Many hospital team members work in a toxic environment.  In this presentation I talk about how to recognize a toxic environment, what type of effects a toxic environment has on team members, and what both team members and leaders can do to help change them.  I also discuss what things can lead to a toxic environment and how each person can influence the toxicity and make it better.

Learning Objectives

• Learn how to recognize a toxic work environment
• Learn how working in a toxic work environment affects us
• Learn how employees can contribute to the toxic work environment

RACE approved for 1 hour of CE 

Is your practice culture suffering, and you don’t know why? Is gaslighting happening within your practice setting you and your team up for failure? We will talk about how different gaslighting behaviors can create toxicity in the workplace. No matter how much you pay your team members, they won’t stick around with a toxic culture. Our teams are more aware than ever that they are more willing to take a cut in pay or have no pay at all than work in a toxic environment. Listen as we dive into specific examples of gaslighting in the practice that we are so used to seeing that we don’t even realize it’s GASLIGHTING. It doesn’t have to be the way it’s always been.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand the difference between constructive criticism, feedback, and gaslighting
• Identify gaslighting behaviors amongst the members of the team
• Define practice culture and how gaslighting and bullying affects practice culture
• Recognize the effects of gaslighting, bullying, and mental abuse on people within veterinary medicine
• Learn methods of dealing with gaslighting within the workplace.

RACE approved for 1 hour of CE 

Awareness of distress among healthcare professionals and efforts to improve their wellbeing have evolved significantly over the last several years. This awareness has been amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic and greater acknowledgement that employee wellbeing is influenced not just by individual factors, but also the workplace environment. The development of efforts to support healthcare professional mental health and wellbeing has evolved through several phases with increasing focus on employee recruitment and retention and creating workplaces that help support and maintain “lives worth living.” Merck Animal Health’s Veterinary Wellbeing Study III identified aspects of workplace climate that directly intersect with veterinary professional wellbeing including a strong sense of belonging to the team, candid and open communication among team members, and a high degree of trust in the organization. This engaging seminar will explore elements of a new era of wellbeing, including the role of the stories we construct to make meaning of our lives, the use of cognitive reframing to relieve stress and change our physiological responses to stress, and techniques for forming the bedrock of a healthy work climate by supporting belonginess, trust, and candor among team members.

Learning Objectives:

• Define narrative identity
• Describe cognitive reframing
• Describe techniques for promoting trust, belonging, and candid, open communication in the workplace

RACE approved for 1 hour of CE 

This presentation focuses on the drama that we self-create by making things up in our mind or making assumptions about why/what others are doing.  Many times, people worry about things that have not happened by reacting to them like they did.  This cause’s undue stress on team members and in many cases can cause a large amount of drama in the hospital.  This presentation helps people understand why we “make stuff up in our minds” and how we can stop doing it.  Learning to deal with these challenging thoughts and making less assumptions about why others do things will help improve the communication flow of the hospital.

Learning Objectives:

• Attendees will learn how they might be creating their own drama by making stuff up in their heads (MSU)
  • They will learn how to identify when they are doing this and how they can stop doing it.
• Attendees will learn the importance of not making assumptions without knowing the truth.
  • They will learn how making decisions based on assumptions is dangerous and can cause unnecessary stress in their lives.
  • We will also discuss how they can prevent themselves from doing it.
• Ultimately, they will learn how to stop worrying about things unnecessarily

RACE approved for 1 hour of CE 

This session will look at very common team and client experiences in the practice that often lead to conflict, miscommunication, or a negative emotional environment. We’ve all been there, you walk in the door, and you can feel the vibe in the practice, and It’s not good. Or the vibe changes when YOU walk in, and you don’t know why. It’s time for a truth bomb for you when dealing with team members. As leaders, we know why we are saying and doing things, but how will the team and clients take it? We will dig into growth mindsets and adjust our thinking and perception of events to better ourselves and others around us.

Learning Objectives:

• Recognize how experiences influence mindset
• Examine how evaluating our mindset impacts our thoughts and decisions
• Examine bias and how recognizing our own can help with our team communication
• Discover tools for resetting ourselves and our teams when the stress level is high

RACE approved for 1 hour of CE 

At the foundation of every successful veterinary team is an environment built on trust. A trusting, well-trained team can manage the day-to-day events in a way that leads to positive outcomes for the veterinary practice, the individual team members, the clients and ultimately the patients.

Learning Objectives

• Define tax and dividend in trusting
• Discuss traits in trust
• Determine how to measure trust
• Outline benefits in trustworthiness

Program RACE approved for 5 hours of CE 

We know veterinary team members are hungry for tools that will help them bring tough questions and concerns to their managers and veterinarians. Avoiding difficult conversations (because of conflict aversion) does not work. Team members learning productive ways to initiate potentially difficult conversations with co-workers and management may experience higher job satisfaction.

Learning Objectives

• Outline your personal values as guiding principles
• Establish reasons for avoidance
• Define benefits in speaking your truths
• Embrace tips in navigating tough conversations

Program RACE approved for 5 hours of CE 

Team members may feel like hamsters on a wheel, constantly spinning, with no vision beyond the daily routine and grind. I imagine you are satisfied with providing daily care to patients, because that’s what we do as veterinary professionals. But wouldn’t it feel better to work toward a common purpose or goal? How would it feel to have clarity in direction and priorities?

Learning Objectives

• Organization’s values, vision, mission
• Define shared goals
• Committing to shared purpose(s)
• Being the change, taking the initiative

Program RACE approved for 5 hours of CE 

The irony of accountability is that team members feel they hold themselves to a high-level of accountability, and yet they want others on their team to be more accountable. It seems there is a strong case for the OTHER person to be more accountable. Sound familiar? Clear expectations are needed as well as being held to the same high standards.

Learning Objectives

• Understanding the core of accountability
• Discussion on cognitive biases
• Outline an accountable culture
• Leading in example in accountability

Program RACE approved for 5 hours of CE 

Looking at Veterinary Key Performance Indicators-KPIs- we can define a base line and create categories to measure. The usual KPIs include client retention, average transactions, and profit. If the dysfunction is Inattention to Results then the opposite is establishing the team, defining what is a success and blowing those parameters out of the water! Fully define what is to be measured, measure it, and celebrate the positive impact.
What will your team choose to measure?

Learning Objectives

• Discuss personal wellbeing
• Define veterinary team wellbeing
• Shared focus in personal and team wellbeing
• Outline steps to implementation

Program RACE approved for 5 hours of CE