Hey y'all, welcome to the Vet Files.
Today we're joined by Doctor Emily King and we're so excited
to talk to her today. She is the founder of All Star
Veterinary Clinic and if you haven't seen her on social
media, go check her out. What is your username, Doctor
King? Doctor Emily King is really
hard. Yeah, so hard, just, you know,
trying to sound that one out and go check Instagram and all of
the different platforms. We love watching her content and
thought we would have a chat today.
So, Doctor King, could you tell us a little bit about your
background and how you got to where you are today?
Yeah, thanks for having me. You too.
I'm excited to revisit, you know, a couple of the topics and
and talk tonight. So thanks for having me
basically. So you want to know how I got to
where I am currently? Well, I went to undergraduate
school at James Madison University and that and I played
basketball in college and then I went from there to the
University of Tennessee and graduated in 1996.
So this is 30 years in May of since graduation.
So, you know, we were visiting briefly before the podcast and I
was saying I think I had like 5657 people, something like that
in my graduating class. So I'm sure everyone is going to
be celebrating in May that we've made it 30 years.
So yeah, that's kind of never knew I was going to do small
animal medicine. Originally had plans to do
marine mammal medicine and then figured out that no, I was not
going to do that. So I needed to figure out
something else to do with my degree, and that was small
animal medicine. So yeah, a non traditional route
to where I currently AM. Yeah, and I'm sure you've told
that story. I know you told us on a PVMA
about a million times, but just those who didn't know, I think
talking about everybody's journey when they come on is
really cool. Everybody's is genuinely so
different. Every single person we've talked
to has had some different variation.
Even if you all end up in small animal medicine, which is the
more common. Raul, everybody has such an
interesting story of how they got there.
So what would you say is the best part of founding a clinic
and kind of running your own show?
Yeah, I mean, there's so many great things, right?
I think when you own your own clinic, the the good things far
outweigh the bad things that come from owning your own
business. That's something that we preach
to not only, you know, our own children, you know, being an
entrepreneur and owning something, you know, is, is a
way to financial stability, but also it's just it's, it's a
unique way to live. We also talk to the people
inside the clinic about that. Like, hey, listen, you know, if
you have ownership, you know, interest, whether it be with
veterinary medicine or something else, you know, we have one
Doctor Who her husband and her own a another business that
she's also running. And so, you know, it is it's,
it's a fun way to live. It's a fun way to exist as a
professional, if you will. And so yeah, I think I've
wandered off on a tangent, so I don't remember the original
question, but I think I think it's definitely worth owning
your own business. The pros definitely outweigh the
cons. What are those learning curves?
Because you know, Gretel and I have been talking about this,
but I was talking about maybe getting an MBA or something in
the hopes of owning a practice one day.
And that's just one of those things where I'm like, are the
skills gained from a degree in all the paperwork and the school
work the same as the skills that you're going to earn from just
going in, diving in head 1st and figuring it out?
You know what I mean? Yeah, I mean, I think the my
favorite part of being an owner is autonomy, right?
It is your thing. You're deciding what's happening
and and the direction it's going like it is the buck stops with
you. Like it is either as pretty as
you want it to be or as ugly as you let it be, right.
So I think that's the cool part in the challenging part.
You know, I don't, there's no way on this planet that I would
have been able to run All Star Veterinary Clinic from a
business perspective. That is that was not something
that I was, I'm going to even pretend to be talented about.
Like I understood just enough, you know, you know, so I had, my
husband has an MBA and a law degree and had a degree in
finance. And so he ran the whole business
side of the practice. If he had not been there, I
would have absolutely needed some form of other education
because back when I was in school, they really didn't have
a ton of business classes. They had a few that you could
take as an elective, you know, but it wasn't a focus like it is
now. And so definitely having some
additional training in terms of what does it look like to run a
business, what should you be focused on?
You know are important assets that I would acquire for sure if
it was me. That's amazing.
I can understand. I was pointing to myself during
that because I have no business skill whatsoever.
I wish I didn't have to charge a dime to anyone, but that's not
realistic. Exactly.
I'd give away the farm if it was
possible, right? I mean, it's just one of those
things, yeah. Exactly.
