Video link https://ktla.com/morning-news/world-s...

The interview occurred on 2/27/29

I have worn numerous hats as a veterinarian and as a board-certified small animal surgeon. After operating in multiple practices under numerous roles, the one factor holding me back from being entirely content as an accomplished veterinary professional was the work environment, a.k.a culture. I truly loved being in the operating room, being able to repair a pet's ailment in real time, using clinical experience, tools, and the amazing team at hand. I practiced neurologic, orthopedic, and soft tissue surgery. All contributed to the health of each pet; the client, receptionist, assistant, technician, marketing team, maintenance crew, and colleagues. How easily we forget that a single pet cared for at the hospital was actually cared for by everybody involved in the process. Year after year, unfortunately, I became increasingly aware that each level of staff member was becoming more and more overburdened, felt the work had become less rewarding, and turnover rates drastically increased. But what was a solution that could be created to break the cycle?

Many years ago it dawned on me that a business model could be created where veterinarians can answer the phone lines of concerned pet owners who were calling the veterinary facility asking if what they were witnessing with their pet required immediate veterinary care or not. Our answer as a profession was always the same; “if you are concerned, come in”. We are now paying the price for that blanket answer. That insight sparked an idea, that to the world of human medicine was already the norm. The novel concept I thought up was synchronous, video telemedicine, a common means of utilizing telecommunication technologies to dispense medical advice that had been practiced by physicians for decades. At the culmination of my surgical career, where I've had enough of the repetitive cultural toxicity, as many of us veterinarians are quite familiar with, I switched gears and took this concept from conception to reality. In 2019, VetTriage was born. Since then we have triaged over 30,000 animals, 33 different animal types, and have been accessed by clients residing in 15 different countries, all taken care of by approximately 60 of my veterinarians. Along the way we improved the culture and workflow of over 300 different clinics, hospitals, veterinary universities, and rescues/shelters through partnership. It has since become clear that a potent solution to the challenges we face is in telehealth.

The incidence of satisfaction with work-life balance in the veterinary field is 39.6%, less than the 61.3% found in the general population. Veterinarian dissatisfaction is based on not enjoying work, not finding work invigorating, and having personal conflicts with one or more colleagues at work. Other factors include the high student debt, low income, work stress, and cyberbullying.3 The client feedback after a VetTriage session with our doctors has been overwhelmingly positive. Our emails are flooded with patient updates decorated with collages, before and after pictures, and even video of pet doing well with the advice given. Our protocols are tailored to each hospital, our workflows are always evolving, and our doctors enjoy the challenges of learning how to leverage video examinations as a new mode of practice.

Challenges include the current antiquated guidelines, a lack of general knowledge in the veterinary community, lack of veterinary exposure to telehealth, lack of client adaptation to this modality, and rumors of misdiagnosis/malpractice. Let’s expand on these briefly.

So I will leave you with this. Follow your heart and not your credentials. Notice the problems in our profession, especially those problems that are repetitive and universal, and do something about them. For most of us this job is just that, a job. Although it does spill over into our personal lives, it is to be kept separated from our personal lives as much as possible. As an industry disruptor, having took an unconventional career trajectory, televeterinary medicine has become a 24/7 gig for me, fueled by a passion to improve this crippling profession. I was the only televeterinarian on VetTriage for the better half of nine months, triaging thousands of sessions, all different species, from all different areas of the world. Despite now having a larger staff, there is a lot more work to be done. With a foundation grounded in good, I hope that this talk has sparked some of you to disrupt the system. More broadly, I hope that the concepts brought here today, that have been manifesting real life changes for our colleagues and pet owners across the globe, forge televeterinary medicine and the televeterinarian as permanent pillars in our challenging, yet amazing profession.