Episode #61 – Dr. Melinda Larson

Do you work in the animal health industry or veterinary profession? Have you ever wondered how people began their careers and how they got to where they are today? Hi everyone, I’m Stacy Pursell, the founder and CEO of The VET Recruiter, the leading executive search and recruiting firm for the animal health industry and veterinary profession.

I was the first recruiter to specialize in the animal health industry and veterinary profession in the United States and built the first search firm to serve this unique niche. For the past 25 plus years, I have built relationships with the industry’s top leaders and trailblazers.

The People of Animal Health podcast highlights incredible individuals I have connected with throughout my career. You will be able to learn more about their lives, careers, and contributions. With our wide range of expert guests, you’ll be sure to learn something new in every episode. Thanks for tuning in and enjoy the episode.

Welcome to The People of Animal Health podcast. Today on The People of Animal Health podcast, we’re joined by Dr. Melinda Larson, Director of Medical Quality at BluePearl Pet Hospital. A board certified small animal internist, Dr. Larson has spent more than 15 years at BluePearl transitioning from intern to clinical leader and now champion of patient safety and medical excellence across a national network of hospitals. She’s a passionate advocate for system-based improvements, psychological safety in clinical teams, and continuous learning. Most recently, she led a landmark study on patient safety reporting in veterinary medicine, helping shape a safer, more sustainable future for pets, caregivers, and the veterinary profession.

Melinda, thank you so much for being here today.

Thank you, Stacy. It’s an honor to be here.

Well, Melinda, I would love to start off at the beginning. What was your life like growing up, and where did you grow up?

Actually, I grew up in Arkansas, so a little bit of a small town and was there up until I went to veterinary school at LSU. So growing up, my main exposure to veterinary medicine I think was the very stereotypical small town veterinarian. We take our pets in for vaccines and for wellness visits and anytime that they’re sick. And your veterinarian was someone that followed your pet through its entire life. And so I didn’t have as much of an exposure to things like specialty medicine at the time, really until I got into veterinary school at LSU.

Well, when and why did you decide to become a veterinarian?

I have, again, the stereotypical answer of it’s what I’ve wanted to do ever since I was a kid. Sometimes I think that’s hard to explain, but I was really drawn to science, absolutely, as a kid, and so I think that helped guide me in that direction towards veterinary medicine.

Interesting fact, I actually, in college I shifted a little bit and I was pre-med, as in human healthcare medicine, and I had thought that that was maybe the direction I should go until I literally opened… I think I made it to page one or two of my MCAT study book, and I was like, what am I doing? This isn’t what I want to do. Internally, I want to do vet med still. And so at that moment I said, no, I’m going to follow what I knew I wanted to do as a pretty young age and pursued veterinary school instead.

Well, you have been with BluePearl for more than 15 years. You started as an intern. Can you take me through your journey from intern to, now, Director of Medical Quality?

Definitely. It’s a career that I did not see going in the trajectory that it did, but you’re right. I started out as an intern, a rotating small animal intern at our Tampa location and was there for a year and ended up falling in love with internal medicine, and I knew that I had an interest in it in veterinary school. I was, distinctly remember, it’s a corny story, but I distinctly remember sitting in a class on endocrinology and I was like, “This makes sense, and I can’t believe that there’s veterinarians that, just, they do this all the time.”

And so during my internship, it’s just solidified that’s the path I wanted to go. So I stayed in Tampa. They asked me to stay on as an internal medicine resident. I was there for three years, and then I made the short trip over to our Clearwater Hospital just about 30, 45 minutes away and stayed there as the internal medicine specialist in our Clearwater Hospital.

What inspired your transition from practicing internal medicine to focusing full time on medical quality and patient safety?

Stacy, that was a tough decision to leave clinical medicine. I’ve been doing it for quite some time, but I had found this field of patient safety science that also, similar to that experience I actually had in that endocrinology class, it clicked and it made sense in my brain and I was like, “Why aren’t we talking about this more often?”

