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Anesthesiology and medical excellence with Dr. Kate Bailey · My Veterinary Life

• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Welcome to this week's episode of the My Veterinary Life podcast.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: I'm your host, Dr. Annie Chabon, and my pronouns are she, her.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: And our guest today is Dr.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: Kate Bailey.
• 0:19
  Speaker 3: Dr.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Bailey is the Vice President of Medical Excellence and Education
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: at MedVet and a board-certified anesthesiologist. I am super excited
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: to share Dr. Bailey's story with you today, but before
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: we do, I want to give a thank you to
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: our podcast partner, Hills Pet Nutrition. Founded 75 years ago
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: with an unwavering commitment to science-led pet nutrition. Pills Nutrition
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: is on a mission to help enrich and lengthen the
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: special relationships between people and their pets. Pills is dedicated
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: to pioneering research for dogs and cats using a scientific
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: understanding of their specific needs. As a leading veterinary-recommended pet
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: food brand, knowledge is our first ingredient, with over 220 veterinarians,
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: PhD nutritionists, and food scientists working to develop breakthrough innovations
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: in pet health. Hills Prescription Diet, therapeutic nutrition, plus our
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: everyday wellness product line, Hills Science Diet, are.
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: Sold at vet clinics and pet specialty retailers worldwide.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: For more information about our products and nutritional philosophy, visit hillspet.com.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: Veterinary professionals can visit hillsvet.com for more information. And with that,
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: welcome to the show, Dr. Bailey.
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I'm
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  Speaker 3: so excited to chat.
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: I am so excited to chat as well.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: So let's kick off things with the very beginning. Can
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: you share a story that sort of encapsulates how you
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: first became interested in vet med?
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I was young. I was really young
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: when I first started thinking about veterinary medicine, largely because
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: my mom was a veterinary technician. So she was a
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: career veterinary technician, did the job for north of 40 years.
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: And so a lot of my childhood I spent as
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: a tiny top running around the hospitals and with veterinarians.
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  Speaker 3: You know, I think I was given the appreciation for
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  Speaker 3: mother nature and animals and kind of our place in
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: that early in life. And that grew. I just generally
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: love science. Like science-y things are cool. There's lots of
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  Speaker 3: questions to answer. I'm a curious person. That all kind
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: of clicked for me. And so, you know, as I
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  Speaker 3: moved through high school and college and found myself gravitating
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  Speaker 3: toward biology, life sciences, how things work. I'm definitely more
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  Speaker 3: of like a concept person than like a looking at
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  Speaker 3: it kind of person. So like physiology, pharmacology, and all
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  Speaker 3: of those things were super interesting to me, how cells work,
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: that kind of stuff. So early age kind of figured
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  Speaker 3: this out and then it stuck. And here I am.
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  Speaker 3: So I'm sure a lot of people out there can
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  Speaker 3: relate to that. But yeah, it's kind of been a lifelong,
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  Speaker 3: a lifelong love for me.
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  Speaker 2: Very cool. Yes.
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  Speaker 1: So I love that you had that initial exposure with
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  Speaker 1: your mom and just spending time in the clinics.
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  Speaker 2: And I think that it's so.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: Interesting that you showed us that there are different ways
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  Speaker 1: to even think about the science of it. There's that
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  Speaker 1: conceptual or the detailed mechanical. And so it makes sense
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  Speaker 1: the subjects that you're passionate about aligned with your interests.
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  Speaker 1: And also makes sense for where you ended up in
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  Speaker 1: vet med. So I do want to get to that.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: And to do that, I want to ask one of
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  Speaker 1: my favorite questions on the podcast, which is, what was
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  Speaker 1: your plan after graduating vet school?
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  Speaker 2: And how did it compare to what actually happened?
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  Speaker 3: Oh, Annie. So like I, not where I thought I
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  Speaker 3: was going to end up, not by a long shot.
