and we're like really good friends. And to me, I find that so exciting. I'm so eternally grateful that my journey has led me there. But it was some bumps in the road on the way. But that's what we tried to convey in that hour, that you can have longevity. It can happen. It can happen.

You just have to believe. You have to believe it. And the rest of the world is a little behind in that. But as long as the emergency technicians value their worth, I feel like they can absolutely do anything they want. Yeah, I completely agree again. That's why this podcast started was because I wanted to be able to show all the different things that I know that veterinary people can do.

It truly is endless and I think it [00:39:00] aligns with this time in the world where there's just more and more different things that pop up like these jobs that are just created that didn't exist last year. I think it is. So exciting for that. We tried that we tried to integrate some of those specifics too, because like working in research, I learned policy and regulation is a whole other path for veterinary technicians.

The person who was the director of the institutional animal care and use committee, the IACUC, which is the one that regulates the protocols that are used for research in any institution that does research the director of that program, where I am used to be an RBT. The director, who knew, who knew that you could work for the USDA?

Who, who knew that was a thing until I started doing research. I had no idea that RBTs had that path before them. Kelly, she's a much more of a mentorship training role that that's a whole, that's a whole other path when you're an experienced [00:40:00] technician is you can then guide the careers of other technicians in a way that you know is going to work best for them.

So there's whole other avenues. And then of course, pharmacology and like working for, whether you work for big pharma or anything like that, there's lots of companies that will pay you a lot of money to do that type of thing, whether that's your forever career or not, I feel like that's up to you, but no, that's out there and that's not leaving the field.

You're still in veterinary medicine. Yeah. I did not know that. The word informatics existed until Informatics! Jonathan Leskarden, and he's a veterinarian, and that was one of the things he said is he's no longer Doing the clinical on the exam table type of medicine But he feels like he impacts more animals what he's doing with informatics than he ever did in a clinic So I think your impact you can you take what you want to do where you're I feel like you've got that warmth to go to, and I know that [00:41:00] people can do it.

Sometimes it's just knowing that it exists, or people telling you that they believe in you. I think all of that is just part of it. And again, that's why I'm so glad that I asked about that talk, because that's exactly on par with what we're trying to do. And me and our time just flew by. Oh my goodness.

Now I have to narrow this down. Where do I want to go? I really, because. I want to continue with this and talking about the empowerment of veterinary technicians. We are in a very interesting time right now on figuring out lots of different opinions on what the best future looks like. You do have the one veterinary technician seat in the California VMA, so you are able to.

Here are some of the conversations. You're not going to tell us anything that you cannot we've already established that, um, but I went back and I listened to your podcast to you and I listened to [00:42:00] the, I think this was 2021. I'm doing this off of memory dangerous, but you. You did an episode called The State of the Situation.

Oh, yeah. Yes. Yes. Fantastic episode. I'm so envious of how well you can do solo episodes, but it was so good. And I was wondering if you could do, like, a five minute version of an update on Your thoughts of where we are when it comes to empowering the veterinary technician and just, can you give us your perspective and your words of wisdom when it comes to veterinary technicians?

Oh, wow. I think I was inspired to do that episode for a couple different reasons. And I think I had been. I'm trying to remember what the impetus of doing that was. I think a lot of it was that I had some friends who were going through some tough times with their own animals and, and randomly, I think I had, I was out to dinner with some friends and some, and I was [00:43:00] talking about this at the table and then this random dude who was like seated at another table, got up and came over and was like, Oh, I heard you talking about vets and let me tell you about vets and how much they want your money.

And he had like this weird. Perspective and I was like, wow, so we weren't talking about that's it all actually, we're talking about veterinary technicians and, but that's not what you heard, but you heard something else. Yeah. I think between the time of me doing that episode and now I think it's growing constantly, but a lot of it, I think a lot of what veterinary technicians are constantly battling against is that the community of clients that we serve don't know what we do.

And it's just, and some of that's, some of that is just like. that the veterinarian is so centralized in the perspective of veterinary medicine. And it's not just, it's not just society's eyeballs, right? Because the AVMA, that's, that is an all veterinarian association, and that's the primary one. [00:44:00] And veterinary technicians can't be a part of that.