And so I had the opportunity to apply for this position as director of medical quality, and I was really encouraged by some very key influential people in my life, my professional life at the time, that encouraged me to do it, and really, pieces just fell into place. I was in a point in my career that I was very proud of what I had accomplished in the clinical realm, and this opportunity came up to be a part of something a bit bigger, and I’m very fortunate to get to do what I do.

Well, Melinda, how do you define medical quality in a veterinary setting, and what are the core pillars of your current work across BluePearl Hospitals?

Sure. For me, medical quality in veterinary medicine, it’s consistently delivering safe, and when possible, evidence-based care that really meets the medical needs of the patient, but also meets the expectations of the client. It’s all about that partnership. And medical quality, it’s not just about, say, the technical accuracy of a diagnosis, for example, or a treatment, but it’s that communication, the teamwork, that culture in the hospital that really fosters that continuous learning mentality and that continuous striving to improve. I think a lot of us in veterinary medicine have that internally, but it’s about being in that environment and that culture that helps foster that. Medical quality really ensures that patients receive the safest care, but fosters that trust with our pet owners and has that supportive environment for the entire veterinary team.

You were the lead author on a groundbreaking study with Mars Veterinary Health and John Hopkins that analyzed more than two years of patient safety, even data from thousands of veterinary clinics. What were the most surprising or impactful insights from that research and how do you envision it shaping the future of patient safety in veterinary medicine?

Being a part of the study was extremely special for us. I was able to collaborate with leaders in patient safety across all of Mars Veterinary Health. So having that ability to collaborate with those like-minded individuals, but also as you mentioned, really collaborate and partnering with Johns Hopkins in the human healthcare realm, they’ve really been such strong leaders and innovators when it comes to patient safety, so to be able to take that and learn from them was extremely helpful for this particular study.

So we took a couple of years of data that we had, and we knew that we had been collecting this data for a while and we really needed to share it. That’s really a core part of patient safety science is sharing what you’ve learned so far. And so we knew that we needed to continue grow on some of the existing studies, some of the existing pioneers that have started these conversations, but we wanted to be that catalyst really to say, “Hey, these things are happening, let’s talk about it openly and learn from these things.” So that was really the goal of the study is to start the conversation even more and really encourage other organizations, other veterinary hospitals to really make this a priority to their organizations of let’s openly talk about these honest mistakes that can happen so that we can learn and improve.

And there are a few key parts of this study, absolutely. There were some trends in terms of what types of things that were happening in our hospitals that we, as our patient safety team, had a feeling would go in that direction. So things like predominance of errors related to medications, patient care and handling. We had a feeling that those would be strongly represented, which they were.

I think one of the more surprising things for me that came from the study was the large variation in rates of reporting across our different organizations. And you read in patient safety science how different things like culture, not only of an organization, but just an overall culture, different priorities, different impacts of leadership can have on an organization’s ability to report these events, but then to actually see the numbers, the variation was very interesting to us to really see it in action. It really shows the impact that, again, leaders, culture can have on driving reporting in their hospitals.

Well, this study is described as the largest of its kind in veterinary medicine. Can you walk me through what inspired this collaboration between Mars Veterinary Health and Johns Hopkins and what made now the right time to undertake such a massive project?

Yeah. So again, we had been collecting this data. Our independent networks had been participating in patient safety reporting for a few years at that point. So all of us were comfortable with the process, our hospitals were familiar with the process, and we had gathered a good number of patient safety event reports by this time. And we developed a relationship with Johns Hopkins as we were developing a new platform for our patient safety event reporting. So when we were thinking about, okay, who from the human healthcare side can we reach out to learn from, reaching out to Johns Hopkins was a no-brainer, and thankfully were very excited to support us. They were very interested to learn how we were going to bring this patient safety into veterinary healthcare, and they’ve just been the best collaborators, such an excellent resource.