And so I'd love to hear about it.
So you were talking about autonomy when you came to
University of Illinois. You spoke about your favorite
books and how you constantly use like your standards in your
clinic for when things get crazy.
One of my favorite memories is when you spoke about the first
patient of the day still gets treated the same as the last
patient. Could you describe experience
where you felt you had to instill those values?
What made you set up this organization for your own
clinic? I am for better or for worse,
like I worry what people think. And so which is not necessarily
like a great trait to have, right?
So like, for better or for worse, that's not the best
trait, right? I mean, you know, because it, it
creates a lot of stress and anxiety if you're constantly
worried about what the next person is thinking or what your
clients always thinking, you know, that's important.
And that's what drove me to, to create processes a certain way
because I wanted to be the best and, and I was very competitive.
And so then therefore, when they left, I wanted them telling
their their neighbor about us or if they saw somebody in church
and they were talking about how their pet was treated, then I
wanted it to be a certain way. And so that was my initial
motivation, you know, behind doing it.
I think that ultimately the processes and the consistency to
which the processes were performed created a good work
environment and ultimately pushed the clinic the direction
that it needed to go. So it was a little bit by
accident, you know, but as but somewhat intentional.
You know, once I figured out that that's actually what needed
to be happening, then it became very intentional in terms of
what we were trying to do. I think it's a great point that
Gretel brought up and that you brought up about not not peer
pressure, but the pressure people pleasing, right?
Like everybody for the most part in Vetmed is somewhat of an
empath. You kind of have to be, if you
want to, you know, work with animals and listen to what
they're saying without talking, et cetera, et cetera.
Just earlier I did make a phone call that I did not want to make
to another vet and I was like, I put it off for maybe a a week or
two and I said I don't know. And I really number one,
Michaela, you don't put it off, you do it.
You do the hard thing first and then get it off your plate.
You just spent a week and 1/2 with all that hanging over your
head. Oh my God.
I know. And now the conversation's still
not over. She still has to call me back
and work and I'm like, oh and I'm so scared of making or
offending her or upsetting her. And it wasn't even though I was
the victim of this situation, I was like, I'm not, I'm angry at
you. I'm just trying to, you know,
fix things. And so it's been difficult for
me to like, man up and like say, hey, I think something went
wrong and I want to fix it. It took me like a week and a
half. My heart's beating out of my
chest. And so that is something I
struggle with. That is the scariest part.
It's not even the finances and whatever.
I'm more than willing to educate myself on that.
It's the character building that I have to do when it comes to,
you know, having a backbone and saying no when you need to say
no and having boundaries and standing up for self.
Because I think I'm pretty good at standing up for other people
or for pets and etc. So I don't know.
I mean, do you have any experience where you just, we're
fighting to make yourself do something like that?
Oh my. Gosh, for years, absolutely.
I mean, I was like a, I don't know what, like a limp noodle
when it came to conflict initially.
Like, don't you know, like I just hated it.
And I wouldn't have crucial conversations with people.
You know, there was there was massive inconsistency from an
accountability perspective, you know, because I didn't know what
the hell I was doing. And so, you know, it was like
and there and, and you know, and you can feel right than tension
and things like that. And you're like, this is not how
it's supposed to be. And then you start to slowly
realize that then you are the problem.
And as long as you start to realize that you're the problem,
then you can fix that, right? So you lead yourself first, you
work on yourself 1st and then you can lead other people.
And so then as you start to kind of peel away the layers of the
onion, you realize really how bad you actually were.
And then you just vow to never be that bad again.
So like, I mean, I think, you know, everybody has those
experiences. You know, I would say the first,
you know, when I worked for other people, it was very easy
for me to leave because I just did what was expected and I
treated people the way I would want to be treated.
And I did all the things that you would think you would do.
I showed up on time. I wasn't late.
I didn't call in sick, you know, like, I'd be like, I did all the
things that made me valuable, you know?
And then, oh, by the way, then I could practice veterinary
medicine, you know, So it was like, so I was then just
essentially seen as a leader. Well, that's all fine, but that
doesn't translate to ownership necessarily.
So then I own. Then when you open a practice,
you're like, I had no idea what I'm doing.
