{"id":77244,"date":"2024-12-01T00:00:42","date_gmt":"2024-12-01T05:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/todaysveterinarybusiness.com\/?p=77244"},"modified":"2024-11-26T16:52:22","modified_gmt":"2024-11-26T21:52:22","slug":"people-discharge-notes-1224","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/navc.sitepreview.app\/todaysveterinarybusiness.com\/people-discharge-notes-1224\/","title":{"rendered":"Giving Grace to Difficult Clients"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A few weeks ago, I saw a cat that needed a surgery his owner couldn\u2019t afford. I did everything I could for the cat then and provided the owner with medications that would keep his pet comfortable for a few days while he tried to gather the necessary financial resources. It was a Saturday morning, and we wouldn\u2019t be able to do surgery for at least 48 hours anyway.<\/p>\n<p>When the client got to the front desk to check out, he announced that he didn\u2019t have enough money for the medications or examination. He was declined on all forms of financial support our practice offers. The front desk asked me what to do. I decided to bend hospital rules and let the guy take the drugs home and pay for them when he came back for the surgery. He solemnly agreed to do so \u2014 \u201cPinky promise.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Three days later, the client was leaving messages on our answering system. He was irate that we would not allow a surgery payment plan. He accused the practice of only wanting money and taking advantage of pets in need. He repeatedly called our clinic \u201cgreedy\u201d and even insulted our website, which felt like a cheap shot because ours is great.<\/p>\n<p>Management wanted to know what happened with the case and what I told the client. I didn\u2019t have the nerve to ask, \u201cHe didn\u2019t happen to come in and pay for those medications, did he?\u201d<\/p>\n<h3>It\u2019s Going to Get Worse<\/h3>\n<p>I hate to say it, but the vilification of veterinary professionals is going to get more frequent. Numerous media outlets and even a few U.S. senators are telling pet owners that:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Venture capitalists and giant corporations have bought many veterinary hospitals.<\/li>\n<li>The cost of veterinary care is rising much faster than inflation.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Both statements are undeniably true. The percentage of veterinary practices owned by venture capitalist groups or large corporations has risen dramatically in the past 10 years and continues to grow. Second, the cost of veterinary medicine is obviously climbing. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the price of urban veterinary services rose by 7.9% from February 2023 to February 2024 and by nearly 60% over the past decade. Pet owners are not so oblivious as to miss those kinds of increases.<\/p>\n<p>Inside the industry, we know that the same inflationary pressures other professions face have driven up our prices, wages (which have long been troublingly low) and educational debt. We see veterinary practices working to retain staff while keeping patient care as affordable as possible.<\/p>\n<p>Outside the industry, however, a much less generous narrative seems to be winning the day: Veterinary clinics have fallen to corporate greed and are screwing over pets and people for profit.<\/p>\n<p>While I don\u2019t buy that cynical view, the chances of us escaping the public perception are bleak in the short term. After all, people like simple narratives. Online posts that spark anger are most likely to go viral. As a society, we\u2019ve lost massive trust in our institutions over the past few decades. Police officers, politicians and priests are a few groups that have lost the public trust they used to enjoy. My sad prediction is that declining trust and stories of greedy veterinary clinics are just getting started. As a profession, we must find ways to cope with the new reality.<\/p>\n<h3>No Good Deed \u2026<\/h3>\n<p>When I was a young doctor, behaviors like the angry cat owner\u2019s took a toll on me. I listened to irate clients and internalized their pain. I struggled with imposter syndrome and saw their anger as the truth I had been barely hiding: \u201cI am not good enough to be in this role.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Over the years, my confidence solidified through practice and repetition. I came to understand that pet owners\u2019 frustration is much more about what they feel and face than about me or anything I did. Most of the anger we see from pet owners is actually guilt, shame, fear or impotent rage at the unfairness of life.<\/p>\n<p>Sure, clients sometimes have a legitimate complaint about something we did or a decision we made as caregivers, but those instances are relatively few. And in the case of the cat that needed surgery, I had done nothing but skirt the rules to try to help the owner and his pet.<\/p>\n<p>Fortunately, knowing I had been as supportive as possible was all I needed to find peace and serenity after hearing his angry messages. Like the Buddha or a yoga influencer on Instagram, I felt enlightened and could maintain a healthy perspective through breathing and mindfulness.