The Savvy VetTech

You’re working in your first job as a vet tech in a busy general practice, juggling a new puppy visit and a drop-off lameness workup, when a client comes rushing through the door with an emergency. Her Jack Russell Terrier, Jackie O., has just been hit by a car. One of your fellow vet techs rushes Jackie back to the treatment area for a triage exam, asking you to take Jackie’s owner into an exam room and get a brief history.

If you plan on working in small animal general practice, there’s a good chance you may someday find yourself in a practice that offers wellness plans. A 2015 survey found that 20% of the veterinary practices surveyed offered wellness plans as an option for their clients, although the exact number seems to fluctuate from year to year.¹

Wellness plans are often touted as a way to help clients with budgeting, while increasing client compliance with preventive care recommendations. 

Although dental extractions are a common, everyday procedure in many veterinary practices, they are also a frequent source of frustration for vets, vet techs, and clients. Learning to communicate with clients about extractions more effectively can help alleviate at least a portion of this stress, improving client compliance with these procedures. 

As you have probably already noticed during your time in vet clinics, high-quality veterinary care is expensive! We have the ability to perform a wide variety of advanced diagnostic tests and treatments for our veterinary patients, but not all clients can afford this level of care. Unfortunately, if clients can’t afford the diagnostics and treatments that we recommend, we can’t provide them… which means that all of the recent advances in veterinary medicine serve little purpose. 

Fortunately, there is a solution to this problem. In many cases, pet insurance can help! If we convince a client to purchase pet insurance while their pet is young, we are far less likely to find ourselves performing an economic euthanasia later in that pet’s life.

One thing you will soon learn in veterinary medicine (if you haven’t already) is that everyone has different interests! In every practice I’ve worked in, there are some techs who love dentistry and others who avoid it at all costs.

If you’re one of those vet techs who loves dentistry, you’re in luck! Veterinary dentistry is a growing field and there are a number of ways that you can translate your love of dentistry into a rewarding career. 

First, ask yourself how committed you are to veterinary dentistry as a career path. If it’s your number one priority, it might make sense to pursue specialization and work exclusively in veterinary dentistry.

If you love dentistry but also love aspects of general practice, you may want to forego specialization in favor of on-the-job training and continuing education, which will allow you to practice high-quality dentistry within the general practice environment.