Episode 51: Saving Pets, Leading Teams & Loving the Job | Brooke Butler | Emergency Veterinarian & Medical Director
Brooke Butler is a badass emergency veterinarian and Medical Director running her own hospital with the Veterinary Emergency Group (VEG). Based in the Hoboken, NJ/NYC area, she’s changing the veterinary experience for animals, their humans, and the vets who care for them, combining practicality with deep compassion. Brooke shares how she built her career from internships to leading multiple hospitals, why she thrives in high-pressure ER cases, and how she manages compassion fatigue in a demanding field. She opens up about overcoming anxiety to take bold leaps, including moving across the country for a new role, and how solo travel has shaped her perspective. From ethical challenges in veterinary medicine to the importance of mentorship, Brooke’s story is a masterclass in resilience, leadership, and living fully.
“I was so afraid to do things. If I didn’t work on myself and do all these things to overcome that in the past few years, I would never have taken that phone call from David Bessler, I would never have come for the interview and I definitely wouldn’t have moved to New York for a completely new job and new life. Every day I’m trying to work on being better and understanding my weaknesses is step #1.”
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Lauren Butler Episode Link
West Palm Beach
University of Florida
Law & Order
Tampa
Forensic Criminologist
Ophthalmology
Vet Emergency Group (VEG)
David Bessler - CEO VEG and her mentor
New York City
Union New Jersey
Compassion Fatigue
Ethical Fatigue
Pet Insurance
Veterinarian Suicide Status
Not One More Vet - Suicide Prevention
InstaCart
Cushing’s Disease
Primal Leadership Book
NY Marathon
Iceland
Scandinavia
Slovenia -
Follow along using the Transcript
Chapters
00:00 Meet Brooke Butler
04:15 Growing Up in West Palm Beach
08:10 From Forensic Criminology to Veterinary Medicine
12:35 Why ER Work Felt Like Home
16:50 The Role of Mentorship in Her Career
21:15 Moving to NYC for a New Job and Life
25:40 Running a Hospital and Training Teams
30:25 Managing Compassion and Ethical Fatigue
34:50 How the Veterinary Field Is Changing
39:05 Why Pet Insurance Matters
43:30 Adventures in Solo Travel
47:55 Overcoming Anxiety to Embrace Opportunity
52:10 Brooke’s Call to Action for Future Vets
I was so afraid to do things. If I didn't work on myself and do all these things to help overcome that, I would never have taken that phone call, never have come for the interview, and I definitely wouldn't have moved to New York for a completely new job, a new life. Every day. I'm trying to work on being better and understanding my weaknesses is step one.
That's Brooke Butler and this is The Powerful Ladies Podcast.
Hey guys, I'm your host, Kara Duffy, and this is The Powerful Ladies Podcast where I invite my favorite humans, the awesome, the up to something, and the extraordinary to come and share their story. I hope that you'll be left, entertained, inspired, and moved to take action towards living your most powerful life.
Animals and pets are awesome. Those of you that know me know that I am totally in love with my dog's bandit and brisket, and am a total sucker for any other such cute creature. When Lauren Butler from episode 42 wrote me to recommend her badass emergency vet Sister Brooke, I was an instant, yes, both because I love powerfully referrals and because I had so many questions like how is it possible to love creatures and manage the emotional burden of hard vet decisions?
How is the veterinarian world changing with the modern times? How does one become a badass emergency animal doctor, and what's it look like to be a powerful lady from the perspective of a veterinarian? We get into all of that. Plus how to move across the country and why solo travel is a game changer on this episode, all that, and so much more coming up.
But first, if you're interested in discovering what possibilities and businesses are available for you to create and to live your most fulfilling life, please visit the powerful ladies.com/coaching and sign up for a free coaching consultation with me. There is no reason to wait another day to not be living your best life.
When you instead could be running at full speed towards your wildest dreams today.