So we thought it was a very good time to go ahead and share this particular data, even though some of us were collecting data in a little bit different ways, so the data wasn’t perfect per se. We had such a large amount of this data, and I think that’s what makes, I think, our networks very unique at Mars Veterinary Health is that we have this global network that is really strongly representative of all different types of veterinary healthcare. We’ve got our primary care with specialty medicine, emergency medicine, but we also represent so many different countries and cultures. So we were at a really unique place that we could say, “Hey, this data is very representative of what’s happening across the globe in veterinary medicine, and so we need to share this with the world so that we can learn from this altogether.”

Well, patient safety reporting has long been a standard in human healthcare. What challenges or differences did you and your team face when adapting those systems to the veterinary context, and how are you applying similar concepts and systems to veterinary medicine?

And while we’ve definitely tried to model a lot of what we do off of what is currently being done in human healthcare. They’ve been really talking about patient safety and advancing patient safety since around early 2000s, so they’ve been doing it now for 20, 25 years.

But at the same time, we also recognize that we’ve got some very unique challenges in veterinary medicine. So some of the things that they were collecting data on doesn’t directly correlate to what we experience in veterinary medicine. So for example, one of the largest areas of patient safety in human healthcare are patient falls. So patients getting out of bed when they’re not supposed to be or without proper support, elderly patients, post-operative patients. And while we do have experiences with patient falls, for example, out of kennels, we don’t face those same challenges.

And on the other hand, we’ve got patients that are maybe a lot more wiggly, if you will, than human patients or more frightened. So we can’t talk to our patients, although we do, of course. It’s not the same as asking a patient to please verify their name and why they’re here every time we administer a medication. So we definitely do face very unique challenges in veterinary medicine compared to what they do in human healthcare. And so some of the things like categories, and potentially even in the future, things like contributing factors, we’ve had to make some adjustments for that.

Well, that makes a whole lot of sense. Well, you found that medication errors were the most commonly reported safety events mirroring human healthcare. What kinds of medication errors were most prevalent, and what does this suggest about the issues in veterinary practice relating to this?

Medication, I think a lot of people don’t realize the process of getting a medication into a patient is so complex. I’ll be the first to admit, I didn’t initially. We think immediately, oh, I just order a medication, it makes it to the patient. What’s the big deal? But when you actually break that process down between, okay, I have to select the correct drug, I have to know or have the ability to look up the correct dose. I have to do math in some situations. I have to type this in correctly. Someone has to receive that and read it, interpret it, pull up the medication, and then administer it.

So there’s actually so many steps involved in that process and so many places where something could happen. So that being considered, it actually wasn’t surprising that that is one of the highest areas of mistakes that can happen, not only in human healthcare, but as evidenced here in veterinary medicine as well, and we’re not the first study to show that either. So I think it just goes to show the complexity of the process and that, yes, there’s absolutely I think areas of improvement that can be made in how we order medications.

In our particular study, we didn’t dive down to the specific steps that I just walked through to determine where along the process are we seeing the most medical errors happening. There was a previous study that showed the prescribing and ordering step was potentially overrepresented, so not something that we explored in this particular study, but absolutely a huge area of opportunity, I think, for future studies.

Well, the study emphasizes a move away from individual blame towards systems-based analysis. How does this shift in mindset benefit veterinary teams, and what are some examples of how systemic factors contribute to safety events?

The shift from the individual blame to recognizing the complexity of the systems in which we work is imperative to patient safety. So with patient safety, going back to human healthcare, in the past, the thought was when something “went wrong”, the first instinct, and I think this is instinct for a lot of us as human beings, is to blame someone. Who messed up? Who did something wrong? Were they paying attention? Did they know what they were doing? I think, again, instinctually as human beings, we want to think that. When in actuality what we should be thinking is, okay, what allowed that event to reach that patient? What were the surrounding elements of our system? Was there fatigue involved? Were there distractions?