Like, how do I get all these people to do the things they
actually need to do? How do they, how do they learn
them all, first of all? And then how do they buy into
the fact that they're important? And then once they know how to
do them and once they know they're important, why in the
heck are they still not doing them, you know, And then what do
I need to do about that? You know, I thought people just
would do what they were supposed to do.
That's just not how it works. And so then being able to learn
how to do that. So.
Yeah, I was really bad at it initially for sure.
There was definitely a gazillion.
You could go ask anybody that worked for me probably the first
six years in the clinic slide. I mean, like, what was she like?
It was a disaster. I mean, I wasn't mean or
anything like that. I just motored along, but with
not the same intentionality. Yeah.
And I think kind of on the same topic, something that I had been
thinking about and kind of talking with my classmates and
it was a topic brought up during classes.
And you don't have to say your opinion on these things.
But when it comes to moral dilemmas, you know, there's a
lot of discussion about should you as a vet be doing ear
cropping, tail docking, etcetera, etcetera.
And again, you're welcome to share your opinion, not asking
you to, but how do you stand strong and say, well, I don't
believe in this, but I will do it.
So you don't do it at home or do you do it at all?
Like what do you think about handling those types of
situations? Yeah.
I mean, that's really difficult because you are trying to serve
two different purposes. You're trying to get the client
to change and do something that they are not wanting to do,
right. So like you want them to do
something different than what they originally think they want
to do. And then you also are trying to
manage the healthcare of the pet.
So like you mentioned, well, I don't want them to go someplace
else and get something really badly done or botched done or
they themselves try to do it, you know, or something like
that. You know, now we have a pet who
has, if I had just done it, it would have been fine, you know,
kind of a thing. And so I think that really
you're not going to, in my opinion, as now that I've gotten
older, I think that you genuinely are not going to
change people's opinions about anything until you change their
hearts. So maybe spending time.
So what we try to do is focus on spending time.
Why is it that you want to have this done?
Because sometimes we're assuming that they're doing it for a
particular reason and they're not really, it's because their
neighbors said this. And then once they learn
information, then they're like, oh geez.
Like I've had people come in and be like we amputate, you know,
the 1st digit on my dog's front feet and I'm like, well I mean
like we can but why do you want to do it?
Well, you know, my neighbor said that he had a hunting dog and
they always tore the dew claws off, you know, like, so I
thought I should get him removed.
And I was like, that is worse than the spay that I'm about to
do, you know, as far as discomfort for the patient, you
know, So if you want me to, you know, we can do that and we can
make your pet as comfortable as possible.
But when in seven, you know, over the next seven days, this
is what's going to bother your dog.
The amputation site, not the space site.
Are you sure that's something? No, no, never mind.
I don't want to do it, you know, So I think just talking clients
through the same thing with declaws, you know, like, you
know, have you tried this? Have you tried this?
Have you tried this?
Have you tried this, have you tried this?
And there are so many different circular conversations, right,
where people are like, well, you shouldn't declaw a cat.
And, you know, declawed cats end up in the Humane Society.
Or do they have, you know, long term pain, you know, and that's
why we shouldn't do it. And, you know, but if you if you
outlaw it, then are cats going to end up in the Humane Society
because owners can't keep them inside?
Or are now we saying it's OK to let cats go outside because
that's the natural environment where we've been preaching all
along, Cats should be inside. So like, are we going to now be
OK with cats being outside? Because if they can't be inside
because they're being destructive, then are we allowed
to let them outside? Like, so I think that I think
it, the blanket statements are where people get themselves into
trouble. And I think veterinarians in
general, to some degree, have to be comfortable having the
conversations in the Gray zones. And not every decision is going
to be right for every owner, you know?
So I do think you yourself have to be comfortable with whatever
you're doing and you should never be convinced to do
something that you yourself aren't comfortable doing because
the outcome is is likely to be not good, right?
It's it's unlikely to end up positive.
You know, that's just kind of karma.
So like, you should never be convinced to do something that
you don't believe in. Amazing, such an amazing
response. I wanted to say you started off
talking about you cannot change people's opinions until they
change their heart. I personally have had a very
hard time with this, watching so much misinformation be spread
online and people not trusting veterinarians.