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  Speaker 3: Like if you had told me one that I was
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  Speaker 3: going to end up Focusing on medical excellence and education, too.
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: If you told me I was going to work for
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: a group called MedVet, that I could be that lucky,
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  Speaker 3: none of that occurred to me at all. So when
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  Speaker 3: I first went to vet school, I'm going to take
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  Speaker 3: you back a step even further. When I got to
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  Speaker 3: vet school, I thought I wanted to be an equine
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  Speaker 3: orthopedic surgeon. That was my first love. I was a
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  Speaker 3: horseback rider. I did hunter jumper. I loved the horse world.
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  Speaker 3: I still do. I thought I wanted to do that.
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  Speaker 3: And then I got into anatomy and thought, oh, no, no.
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  Speaker 3: There's too many pieces. There's too many parts. There's so
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  Speaker 3: many names. I don't like mechanics. I will do this earlier.
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  Speaker 3: And I appreciate your emphasis.
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  Speaker 2: I like that.
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  Speaker 3: The mechanics of the thing, that wasn't my passion. Figured
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  Speaker 3: that out. Then I thought I wanted to look at ultrasound,
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  Speaker 3: a traveling ultrasound person. So I spent some time with
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  Speaker 3: a veterinarian who does that. Loved it. 2D to 3D,
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  Speaker 3: like conceptual change up in my brain. Nope, that doesn't,
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  Speaker 3: not my thing. So didn't stick with that. Then I
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  Speaker 3: thought I wanted to be Jane Goodall. So I was
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  Speaker 3: very excited about the exotic species or the, what I
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  Speaker 3: will call the underrepresented species, right? There's a lot of
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  Speaker 3: species out there that are super unique and have their
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  Speaker 3: different needs. I wanted to get into that area. So
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  Speaker 3: I spent a lot of time focusing on the exotics
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  Speaker 3: as a small mammals and the zoo species, that kind
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  Speaker 3: of thing. And then found out, like, I probably didn't
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  Speaker 3: want to walk through the jungle and look or evidence
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  Speaker 3: of animals. Like that, that wasn't actually going to be
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  Speaker 3: what I wanted to do. So then I decided, okay,
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  Speaker 3: I'm going to do emergency. I like physiology, pharmacology. I'm
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  Speaker 3: not patient. Like I'm not a patient person. I, I
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  Speaker 3: need things to happen quickly. I want to solve things quickly.
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  Speaker 3: I want things to resolve. So I focused in on
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  Speaker 3: emergency medicine and that is what I thought I wanted
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  Speaker 3: to do when I graduated from that school. And Annie,
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  Speaker 3: I'm going to guess you might have experienced fourth year
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  Speaker 3: clinical year similarly to me. I loved my rotations. I
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  Speaker 3: love them all so much that for short periods of time,
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  Speaker 3: I convinced myself I wanted to do some of those.
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  Speaker 3: Like I thought I was like, oh, internal medicine. This
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  Speaker 3: is like NCIS. I feel like I'm on Law and
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  Speaker 3: Order or something. It's like this detective mystery and it's
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  Speaker 3: like this, the coolest puzzle problem solving ever. And I
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  Speaker 3: get to try to put all these pieces together. I
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  Speaker 3: love that. I love my ER rotation. I loved my
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  Speaker 3: ClinPath rotation. There were just a couple big highlights in
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  Speaker 3: there that I thought, ooh, what do I want to do?
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  Speaker 3: Do I want to do that? And so again, I
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  Speaker 3: think I focused on ER for the reasons I stated earlier.