Again, going back to comparing the uniqueness in veterinary medicine, I think some of the distractions we have are really great compared to human healthcare. We’ve got barking dogs behind us. We’ve got strange and oftentimes terrible smells. So we’ve got so many different distractions that are unique. So shifting our mindset from that, who did something wrong, but more shifting to, okay, why did this happen? How did this happen? Let’s look at every possible angle of how this mistake managed to make it to this patient, and what along that process can we make changes to reduce that?

So things like having an area of pharmacy that’s quiet to pull up medications. I think so many of us in veterinary healthcare, we’re used to these pharmacy areas in the dead center of a treatment area, the hustle, the bustle, the noise. When in fact, that’s a very key part, a crucial part of the medication process that can go wrong, so why don’t we have a quieter area that we can focus on actually pulling up these medications?

So it’s thinking about things like that and making those changes in how we design our environment that I think will be really imperative in the future.

That makes so much sense. I hope there’s some veterinary practice architects listening to what you just said.

Yeah, absolutely.

Well, you gathered data from more than 2000 clinics across multiple countries. What were some of the unique regional patterns or similarities you observed, if any?

Yeah, and this is another, I think, very unique aspect of Mars Veterinary Health is, again, that global network. So we really were able to see some variation between the different networks. So we talk about the influence of your environment and culture on patient safety event reporting. And we didn’t delve into, for example, different types of patient safety events in different regions or areas, but we did see some variation in rates of reporting among different areas. And I think that, again, falls back to different priorities. So are we prioritizing, for example, mainly reporting these high impact events, or are we really promoting submitting every possible event, in which case we might have higher reporting numbers? And so that, I think, culture, leadership, priorities of an organization, is where we really saw the differences globally.

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Well, cultivating psychological safety within clinical teams is a passion of yours. Why is that so important in veterinary environments and how do you work to achieve it?

Psychological safety is one of those things, I remember learning about it, and light bulb. Why aren’t more of our hospitals teaching this concept? That psychological safety is the ability to speak up when you need to, whether that’s speaking up about a safety concern. So, “I’m not comfortable with this anesthesia plan, can we talk about this for a second? Can we work through this?” It could be speaking up because you need help with something. So, “I’m not comfortable with this math, would you mind double checking me?” Or, “I’m running behind, do you mind helping me out for a second?” Or speaking up with an idea. Sometimes those of us that have an idea for how something should be done, we don’t want to rock the boat. We have this, I think, we’ve always done it this way mentality sometimes that we really need to shift. So psychological safety can have such benefit in veterinary medicine, for sure.

There’s a number of studies out there in the human healthcare side on benefits of psychological safety when it comes to things like burnout, turnover, and this is in healthcare situations or other. There’s also a really great, very recent paper from Dr. Kogan at CSU that was able to partner with, among others, Dr. Rochelle Low, who’s the Mars Veterinary Health VP of Global Patient Safety and Quality. And it looks at various aspects of our reactions to medical errors, but psychological safety is discussed pretty extensively as something that’s extremely beneficial in those situations.

So yeah, psychological safety is not just important from a patient safety standpoint, but then you start talking about innovation. So who’s going to have the best ideas? Who’s going to try things a little bit different way to improve work processes?

And then asking for help. That can be the scariest thing, I think. What are people going to think of me if I’m not able to do my job? But having someone that says, “Yes, absolutely. Let me help you,” gosh, that makes such a huge difference in your day-to-day mental health.

That makes so much sense. Well, what are some of the most impactful system changes that you have implemented or seen that truly improve patient outcomes or team well-being?

Sure. So systems changes I think are oftentimes challenging in veterinary medicine, but very doable. So one of the systems changes that I think has been impactful is utilization of barotrauma prevention devices on our anesthesia machines, so safety pop-off valves. That eliminates human error so we cannot accidentally forget and leave a pop-off valve closed in that situation. We can, but our patient’s going to be okay because we’ve got a system in place that’s implemented that no matter what happens, it’s going to release pressure in that system. So adding a simple device, one simple piece to an anesthesia machine, can significantly improve your patient’s outcome in those situations. So that’s something I always push for.