And it's almost like people would rather believe someone
who's unqualified with a theory, with something magical that they
think will fix their problem versus someone who will go
through eight years of schooling minimum.
I'd love to hear, like, what do you think causes our society to
go try to find other resources than veterinarians?
And how do we combat this? Oh.
Gosh, it's a really hard thing that's going on right now.
I mean, I think that veterinarians are under fire,
right? So from outside the industry,
but then also inside the industry as well, I feel like
there's veterinarians attacking each other.
You know, people in private practice are attacking people
with corporate partners. I mean, like, it's just like,
like what is happening? Like why?
I don't understand, Aren't we all in this together?
What's going on? And so you know, the way, in my
opinion, the way you combat it is if you're in your community
anyways, certainly as a person owning a clinic, for example,
you should be putting out accurate information so that
your clients have accurate information coming from someone
locally so that they feel like they have reliable information
so that they don't have to seek out information elsewhere.
But I do think it's human nature to, and the way the algorithms
work on Instagram, right, they're going to keep feeding
you the same thing. And there's affirmation bias
that's happening. So if you believe that D claws
are bad or whatever, I don't know.
I'm just picking that because we just talked about it then and
you watch something that reiterates that that's what's
going to show up. And then you're just going to
continue to be fed that narrative.
You know, which we all agreed, no, we don't really want to be
doing D claws. I'm not saying that that's what
we want to be doing, but I'm just using that as an example.
You're being fed that narrative over and over and over and over
again. Or kibble is bad.
That's a better one, right? Kibble's bad.
I did that post where the guy was like, there's something more
deadly in your cabinet. I saw that something more deadly
in your cabinet than chocolate and grapes.
And I was like, OK, I want to know what what is because those
are actually deadly. And the guy was like, they ended
up being like forever before I got to the answer that dawned on
me. I'm like, he's talking about
kibble. And I was like, actually, as a
matter of fact, no, that is not more deadly than grapes and
chocolate. Like, it's crap like that that,
you know, and then once you watch that once it's going to
show up on your kibble. Kibble's bad, kibble's bad,
kibble's bad, you know, And so I think it's just human nature,
unfortunately. Once you have affirmation bias
or you get sucked into affirmation bias, then you're
you're looking for things to tell you that you're right, I
think. It's the whole like non kibble
food, if that's the choice you want to go and it's you talk to
a vet and etcetera, except like there's steps to be taken where
maybe you could look at that. OK, but I they love or hate the
ads that are like feeding your kibble is like sending your dog
to jail and I'm like feed them. Let's villainize everybody that
who, who has to maybe financially, who has to sit has
to. Because I'm the Hills food
representative for LSU for the class, we did a small animal
nutrition lab where the entire point was you went through and
they took 2 bags of feed, you know, good reputable brands.
Sometimes it was Hills, sometimes it's Purina, and then
sometimes it's Walmart brands. I don't know, just pick some
brands and they sat them side by side and they said go through
with this exact scenario. Calculate the resting energy
requirement and then tell me A how much of each food you would
need to feed per day. And then B, which one would be
better for this dog specific scenario?
Because it does change. And most of the time in this
scenario, the hills was like winning and somebody was like, I
don't know why you would ever feed anything other than hills.
And I was like, because it's expensive.
That doesn't mean that it's, you know, these other foods are bad.
It means maybe that's what's accessible.
My dogs back home get Purina and I'm the hills Rep, my cat gets
hills. Like it's a lot of factors
playing in. And so I was just having that
conversation about everybody uses, you know, spectrum of
care, spoke of scope of care, etcetera.
Like keep that in mind. I think even some of the
specialists and whatnot, once we get so far removed from the
clients and the people with pets and their base level
understanding of things, because I didn't know as much about
small animal nutrition as I do now a year ago.