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  Speaker 3: And also because you get to do A bunch of, like,
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  Speaker 3: there's just so many things you get to touch, do,
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  Speaker 3: and be in an ER setting. And so that was
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  Speaker 3: my focus. I graduated. That's what I'm going to try
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  Speaker 3: to do. So I ended up doing an internship, a
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  Speaker 3: small animal rotating internship at a private practice. I'm so
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  Speaker 3: glad I did that. I loved my academic learning. I
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  Speaker 3: loved that setting. And the private practice internship gave me
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  Speaker 3: so many good tools around multitasking and like setting realistic
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  Speaker 3: timeframes for myself throughout the day and being able to
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  Speaker 3: learn all of the clinical things that I had not
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  Speaker 3: yet seen. I don't know that anyone will find this controversial,
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  Speaker 3: but you just can't possibly see every single thing you're
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  Speaker 3: going to see as a veterinarian in vet school. You
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  Speaker 3: just can't. And I know that can be a stressor,
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  Speaker 3: but it's just normal. Like you're never going to be 110%.
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  Speaker 3: I've seen everything and I'm ready for everything when you graduate.
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  Speaker 3: And I certainly appreciate my internship for the intensity of
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  Speaker 3: those cases, the amount of time I was able to spend,
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  Speaker 3: like really diving into a lot of those different types
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  Speaker 3: of cases, the mentorship I had, moving through that process.
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  Speaker 3: And from a prior practice standpoint, seeing it in a
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  Speaker 3: very realistic environment, Seeing it with, you know, doctors and
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  Speaker 3: specialists that were different from my vet school, doctors and
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  Speaker 3: specialists had different perspectives to show me and many cases
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  Speaker 3: at a time. I got really so much better in
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  Speaker 3: that year at handling multiple cases at a time, triaging, prioritizing,
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  Speaker 3: delivering good medicine, hopefully, to patients. many patients over that
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  Speaker 3: 12-month period. So it was a huge lesson learned for me.
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  Speaker 3: And look, the spoiler alert is that I picked a
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  Speaker 3: different career by the end. Probably wouldn't have known to
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  Speaker 3: do that had I not seen so many things.
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  Speaker 1: And done so many things. I so appreciate you walking
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  Speaker 1: us through those different ideations of what your path is
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  Speaker 1: going to look like, because I think that's really normal.
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  Speaker 2: We don't talk about it as much, but.
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  Speaker 1: You literally went from equine orthopedic surgeon to in the
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  Speaker 1: jungle over the course of two.
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  Speaker 2: Three years, maybe, and then landed on ER. And you
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  Speaker 2: are exactly right. I had the same experience in fourth year.
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  Speaker 1: Every two weeks, I was going to become a different
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  Speaker 1: person after graduation.
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  Speaker 2: And I think that's a.
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  Speaker 1: Great thing to be open to the different options, but
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  Speaker 1: also kind of reconnect with yourself and see what resonates
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  Speaker 1: with the things.
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  Speaker 2: That get you really excited.
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  Speaker 1: And even the experiences that may not ultimately end up
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  Speaker 1: being the fit that you were looking for, give you
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  Speaker 1: that much more information to make that next decision. So
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  Speaker 1: I love your perspective on the internship. I appreciated it
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  Speaker 1: for what it was. I learned so many things. And
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  Speaker 1: one of those things was that I'm not going to
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  Speaker 1: continue on this path. I'm going to take what I
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  Speaker 1: learned and we're going on a different trajectory. So cannot
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  Speaker 1: emphasize enough how freeing that mindset can be when you're
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  Speaker 1: thinking about your career options.
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  Speaker 2: So what happened next?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, so cannot agree more. And the internship isn't even
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  Speaker 3: all that broad. Like there are so many things you
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  Speaker 3: can do with veterinary medicine. Holy moly. I feel like
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  Speaker 3: you and I are good examples of this. There are
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  Speaker 3: so many things you can do with it. medicine. So many.
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  Speaker 3: And still like really meaningfully contribute to the profession, to
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  Speaker 3: making our pets and our patients have a better experience.
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  Speaker 3: There are so many ways to do this. So one
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  Speaker 3: of the things that I identified during my internship year,
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  Speaker 3: the physiology, And the pharmacology and being able to manipulate
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  Speaker 3: those things in real time quickly and resuscitate emergency patients
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  Speaker 3: and put them in a better place. Loved that part. Love, love, love.