Implementation of checklist has been a big topic in human healthcare. Trying to transition that to a lot of our teams as well, so under anesthesia, sedation, those types of checklist. We’ve seen some innovations from our own teams and our own hospitals in how they set up different anesthesia circuits utilizing color coding systems.

Another big focus that we’re going to have coming in the near future is, as expected, around medication safety. That was a big topic in the paper. So things as simple as taking look-alike, sound-alike drugs and separating them. I use this example in a lot of my introductory patient safety talks, but Convenia and Cerenia, why? Why do they sound so similar? Why are they both stored in the refrigerator right next to one another where they can get mixed up?

So sometimes even things just as simple as changing the way that we organize our pharmacy is actually a systems change. It helps reduce the likelihood of those honest mistakes when we are otherwise trying to multitask, when we’re fatigued, when we have 75 different cases running around in our brain trying to manage, we don’t accidentally reach for the wrong medication. So there’s a lot of opportunities for systems change.

Well, checklists make so much sense. When I fly on airplanes, I see the airline pilots with their clipboard and their checklist. They don’t take off without going through their entire checklist to make sure they’ve checked out everything on the plane.

Well, Melinda-

Checklists, actually, that’s where they originated, was in aviation many decades ago. And that’s evolved, and then was adopted into human healthcare. And so I think it’s only natural that we start to bring those over into veterinary medicine as well. And when I was immersed into checklists when we were rolling these out to our hospitals, it was amazing how many times I wanted to make a checklist for everything in my life, even beyond veterinary medicine, so they can have a really important part in patient safety.

So important. Well, Melinda, you have mentored countless interns and residents over the years. What do you believe makes for an effective mentor in veterinary medicine today?

For me, I think what’s really important to me is having that authenticity and that vulnerability. That ability to say, “I’m not perfect. I was not perfect.” And I tried to do this a lot when I was mentoring interns and residents to say, “Okay, I’m going to walk you through this procedure, but also I’m going to tell you the ways in which I’ve messed this up in the past in hopes that you don’t experience that as well.”

And I think that’s very impactful for multiple reasons. It gives them that psychological safety. You’re modeling that vulnerability that you want them to have as well in that psychologically safe environment, but you’re also teaching them in the same way to say, “Hey, we are constantly learning and improving, and that’s our goal. So it’s okay to mess up. But we’re going to do this in a learning environment, and I want you to learn from any mistakes that I made in the past so that you don’t have to experience those as well.” So I think really modeling that authenticity and vulnerability is very impactful for those younger veterinarians as they’re developing.

Yeah, that’s really good. Well, in such a data-driven high-pressure field, how do you balance the need for clinical excellence with the human realities of stress, mistakes, and learning curves?

It’s a really important question. Veterinary medicine does sit at that intersection between science and humanity. So on one hand, we are constantly striving for that medical excellence through protocols or evidence-based practices, that data-driven decision-making.

But on the other hand, we’re ultimately human. We get tired, we’re fatigued, we’re distracted. We work in a very complex environment. Medicine’s hard. So medicine’s very challenging, and we’re doing it in a really complex environment, so honest mistakes are inevitable. And I think the key is really building that culture that allows for both accountability and psychological safety. So when your team feels safe enough to speak up or ask questions or ask for help, that’s really when the real learning happens, and that’s what’s going to drive quality a lot of times. So it’s giving ourselves permission to be continuous learners no matter where we are in our career and our experience, and recognizing that excellence isn’t necessarily perfection, it’s progress, adaptability, resilience, and that continuous learning and improving over time.

All such important traits, adaptability, resilience. Well, what has been the most surprising thing to you during your career in the veterinary profession?