How would I expect, you know, the people that are walking
through the door to know everything that I know without
me explaining something to them? So connect yourself, ground
yourself back. I know it happens with
specialists sometimes because their clients are the vets
sometimes. So then they're like, well, this
is the gold standard. Why would I do anything less
than the gold standard? And it's like, because that's
not the gold standard for everybody's budget, for
everybody's preferences. You know, that's one of the
hardest parts of that. Med in my opinion is working
with people not personality wise but finding the right solution
for everybody because like you said earlier, it's a lot of
working in Gray areas. Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah. I'd love to talk about a little
bit of how do you manage spectrum of care and your clinic
too. So we had a practitioner come in
the other day and this will get a little sad in a moment, told
us that the euthanasia cap on average is $1000.
So I've heard some from some veterinarians, they say, OK,
take the patient and no matter what versus sending them to the
ER where they're probably going to be euthanized or charged 2 to
$3000. And I keep hearing these
opinions. What's either preserve the
veterinarians and their day and let them go home to their family
or save the clients some money? I just want to hear your
approach because you've owned a clinic before.
Yeah. So, you know, our rule of thumb
was we were not there on Saturdays and Sundays because
the clients gave us that. And with very little resistance,
we said if we're there, we're there.
So if somebody calls at 555 and says their dog, I don't know, is
whatever, laying on the ground and can't get up, then you were
there, you come in. So we would, we didn't turf a
lot because we were willing to. And this is where a spectrum of
care comes in. And I think this is where things
fell off the rails a little bit, right?
Where we were trying to provide a certain level of care and then
we were handcuffing ourselves. So people said you should not
have a patient overnight. You don't have anybody there
watching that patient. And it's like, well, I don't
know, like for 15 years we did it that way.
Like it's a pervo dog. Like we hooked it up to fluids.
It's not moving. It doesn't feel so well.
And then we're giving it our drugs and it's on a grate and
we're coming back into the morning and we're cleaning them
up and we're doing his treatments and whoa, there's
nothing wrong with that. You know, like, so why would we
take that patient and turf it? And then the owner incurred
$3000. We all know a dog, an owner who
has a part of a dog does not have any money.
So, you know, they never do. Why?
Like, so I think things kind of started to go off the rails a
little bit as you watch what was happening where people were like
saying that's not an OK method of treatment, keeping a
hospital, you know, and I would even have applicants ask me, do
you keep people? Do you keep people?
Do you keep animals in the hospital overnight when no one's
there? Like, yeah, we do surgery.
Some of them stay overnight. Like, yeah, they're here.
You know, and it kind of got where people didn't want that.
They don't want patients in that.
Well, you know, when you do that, you raise prices, you
know, I mean, you know, you send you raise expenses for owners.
I think my age group of veterinarian was exceptionally
good at Spectrum of Care. And here's why.
Because when we graduated, we had enough diagnostic tools
within the clinic, but not excessive diagnostic tools.
We really didn't have endoscopy and fluoroscopy and all these
other things that a lot of people have right now, you know,
and I mean, you know, you name it, you know, whatever, you
know, cold laser therapy, I mean like it adds up right on the
expense of all the of of the clinic.
We didn't have all that, but we had the things that we
absolutely needed. We had in house lab machine,
right, which was our biggest tool probably.
And we had an ultrasound machine.
The guy was very forward thinking at the time when I
graduated and he had we had radiology and so we were really
good at practicing spectrum of care and prices were what they
were. They weren't excessive because
we didn't have this high overhead.
And so we had to learn how to guess with the tools that we
had. Now you move forward through the
past 30 years and people have been clamoring for better
healthcare, more advanced healthcare for pets.
That's all fine and dandy and human grade healthcare, but that
comes with the cost and with an overhead.
And so now you guys as veterinarians are having to
navigate the guilt. I use that word.
I don't know if that's the correct word, but the guilt of
going, oh man, I have all these tools over here.
I should be using them, but I can't because the person can't
afford them. Where we didn't have that guilt.
We didn't even have dental radiographs, wasn't even a
standard of care. Like so like, you know, like it
was a, it was a different way of practicing, but in my opinion,
it was great because we didn't have any of these issues that we
have now. And so now we have human grade
healthcare and we don't have the infrastructure to support the
expense of human grade healthcare within clinics for
clients. And so because they're animals,
I mean, it is what it is. I don't know what this, I mean,
you know, they're not people. So, you know, does that mean
people shouldn't be able to get care for their dog?