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  Speaker 3: Like that was my favorite, favorite part. And I missed
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  Speaker 3: horses and cows and goats and bearded draggings and fish.
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  Speaker 3: Like I love dogs and cats. There's so much out there.
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  Speaker 3: And I also had a mentor named Lisa Posner, who
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: anyone who's graduated from NC State in the last 20
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: years probably knows Dr. Posner. She's an amazing human. She's
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: a force of nature. She's also an anesthesiologist. And she
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: told me my fourth year before I left, you might
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  Speaker 3: want to consider anesthesia as your sport. Like, it's possible
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  Speaker 3: that this is the right fit for you. Just consider it.
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  Speaker 3: And at the time, I thought, I'm going to private practice. Like,
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  Speaker 3: I'm going to go be an ER doctor. I'm going
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: to go to private practice and back in my day,
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: I know that's like such a cliche, back in my day,
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  Speaker 3: there were not nearly as many anesthesiologists in the private
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: practice setting. And so I didn't really see that as
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  Speaker 3: an option out in private practice, but it turns out
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  Speaker 3: that's my sport. Like that is what I was, it's
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  Speaker 3: what I was built to do. Anesthesia, anesthesiology, pain management,
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  Speaker 3: patient comfort, manipulating the physiology, manipulating with pharmacology like that.
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  Speaker 3: That's what I'm meant to do. It turned out that
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: it was so much what I was meant to do
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: that I went and visited NC State. I ran into
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: a resident, Dr. Kristen Messinger. She is also an anesthesiologist.
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: She's also boarded in pharmacology. She's got a PhD, one
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  Speaker 3: of the smartest people I know. So I spent some
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  Speaker 3: time with her during that internship year as an extern, actually.
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: at NC State, which cannot emphasize the importance of externships enough,
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  Speaker 3: and discovered that that was my path. So I applied
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: for the residency. I ended up matching at NC State
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: for the anesthesia residency. And I'm so glad I did it.
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  Speaker 3: I almost didn't. Like, I was pretty close to saying, like,
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: I don't know if that's for me. I think, like,
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: academia is probably not my path. But I did it anyway.
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  Speaker 3: And man, I'm so glad I did it because I'm
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: the luckiest person. I have the best job in the world.
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: I feel so lucky to have chosen that way because
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: it was right for me.
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  Speaker 2: Wow.
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  Speaker 1: One thing that stands out to me from that shift
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: to anesthesiology is the value of advice that may come asynchronously, right?
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  Speaker 1: So you sort of had that nugget during vet school.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: It wasn't quite the right time to hear it. That anesthesia,
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: anesthesiology might be a good fit. But just keeping those
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: I'm going to say keeping feedback in mind moving forward
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: is always a good thing. It's always healthy to get
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: a 360 view of ourselves. We have our opinion, but
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: as you said, trusted mentors, people you respect, their feedback matters.
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  Speaker 1: And it might not be relevant in that exact moment,
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: but hang on to it because you never know when
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: that might be incredibly valuable, perhaps life-changing in your case.
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  Speaker 2: So How did you decide what to do.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: After residency than kind of tying that all in and
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: thinking about your struggle between academia and private practice and
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: those factors?
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah. So, Annie, you're going to notice a theme here,
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: which is that I tend to be really certain in
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: my mind of what I think is going to happen,
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: but it often isn't that. It's not. It doesn't always
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: happen that way, right? Life has a way of making
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: the path it's supposed to. So, I wanted to go back,
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: do this anesthesia residency at NC State, become an expert
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: in anesthesia, and then bring anesthesiology to the forefront in
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: private practice. I think, as is much more obvious now
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: in 2026, anesthesiology has a place in multi-specialty hospitals. And
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: there is so much good an anesthesiologist can do in
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: a practice like that. I wanted to make that more obvious.