As I was saying earlier, I loved the email that your sister sent me, and I'm actually gonna quote her because it's so good. She goes, she's a badass emergency veterinarian doctor and also a medical director who o medical director who oversees and runs her own hospital. She's independent, smart, and funny.
You have to have her, I'm gonna tell her that you're calling. Oh, wow. Setting the bar high over here. No, but it's awesome. I would love to hear how you would describe yourself. So if you wanna introduce yourself for the audience, that would be awesome.
Sure. My name is Brooke Butler. I'm apparently a badass emergency veterinarian, according to my sister.
Yeah, so I I grew up in South Florida, born and raised there, west Palm Beach area. Came from a great family. Went to college at university of Florida. And, I always liked, I loved animals, grew up with dogs. They were very passionate about it. My dad's a human physician, so he is a radiologist and he always said, my whole life growing up, don't go into medicine.
It's changing so much. You just don't wanna be a human doctor. But I really loved biology and I loved medicine. I was like what can I do with this? And I lost track of all that in college. And I was like, okay, I'm gonna, I watch a lot of law and order and criminal minds and all that kind of stuff, and I wanna be a forensic.
Criminologist and I said, I wanna be those people on law and order. So I started taking some of those classes and somehow I ended up in a biology class and I said, man, I really do love this, but can't be a human doctor, so what am I gonna do? I was like I do love animals, so maybe I should be a veterinarian.
So I started taking more classes. I went on that track and I just loved it so much. And so I went to veterinary school at University of Florida as well. And I did my internship in Tampa, Florida. So I've always been in Florida, love the warm weather. I didn't think I could handle anything else. And I I did a year internship and it's basically rotating.
So you go through all different specialties, you rotate through emergency, a bunch of different things. And I was a hundred percent set on ophthalmology. I wanted to look at eyeballs for the rest of my life. I wanted to do surgery on eyeballs. That's all I cared about. And I did research and I shadowed the departments and that was all I wanted to do.
And then I had a little bit of a quarter life crisis. I was 25 years old. I think my sister referenced her quarter life crisis too. Yes. I think it's very, yes, it's very important. Important for for us to grow, I think to have a quarter life crisis. It really changed my whole life and I said, listen, I just, I can't I thought I could look at eyeballs the rest of my life and I don't think I can do it, so what am I gonna do?
So I said, listen, I think I need some time to just clear my head. I'm just gonna do emergency. I feel pretty comfortable. I'm just gonna do emergency as a transition here. I don't wanna do it for my whole life. I'll make a little bit of money. I'll travel the world a bit. So I spent a year doing that. I absolutely loved it.
I'm an adrenaline junkie. I just love the excitement, not knowing what's gonna happen. Super, super exhilarating for me. And so I did that for about a year and a half. And I started to get a little exhausted, a little bit stressed out, said, oh man, this isn't really a career. It's not something I could sustain long term.
And then I got in contact with somebody named David Bessler. And he started this emergency hospital, it's called Veterinary Emergency Group. We call it veg. It's based in New York. So he calls me and he tells me how it's very different and it's amazing. And he was describing how it's different than any other emergency room out there.
And so I was miserable in my job. I said, listen, I don't know. I just, I'm not really sure. I do need a change though. And I was considering. Completely different career path. Like I was even considering going to law school and just throwing out my whole veterinary career. I just didn't know what to do.
Because for me, the alternative was going into general practice. And that's the typical veterinarian that you'll go to for your vaccines. And, if you, if your dog has skin allergies, they need a deworm or things like that. For me, I just, it wasn't exciting enough for me, so I didn't know what I was gonna do.
So I flew out to New York to meet with David Bessler, and he told me all about, I really was just going out there for a free trip to New York, honestly. I was like, oh, he'll fly me out there. I'll go visit my brothers out there, I'll go visit my brother, I'll visit the city. I had no intention of taking this job.