That’s a great question. Over the many years I was in clinics, towards the end of my clinical time, I oftentimes found myself saying that I was no longer surprised by anything anymore in veterinary medicine. But I think probably my biggest surprise is where my career has taken me. As a kid in Arkansas that wasn’t even exposed to specialty medicine to now being a part of a global network where I get to really partner with and collaborate with colleagues from all different countries on how we can introduce patient safety into veterinary medicine is so mind-blowing to me. If you would’ve asked me even five, six years ago if I would’ve been here, I probably would’ve said no. But to now be able to be a part of this and to not only have colleagues, but now people I can call good friends in other countries that also have a similar passion for this, it’s just amazing what trajectory my career has gone in.

I love that. So many interesting opportunities in the veterinary profession. Well, how have you seen the profession change over the years?

The profession has definitely gone through some change. I think we can all agree with that. The different changes, generational changes, not just the generational changes among the workforce, but our clients as well, and how that has then been reflected in how we deliver care and how we communicate with one another. Probably a lot of listeners experience the challenges that our profession faced during COVID, the existing, lingering challenges when it comes to staffing.

But I think on a positive note though, there’s been a lot of positive scientific advancements. As an internist, I see all the different new insulins that have come out and the ways to treat our diabetic patients. We’ve got, gosh, we’ve got a treatment for FIP now. That’s mind-blowing for me, being in practice for 15 years to now be able to say that.

Different studies on access to care, even these longer studies like the MARS PETCARE BIOBANK. So we’re studying 10 plus years of following pets, and how is that going to impact how we detect disease in the future? So there’s also a lot of really exciting innovation happening in veterinary medicine, and that’s what I’m most looking forward to in the coming years is what that looks like.

There’s so much innovation happening in the veterinary profession right now. What does your crystal ball say about the future of the veterinary profession?

Well, speaking of innovation, I think that’s going to be a huge factor that shapes veterinary medicine moving forward. I think thinking about technology, so a lot of us are probably already experiencing some maybe changes to our day-to-day lives with AI, so how is that going to be woven into veterinary medicine as well? How will that influence things like diagnostics, data analytics? How will that impact our profession? It’ll be better, faster making decisions for our patients.

But I think equally important is going to be on the human side, which is our mental health and our wellbeing. I think our profession has made some good advancements in recognizing the importance of this area, understanding that our mental health, our sustainability and culture are just as crucial as our medical skills. And so I think practices that are going to really thrive. We’re going to balance both of those, that innovation, advancements in both technology and research, but also making sure that we invest in tools to create environments that our veterinary teams can grow and really feel supported.

What has been the biggest challenge that you’ve encountered through your career?

This is a tough question, but to get really vulnerable here, probably my biggest challenge throughout my entire career, imposter syndrome. Any stage of my career, honestly, from veterinary school into internship, residency, even as a senior clinician, just wondering, how did I get here? Am I really supposed to be amongst all these really smart people? Do I really deserve a seat at this table? And even moving into now more of a director and leadership role, I’m still very much surrounded by amazingly smart and talented people, and so I think it’s easy for some of us to question that. And so it’s just something that I personally have had to work through my entire, I think, adult life. And so it’s just similar to, I think, that learning mindset. It’s just a constant work in progress.

I’ve learned that almost everyone deals with imposter syndrome.

Yes. Yes.

Well, what advice would you give the younger version of yourself?

For my younger self, I would say constantly ask questions, be curious. I think as an adult, really trying to drive and constantly have that learning mindset, I would tell my younger self to really foster and establish that at an early age. And I think we do, a lot of us as kids, probably just thinking about the types of personalities and people that I know in veterinary medicine, probably a lot of us were. But I think we shift into a mentality, maybe it’s more the imposter syndrome of doubting yourself, but being comfortable with being curious and asking questions because that’s going to serve you so well in so many different facets of life, definitely your career in veterinary healthcare, but really personally as well.

