The Veterinary Republic Podcast

Veterinary Professional Union - What is it about?

In my opinion, this is a very important topic for veterinary technicians.  Many professions have unions, so should veterinary technicians unionize?  In our conversation, Liz Hughston, the president of the National Veterinary Professionals Union (NVPU), and Robyn Sutton, the NVPU vice president, discuss how how the union advocates for veterinary technicians, assistants, customer service representatives, kennel workers, and other veterinary support team members, and some of the pressures that work against organized labor in the veterinary profession.
NVPU website: https://www.natvpu.org/
NVPU email: communications@natvpu.org

Midlevel Practitioner Discussion with AnnaLyce Part 2

AnnaLyce and I finish our discussion on RVT pay, RVT title protection, RVT job satisfaction, and access to veterinary care, and how these topics are the real cause of the Midlevel Practitioner discussion.

AVMA Statements on Vet Techs and the Midlevel Practitioner role - Part 1

AnnaLyce Brockham, RVTg joins me to discuss the recent AVMA House of Delegate statements regarding the midlevel practitioner role and the veterinary technician profession.  Here is a link to the report in JAVMA: https://www.avma.org/news/idea-midlevel-practitioner-rejected-favor-better-support-engagement-credentialed-veterinary
 
AnnaLyce and I are both veterinary technician instructors at Cal Poly Pomona and within the discussion we explore the issue from the perspective of how to teach an RVT to become a midlevel practitioner.

Veterinary Technician Participation in Client Decision-Making

The authors of the paper "Veterinary technicians contribute to shared decision-making during companion animal veterinary appointments" join me to discuss their findings on how veterinary technicians play a positive role in medical decision-making.  This paper was published in the December 2022 volume of JAVMA.
 
We also talk about the current environment of angst towards clients, and how this affects our willingness to invest more time into client communication, and some other stuff too.
 
Here are the authors of the paper:
Natasha Janke, PhD, Ontario Veterinary College- https://ovc.uoguelph.ca/population-medicine/staff/natasha-janke
Jane Shaw, DVM, PhD, Colorado State University- https://vetmedbiosci.colostate.edu/directory/member/?id=jane-shaw-1052
Jason Coe, DVM, PhD, Ontario Veterinary College- https://ovc.uoguelph.ca/population-medicine/faculty/jason-coe