And then I went into the car and I called my parents and I said, so I guess I'm moving to New York. It just How cool. Yeah, it was, huge move for me. I've never been anywhere besides Florida. I've never been in a cold weather place. And my mom actually said, she goes, I don't think you're gonna last past one winter.
And so I went to, I moved to New York and it was. Completely changed my whole life. And for the first time ever, I actually saw emergency veterinary medicine as a career, as something I could do forever. And so I started off just as an emergency veterinarian, trying to feel out the company a little bit, see what I see if I like it.
And then after a few months they offered me a position as medical director of my own hospital. So I opened up this hospital in union New Jersey. And that that's been up for about a year and a few months. And then just recently I got a new job title as regional medical director. So now I am helping open and run and train all of the hospitals that open everywhere in the country except for the New York, New Jersey area.
So when I first started, veg had two hospitals in New York, and now we have 12. So in the two years we had quite a large growth, and then in the next year we're gonna open another 10 hospitals. So it's a very fast growing emergency hospital. It's really exciting.
That's really exciting.
Congratulations. Thank you. Appreciate it. So how many cold winters have you been in New York now? Oh man. This is my third.
Nice. I think it, what it comes down to is just buying the right clothes. I would usually just wear a sweatshirt outside whenever I would visit New York, and that's why I was freezing.
But I am fully bundled up. I am the first person wearing my winter coat and fall whenever one's still in t-shirts
still. Yes, 100%. Plus, I, being someone who comes from the Northeast, I really miss the opportunity to wear the layers in the coats. And the scarves. But more importantly, I have so many questions about.
Being an emergency veterinarian being someone who loves animals. I have two dogs myself. We have an amazing vet here that I'm really happy with and like for, I always am amazed at how vets can love animals so much and be there for all the things that they need. That for me would be so emotional.
How do you separate wanting to love on every animal and the hard choices or hard things you have to do in the moment?
Yeah, it's a great question. So it's extremely difficult. And I think being a veterinarian in general is very hard, but being an ER vet is extraordinarily difficult because I'm not seeing the happy puppies that are just there for vaccines perfectly healthy.
I'm seeing the things that are dying, these family members that are, had seizures all night and the owner's hysterically crying. They have to put their dog to sleep. I'm seeing kind of the worst and it's really hard. And I think the advice that we're all given, so we're not really trained in how to manage this type of stress.
I think the training that we get is basically, Hey, just try and separate it so we, when you leave your hospital, you just don't think about it. That, that was really the advice that I was given. And yeah it works sometimes like you just have to kinda dissociate from it. So when I'm euthanizing a pet, I'm just not really thinking, oh, I'm euthanizing this person's family member.
Just ignore their feelings and ignore them crying. And of course I can do that to some degree, but it's still gonna seep in and I think, it's a major problem and I don't think we get enough counseling or enough teaching on it to try and figure out how to handle it. It, it really is tough and it took me many years to figure that out.
So when I was at my first job I used to describe it as compassion fatigue. 'cause that's what everybody says. It says, you've been working in this field for so long, you get compassion fatigue. And, there's a lot of theories about that term, compassion fatigue. Is it that we are fatigued, that we are giving so much compassion to everybody that we don't have enough for our regular life?
Or is it that over time we're losing our compassion? I don't think it's either of those. I think I have just as much compassion as I did. Four or five years ago when I started this career I know veterinarians that are 50, 60 years old and I think they have just as much compassion. I don't think that's the right term. And I've heard a lot of things said about what it is that's causing this distress amongst veterinarians. And I actually just read an article the other day that described it as ethical fatigue. So basically what we're doing is we're making these life and death decisions, and it's not the same as human medicine.
We can't just do absolutely everything that needs to be done. It's, a lot of it is based on what the owners wanna do and what the owners are able to do financially. So it's really tough for us to be making these decisions. We'll have a dog come in and it's a perfectly healthy dog otherwise, but he broke his legs.