So I think it's been difficult for veterinary technicians to have a seat at the table for a really long time. And I think, Now that we're seeing a COVID opened the doors of hell in veterinary medicine, and it strained what was already a broken system. And so now it's come to pass that if you stomp all over your technicians, they'll leave.

And doctors can't do what they need to do without technicians in the room. And so I think that there's now been such a movement of veterinary technician utilization and empowerment because we're seeing that people are leaving the field. And they're leaving it because they can make better money doing other things and not be in such a place of like mental strain all of the time.

Really, I made that podcast initially because I really, I used to talk with all of my friends from like back in like high school and middle school. They're not veterinary medicine people at all. Like the vet med side of my friend circle is only like a decade or so old versus my friends from high school.

I've known them [00:45:00] for 30 years. So we would always be taught, they'd be like, so what happened in your workplace over the week? And I'll be like, okay, so this one pug that ate chocolate brownies and then barfed all over somebody's face. But they're like, Baha, that's the best story ever. So they love to hear the stories of it.

And that's how the podcast started, but I always wanted it to be accessible for someone who's not an animal medicine person, like that. You can hear me talk about this and I'm not going to lose you because I'm only talking about blood gases or something like that. So I think part of what I wanted to really convey was that you as the client, as the consumer have a lot of power.

In empowering veterinary technicians, like one thing that you can do if you are coming to a hospital where the doctor says, okay, I'm going to go ahead and take fluffy and draw the blood and run this test, blah, blah, blah. And you can be like, Oh, you're the veterinarian and you're drawing the blood. And they'll be like, yes.

Oh, that's interesting. How many registered veterinary technicians do you have here? And he says, Oh, we don't have [00:46:00] anybody who's registered. The chick from the front desk comes back here and holds the dog for me. You're like, wow, that's interesting. And then you can make a choice about whether or not you think that the money that you're spending there is being used efficiently.

If that seems like the way that, that workflow is not very efficient, he's taking a veterinary technician's job. And why would that be? What's the difference between a registered veterinary technician and a veterinary assistant? Did you know that there's a license between those two? Did you know that I have to go to school for two years in order to become a registered veterinary technician?

So, I feel like there's definitely some public education that has to happen in that regard because when it all comes down to it, it's all about the money. And we're seeing that right now. Like the mom and pop veterinarian, the independently owned veterinarian that you take your animal to, that is a rare breed now.

That is going away. And there's a reason why that is. Being a small business owner is rough. That's a seven day a week job. You got to deal with HR, [00:47:00] with personnel. That's a really hard thing to do. And when you want to retire, if VCA comes in and offers you a fat paycheck for it, like a fat check for selling your practice so that you can retire, hell yeah, you're going to take that.

But guess what that means? And this is where the client education comes in, is that when you take your animal to a VCA or another corporately owned practice, like Blue Pearl also, they're owned by big private equity corporations. So, okay. Like it doesn't necessarily mean it's bad. So your dollar matters.

So like when you're, when you take your animal to one of those hospitals and you're paying them thousands of dollars for lifesaving maneuvers, you should know how that hospital is functioning. If the doctor is drawing all their own blood and they're paying all these veterinary assistants who are in their early twenties, no money to just hold these dogs while the hospital functions and they make a huge profit.

I think that's a problem. [00:48:00] I think that as a consumer, you should be able to make a choice, whether the hospital is corporately owned or not, but you should be able to make a choice about where you spend your money on what's treating the veterinary technicians the best. What's the longevity of that practice?

Because if you have a team full of RVTs, that have gone to school, that are doing like work that they know how to do best, that they're utilizing all of their skills for. That means the doctor has a whole lot more time to be a veterinarian and not do RVT skills. So I think that's the part that I, that I wanted to make the most clear and why it's like the state of the situation is that like consumers, clients, pet owners, love your veterinary technicians and help them because we are screaming right now to be heard.

to be used, to be able to stay in this field, and your money talks. So knowing the questions to ask when you're in the hospital to find out how the quality of life of the veterinary technicians operating in the hospitals is, that matters. That [00:49:00] really matters. And if you know a veterinary technician, You should talk to them about this because they're going to have a lot to say.