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: It turns out that that trend continued without me doing
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: it because here's what I figured out during my residency. Oh,
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: I love to teach so much. Like if I were
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: to pick the second thing that really fulfills my days,
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: it's teaching. I love, love teaching. teaching students, interns, residents, technicians,
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: you name it. If someone wants to listen to me
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: talk about anesthesia or leadership or communication or strategy, like
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  Speaker 3: that is my jam. That is what I want to
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: do all day, every day. I want to teach people.
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: And so despite my thoughts that I was going to
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: go and be an anesthesiologist in private practice, What really
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: ended up speaking to me at the end of the
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: day is this drive to teach as many students as
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: best I could the major and most important components of
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: anesthesia so that when they went out into practice, they
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: had the tools they needed to competently anesthetize patients well,
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: deliver comfort, make sure that oxygen and glucose was going
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: to make it to the big toe of all of
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: those patients. which is a Dr. Posnerism, but I shamelessly
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: steal it. That was my passion, it turns out. And
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: so I ended up becoming a faculty member at NC
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: State and staying on to teach anesthesia. And full circle
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: to my Jane Goodall wishes, I ended up doing a
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: lot of research in analgesia and anesthesia around fish and
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: crabs and turtles and frogs, horseshoe crabs. That was probably
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: one of the most interesting ones. project-wise, all of that
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: to say, did not see that coming. If you had
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: told me that before I had started vet school, I
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: wouldn't have believed you. It was a very, very different path,
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: the education piece. And what I found for me was
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: the motive to help as many pets as I can
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: through education and through betterment of the system. Like that
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: was kind of my drive there. Like how many pets
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: can I help by making sure that veterinarians have what
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: they need to do a really, really good job. So
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: the underpinning there is the medical quality component was also
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: really important to me. Patient safety, medical quality, doing the
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: right thing every time for every patient, the habits, the
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: consistent good practice. I wanted to help instill that in
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: veterinary students and again, and technicians and interns and residents
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: as they came through my sphere so that more and
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: more patients could get what they needed.
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: Every day.
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: What an amazing story and discovery of the next path
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: through experience and also being able to distill some, what
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: I'm hearing is core values to you and how you
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: want to practice and how you want to be professionally.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: And you loved your time as a faculty member and
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: education is something that's very important to you. And yet
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: that's not the end of the story. So what factors
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: led to your next career transition?
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I thought I would retire at NC State. So
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: I want to go back to a comment you made
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: because I think it's super important. Getting the feedback, listening
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: to the feedback, don't ignore the feedback, even if it
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: is asynchronous. Like even if it's kind of out of
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: space and time, keep that. And then also what I
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: learned was it's so important to seek out feedback. Just
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: because you're not actively getting it doesn't mean you can't
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: ask for it. And that can be so important in
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: figuring out if you're getting what you need, right? Like
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: advocate for yourself, ask for it. And I think in
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: this kind of space of, oh, I want to help
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: as many pets as I can. I want to make
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: veterinary medicine safe for as many pets as I can.
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: I have some colleagues who ended up going out into
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: the private practice space in more of a hospital support
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: role and talking to me about that and recruiting me
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: to be a part of it, mainly because I was
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: so interested in teaching well. So the evolution as a
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: faculty member became, how do I best ensure that that
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: my students are actually leaving what I want them to
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: leave with. It turns out specialty of veterinary medicine and
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: then the specialty of anesthesia, and no matter what specialty
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: you pick, no matter what route and vet med you pick,
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: there is this whole other specialty of education, which is
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: this other expertise. And so I was lucky enough at
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: the time, my associate dean of academic affairs at NC
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: State was Dr. Lauren Elson, who actually now coincidentally works
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: with me at MedVac. She gave me essentially a scholarship
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: to do a postgraduate certificate in veterinary education. through the
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: Royal Vet College. So I was able to do a
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: year-long remote program where I specifically learned about how adults
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: learn and how to best shape content so that people
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: could take that content and use it in real time,
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: how to best set my learners up for success, how
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: to be learner-centered instead of teacher-centered in the approach to education.
