AAFP Representatives at the AVMA Leadership Conference

Submitted by Julie Liu, DVM

When I learned that I’d been selected to represent the AAFP at the 2022 AVMA Veterinary Leadership Conference, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Veterinary leadership to me conjured images of the AVMA advocating on behalf of veterinarians at the national level, or practice owners leading their team. What I quickly realized is that my definition of leadership was far too narrow. Leadership occurs in every workplace whether we realize it or not, and every veterinary professional can be a leader. We’ve all had coworkers who have sought the professional guidance of a fellow team member who wasn’t an official supervisor, but who had a natural tendency to lead with approachability.

Unfortunately, while the rise of Omicron and the ongoing pandemic stymied my plans for in-person attendance to the VLC, I found the virtual conference to be very rewarding. My highlights included:

• “Work is not a family.” Hearing this comment from David Liss’s lecture struck home with me because work/ life balance was something I always struggled with as a vet. I’m better able to create boundaries now that I’m a relief vet/ freelancer, but at clinics everywhere I routinely see associate vets and support staff working through their lunch break. When I was an associate I thought about my coworkers as my work family, and David’s point made me realize that there should be a delineation between your actual family and your workplace. To paraphrase David, work is not a family, but work can be a team.
• Listen to understand, don’t listen to win or listen to fix. I’ve made it a mission to improve my listening skills in my personal and professional life, and Dr. Addie Reinhard’s lecture was enlightening. The goal when you’re interacting with someone in your personal or professional life is to listen to understand, and thinking about how I approach my own listening was eye-opening.
• Seeing the work that the AVMA is doing on DEI and building a more diverse profession. There is a woeful lack of diversity in the veterinary community that is not commensurate with the diversity reflected in American pet owners, and I was heartened to see that the majority of speakers in the keynote address were BIPOC veterinary professionals. I also watched a great talk about inclusivity by Dr. Mia Cary that made me question my own biases. She referred to the Harvard Implicit Association Test, which I highly recommend taking if you want to take a dive into your implicit biases with gender, race, neurodiversity, and other areas.
• Learning how presenters can engage an audience virtually, from online surveys to word clouds to shoutouts to people who popped up on the chat screen.

Another one of my highlights for the conference was the Zoom meeting with the current/ past leaders of the AAFP and with Melanie Mills, the other AAFP VLC rep for 2022 who’s doing amazing work heading up the feline programs at VetCor. The AAFP has been one of the professional organizations that has resonated the most with me, both as a cat parent and as a veterinarian, and I’m not alone. I can’t wait to see how the AAFP continues to evolve, and I hope to see all of you veterinary leaders in person next year for the 2023 VLC.

---

Submitted by Melanie R. Mills, CVT, Hospital Manager

In November, the AAFP honored me with the opportunity to represent them and attend the AVMA Veterinary Leadership Conference in Chicago. In January, as I braced myself for the realities of the Windy City in deep winter, Omicron engulfed our nation. After a flurry of emails and updates and new options, I elected to attend the conference virtually. While we all miss the comradery and energy of “in person,” it was not the right time for me to stay in a hotel, go to CE sessions, and run the airport gauntlet of, “when will I get home?” (Truth be told, it also does not take much to convince a cat person to not socialize in the best of times.)

Remote conferencing has come a long way in the past two years. AVMA had remote options ready for almost every time slot, the platform was reliable and easy to navigate, and our colleagues have all mastered the craft of engaging via Zoom. Should winter and Covid ever conspire to keep you home, trust the AVMA to run your remote conference right for you.

The conference started with a bang. The Keynote Address led by Dr. Elizabeth Charles included a truly intersectional selection of speakers sharing their stories of “why.” In this age of exhaustion and burnout, it was exactly the kickstart and inspiration we all needed to jump into the conference. The speakers also highlighted the most important topics the rest of the conference would focus on – leading through times of change, focusing on team wellness with a sincere focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion, and remembering self-care as a part of your leadership skills.

While I cannot take you through each lecture and speaker, I would like to share some of the gems I took home with me. Jackie Martin shared that the cycle of change runs a strong emotional parallel to the cycle of grief. In leading through change, if we can anticipate our teams’ emotional response to changes (both planned and unplanned), we can support them much more successfully. She also quoted Socrates, “The secret to change is to focus all your energy, not on fighting to keep the old, but on building the new.” David Liss discussed encouraging and expecting collaboration in our teams. Multiple lecturers brought up Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and how we as leaders need to make sure our teams are able to meet their most basic needs to have them achieve their higher goals within our clinics. Elaine Klemmensen spoke about deliberate, persistent, and intentional focus to enact change as well as optimistic realism – holding and acknowledging the hard stuff and looking forward to creating positive progress. Mia Cary (and several others) reminded us to study Carol Dweck’s The Growth Mindset in many aspects of our work. She also led a lecture on Radical Candor (if you know, you know. If you don’t, you should) and DEI work in our clinics. Kathy Gruver led what may have been my favorite session “Just be yourself, but who the hell is that.” Her presentation focused on acknowledging and understanding our different parts and how those parts respond to triggers around us. In doing that we are able to bring forth our most useful personal skillsets at the best times. We can also work to do the same with our teams.

Alyssa Mages and Kate Boatright’s presentation “How to Be a Leader to Enact Positive Change” not only reminded us about the importance of self-care, defining our core values, our why, and our “just cause” for the future; they also taught a master class on in-person and remote presenting. Alyssa was in Chicago and Kate was remote – they too met unforeseen complications and adapted in the moment. Kate recorded videos overnight that Alyssa played for the in-person crew. And the remote attendees were able to watch everything. The surprise bonus part of this was Kate running the remote chat in real-time. Having the chance to truly engage with our speakers even though we were hundreds (some, thousands) of miles apart, was the perfect cap to the conference.

Many of us want to more effectively lead in our lives. Whether that is a management position within our clinics or leading the charge to be a Cat Friendly Practice^®, we have our goals for where we want to end up and who we want to bring along with us. This conference gave so many tools for the toolbox of leadership. As a Hospital Manager and CVT, I often get swept up into the minutiae of the day and I am imminently grateful for the opportunity to zoom out and remember to find true North for myself and my hospital.