And he needs surgery. And yes, maybe it could heal with a cast, but probably not. He will have lifelong struggles, things like that. But what if an owner comes in and they have this dog with a broken leg and they don't have any money at all? What are you gonna do? Are you gonna offer euthanasia and euthanize, euthanizes pet with who has a treatable condition?
Are you going to put a cast on it for free? And then hope that they get the proper care, but know that this animal's probably gonna suffer for the next few months not getting the proper care. It's a really tough decision. And if I could do this surgery for every single one of those cases, no problem.
Of course, I would want to, but it's just not practical. So I think having those type of situations over and over again it creates this ethical fatigue. I wanna do the right thing. Am I doing the right thing? Yeah. Am I offering the right options? Things like that. And I think it really can get to you.
I'm listening to that example and I'm like, give him the surgery. Yeah. We'll get the money.
I know. And that's how it is always. And I think another problem that leads to all this distress in the veterinary community is we get berated all the time. Like people we're afraid of owners coming after us saying that we're money hungry because we can't help every single animal if they have financial concerns.
It's just, it's not practical. Yeah. We don't have the same, insurance companies. So yes, there is pet insurance and for everyone listening who has a pet, everybody gets pet insurance. It is the greatest thing of all time. But not many people have it. And so if they don't have it, everything comes out of pocket.
And so I give a lot of shit away for free. That's it's a company thing for us. If you need to give something away for free to really help the animal, then do it. If an animal gets hit by a car and I need to give a pain medication, of course I am. I don't even ask about money, of course I'm gonna give a pain med.
So I do give a lot of shit away for free. But it's, sometimes it's just not practical. You have animals that need. $10,000 of care for heart failure. Some others they're in respiratory distress. I'll need to be hospitalized for several days. It's just, you can't do that.
And because we have the option of euthanasia, that always has to be a consideration. But it really weighs heavily on me. There's a lot of and all veterinarians in this field are, am I making the right choice? Am I pushing for the right option with this particular owner? Did I do the right thing?
Did I set up the, prognosis and outcome properly for the owner? Because that's another thing let's say it's, let's say they don't have any financial concerns. I will have to set it up for them in a way, Hey, this is the prognosis. This is how I feel this case is gonna go moving forward.
And based on how I describe it and what kind of tone I use, and the way that my face looks when I'm describing it, that's gonna make their decision. And that decision is gonna be either let's treat my animal or euthanize. And if I'm having an off day or I'm upset about something else in my life, I might be a little bit more negative in the way I describe it and maybe down the road, maybe if it happened a week later, I wouldn't be describing it the same way. And so that's, that's a huge burden for us to bear, and I think it really gets to people. Yeah. Yeah. Ve I think veterinary medicine has one of the highest suicide rates of any profession. Female veterinarians alone, they're like three and a half times more likely to commit suicide than the general population.
So to, yeah, it's a massive problem.
It sounds to me like there must be something structurally or culturally that we can do to change that because it seems so unfair that you guys are holding all of this burden. Yes, you have the knowledge unless yes, you ha ways to solve the problems that people bring in with their animals.
And that's like why it seems unfair that you guys need to hold all of the power and responsibility in that way. So one of our dogs is 16 and he's awesome and he is doing great for his age. Good. And. He's mostly blind and mostly deaf, but he sure knows how to find a treat drawer and demand treats all day long.
So to me that's a sign that he is like still ready to be here. And like his health is good. He is on some meds, but like in general he's fine. No one knows he's 16.
Yeah. And
there are also days when, you know, whether it's, he hasn't been diagnosed, but if it's doggy dementia or something else.
'cause he'll have some days where he's great, he everything, he's going outside, he's doing his business, everything's fine. And other days I'm like, how have you peed in the house three times? What is going on? No. And it is, it's like these, you have to, there's a lot of extra work. And I can imagine people who don't wanna deal with, the cost of the meds he's on, the fact that sometimes he has accidents in the house and then, just watching him sometimes walk into walls.