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: I got really interested in all of that. I got
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: interested in curriculum building and how do we make sure
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: we know that when our veterinary students start, that we
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: are doing them a service and that by the end,
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: they're really ready, as much as we can make them,
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: to go be expert veterinarians. And because of that amazing experience,
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: I was asked to essentially build a curriculum and a
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: medical quality infrastructure for a company that I very much
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: appreciate my time with. They were new to the scene.
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: So they had just started in like 2019. It was
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: very new when I joined that group in like 2022.
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: I learned so, so much. I learned so much about
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: how you can shape veterinary medicine outside of academia. And
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: I'm really, really glad I had that time And that
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: led me to meet some of the people that I
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: know now that were able to introduce me to my
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: current boss, who I just love so, so much. Dr.
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: Lauren Boyd is the chief medical officer at MedVet. Met
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: her through some mutual colleagues and ended up interviewing for
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: a new position that she had opened, which was the
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: VP of medical excellence and education. this was such a
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: great job. Like I never would have seen myself getting
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: to this point ever. Not at all was this on
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: my horizon, but it combines the things that I love
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: most and that fill me up the most. So I
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: get to help shape the way we are educating veterinarians.
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: I get to help shape the way we are interacting
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: with veterinary schools. So I still get to get my
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: academia fix, which is great because I still love it.
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: I get to establish the way we approach medical quality,
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: patient safety, the various different ways that we as an
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: organization can improve our patient care. I get to work
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: with an amazing team. I get to help with clinical studies.
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: There's just so much in my current role that I
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: feel like I'm doing all of the parts that make
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: me so happy in this profession. And again, never would
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: have pictured that I would end up here. But I'm so,
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: so glad that I found this organization, that I found
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: these people who see veterinary medicine as this kind of
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: priority here. Like if you deliver excellent, excellent patient care,
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: and if you take really, really good care of the
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: people who deliver that excellent patient care, then the results
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: and the success and the growth that comes later and
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: they put so much emphasis and effort and value on
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: medical quality training programs that it's like my people. So I,
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: I'm so glad I found this group in MedVet and
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: I did not see it coming, not in a million years.
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: I think maybe the moral of the story is like,
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: don't say no to talking to people about things because
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: you never know.
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: I like that.
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: Practicing keeping your eyes open, being open to opportunities. And
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: I'm so glad that you can share that story of
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: finding the different pieces that drive you along the way.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: I'm going to see if I can distill them here
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: because you said you love shaping veterinarians.
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: That's one.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: You also love interacting and shaping interactions with vet school. Two,
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: there's that medical quality and safety component there. that are
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: all wrapped up into your current role, but you picked
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: up those values in different points along the way. And
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: we actually had a podcast guest a little while back, Dr.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: Mark Penning, who was the keynote at convention. And he said,
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: you probably don't even want to find your dream job
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: right after graduation because if it comes then, you're not
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: ready for it.
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: And I loved that perspective.
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: And it just, as you were telling your story, it
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: reminded me of that is you needed every step and
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: you learned so much from every step and you appreciated
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: each step for what it was. And it prepared you
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: for where you are now, the opportunity that you kept
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: your eyes open for.
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: So like I said, love the story.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: Hope that it resonates with people, inspires folks that it
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: is possible. You do have to do some of that
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: work on the back end to know what fulfills you
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: and really pinpoint and identify them. But those opportunities are
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: out there. And I just love, love, love hearing the
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: excitement in your voice.
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: Mark has great advice, right? Like probably isn't a great
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: idea to have your dream job first because you didn't
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: gather all of the perspective that would help you recognize it, right?
