An old saying reminds those new to animal training not to try to teach 2 behaviors simultaneously. This sounds reasonable enough. However, one mistake inexperienced trainers often make is to ignore an element inherent in the expression of every behavior: timing. Some people and animals are physically and mentally faster or slower than those with whom they interact in that same situation. This is normal. However, some people also assume that their timing is normal and that which they perceive as different from theirs is not. Although these time-related differences and beliefs superficially may appear to have nothing to do with quality communication in a veterinary practice, they may play a key role that is often overlooked.
Consider recent veterinary graduate Dr. Kalifa’s dilemma. When she accepted an associate’s position in Dr. Van Fleet’s practice, she could not imagine a position that could meet her needs better. Not only did the mixed practice enable her to work with farm and companion animals, it was located in a beautiful but rugged part of the country that appealed to her. Moreover, her new employer spent time acquainting her with the medical records of the practice’s clients and their animals before he sent her out on farm calls on her own. However, what neither he nor his staff members spent much time on was providing comprehensive directions to their rural clients’ locations. This occurred for 2 reasons: all the practice’s vehicles were equipped with GPS, plus Dr. Van Fleet and his other employees were familiar with the countryside.
Consequently, when Dr. Kalifa asked how long it would take her to get to her various appointments, they told her how long it took them to do that. They all also reminded her that the GPS would help her if she got into trouble. However, they forgot to mention the electronic dead zones she could encounter that would render the GPS useless if she got lost. Those same dead zones also would foil her attempts to phone her clients to say she was going to be late, thereby compounding her problems. Even when it worked, the GPS could not warn which roads were apt to flood following a heavy rain.
Even though none of this information theoretically fell into the category of providing quality veterinary service, it could and did interfere with client communication a great deal. Consequently, keeping careful travel notes played an important role in Dr. Kalifa’s success during her first year. Similarly, she quickly realized that calling her clients to verify their location and information regarding any problems she might encounter on the way before leaving the clinic took less time than getting lost. More often than not, clients were very helpful and appreciated her desire not to keeping them waiting.
But for as annoying as any time-related breakdowns in communication were before she even set foot in a barn or stall, these paled compared to those generated by timing discrepancies between her and some of her patients and clients.
No matter how much time she mentally allotted to accomplish a certain medical procedure in her own mind, experience soon taught her that not all animals would agree with this. Some animals normally maintained such a leisurely pace, it seemed to take them forever to cover the short distance between the paddock and their stalls. However, others always moved so fast she had little time to get out of the way if she did not want them to plow into her. Keeping notes regarding these timing idiosyncrasies in addition to her medical notes would help her avoid these problems and their repercussions in the future too.
Experience also taught Dr. Kalifa that clients could have their own ideas regarding how much time the veterinarian should devote to their animals and them. Bob Brown constantly looked at his watch and sighed when Dr. Kailfa was examining one of his animals. This created a dilemma for the practitioner. She did not want to upset the client, but she did not want to give the animal substandard care either.
Georgia Greene was the opposite. She demanded that Dr. Kalifa spend what the practitioner considered an excessive amount of time addressing the client’s most insignificant concerns about her horse. And whereas Bob Brown was so anxious for Dr. Kalifa to leave that the practitioner worried the client had not heard a thing she said, Ms. Greene viewed every visit from the veterinarian as an opportunity to bring her up to date on every change that occurred on her property since Dr. Kalifa’s or Dr. Van Fleet’s last call.
Because Dr. Kalifa was a punctual person by nature, these situations that caused her to be late initially struck her as the most problematic. When Ms. Greene’s call took 2 hours instead of the hour the practitioner estimated, Dr. Kalifa would call her next client — if cell service permitted this — to apologize for the delay and otherwise placate the client if possible. But doing this took time, too. If she encountered a string of such delays, her own and the client’s distress regarding her tardiness could be considerable by the time she arrived at her last appointment.
When those days occurred, Dr. Kalifa looked forward to seeing clients like Bob Brown who just wanted her to vaccinate his animals or whatever and go away, the sooner the better. But although those abbreviated client-animal interactions did provide the practitioner with an opportunity to catch up, inevitably they would bother her as much as the time-vampires.
“I keep thinking I might have missed something,” she told Dr. Van Fleet when he asked her how her appointment with Bob Brown went when she returned to clinic.
Her employer assured her that Brown treats him and many other people that same way.
“Bob’s a crotchety old curmudgeon, but he knows his animals and I respect that,” Dr. Van Fleet continued. “But he also knows that I note it in the animal’s record if he doesn’t give me enough time to do a comprehensive physical examination, get a good history, or administer a certain treatment when I believe these are needed. That’s my way of telling him he better keep a close eye on that animal and call immediately if any problems arise. And so far, he always has.”
Knowing this makes his new associate feel much better, as does Dr. Van Fleet’s apology for not telling the office manager to schedule more time for Dr. Kalifa’s appointments to give her more time to adjust. That plus her navigation-, patient-, and client-related notes did wonders to diminish those time-related worries that had plagued her.
Client and animal time-related communications issues when Dr. Kalifa saw companion animals and their owners at Dr. Van Fleet’s hospital also benefitted from the notes she had made and the insights her employer had shared. However, she also needed to adjust to any timing issues related to the in-house veterinary staff. This consisted of the business manager and front office staff, technicians, kennel help, and 2 part-time companion animal associates. Despite these people possessing the potential to generate more schedule-altering variables, working with them in a fixed location with a support staff did make it easier to make any schedule changes should these become necessary.
Like many practitioners, Dr. Kalifa also came to prefer working with certain members of the staff. She found all of them competent, but she and those particular ones worked together more smoothly. They accomplished their work more efficiently which benefitted the animals as well as themselves.
“It reminds me of working with certain animals,” she told Dr. Van Fleet. “It’s all about matching their timing instead of trying to change it. Once you do, everything clicks. Instead of being involved in a push-pull interaction, it’s more like a dance. The people I enjoy working with the most are those whose timing is similar to mine. It enables us to anticipate what the other will do and communicate our respective expectations and needs concisely. It’s practice-related communication at its best.”
When Dr. Kalifa joined Dr. Van Fleet’s practice, naturalist/philosopher Henry David Thoreau’s idea of stepping to the music of a different drummer no matter the beat or how far away the sound appealed to the novice veterinarian. Though she did not consider herself inflexible, she did consider herself “the most knowledgeable authority on all things animal” at that time. But be that though it may, she soon discovered that her knowledge did not include the effects of timing within the practice setting. It did not — or should not — apply to imposing her own sense of timing on clients and their animals, or colleagues. In that setting, it meant finding a tempo that worked for both of them.
Once the practitioner mastered this skill, she discovered that those once highly irritating time discrepancies ceased being problematic. She also discovered that her willingness to adapt increased the likelihood that her patients and clients would too.
Footnotes
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