Why You Should Watch "Inside Out"January 21, 2016This New Year, I recommend you watch the Pixar movie, Inside Out. It is a masterpiece! Not only is it humorous and touching like most all Pixar movies, but it contains some extremely valuable lessons about life — also a part of many Pixar movies! But this one, well, it goes above and beyond. Watch it once for the laughs and the storyline, and then watch it again for the messages that I am about to share. I think you will find this movie intriguing and insightful. So what is Inside Out about? According to the movie description from IMDb: "After young Riley is uprooted from her Midwest life and moved to San Francisco, her emotions — Joy, Fear, Anger, Disgust and Sadness — conflict on how best to navigate a new city, house, and school." If you are looking close enough, here is what you will discover: Sadness (both the feeling and character) can be the source of good change in your life. While trying to not make this blog a big ‘ole Spoiler Alert, let’s just say that during the climax of the film, Sadness swoops in and saves the day. She helps to override …
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10 Tweets That All Vet Techs Can Relate ToJanuary 20, 20161) The "hands are dry" tweet. My hands are so dry that when I touch fleece is sounds like a cat licking a soft ecollar. #LVTproblems #vettech — Melanie Jo Moore (@MelanieJoMoore) January 19, 2016 2) The tweet. Hate when someone asks what my major is then says "why don't you just be a real vet" ???????? #VetTech — Mary Smith (@MaryyyVictoria) January 9, 2016 3) The body fluid tweet. Omg I smell like urine because of this dog!! Life as a #vettech — JOSEPHMONSTER (@jofussix) December 31, 2015 4) The other body fluid tweet. 9:30 am. Blood splatter in my eye. My job is glamorous #vettech — Bee (@bee012188) December 31, 2015 5) The "title you may not exactly want when it comes to body fluids" tweet. Blood smear queen today! ???? ???? #vettech — [DOLL] SaucyxLewis (@saucyxlewis) December …
Why Continued Education Courses are so GreatJanuary 18, 2016At this moment, I am boarding an airplane very early in the morning to head to Orlando and my speaking gig at 2016 North American Veterinary Community (NAVC) Conference. Maybe some of you will be there! Going to a continued education (CE) event for me now is a bit different than it was when I was in practice — i.e., going FOR CE instead of going to PRESENT a CE. I look back at those days fondly. I was always excited to go somewhere new and soak in some good information. The first time I went to NAVC was with my boss at the time, and I was ready to absorb as many lectures as possible. Funny story: The first night, the hotel’s fire alarm went off. Oh my god, it was loud! Just like you do at home, I jumped up and tried to find the apparatus to disconnect to save me from that SOUND. (That doesn’t work in a hotel, by the way.) Then I tried to call down to the front desk to see if it was for real — yeah, nobody answered in the midst of the chaos. …
Pros and Cons of Becoming a Veterinary AssistantJanuary 4, 2016The first pro is that you are here, reading this article right now! The first con, however, may be that you are wondering who exactly this article is written for! You see, veterinary medicine has a plethora of job titles for everyone on the team, so you may fall into one of these categories: veterinary assistant, technician assistant, kennel staff, animal husbandry, or even “weekend help.” Be assured, this article is for YOU, and here are some thoughts about the pros and cons of the work you do. First off, what is a veterinary assistant? The National Association of Veterinary Technicians in America (NAVTA) explains: “While every position within the veterinary practice team is important, veterinary assistants play a pivotal role, literally ... In the course of a single day, an assistant provides help to veterinarians and veterinary technicians, which in turn allows those team members to perform the tasks and responsibilities of their positions. The next minute, the assistant may be helping a client understand why having their pet's teeth cleaned is so important or providing a receptionist with a second set of hands at the front desk. Helping to fill scripts, …
Why Giving Yourself Gifts is so ImportantDecember 31, 2015Yes, it’s true, I am a reformed peeker. Before you let your imagination run wild, let me explain. Once I was old enough to realize that Santa wasn’t necessarily the one that left presents under the tree on Christmas Eve, I also realized that that meant the presents were somewhere IN the house BEFORE Christmas Eve. So, yes, I snooped … and yes, I peeked. Several years of snooping and peeking, actually. It was fun, like a treasure hunt. Then there was the excitement of discovering all the gifts (plus wondering which were mine because I had two brothers … it was usually easy to figure out). But then, once the snooping and peeking were over, the guilt set in. The first couple times, the guilt wasn’t strong enough to outweigh the thrill of finding the presents. But then, one year I remember telling my mom that I had snooped and found them, and the look on her face made me so sad … that was the last time I snooped. In fact, for years afterwards, she would let me wrap all the presents, trusting me to not open mine even though they were only secured with a couple pieces of Scotch tape. I …