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m joking. I got very upset.<\/p>\n<p>I felt a guilt I knew was unwarranted and frustration toward pet owners in general. I mean, I bent over backward to help this person, and all I got was grief. I felt betrayed.<\/p>\n<p>In the following days, my feelings of irritation ate at me. I knew I should let it go and continue to assume the best about people, but I couldn\u2019t. I don\u2019t care how good of a person you are or how even-keeled your emotions tend to be. At some point, we all wear down in our ability to assume the best about people and not take things personally.<\/p>\n<p>I found myself looking at the world and asking, \u201cHow can we keep happily serving people when it feels like pet owners are becoming increasingly adversarial?\u201d<\/p>\n<h3>Hurricane Helene<\/h3>\n<p>I\u2019m writing this column on a laptop that I charged with my gas-powered generator. It\u2019s been 96 hours since my house lost power, and I suspect it will be at least another week before we get it back after Hurricane Helene ravaged South Carolina, North Carolina and Tennessee.<\/p>\n<p>Don\u2019t feel sorry for me, though. My family is safe, and aside from some water in the basement, our house is intact. That\u2019s not true for many of my neighbors.<\/p>\n<p>While the street where I live looks like a war zone, the rest of the world has continued. I left home this morning to fly to California and speak at a veterinary event. While here, I\u2019ve met dozens of very nice people who have no idea what is going on back east.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a strange feeling to have a natural disaster at the very top of your mind when almost no one around you is aware that you were affected (or that it happened). I take the experience as a reminder that we have no idea what those around us are experiencing. We are all fighting battles that others know nothing about.<\/p>\n<p>I have no idea what the cat owner or any other client is up against. Coming to truly understand and believe that reality has been the most helpful part of letting my frustration go.<\/p>\n<h3>Three Questions<\/h3>\n<p>As I\u2019ve gotten older, I\u2019ve learned that a lot of life is about finding the advice you need at the moment, then forgetting it because you don\u2019t need it anymore, and then eventually needing it again. I felt guilty about the cat that wasn\u2019t getting surgery and the owner who thought my clinic had let him down, so I asked my veterinarian friends for advice.<\/p>\n<p>In separate conversations, two of them referenced something I came up with years ago and had forgotten: the \u201cthree questions for guilt.\u201d Guilt is often an irrational feeling. The three questions help us look at situations objectively to determine how much responsibility we have. They are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Did I want this?<\/li>\n<li>Did I cause it?<\/li>\n<li>Do I benefit from it?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In the case of the cat, I did not want the patient to be hurt, to need surgery or to be unable to get it. I did not cause the illness or the owner\u2019s inability to afford care, and I certainly don\u2019t benefit from the situation. Reviewing those facts helps me feel more confident in the steps I took and provides clarity on how to feel.<\/p>\n<p>As veterinary professionals, most of us care a lot about our patients and have a habit of internalizing guilt and feelings of responsibility, even when they don\u2019t make sense. This tendency can weigh us down with burdens we don\u2019t deserve, especially if <a href=\"https:\/\/todaysveterinarybusiness.com\/youre-fired\/\">angry or irrational pet owners<\/a> tell us we are to blame for an unfortunate situation.<\/p>\n<p>Whether you use the three questions or a different set of benchmarks, looking objectively at emotional situations is a vital skill for keeping client interactions in perspective.<\/p>\n<h3>Lowering Our Expectations<\/h3>\n<p>A good friend was telling me how proud she was of herself. She is a veterinarian who burned out in practice, left and returned to the exam room. She recently had a day in the clinic that would have been very hard on her when she started her career, but now she handled it beautifully. She shook off a pile of potential frustrations around client behaviors and went home with a smile.<\/p>\n<p>I asked my friend what was different now versus when she left practice. Her answer was, \u201cI lowered my expectations of people.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I want to pause here and emphasize that she didn\u2019t deliver her response in a cynical or condescending tone. My friend went on to explain that, throughout her life, she has held herself to very high standards. In areas like emotional control, punctuality, communication and personal responsibility, she demands excellence from herself.