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: And there's lots of things that you could be happy doing.
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: So say yes to stuff and figure it out. I
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: think one of the things that NC State does really well,
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: and I'm sure there are many vet schools who do,
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: you have so many opportunities to go check stuff out.
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: And there's so much opportunity.
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: Don't say no to stuff.
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: Don't close your brain out.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: There's so much opportunity. Don't say no to stuff. Don't
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: close your brain too early. And I would say have
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: patience with the discovery as well. I think that's something
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: that I'm hearing too, is that Experience comes with time.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: It comes with repetition. It comes with exposure. Appreciate each
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: moment for what it is and what it can teach
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: you moving forward. And you never know what's going to
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: come across your opportunity options there.
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: 100%. I'm a veterinary student and I'm thinking about what
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: I want to do, you know, after graduation. One thing
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: I would really think through, and I'm sure there are
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: much smarter people who have said this before me, find
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: a scenario where you have a dedicated person who is
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: interested in growing you as a veterinarian, and it's going
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: to give you the time to answer your questions and
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: be with you and be present and be enthusiastic about
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: that mentorship process. Like that would be one of the
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: things that I, I'm sure again, I'm sure lots of
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: people talk about this, but I'll just, I'm going to
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: like triple down. Mentorship is really important in any first job,
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: in particular in training programs.
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: So important, I think.
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: But like the rest is just, oh my gosh, so
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: many choices. Annie, you now work for the AVMA. That
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: is amazing. Did you ever think you would be where
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: you are now?
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: Absolutely not.
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: No.
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: Spoiler alert, everybody. Dr. Annie Chavant was one of my students.
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: I almost jumped in during that part. And now I'm
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: on faculty. It's like teaching folks like this podcast host.
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: I love it. And clearly, like you've picked, this is
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: a great fit for you.
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: And I love it.
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: And I think you are a great example of like,
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: you just never know. Veterinary medicine is a huge skill set.
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: And you can end up in so many different places
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: where you can help with the questions. One last piece
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: that I want to mention. I have a colleague named
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: Josh Weissman. He runs Flourish Vet Consulting. He's written a
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: book on leadership. When I was thinking through what I
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: wanted to do for my next chapter, he told me,
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: instead of focusing on what you think you want, focus
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: on the things you don't want. Meaning every job, no
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: matter what it is, every job is going to come
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: with Some not great stuff. Like there's going to be
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: some components that aren't your absolute favorite. It's just unavoidable.
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: Focus on what the non-negotiables are. And then there's this
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: whole field that you've opened yourself up to because you
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: didn't limit yourself to like, these are the only things
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: I want. Like there are things you haven't even discovered yet.
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: For me, it was, I don't want to travel more
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: than 50% of the time because I have a young child. I, like,
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: I don't want to accept a job that doesn't have
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: an education. There were certain pieces and that made my
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: ability to look at everything differently because there's so much
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: to do. It don't limit the way you're looking at it.
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: I think that was his point.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: Yes. And I'm going to pick that for the piece
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: to leave our listeners with to think about as they
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: go throughout their day today, because you also said something
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: along the lines of there are many options that can
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: make you happy. And I think that's so important to
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: help take some of the pressure off each of those
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: career choices.
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: Focus on the underlying things that are driving the passion.
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: And there are many different flavors of job openings that
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: can fill those passions, but hang your hat on the passions,
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: not the specific opportunities. And I think your career story
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: is a fantastic example of that. And I'm so, so
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: grateful for you coming on the show and sharing it
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: with us today.
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much for having me, Andy. This was
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: so much fun.
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: And thank you to each of you for joining us
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: on this episode of My Veterinary Life Podcast. We love
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: sharing this journey with you. And remember, we want to
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: hear from you. So please be sure to leave us
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or whatever platform
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: you listen to. And you can also email me at
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: mvlpodcast at avma.org.
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: Take care, and we'll see you next time.