No, but you're going to have to come up with some very creative
ways of accomplishing that because the clinic owner cannot
foot the bill. It will not work, you know, and
So what are you left with them, you know, so encouraging people
to use insurance and things like that, You know, as now
personally, I don't want insurance in our industry, a
significant, I guess, heavy-handed insurance feeling
in our company because in our industry, because they're going
to tell us how to practice medicine, right?
You know, where there was an example of a of a person I know
who went into a human hospital and there he had a kidney stone
and they they made it, the insurance made them treat him a
certain way first. And when that didn't work, then
they did it this other way. And he was like, why didn't you
just do it that way to begin with?
And he was like, because we're not allowed.
I was like, Oh my God, like, talk about making me stab my
eyes out. Can you imagine if it was like a
bleeding hemo abdomen? And the insurance company's
like, well, you know, give him a transfusion first and see if it
stops. Can you imagine it would be a
disaster? I have.
Personally, a disaster, you know, going to the doctor and
saying I have this issue and I want this treatment or they
recommend this treatment. And then it's I think it took me
months to find like the right medication for something because
it was insurance saying, well, you haven't tried this one yet.
This lower level, cheaper one before we cover the more
expensive one, the gold standard, the thing that we know
will help you. But let's try the cheap one that
might help you. So I think, I think spectrum of
care is, is so doable in veterinary medicine.
You know, I honestly, I don't mind it at all, probably because
I grew up having to guess and then base my treatment changes,
changes in my treatment plan based off how the pet reacted,
you know what I mean? And what was what, what happened
with the pet when I chose to do this or this.
And then learning when I did do that and I had a pet that looked
like that, then I'm not going to do that again.
I'm going to do this instead, you know, like, I mean, using
all of those things to kind of predict and determine how you
practice medicine. Like I, that doesn't bother me
at all. It doesn't bother me when
somebody says I can't do any diagnostics.
I'm like, I'll guess I'll do it. Sign me up.
You know, like I don't have to interpret a lab panel now,
right? No, I mean, I'm just kidding.
But I mean, like, OK, it's fun. And I think that we need to get
back to that, that that's OK. It doesn't mean you're a bad
veterinarian. It doesn't mean, you know, like
you just need to meet the people where they are.
I think our job is to educate. Whatever they do with the
information, that's up to them, I think.
One of the interesting parts I already mentioned, you know,
it's not an issue per SE. It's just that when you go to a
vet school where you have access to, you know, some of the best
vets in the country, some of the most trained, some of the most
educated people. And the clients are coming there
because they've already went to their General practitioner and
chosen that they didn't have the tools needed there.
And they're going to come to your school veterinary teaching
hospital to do more. And So what I've realized a lot
of times, whether talking to clients or talking to
professors, blah, blah, blah, is the things that they're doing
and that are their baseline level of care would never happen
or even be a thought at my home clinic in the middle of nowhere.
And so one of my first questions I always ask if I have the
opportunity or if it feels appropriate is if I'm getting a
lecture on maybe it's dentistry and I say, well, what are the
baseline or the gold standard or how can we make this more
accessible to rural or low income people?
Because when I think about my clinic and it's the only vet
clinic within, you know, 3045 mile radius and you know, I had
an incident with a personal pet where it was, you have to drive
4 hours because it's Texas and the state's huge.
So you know, you have to drive 4 hours to get this biopsy done.
And it was like for the OK, well that's not going to happen.
It's just an interesting topic you bring.
Up A you bring up a great point. I think veterinarians also need
to be comfortable doing stuff like stop sending, you know,
like stuff to places that you just do the work, you know, and
it's OK if it's the first time you've done the work, you know,
or set yourself up for success by working on cadavers, you
know, start a cadaver program in your in your practice, you know,
and just and get and do stuff. Tell somebody, you know what,
it's not practical for you to drive 4 hours down the road.
If you're OK with it, I can do the biopsy for you.
You know, it's not something I routinely do, but I'm feel more
than comfortable taking a biopsy from them out or whatever it is.
You know, I think we can save owners a lot of money, you know,
by doing things. And it also is inundated the
specialty practices, which then as now you can't get into a
specialist for six or eight weeks because they're doing
stuff that GPS should be doing. So I think that, you know,
veterinarians need to, you know, get their confidence back.