It just happens to be that I'm the one with the microphone right now, but I tell you, they, they, they will tell you about it. They will tell you about your, about their day, and then you can make choices about how you want to then integrate your own financial choices in that field. And I think we come back to the listening and the communication as being such a huge part, even within the hospital.

When you were saying that, I know you were talking about pet owners, but man, I hope that veterinarians and hospital managers that they're talking to the vet techs too and asking them the same question. Cause I think that's so important. What I am nervous about Is what we are having a lot of conversations around veterinary technicians.

I really want to make sure veterinary technicians are part of that conversation. And I, I am, I admire people who want to have the conversation, but please make sure that they are there because they're going to tell you what [00:50:00] works. That's right. We used to say in theater, like, without stage managers, you're standing in the dark.

Without veterinary technicians, you're standing with a cat. Like, I mean, like, that A cat in the dark is even scarier. In the dark. Yeah, that's right. Cat's fine. Cat's fine. You might have a problem. It's very true. I will never look at the theater the same way. But it's a similar thing. It's like the wizard behind the curtain, right?

I don't want to necessarily equate corporate with bad. Because if we start to do that, then it seems like this, like, enemy takeover. And that we have to stop this enemy takeover from happening. We have to get rid of that mindset. Because it's happened. It has occurred. The event of corporate takeover. That is what we are in right now at this moment.

So demonizing that doesn't keep the conversation moving forward. What we need to do is make sure that those people have a seat at the table because that's what we don't see right now. So now what we have to do is function within [00:51:00] it to make sure that veterinary technicians are going to continue to be heard, are going to continue to be A voice in the conversation, what we can do, we can now try to function in a way within these things.

So we don't lose our voice because what happens with monoculture, and this is the same that happened in the funeral industry. I've talked, I think I talked about this before, like on the other podcast, because I find it fascinating. That used to be the same thing, like mom and pop shop funeral homes, right?

They used to be all over the place, independently owned generations of people that would pass it on to their sons and daughters. pass it on to other members of the family. That's gone away. So now we have all these corporately owned places that have set the price bracket. So now you can't be buried in the ground for less than tens of thousands of dollars.

So they've set the bar. So what can happen with that type of monoculture is that if all of your spays and neuters cost X amount of money because they're all owned by the same practice, then they've now [00:52:00] set the standard. So that's what I think we have to really be aware of and not necessarily work against, but work within to make sure that we maintain a voice at the table.

And that includes veterinary technicians and veterinarians and hospital managers. Because otherwise, the alternative, if people are just going to throw their hands up and leave, then that just opens the doors to then get people who are less experienced, know less about what's going on, but still want the paycheck nonetheless.

Like, it just opens it up to a whole, like people who are not as empowered and don't have as much knowledge to, To speak for themselves. That was me fresh out of school. I was like, I'll do anything. I'll clean a kennel. It's fine. Pay me 10 an hour. I'm just learning. We are now going to have a whole fleet of those people and they're not going to speak up for themselves.

Like people like me who've been doing this for a long time. So I think that's the, that's the mindset that we have to have. I'm so glad you took it there because I completely agree when we villainize. [00:53:00] The system or corporate or something like that, that's not helpful either, but maybe even another call of more career opportunities is you may be a voice for everyone else.

And I. I do believe, I'm a very optimistic person, so I do believe that there are opportunities to bring people with different backgrounds, yes, including people with better money mindsets than we do. I think that's great. It's just making sure that everybody has a voice, everybody is able to contribute and bring their perspectives to make the better future.

And luckily, I have talked with people who come from human medicine, who saw it. A little incorrectly on the human medicine side, but sees a lot of hope for the veterinary side of things. So, I think we can do it. Let's just be part of it. That's right. Change is hard. Change is hard, man. Everybody struggles with change.

Like, it doesn't matter what it is. Like, [00:54:00] moving out of your house. It sucks. It's hard. Like change is hard. But that the same way that kind of sitting in the uncomfortable can be part of the work. I feel like that's a little bit where veterinary technicians are. Like it's really easy to run to the next hospital that's going to give you the bigger bonus.