<\/p>\n<p>While it\u2019s good to demand a lot from ourselves, my friend found great relief in deciding that we can\u2019t hold others to the standards we set for ourselves. After all, it\u2019s one thing to be a perfectionist. It\u2019s something else to expect perfection, as we define it, from others. Letting go of high expectations, especially where we have no control, is one of the fastest ways to stop being disappointed and frustrated.<\/p>\n<h3>We\u2019re All Distracted<\/h3>\n<p>I was driving my family somewhere when the car in front put on its left-turn signal and got halfway into the left-turn lane. Then, the car turned its signal off and made a sharp right-hand turn. I said to my wife: \u201cCan you believe that guy?! Where does he think he\u2019s going?!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>My monologue continued until we got to the next traffic light, where my wife politely interrupted me to say, \u201cAren\u2019t we going to the grocery store?\u201d At that point, I turned off my right-hand turn signal, drifted back into the straight lane and rolled through the intersection.<\/p>\n<p>We all hold people to standards we can\u2019t live up to continuously. When I say it\u2019s been helpful to lower my expectations of people, I\u2019m not talking about thinking less of them. I\u2019m talking about remembering that, with rare exceptions, people don\u2019t frustrate us because they are malicious, greedy or stupid. They frustrate us because they are distracted, stressed, flawed human beings \u2014 just like us.<\/p>\n<h3>Giving Grace for a Better Career<\/h3>\n<p>In the coming years, some aspects of working with pet owners will become significantly more challenging. However, the meaning and purpose of our work and the potential to make a real difference for families that love their pets will be unchanged.<\/p>\n<p>To enjoy this profession, we must make peace with a world where some people won\u2019t trust or treat us fairly. We cannot base our happiness on being uniformly celebrated. We will need coping mechanisms to allow us to make our days enjoyable.<\/p>\n<p>Remember that everyone is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Know that you don\u2019t need to feel guilty just because someone says you do. Consider holding other people to a lower standard than you aspire to yourself. None of these approaches is meant to make us less empathetic, nor do they detract from the care we deliver to pets and families. They are simply increasingly vital tools to help us navigate the human aspect of our jobs.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #008000;\">THE PROOF IS IN THE POLL<\/span><\/h3>\n<p>Veterinarians are highly regarded for their honesty and ethical standards. A 2023 Gallup poll placed nurses at the top and veterinarians second. The next three professions, in order, were engineers, dentists and human medicine doctors. Dead last were members of Congress.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #008000;\">DID YOU KNOW?<\/span><\/h3>\n<p>On Sept. 3, 1967, Swedish motorists moved from driving on the left side of the road to the right side. According to Autoweek, \u201cSwedes tend to be good at avoiding chaos and lunacy, and nobody died.\u201d<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #008000;\">STORY ARCHIVE<\/span><\/h3>\n<p>Veterinarian and award-winning columnist Dr. Andy Roark has contributed to Today\u2019s Veterinary Business since 2017. Among his articles are these:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cOur Profession\u2019s Growth Spurt,\u201d <a href=\"http:\/\/go.navc.com\/growth-TVB\">go.navc.com\/growth-TVB<\/a><\/li>\n<li>\u201cRekindling the Love of Work,\u201d <a href=\"http:\/\/go.navc.com\/love-TVB\">go.navc.com\/love-TVB<\/a><\/li>\n<li>\u201cStrategic Stress,\u201d <a href=\"http:\/\/go.navc.com\/stress-TVB\">go.navc.com\/stress-TVB<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #008000;\">BE A BETTER LEADER<\/span><\/h3>\n<p>Dr. Andy Roark has partnered with VetFolio to release the Uncharted Leadership Essentials Certificate. The program provides training appropriate for anyone who leads or manages others. The topics covered include setting a team\u2019s vision and values, building trust, achieving team buy-in, delivering feedback, understanding communication styles, setting priorities, delegating effectively and managing time. Learn more at <a href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/Uncharted-VetFolio\">bit.ly\/Uncharted-VetFolio<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At some point, we all begin to take criticism and distrust personally.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":77245,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[527],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-december-2024-january-2025","column-dicharge-notes","clinical_topics-personal-wellness"],"acf":{"hide_sidebar":false,"hide_sidebar_ad":false,"hide_all_ads":false},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.7 (Yoast SEO v27.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Giving Grace to Difficult Clients | Today&#039;s Veterinary Business<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"People don\u2019t frustrate us because they are malicious, greedy or stupid. 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