Giving in to Grief: Going “There”December 10, 2015It must be the holidays. The music has changed in all the stores to the classic holiday tunes, the decorations have come out of the attic, and Starbucks has its holiday lattes back! We are all supposed to be happy and grateful, full of holiday spirit and lots of ho, ho, hos. When we don’t feel the characteristic holiday happiness, we wonder what’s wrong with us, and we feel even bluer for our isolation. Make no mistake: Holidays are hard, especially if you’re missing someone special. When I unpack my Christmas tree ornaments, I know I will come across ornaments that memorialize furry family members that are no longer with us. There will be Rosy the red Somali, who liked to chew on tissue paper and ribbons (outlawed shortly after this habit emerged; no linear foreign bodies here!). There will be Michael, the long-haired domestic short hair who loved to sit under the tree in a trance, who only blessed us for that one year. Someday, the pets who watched me put up decorations yesterday, including Joy the Cavalier, who likes to chew the garland, and Georgia No-Eyes, who doesn’t get to gaze upon …
Reasons to be a VeterinarianDecember 9, 2015Punch the numbers until the paint wears off your calculator, but there’s no way to financially justify owning a kayak. At least not if it’s only used for pleasure and you never expect to earn any income regardless of the time spent on the water. So, why would anyone own one? The obvious answer is that numbers on a balance sheet don’t tell the whole story. For many people, there are enough intangible benefits to more than justify spending money to pay for and maintain a kayak. Only a few of our clients could justify the financial cost of owning a pet. Happily for them, and us, the intangible benefits far outweigh the costs. Maybe this is another point of connection between veterinarians and pet lovers. Because of an array of current economic factors, it’s becoming more and more difficult to justify choosing veterinary medicine as a career. And there have always been easier ways to make a living. Still, the demand for acceptance to veterinary colleges remains high. It seems logical then that an important driving force behind that demand is the reality of intangible …
How Much do Vets Make?December 9, 2015When your dog or cat gets the sniffles and a subsequent visit to the veterinarian, you may walk out of the clinic with a grumpier (if healthier) pet and a bigger bill than you’d been hoping for. More than one pet owner has found themselves driving home, inquiring of the windshield how much of what they just paid is going to line their veterinarian’s pockets. The truth is that although the average salary for a veterinarian is strong (somewhere between the 80th and 90th percentile of annual salaries in the United States, depending upon the number of years the veterinarian has in the field), their expenses can be steep, and those expenses can linger for years. What is the Average Salary of a Veterinarian? Dr. Michael Dicks, director of the veterinary economics division at the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA), said that new graduates from veterinary school often face drastically different financial futures, depending upon where they went to school, and whether they had to shoulder the cost themselves. As is the …
Top Veterinary Technician Schools & EducationDecember 3, 2015If you are thinking about becoming a vet tech, chances are you know you need to find a good school to train you and help you prepare for the state exam. There’s a lot you need to consider to find the program that will be the best fit for your particular needs. Do you have the flexibility for an in person course that will give you plenty of hands-on experience or do you need the flexibility of an online program? Maybe a hybrid program that gives you the best of both worlds would be the best fit. Some programs also give you the chance to specialize. If you really want to work with large animals, you might not want spend as much time learning about cats and dogs, but you will still need to choose a program that will give you the information you need to earn your certifications. Most techs who specialize study large animals, marine animals, birds, radiology, nutrition or dentistry. If you would rather generalize, it’s good to pick a program that will still give you a little experience with each. It is also important to account …
The Facebook FalloutNovember 30, 2015Originally published in the November 2015 issue of Veterinary Practice News. Did you enjoy this article? Then subscribe today! Are you on Facebook? Well, you either love it or hate it. You either spend countless hours each month poring over posts, stopping at funny kitty and dog videos, or you ignore it altogether. I have only recently gotten to where I visit Facebook regularly. Yep, I resisted for years, until I figured out how to trim my newsfeed down so I only get updates on the people I really want to know about. (Yes, that’s the other problem, my total ineptness at the technical realm of the site.) So as I was perusing Facebook a few months ago, I came across an article for parents about the effect Facebook may have on a child. No, it wasn’t the “Internet stalker” warning, but something much more prevalent and more impactful. It was all about how kids on Facebook often see their friends hanging with other people, even people they don’t know well, surrounding themselves with friends and fun activities in …