Like it's really easy to chase the money right now, especially with everything being so short, everybody being so short staffed. But I think technicians don't realize how much power they have in that situation. Your career is incredibly valuable. in every possible capacity. You're valuable to the clients.

Like you're the face. You're the one, especially emergency where there's only one doctor and there's a whole lot of technicians. Like you're the one, you're the one that people are going to remember. Yeah. And that's a really important role. It's what you remembered. That's why you were inspired was because you were the people that were supporting you and I'm of need.

Yeah, that's right. I often think about that person that I don't know who she was, right? I don't know who she was, like, she was just [00:55:00] she was a young person, I think older than me at the time, but like a young person. Yeah. person who was working emergency at what was then SFVS, later bought out by BCA, but was then SFVS.

And she changed my life. And I don't know who she is, but she's out there. She's out there somewhere. I hope she's still doing it, quite honestly. Yeah. And take that as encouragement too, is you never know whose life you have impacted. That's right. And so it, It is always important to continually work on yourself to, to grow and to be very empathetic and supportive of others.

You may feel like your job is so small, but it's not. It's not. It's not. It's not. You impact so many people and you don't have to just be emergency to do it either. Like everybody who's come through the doors, internal medicine clients, internal medicine, man, they get the best snacks in the holidays. Like those clients just.

inundate those departments with like chocolates and flowers and all. I was always amazed by that. I was [00:56:00] like, Oh, this is so cool. And very often addressed to the technicians specifically. You know, so it's very sweet. It restores faith in humanity when you see things like that. I'm glad you pointed that out.

So especially to the emergency veterinary technicians out there, you matter. We love you. We appreciate you. And we're here to support you and offer whatever we can, whether it's showing you opportunities to stay in the profession and make impact in your unique way. So do you have a few extra minutes for me to.

to ask you some personal questions. Oh, yes. Yes, I do. Yes, I do. I want to learn about you. You took the university research job because you were intrigued by some of these off days. Do you have some skills or talents that maybe not a lot of people know about? Oh, I don't know. I don't know if I'd say that not a lot of other people know about, but I am a musician, like I play bass and [00:57:00] guitar and I sing.

And that's like really my, like very much one of my big passions is playing music. I feel without that, I really, when I was stage managing, like that really fell by the wayside. And that was a huge, that was a big mistake on my part, because as soon as I had more time to do it, I was like, Oh Jesus, I should have been doing this all time.

There's a band that I play with in Humboldt County that has one of my old college buddies in it. I was just up there actually, but we're called portmanteau, like the suitcase portmanteau jazz quartet, and you can find us on Spotify, but we just basically go up there once a year and sit in the top of a Eureka Victorian and just play music for about two or three days.

And it's the most awesome thing ever. Um, and then I have another, uh, project, which is just my name. Uh, it's, it's my friend, Beryl. So we just call ourselves Beryl and Nicole because she's a very unique name. And so we're a duo. We have, um, a YouTube channel and we do a lot of covers of hip hop songs on guitar, or we'll do like, like acoustic versions of [00:58:00] other songs.

We do some like Jason Isbell covers. We have a Eartha Kitt, Santa baby cover that we did a long time ago during Christmas season. So we, the two of us, we like to play different instruments and we just love to learn new things. And so we have. songs on mandolin and she bought an accordion that we learned three chords on.

I have a, like I do a kick drum, like Mumford and Sons style. And that project is also very near and dear to my heart. So I think that's the thing that I do the most with my personal time for sure. I love that. Do you have anything on your bucket list that you would like to do?

I'm a big travel fan, like I love to travel to other places and I feel like I've been to, I've been to Europe quite a bit because my family's from England, but I feel like there's a whole other, There's there, like, I would love to do more time in Italy because I loved Italy so very much. And there's one thing, one travel [00:59:00] thing that I've been thinking about for years.

I would love to do that. I saw on a Rick Steves travel show. So shout out to Rick Steves with all his cannabis advocacy and travel stuff. So he did this tour where it was a walk, like a hike that he did in the Dolomites, which are these mountains that are in. In Italy, and basically is they drop you at one end of a trail and then pick you up on another end, but what you do is you're walking between these little resorts, like cutesy little hotel things.

