Mentorship has become the most oft-cited quality sought by young veterinarians when interviewing practices for their first job out of veterinary school. What they say they want and where they ultimately choose to practice may not always align, but this finding in recent-grad polling is interesting all the same. They seem to fear their preparedness for anything beyond the NAVLE and hope for hands-on help as the rubber in their heads meets the road of real-life veterinary medicine.
The disconnect between the knowledge they have amassed, and the reality of an exam room conversation is often vast; whether they know they need it or not, mentorship is something we can all agree is a requirement. Unfortunately, most practices are unprepared to provide it—even when we think we are.
How we fail
Consider the mentorship offered by the big-box corporate retailers. New grads will get lots of support in the way of orientation, CE lectures, online tutelage, and support groups—they even get mental health apps! but they rarely get to shadow other veterinarians or have their work looked over before they make critical decisions and have difficult conversations with clients. There just is not enough time in anyone’s schedule to include another doc’s diligent oversight. Too often, there is not even another vet on the premises.
We expect way too much of our recent graduates—more than ever before. We want them proficient at spays and neuters, lumpectomies and extractions, critical thinking and client communication. We want them to hit the ground running—profitably—then wonder why their mental health is not what ours was at their age, why client satisfaction with our services is not what it once was, and, most of all, how they came to expect so much handholding from their mentors. Daisies and snowflakes, the lot of them!
I have been mentoring veterinarians since before I had the ill fortune to acquire crow’s feet. For reference, that is longer than most of you reading this were even old enough to seriously entertain a veterinary education—long enough to have mentored a critical mass of mentees by which to judge my successes and failures via their successes and failures. I know when I have done a good job and when I have fallen flat.
In my defense, my defeats have always come down to a crucial flaw in the mentor-mentee relationship most of us would chalk up to a personality mismatch. Once it even came down to the mentee’s unwillingness to accept mentorship from anyone, much less from a big-mouthed boss with a “strong” personality and loud opinions. I have since learned good mentorship should be able to transcend these differences.
You lose some…
To be precise, I have belly-flopped twice—at least twice that I know of. The first time happened when I hired my first associate. I had just bought my practice. Things were pretty stressful, as you can imagine, but I worked hard on my mentee—at first, anyway. I made a list of all the case-types and procedures we should cover in the first month, quarter, and year; proposed a weekly “journal club” on Mondays to discuss the Sunday morning literature reading I recommended; made myself available and answer all the questions and checked in on all his radiology readings and popped into all his surgeries.
However, I had bitten off more than I could chew. I could not keep up. The stress of a new practice, new associate, managing the ex-owners, satisfying the new clients … it was all more than I expected. I crashed. It was not a good look. My associate flew the coop before the end of his first year. While I had the good grace not to hold him to his contract, I resented him all the same for quitting on me in my hour of need, which was probably unfair given I had not held up my end of the bargain after my mental health went spectacularly off the rails.
The second time happened with my third associate. My number two hire had gone so well I guess I took it for granted that my number three would require the same kind of gentle support and minimal steering—with heavy lifting courtesy of some very experienced technicians I had hired for exactly that purpose.
I had been mentored primarily by a technician and felt my recent grad was playing the princess by not accepting the same kind of help. Maybe she was and maybe she was not, but my resentment won, and I was glad to see the back of her—which is never a good sign of successful mentorship.
Then you win some…
Despite these failures, on balance I think I have done a pretty good job. Why else would all of my current associates hail from my practice’s own hatchery? All four cut their teeth on Sunset Animal Clinic’s brand of veterinary medicine well before applying to veterinary school, which is doubtless something to be proud of, right?
At a time in veterinary medicine when it is hard to hire a warm body, much less a devoted doctor willing to join forces and stay on permanently, it is worth asking what it takes to be a more successful mentor.
- A new grad is an investment. You hire one when you have the capacity, financially and emotionally, to dedicate yourself to a new colleague. Will you lose money at first? Sure. So, plan on it. Build it into your budget.
- Expect to see fewer patients of your own for a month (or six). Plan on staying later to help them out. Your schedule will seem crazier. and your hours will be longer, but it will pay off if you do it right.
- Never take on a new grad if you do not have a top veterinary technician to dedicate to their development. If you do not, be prepared for some major clinical mishaps because they will eff-up a percentage of their cases. It is to be expected.
- Be available. Do not act exasperated (though you will be at times). Project positivity as much as possible, and, whatever you do, resist the temptation to bad-mouth anyone, vent excessively, or turn them into a best friend. It just looks bad and risks your relationship with the rest of your team.
- Take on young volunteers, join externship programs, and be willing to hire students, in spite of their scheduling conflicts. Treat all of these individuals with the same respect due any colleague and you will find they are more willing to come back when their schooling is complete. Bonus: Your younger docs will enjoy the challenge and gravitate toward mentorship themselves.
I may be wrong but, when it comes to my current associates, I like to think I played a role in their decision to become veterinarians and love their jobs—and not just because I’m the “cool mom” with pink hair and tattoos who is running a practice that looks more like an upscale café than an animal clinic. I like to think it is because I project an unshakable commitment to the importance of the work we do—and because I believe it is still a fun job, even after 29 years in practice.
To be a good mentor, I have come to believe what has to come first is not an ability to teach one, watch them do one, and have them teach another the same (although that is important, too), but the willingness to see their job and the profession as a whole from their point of view.
Will you get along with them all? Will they all choose to stay? Probably not. Will you cycle through mentees and kick yourself for offering them a bad impression of the profession? Almost certainly, at times, but you win some and you lose some. Just try your hardest to win more than you lose.
Patty Khuly, VMD, MBA, owns a small animal practice in Miami, Fla. and is available at drpattykhuly.com. Columnists’ opinions do not necessarily reflect those of Veterinary Practice News.