Reducing physical strain in veterinary medicine

At the Fetch dvm360 conference in Charlotte, North Carolina, Aaron Shaw, OTR/L, CHT, CSCS, healthspan coach and host of the podcast Healthspan Digest, led a lecture on body mechanics and ergonomics—terms that used to describe the way the body moves and the science of designing workspaces to fit the needs of the human body, respectively. In this interview, Shaw shares key takeaways from that lecture, titled “Strength in Practice: Ergonomics and Body Mechanics for Veterinary Professionals.”

Below is a partial transcript, lightly edited for clarity:

Aaron Shaw, OTR/L, CHT, CSCS: I think the key takeaways for Body Mechanics and Ergonomics for Vet Professionals, there's 2 main points to think about:

One is, in every practice setting, I bet there's something in the clinic, a piece of equipment, for example, that can be adapted or moved, made adaptable, that can decrease the physical demands for providers. This, for example, could be making sure that, you know, a workstation that many people...have to engage with often is adjustable.

...If I had $1 for every time I saw a vet kind of squat down and [twist] their neck and tie themselves into a pretzel just to assess an animal—the risk of injury is very high. But thinking about perhaps having a low stool to sit on or a little box to sit on whether you get down so there's a little bit less of a balancing act, a little bit less physically demanding to do what has to happen, you know, dozens and dozens of times throughout the day.

So, there are some environmental things to think about that I would love it if every vet or everybody on the team could go to work tomorrow and try to look at things with a clear set of eyes. ...And a good way to think about bringing something to your attention is if there's a piece of equipment or if there's something that causes you to reach over something or bend over in an unusual way, even if you only do it a couple of times a day, it's worth just taking pause and looking and wondering, being curious enough to think, “can this table be moved over a little bit? Can this chair be moved out of the way? Is this, you know, is everybody walking around a laundry basket 50 times a day when really, the whole thing could just be moved [to] make things a little bit [of] safer environment to be in, anyhow?”