So like you walk for a day and then stop at the little like bed and breakfast essentially, except it's not really a bed and breakfast so much as it's like a little like authentic little wood. Beams and everything looking all woodsy with like mountain views and pasta that they probably make in house and their own like sauce that they made, like basically like the most amazing Italian food ever.

There's six or seven of those stops along the way. So basically you're walking in the mountains of Italy and eating fresh pasta, like [01:00:00] every day stopping on the way. I think that sounds like the coolest thing ever. That sounds amazing. And you work off the pasta, so it's fine. You can eat as much as you want.

And Italy, they do have the best pasta. That is, I distinctly remember. My pasta from when I was in high school, going to Italy, I still remember it was fantastic. Oh, for sure. I feel like that would be, and that's something that you keep thinking. I keep thinking like, oh man, retirement, that's the goal, but you got to do it a little bit before that.

Cause you can't be decrepit walking between stops. I was like, I got to hit every single pasta stop. I can't stop short. I got to hit every one of those, but that just sounds, that sounds like pure. Like just heaven to me, just like hiking in the fricking Italian beautifulness with a pasta stop every day.

Like I'm like, yep, sign me up. That's what's up. And my last question is what is something that you are very grateful for? [01:01:00] Oh, something that I am very grateful for. I. overwhelmingly, I feel like I'm always eternally grateful for my friends. I feel like I've been really, I've lived pretty much in the same place my whole life.

I've been, I grew up in the Bay Area. I live in the Bay Area now. The friends circle that I have, Like from way back in the day from like middle school, like there's still a circle of five or six of us that have all known each other since middle school. That's like 30 years of friendship. And we do this thing now where we meet once a week for dinner on Tuesday nights.

And it's just, it was something that me and my friend Serene came up with where we were like, she was working in the East Bay and she was like, Hey, I don't see you very much. I don't want to see you more. And I work in the East Bay. Let's just meet like. For dinner on a weeknight 'cause that's super easy.

And I'm like, oh yeah. So we started doing that, the two of us. And then we were like, this is the best thing ever. We should invite like the rest of the, of, we call ourselves the twats, we should invite the rest of the twats out here to do this. And we have twat Tuesday. So we invented this thing where like my [01:02:00] like oldest group of friends now meets once a week on Tuesday, just on a weeknight just to add a sushi place or a burrito place or whatever.

But regardless, sometimes it's all of us, sometimes it's just two of us, sometimes it's three, whatever. It's a standing date. So every Tuesday, like my most dear and closest friends in the world, we'll just meet once a week. And we've been doing that for the last year. And it's like the, it's like the best decision that I've ever made in my life was to keep doing that.

It's like a therapy session every Tuesday. And it's so fun. We have a catchphrase, even we were saying like, Tuesday night twat dinner. It's been a long week. Even though it's only Tuesday, but still it's, it's by Monday, it's already a long week. So I think that's the first thing I think of. I also am eternally grateful for my dear wife because she is so tolerant of all of the time that I spend doing all of this veterinary medicine.

Stuff and advocacy and me traveling by myself [01:03:00] places and she can't always go, but she never says no, she never says, I don't think you should do that. She's always saying, yes, yes, absolutely go and do that. So I feel like my supportive wife, Christine, who I love to death has been just nothing but a supporter of all of my veterinary crazy this entire time.

So I can't go without saying there, and you know, I'm just, I feel so lucky to have. Uh, a huge support system and I want to be, I want to be that support system for other people. I feel because it means so much to me, that means that I will always be in your corner. I know how much it means to me, so I can only hope that I would mean.

That to somebody else as well. I love starting 2024 off with such a unique personal story and it's not stopping. So make sure you have clicked that follow button. It helps us out a lot. This month is going to be so exciting. I can't wait to connect with colleagues at BMX in Orlando. Let me know who, what career paths, what topics you would like to hear.[01:04:00] 

I can even scout them out at the conference and it helps when I can say that you made the recommendation. You can message me on VetLife Reimagined, find us on YouTube. The YouTube channel is getting some good momentum, which is another boost of excitement for the new year. So enjoy it and be back next week.