That it's it's a choice. And for me, it's no. Like I think as his owner for 16 years, I'll know when he's I'm complete. And he is not there yet. Yeah. But I can imagine that lots of people. Could have said it was his time to go sooner based on other metrics they're using.
It's I think that's the hardest decision and it's the hardest thing for people to make. And they ask me all the time, what should I do? Yeah. Is this the right decision? I will never, if somebody says I wanna euthanize my pet, I will never say It's not a good idea unless the animal is perfectly healthy.
Which is very uncommon that I see. I think some general veterinarians, the daytime veterinarians will come across that sometimes. Yeah. I personally don't, and I'm so grateful for that because I don't really know how I would handle it. But it's very rare that somebody comes to me with an animal that absolutely shouldn't be euthanized and they want to, 'cause they're usually coming in for something pretty severe if they're in the emergency room.
Yeah. I will never, if somebody wants to do it and they've made up their mind, I will support it. I will always tell them, you are making the right decision. You are doing everything that you can be doing for your pet. Yeah, I think a lot of times the other, the, some other people who don't know what they wanna do and they're asking me for advice, what would you do for your pet?
And the crazy thing is, I think I would be pretty irrational with my own pet. I think I would I have two dogs and I think I would probably keep them alive much longer than I should. If they had a really severe debilitating disease, if they were hit by a car or something like that, I think I would do absolutely everything I can until probably my technicians and fellow veterinarians or family members would come to me and say, Brooke, you really have to let go.
So I hate when people ask me that question, 'cause I don't think you want. To do what I would do. Yeah. But there, but I think there's two types of people that come in for and are considering euthanasia. There are people who say, I don't want him to suffer anymore. Even if it's something that, yeah, there's a potential, a small chance he could be better.
I don't want him to suffer. This is a perfect example. There's a disease called a hemo abdomen. And basically it's a dog. It's mostly a dog happen in a cat too that's bleeding into their abdomen. And it's usually cancer. It's cancer on the spleen or the liver that's bleeding. When I diagnose it, it's very easy to diagnose.
They come in the hospital, they have kale gums, they're having a hard time breathing. Their belly's usually big, and I put the ultrasound probe on their stomach, on their abdomen, and I see that there's blood and I pull a sample. And then we have to decide what to do because the next step is surgery.
To go to surgery, you have to stop the bleed. You have to remove the tumor or the organ if it's on the spleen. Okay. And so the big surgery recovery period is about two weeks. It's pretty intense. They're usually in the hospital for several days. Most of the time it's a malignant cancer called Hemangiosarcoma, and for those they have maybe three to six months to live.
And so there are some people that say. Listen, he might make it through the surgery and have a wonderful three to six months, but I do not wanna put him through that. And then there's some people that say, I wanna do absolutely everything until he is taking his last breath. And there's no right answer.
It's really hard. And I know in my personal experience, I grew up with goals and retrievers, and this is the disease that they always get. This is what most of them pass from. And in the beginning we did absolutely everything. We took them to surgery, we took them to another surgery, like whatever it would take to, to cure them and to give us a little bit more time.
And then over time we started to realize, hey, this is, it's selfish. We're doing this for us, and it's so much to put them through and it's for three months and at some point they're gonna have another episode where they're gonna collapse and have a hard time breathing. And I don't wanna put them through that.
So we elected as a family to not do those surgeries anymore. But it's a really hard decision for those types of things because yeah, you could buy some time, but is it worth it if you wanna put your pet through that? It's a tough decision.
Yeah. And for me it crosses over so much with human euthanasia options.
Because I don't see much of a difference between my dog and my human family members. And it, it just opens up that whole Pandora's box of, there's moments when it's like, of course you would fight for this dog, you'd fight for, your mom. And then on the flip side, you'd be like, wait, if I can like, give my dog this gift of relief and thanks for everything it's done.