And, and I think the schools are partly responsible for that.
Over the past 20 years, they wanted to push work to the
specialist, right? Because they've trained
residents. These residents now are
specialist, right? You should send that to the well
now that we've shot ourselves in the foot, because now we've just
made a bunch of veterinarians who are scared to do anything,
you know, you know, and nervous. And then they didn't, they
haven't done it for a year. And my God, how am I going to do
this? Cherry eye?
I don't know, you know, like that should not go to an
ophthalmologist unless it's a bulldog, then I'll give you a
pass. But like even then you could do
it, you know, So there's so many things like that FH OS, like
there's so many things that I see going to specialists that
end up costing owners way more than what it needs.
You know, specialists need to be doing compound fracture repairs
and back surgeries and you know, back like serious stuff that
like we don't we didn't learn how to do, I think.
That's a great point because like you said, the schools do
kind of encourage us refer, refer, refer, not in a negative
way. The way that it's phrased to us.
I've never even thought about what you're saying because the
way it's phrased to us, the other side of the conversation,
in addition to driving business to specialists, is if you don't
feel comfortable doing it, there's no shame in sending it
to somebody who you know could give your patient better quality
of care. If you know, or if you feel like
you can't do what needs to be done, don't feel ashamed that
you can't do it. Don't be overconfident and screw
your patient over because you thought you could do something
that you couldn't. So again, it's just another side
of the conversation, but I think that's a really good point.
Well, and I think if the, if the option is the pets going to get
euthanized, you know, or you're going to do it then you know,
like I think that's a conversation.
We've had those conversations with owners tons of times.
We had a, we had our own technician RBT that had her dog
needed a gallbladder surgery and then it wasn't imminent, you
know, but she really did not want to go pay $8000, used our
cadaver program. We practiced it three to four
times, Doctor Cloud and I, and then we did her gallbladder
surgery, you know, So like, I just don't think that I don't.
And that's not an example of euthanasia, but I've had plenty
of times where people have been like, I am gonna have to
euthanize it. And I'm like, OK, well, I'll
try, you know, like I'll try and save them.
I don't think there's anything wrong with that.
You know, I do think that you have to have a certain level of
skill, like you don't want to, you know, but most of the time
when you graduate, you're working with other people.
You know, usually they you have two people working on things
like if it's something that somebody has never done, usually
have an extra set of hands and eyes, things like that, that
optimize, you know, success. We have a surgeon locally that
we can just pick up the phone and either text or call and be
like, we were doing a we had a clonic torsion in dog.
I was like, I'm not referring this.
It's a clonic torsion. We just have to like do surgery
and like flip it around, right. I mean, we had never done one,
but I was like, this can't be that hard.
And she wasn't going to go to the specialist And I'm like,
well, all right, let's just open them up.
Let's flip it over, you know, untwist it and then let's, you
know, figure out what we're supposed to do to keep it from
doing it again. So, you know, I mean, like, just
because we hadn't done it didn't mean that we weren't qualified
to do it. So I think that's important for
for young veterinarians to understand definitely.
I think it's I remember I was a runner in high school and he, my
coach always told me that being comfortable is overrated.
And I am constantly uncomfortable in veteran and
will be for the rest of my career and I have to live with
that. And even getting people to talk
in front of A room freaks out most people.
I wish they would feel how we feel as veterinarians.
Well, veterinary students, veterinarians.
One day like the other day, we did physical exams for the first
time. You know how nerve wracking that
was with perfectly behaved ducks?
We just had a whole cause lab that threw everybody off because
we have been doing physical exams and practicing that and
taking history since the last. Like one of the first labs we
did was a physical exam and getting used to it.
But this past communications lab that we had, it was taking a
history while you're doing a physical exam.
So a very normal, you know, day-to-day thing.
And it just had everybody in a tizzy.
And they're like, I can't do both.
I can't do both. Why can't I do it separate?
And I was like, but we were like, Oh my God, like, yeah,
that's. Hilarious for.
Us, we were for 10 doctors. Yes, yes, we do that all the
time. It's so fun.
That's. Hilarious.
Oh, my gosh, I love it. Yes.