Such good advice. Well, what message or principle do you wish you could teach everyone listening to our podcast today?

I think taking it back to patient safety is that, again, our biggest goal in publishing this paper was to acknowledge and emphasize the complexity of the system in which we work in veterinary medicine, and that honest mistakes are going to happen. And the most important thing is that we talk about them and we learn from them, and we try to improve what we do. We can’t make any improvements until we start talking about these things. So I would encourage hospitals, individuals to get started. It doesn’t have to be complex. But having these conversations, openly discussing things that happen is going to really advance patient safety in the veterinary field, and I’m excited to see where it goes in the coming years.

Outside of work, you enjoy being on the water and spending time with your pets. How do you stay grounded and recharge with such a demanding professional role?

I actually just recently moved to the woods, so now the water is less being on the ocean and more being on the lake or being outdoors is my biggest recharge. I recently did a learning exercise where I thought back to what really I loved as a kid, and it was being outside, being with my animals outside, playing outside, whatever it was. And so it’s interesting how that is still, to this day, what recharges me even as an adult. So just anything being in nature, hiking, being outdoors. I’ve recently really embraced my stereotypical forty-ish-year-old self. I’ve gotten into plants, bird watching. Those types of things that I’ve really loved to do, and that’s what really helps, I think, bring back that grounding, that inner piece.

Well, some of our guests say that they’ve had a key book that they read that really helped them. Do you have a key book in your life that has impacted you the most? I would love to hear about it.

I do. And it honestly wasn’t so much the book as it was the situation, and I’ll explain that a little bit. So I was in clinics and had been in clinics for a while, and I had a practice manager that handed me a book one day. It was Dare to Lead by Brene Brown. And he said, “I read this and I thought of you.” And as I took the book, I looked around like, me, you read a book on leading and you thought of me? Because I wasn’t at all in a formal leadership role. So absolutely, I read the book and I loved it, and it was impactful, but I think what was most impactful was that I had someone that believed in me that I could do that and saw that potential in me. And so it was a little bit of a catalyst for me to start to think of myself more as a leader.

And I think that’s important for a lot of us to recognize that leadership doesn’t always come with a formal title. So now that I’ve learned more about it and been more exposed, I wish I would’ve realized earlier in my clinical career that, hey, I was actually a leader in that hospital, even in the absence of having that formal role. And that’s what I try to communicate with a lot of our teams is that, especially when it comes to patient safety, you can drive this. Anyone can drive this. You don’t have to have certain things before or after your name. And so, yes, the book was amazing. I do recommend it to anyone, but I think what was most powerful in that was just knowing that someone that I looked up to and respected as a leader saw something in me that encouraged me to say, “I can do something bigger.”

Well, I hope everyone listening to our podcast heard that you can be a leader even if you don’t have leadership as part of your title. Well, Melinda, you’ve got the mic. What is one thing that you want to share with our listeners of The People of Animal Health podcast before you drop the mic today?

One thing I would like to share is that, again, what we’re doing is hard in veterinary healthcare. It’s really complex. I think a lot of people forget that what we do is extremely complex, and we’re human. So these honest mistakes are going to happen. And when they do, it’s I think so natural for us to understandably be upset. We are, as those of us in veterinary healthcare, we went into this profession to fix animals, to help animals. And so to think that anything happened that was the opposite of that, it can be emotionally very difficult. But just know that you’re doing a good job, you’re doing a great job. Constantly try to learn and improve from things that happen, and recognize that your system’s complex. There’s some changes and improvements that we can make in our system to reduce the likelihood of this happening again.

So work with your teams. Take a look around, start to look into patient safety, systems thinking, psychological safety. There’s some great resources out there. They can always reach out to me, of course, too. It’s some of my favorite topics, so I’d love to help.

Well, such good advice, Melinda, and thank you for all the work that you are doing for our profession. I so enjoyed our conversation today. Thank you so much for being here.

Thank you, Stacy. I appreciate it.