Like why can't we do that for humans sometimes? I know. What? I know. It's like such an interesting space. And I find it interesting that some states have embraced that and others are like, of course not. And everyone who you know, has gone through. The situations that would have you have those discussions about a human life.
I just think it's really interesting, like you only can know that perspective when you're in it. Similar much to what you're saying about with your own dog. It's so personal and specific to all the other factors that are involved.
And I think I think the biggest difference is in the human side of things, in human medicine, we really value quantity of life more than anything.
Yeah. For the veterinary side we value quality of life. And so if they're not living a good quality of life, then it's time for euthanasia. We don't care if they live another one month if they're suffering versus in human medicine, we want them to live as long as possible. And I always tell people, so my dog actually was diagnosed with cancer.
And I I never was a big supporter of chemotherapy for animals. I didn't wanna put them through that. But then I learned a little bit more about it, especially going through vet school. And I ended up deciding to put him through the surgery and chemotherapy because he had a much better prognosis.
They gave me three months without it and one to two years with it. So for me I valued that time. I felt that was a good enough time for me to put him through it. Yeah. And the difference with chemotherapy in dogs and humans is for humans, again, they value quantity of life. So you want to.
Survive to make it to your daughter's wedding and to live through seeing grandchildren and things like that. So they get very high doses of chemo. And so that's why they have all the side effects. They lose their hair, we vomit GI signs it looks terrible. Versus animals we care more about quality of life, not quantity.
So they give much smaller doses of chemotherapy so they don't get those side effects. They don't get those terrible GI signs, they don't lose their hair. But it gives them a pretty decent qua quality of life for not as long, they rarely go into remission with chemotherapy.
Sometimes they do, but not commonly. But it gives them a pretty decent qua quality of life.
I, what I think is so interesting as well is like when you were choosing between, law school being a vet being a forensic I'm gonna get the name right, but like a criminal investigator for the forensic side.
Yeah. What do you see as the red thread? What was the, why that was linking all of those options for you?
I was all over the place. I just wanted, I wanted something big. I wanted to do something big with my life. And even being, I loved being a veterinarian, but even while I was working as an emergency veterinarian, I wanted more.
I always, I wanna teach people I want to have aspirations that are possible and that I could reach for. I'm very goal oriented in my life, and I really was looking for something that I could continue to grow and continue to be better in that position. And so that's what led me here, especially coming to this company, coming to veg.
I just, I was itching for more. And I've only been doing this job for four, five years, but I just. I keep wanting to be better and I wanna grow. And I felt like I hit a limit in emergency veterinary medicine where, okay, yes, I can continue to learn medicine, but I wanna learn something else.
And that's why I went more on the business side of things.
I have that curiosity gene always yeah, but what if? Or how does it feel over there? It could be a blessing or a curse. I'm not sure yet. Yeah,
I understand that.
So one of the pre-questions when I was prepping was, I imagine in your experience as an emergency room vet, like there must be some wild things that happened, like some ridiculous stories.
Yeah. What are some that stand out for you? Okay. So many, I don't even
know where to begin. So on at veg we make sure that we see. All species. So like I really, when people call me on the phone, I'll say anything that can walk, swim, or fly through the door, we can see. So basically anything that fits through the door.
So I've seen, you name it, I've seen it. I've seen iguanas and raccoons and squirrels. I, turtles, I once saw a six foot crane when I was working in in Florida. So that took five people to hold down. Some of the iguanas we see are like seven foot long. Whoa. Yeah.
Really intense. Actually, I have a funny iguana story. There was this family and they had three cats and two iguanas and a few fish, and I think a dog in their house, like full house, completely packed. And they were all watching TV on and around the couch. And two of the cats were on the couch playing with each other, and they got into a fight and they fell over and landed on the iguanas on the floor and broke the iguanas leg.