I think, you know, learning how to be decisive is extremely
important, you know, and so being decisive is a learned
skill. And I think you end up become,
you become comfortable being decisive, not because you know
you're going to be right every time, but because, you know, you
can handle if you're wrong, right, you're going to be OK,
you know, even if you are wrong. And so I think being indecisive
is a killer in our profession for sure.
Yeah. And as we round out, First off,
we already talked about your Instagram.
Tell us a little bit about your TV show that you're producing.
I think right. Yes.
So Doctor Crocker and myself are doing a show.
We can't say a lot about it because Harrison will kill me.
And so it is a show where we are just kind of showcasing
different professions within our industry and what those jobs
look like at the same time trying to do said jobs.
And so it is, you know, just trying to bring some humor again
and some joy and some comedic relief as well as some, you
know, good information for not only veterinary professionals,
but for pet owners kind of around the world.
And so we're excited about it. We think it's a unique idea.
And hopefully over the next year we'll get everything filmed and
then we can launch it on the platform and then update you
guys and let you know maybe you could be part of the watch
party. I will be, I actually have like
this far off distant dream that Michaela and I would have a show
and we would travel the world and we would try to work with
every animal and do every crazy thing possible and like you
said, being comfortable with the uncomfortable.
So I'm very excited to see you. Are you going to be a little bit
out of your wheelhouse? Yeah, for sure, definitely.
Yeah. Already in the first episode
there were several instances where I think we said that
multiple times. So yes, exactly.
Oh my gosh, I'm. Very excited for you.
I'm also very excited so. Thank you very much.
I appreciate that. Yeah, well.
I guess you can't say the name yet, but when you I.
Can't. I'm not allowed to, I know.
Well, you had posted, I don't think Gretel had seen it yet.
And you posted something about, you know, I can't remember what
it was, but whatever The 1st post was when you kind of
announced that you're working on something, I texted Gretel and I
was like, did you see this? And she was like, no.
And I was like, I don't know what she's talking about.
What is she doing? What is this show about?
So I was like, we're going to have to, we'd already scheduled
you to come on. So we were like, obviously we're
going to talk about it later, you know?
Absolutely. When once, so once it's like,
you know, further along, we'll come back and maybe I can get
Crocker to come on here with me and we'll we'll talk about it.
So yes. We would love to have her.
That would be amazing. It would be fun if we had an
episode on dealing with the uncomfortable.
And yes. The Roger.
Free play. Yeah, exactly.
That might be traumatic, but we can do it well.
One thing that we've started doing, so shout out to Doctor
Wade for choosing our question is we're ending off every
episode with kind of like a little positivity boost.
You know, we talk about some hard or interesting topics on
the podcast. So we ended off by saying,
what's bringing you joy today? Wow.
What's bringing me joy today? Well, gosh, I mean, being on
this podcast, I love visiting with you guys.
You guys are the future of the industry and you're so
enthusiastic and fun and optimistic and but yet
thoughtful about the challenges in front of you.
And so it definitely that has definitely added joy to my day
for sure. Thank you.
So much. It's an honor to always talk to
you. Actually, all my classmates were
like, you're a doctor, you're talking Doctor King.
What? I was like, yes, she's amazing.
We've actually met in person. I know I had posted like a
little like, oh, upcoming guests on the podcast and one of my
classmates reached out to me and was like, I didn't know you had
a podcast. And I was like, I've been
posting about it since like last.
March. Oh.
My God, it exists. It's exist.
That's right, that's right. So I.
Know people are excited about this episode and thank you again
for coming on. I know you definitely it's such
like, you know little spark of joy whenever we watch your
videos and we're like yes, we're going to do that someday and we
love what she talks about and she's such an inspiration.
So I know that so many more people are inspired by you than
you even think about. So thank you, yes.
Well, you're welcome. Absolutely.
Thanks for for that. That means a.
Lot but all right, thank you everybody for listening.
Thank you Doctor King for coming on go check her out at Doctor
Emily King on all of the platforms, Facebook, Instagram.
I think you're on everything. So go check her out.
Make sure to watch your show when it comes out.
I'm excited. So thank you again and we'll see
you next time.