Laurie's Blogs.

So, this tardy little blog is simply about what is going on in my life!  I don’t journal, I don’t go out drinking with friends… so you folks are it!  You’ll have to ‘listen’ to it all – or click away now! 

I am swamped!  Last month was brutal!  It started off with a sudden firing of one of our rehab assistants (details NOT to be shared)… but lets just say, I feel less ‘taken advantage of’ now!  Then both my business partner and our office manager went on 3 & 4-week holidays at the same time.  And at the tail end of the month our receptionist went on a 1-week holiday.  Leaving us severely short staffed!  Nothing blew up and nothing burnt down… but Holy Dinah!  Treating patients for 9 hours a stretch and solving little clinic problems / answering questions between each one, over lunch, and at the end of the day just about gave me a nervous break-down!

On top of all of this, the clinic lost one of our fabulous therapists!  The Alberta Veterinary Medical Association told the rehab vet that had been with us for 2 years that she could not work at the clinic because she was a vet and the Canine Fitness Centre Ltd is not a vet clinic.  So we had a mutually saddened parting of ways at the end of July!  (If you have not done so already, I would recommend reading the proceedings from the talk that she and I gave on Interprofessional Collaboration.  It’s available on the Free Stuff page.)  It was enlightening for us to do the research for this talk, and was plain to see that vet medicine (and in particular the associations / regulatory boards) have much to learn about this topic.  As was pointed out to me last fall by a highly regarded veterinary researcher – Physical Therapists are the first group of professionals to approach the veterinary profession with the desire to work collaboratively… and the vets (vet associations, etc) don’t really know what to do with them.  Never the less, we were too far ahead of the curve and were told that we could not play together in the sandbox… unless the vet owned the sandbox, controlled the sandbox, and told all the other players what to do in the sandbox!  The whole ordeal has been extremely stressful.

Then to top it off (a bit of ‘silver lining’ to the situation), we brought on a new rehab therapist – A physiotherapist… since I am allowed to hire them!  She just started this past week, and I want her to be successful!  We have demanding clients with very high expectations (many sporting-dog owners & breeders), and vets that have come to expect a lot from us as well.  We’ve sort of pushed her off the high dive platform into the deep end!  Poor gal has 3 or 4 new assessments a day!  Anyways, the part that applies to me – is that I created a newsletter to go out to all vets (Calgary and within a 2 hour radius of the city) 1) to introduce the new therapist, 2) to let them know about some of the not-so-common-things we treat, and 3) offer lunch and learn sessions.  So I busily created a newsletter (yeah Mac for some great templates), cut and pasted content (i.e. the TMJ blog posting), and proposed some topics for the lunch and learns.  What I forgot is that with all of the extra-work that I had created for myself (creating, folding, taping, addressing, mailing, etc) that I might actually get vet clinics taking me up on the lunch and learn topics!  Oops!  Guess I just added to my own stress levels.  BUT… I wanted to share the topics I put out there (for your use too if interested):  Conservative Cruciate Management; The Physio Assessment & Pathofunctional Diagnosis; Assessing for TMJ Dysfunctions; Vestibular Rehabilitation; Geriatric Rehabilitation; Soft Tissue Assessment of the Canine Shoulder; Concepts & Approaches to Neuro-Rehab; The Post-Operative Cruciate; Rehabilitation and Pain Management.  So – it looks like I better get busy with this!!

But wait… there’s more!  I also committed to teaching a session to the vet students at the University of Calgary.  They need a shorter session this time – so I’ll have to change up my whole previous lecture/lab.  No worries!  I just need time to do it.  I’m thinking of making it all about FUNCTION.  “You’re next patient just had a rear limb amputation… what compensations would you see… what would be your treatment goals… how might you accomplish them?  That’s what I’m thinking of anyways!  Then, stupid me, also agreed to do a talk for a local kennel club… any topic I want, but related to the peri-partum bitch would be best!  So for this I decided to go with ‘conditioning your bitch before and during pregnancy, post-partum conditioning, urinary incontinence, and the importance of puppy evaluations.’  I wanted to call it:  ‘Yo Baby Bitch to Yo Ol Bitch’ but that’s maybe not professional… (Likely shouldn’t have blogged it either!)  Oh well.

Anyways… my gardens need weeding, my lawn needs mowing, my windows need washing, the kids keep messing up the house (and didn’t notice the day the dog had diarrhea all up and down the hallway while on their watch), my regular exercise routine has gone out the window, I am having to adjust to working different days of the week now, and the list continues!  As they say: “Don’t stop the carnival!!!”

Until next time…

Cheers!

Laurie

Laurie@FourLeg.com