Oh and this was actually that seven foot agua. So they came in, we had three people just holding its tail because the tail is so heavy and strong. So we had a few people holding them, and we had to take X-rays and look, I saw the broken leg. We put a cast on it. And then I sent it to a specialist the next day.
But that was quite an intense cave.
And then iguana, it must be just so pissed at the cats are you kidding? Get your shit together.
I know. They actually said that they're all best friends with each other, which is the greatest thing. They're like, oh yeah, I swear they cuddle with each other.
They're best friends. I actually have a really funny story. It starts off sad. Most of my stories are sad, so I'm trying to pick the more happy ones. But this family was moving from California to Florida. And they had a little cat to, I think 2-year-old cat and they were packing up all their stuff and the door was open, the moving company was going in and out, and they think that the cat just ran out of the house.
They could not find her anywhere. And they were searching the house. They were around the neighborhood. They even stayed in town for a little while to look for her, and they couldn't find her anywhere. And they were all devastated. The kids were crying. They were so upset. They got to Florida, they ended up, they said, listen, we will keep signs up.
We'll pass our phone number out to all of our neighbors. Hopefully somebody will call us. So they go to Florida, they drive to Florida, they unpack all their stuff, and their couch was wrapped in, like the Saran wrap? Yes. They wrap the couches, it and they opened it up and the cat just pops out of the couch.
No. Yeah, the movers just tied him in. Didn't even know that the cat was in there.
He was probably hiding 'cause he was scared. I know. And he just got saran wrapped with the couch. I know. Was he okay?
He was perfectly fine. They rushed him over to the vet. They were freaking out. They were all hysterically crying.
He was a little skinny. So we gave him some food and water. Gave him some fluids overnight. But he was perfectly fine. It was ugh. Such a crazy story. But they were so relieved.
Yeah. It was probably like,
at least a, like a week, 10 days. I think it was a quick trip. I think it was only about two days or so.
I don't think you would've lasted without water for much longer, but not long. Yeah, they got lucky. They got really lucky. Oh my goodness.
Yeah. And if that happens to anyone else and they're gonna have the poor movers unpacking every box. Yeah. Especially a cat. You never know where they're gonna end up.
I know. Oh, I, we also have a bearded dragon and. She, we put her out in the patio. She likes to sunbathe and just be outside of her terrarium. Aw. And the puppy we have, we rescued a puppy that a friend found in a box in May, and she's awesome. Her name is Brisket. Oh. And she really wants the bearded dragon to play with her.
And at first we're like, be nice. Like you're, who knows who's who could hurt who at this point. And we. Had put Jenga, the bearded dragon out in the patio and she's sunbathing on the couch out there. I forgot that we had shut the door to keep the puppy out from getting her, and then something happened, opened the door.
I'm on a call and next thing you know I look outside and the puppy is curled up, like trying to put her head in paw on the dragon and like sleep with her. Oh. I was like, man, no way. So I totally understand the idea of the iguana and the cats being friends.
Oh, that is so cute. So every once in a while
they're sweet, but brisket is still wants her to play tag and the dragons not so excited about playing tech.
Oh, that's so cute. I love all these inner species relationships. I think it's so cute.
Yeah. And I think there's a lot more, and I'm glad that thanks to, the good side of social media, more of them now because the cuteness overload has to outweigh all the drama overload that comes from it.
Yeah, absolutely.
But it's very cool. And I think also thinking about the inner species, like seeing the reaction to, like people in Australia trying to rescue as many animals as they can. It just, I mean it's, to me it's a silver lining within what's happening to poor Australia right now.
I know.
But it's like web up to a billion animals. Yeah. That's crazy.
It's crazy. Veg is actually trying to find out how we can send some of our veterinarians over there to help out for several weeks because it's just devastating. It's devastating out there. I think they need all the help they can get.
