Fear free in practice
Learn more about Fear Free and the impact it has on veterinary clinics in this week's episode of The Vet Blast Podcast presented by dvm360
On this week's episode of The Vet Blast Podcast presented by dvm360, our host Adam Christman, DVM, MBA, and guests Megan Bauer, DVM, Fear Free Certified Elite, and Jessica Osborne, CVPM, Fear Free Certified Elite, discuss how the Fear Free concepts can be implemented into practices to make them a more calming and welcoming place for pets.
Throughout the episode, the trio will address the importance of caring for both mental and physical wellbeing of patients, how practices can implement small changes to get big results, plus the positive impact of Fear Free practices on a clinic's relationship with its clients and patients.
Below is a partial transcript
Adam Christman, DVM, MBA: To those that may not know about it, what can you explain a little bit about what...fear free actually means? What's that mean?
Jessica Osborne, CVPM: Basically, looking after the mental well-being of your patients, and that was probably the hardest, well was the hardest discussion with clients. We can't trim your dog's nails today, but you did it last month. Yes, but you may not want to know what that looked like last month. And now this month, we're starting on our journey of Fear Free, and we're not going to hold them down. We're not going to use 3 assistants to do it. We need to give him some pre-visit medications and have him come back.
Megan Bauer, DVM: Yeah, like Jessica said, it's not thinking of physical and mental health as 2 separate things. Its all 1 being, you know, the more you learn about stress, the more you learn how it affects every system of the body and what we do for "just a second." "Oh, we're just going to hold him down 4 minutes and trim his nails" will last a minimum of 3 days in the body, potentially much, much longer, if you get into actual trauma. But it is not 2 separate things. Like, "well, that's just his mental health"... Nope, that's really important as well, just, it's just one animal, it's all together.
Christman: Yeah, I love that you share. Yeah, "really quick, really quick" is what I hear too, like "it'll be really quick," you know, just to trim the nails or just to pop the vaccine or whatever.
