Learn from my mistakes!
In 7th, we’re individually assigned a faculty or staff member to interact with in a “Mock Phone Call” as part of our Intro to Clinics II class — I got one of my Small Animal Medicine I & II professors. I thought she was great professor; a dynamic lecturer with fair test questions. So, I felt some pressure to do well with this mock phone call with her…
The case we were to discuss was about a young horse that she owns that presented with signs of acute laminitis due to being turned out all night to graze on lush April pasture grass when he’s usually kept in most of the time. OK, so without the case telling me it was laminitis, it was fairly obvious considering the described clinical signs and history that was provided. This was my 1st mistake. I researched all aspects around laminitis down to the pathophysiologic processes at the enzymatic level and was prepared to discuss all of it! That did not happen.
The character that my professor chose to, or was assigned to play was the ‘very novice horse owner’. Being the dynamic professor that she is, I should have known she was going to take this role playing very seriously. I had a really hard time with that knowing she was really someone else… in retrospect, this was probably the root of most of my mistakes.
Mistake #2. I didn’t check the amount of minutes I had left on my phone. Let’s rewind a little — when students arrive on St. Kitts to start vet school, the school provides you with a pay-per-minute cell phone that you buy minutes (“top-up”) for… I normally top-up with a ridiculous amount so I don’t have to do it again for a while. It didn’t dawn on me to check how many I had left because I swore I topped-up recently. BIG MISTAKE. After 5 minutes into the phone call, the line cut out. I scrambled around to find a spare phone I got from a friend that had 2.5 minutes left on it, so I charged that up and called her back (this happened about 15 minutes later because I tried to call her from my VOIP phone, but that apparently doesn’t make calls to the Caribbean… I find that weird, just billing me would be more profitable I would think). I called her back all flustered, apologized a million times, then went back to the case… then the line cut out again. AHHHHhhhhh… so at this point, I’ve hung up on my professor twice now.
I ran all around my apartment building to see if anyone was home and found my neighbor who had minutes on his phone! Finally, called her back AGAIN… also 10-15 minutes later… and resumed the case, yet again!
As the case went along, she said “omg… so I caused this?!?!” I wasn’t expecting that AT ALL. I don’t know what I was thinking because that totally threw me off and I kind of brushed it aside saying that it’s a common consequence to excessive grazing on fresh spring grass especially if the animal isn’t accustomed… Of course my initial thought was, “well, technically, yes it kind of was your fault.”
Mistake #3. Terminology. When I was a surgery technician, I would bring my animals in to the same clinic and of course the other technicians/doctors/4th year students knew who I was so when they were with me as a client, no one really held back when it came to explaining the procedure because they’d wave it off saying I’d probably already seen it or would be helping any way and terminology wasn’t dressed down so I would understand it better… I was only a surgical tech after all, so anything OUTSIDE of surgery was still somewhat foreign to me at that time. This didn’t bother me a lot, but I didn’t know about everything they were saying either so I would go home and do some homework so I didn’t look stupid later.
For this case, I tried to catch myself by using layman’s terms when I could… but horse people in general tend to know what laminitis and colic mean. But, when my “client” asked “What’s laminitis?” I started to change up my approach, and then I felt like I was talking to a child and that she would take it offensively so there was a point where I felt a very conflicted vibe about our conversation… Last minute, I ended up turning “colic” into “stomach upsets” and felt really dumb saying it.
When the conversation was over, my professor basically ripped it ALLLLLLLL apart. It was great feedback and had I reviewed her notes on client communication rather than my Large Animal Medicine notes on laminitis then I probably would have done super!
Basically, the important points were:
- Ask open-ended questions and the client will likely tell you all about it without having to dig into specifics. Otherwise, the client may try to answer questions in the way they think you’re going. For example, “Tell me more about that…” versus “Is he having a hard time walking?” So basically, avoid yes or no type questions!
- I, the “veterinarian” in the scenario, should have directed the conversation instead of asking “where were we?!?!” after we got cut off the first time — even with the fluster, I should have been the one in control of the conversation… this includes summarizing the facts of the conversation sporadically to make sure you’re on track with your client.
- Summarizing. This needed it’s own bullet. In my situation, I was supposed to summarize every time we re-connected. If we hadn’t gotten disconnected at all, then sometime during the middle of the conversation this should happen and most definitely at the end. Miscommunication is probably the most preventable aspect of client communication but often overlooked when it comes to ensuring it doesn’t happen…
- Empathy. My professor said that I needed to at least acknowledge it rather than wave it off. So apparently, I lack empathy… I actually used to pride myself in being able to relate with other people’s veterinary problems since I’ve encountered so many of them myself, but apparently vet school has made me a heartless individual! Another thing I need to work on.
- Ask if the client has any questions. OK, well if this was a REAL situation then I OF COURSE would have asked… I was seriously embarassed with the fact that this was all role-playing.
- Always state your name and position. This is a valid point, however, one that I attempted but was abruptly cut off the first time I called because she immediately told me to call her back since her phone was going to die. When I called her again, I figured we were past that point and I wasn’t going to re-introduce myself AGAIN… and when we started she didn’t say “action!” so I didn’t really know when we started or not… again, the whole role-playing thing got the best of me.
I used to work as a receptionist for several years during emergency hours, so I’m not a stranger to client communication with clients, veterinary students, clinicians and referring veterinarians. You can probably imagine how HORRIFIED I was when I realized how badly that mock phone call went… maybe I need to take some acting classes?
I learned how to make a cow pee… which is interesting — you basically rub their perineum and/or “bop” the bottom of their vulva simultaneously and VOILA! They urinate and you catch it and analyze it! The other cool thing we did was put in orogastric tubes which I managed to do all on my own because when we paired up and did it, it was a complete failure with the cow regurgitating all over us. That was pretty foul and we all smelled like rumen. It happened because the speculum to keep the cow from chewing up your orogastric tubing basically hit the pharynx causing a vagal reflex: vom! Sometimes boys aren’t helpful and if you want to get it done right, sometimes you just gotta do it yourself!
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