Yes. On all fronts, whether it's human help and support animal help. I can only imagine as well the levels of reforestation they're gonna have to go through also. I mean it's crazy the impact. Yeah. It's devastating. When we were talking before about how, like the fatigue that vets go through what are things that you do to really like self care to keep yourself at your best also? And also to take some of that stress out.
Yeah, that's a good question. So I think the idea of work life balance has really been focused on life. The life part of that. So of course I, I take time for myself.
I love to get foot massages. It's everywhere, all over New York and New Jersey, but it's my time to just relax. I travel, that's a huge thing for me especially solo travel is really big. I love to travel alone and to strange destinations, places where there's not a lot of tourists.
But I think the biggest thing for me that's helped me stay centered and focused and loving my job is the work part of that work-life balance. And I think that's the part that's forgotten. And I've been, I've worked in many emergency hospitals before that they just don't focus on that. They don't focus on having their employees love their job.
And that's why this place that I'm at now, veg, it has totally transformed the way that emergency medicine is, both from the customer aspect of things and also from the employees. So they. Really identified what the problems are and they said, okay, we're gonna solve this. So for example emergency veterinarians, we work nights, weekends, and holidays.
So we have tough schedules. I work 14 hour overnight shifts. I'm always working on the weekends, on Thanksgiving and Christmas when everyone's with their families. I'm working. So it can be really tough. And some of the problems that we face is one is that we don't have time to eat because we're so busy.
And then it comes to 3:00 AM when we finally have a break and there's no place that's open or it's really hard to eat healthy because the only place that is open is like a Papa John's. So what they did is they said, okay, we're gonna order Instacart. You're gonna order a food delivery service. You choose what kind of food you want, and we'll deliver it every week for you guys.
So we know for sure that you have food there and healthy food options. Lack of sleep. So obviously we don't get much sleep. We're working 14 hour overnight shifts. We're on strange schedules. And so they really encourage that we sleep on our shifts. So we take like shift work during the night.
So if it's slow and we only have one or two inpatients, the technician will stay awake and I will sleep for an hour and then wake up and we'll do treatments together or vice versa. The other thing is, we, some people don't have time or money for vacations. We're working so hard. So the company takes us on retreats.
I just I'm actually in Florida right now. We just left our retreat here and they take the employees and their families for just like a nice relaxing vacation. They do a lot of stuff for us. And so it's really about identifying those problems and then you look into the more serious things like depression and, suicidal thoughts and all of that.
And we have a lot of resources available to us through the company to help with that as well. I think another thing is trying to identify those factors before. Before they become so severe. I think that's another really important feature. And so we've been talking to different life coaches about, hey, how do we change our perspective and change our behavior here so that we don't lead down that path?
Almost like a preventative measure. So that's also been very helpful. So it's just, it's nice to have a company that really supports you and supports your, both your mental health and your physical health, and really wants you to be happy because their goal is for us to. Make emergency medicine a career.
And that's what I was telling you earlier. This is the first time in my life that I realized, hey, emergency medicine can be a career. It can be like that. Yeah. And it's so important and needed. Like I feel really lucky where we're I am in Orange County and California, like there, I'm lucky to have access to a lot of options for everything including veterinary services and emergency services.
And there are so many pockets of the US that don't. Just there's a hospital for human shortage. There is definitely a hospital for animals shortage. Yeah. Depending on where you are. With all, with every vet I know or that I've personally met, they're all very high in the compassionate scale like you were talking about earlier.
And I know how hard they work to like squeeze in one more animal or make, like how do we help everyone that's here and asking for help? And so I really do, I, I agree with you in the sense of like, how do we give people more structures in this environment where they can fulfill their commitment to help everyone possible and not forget to help themselves. Yeah, completely. And even as you're, as I'm listening to your share right? About all the things that matter to you and how this comes through. I really hear that in what's important to you, like not just helping the animals, but helping the people that love the animals also.
Yeah. It can, oh yeah. Everyone can win. That's our big focus actually, is, focusing on the customer, because I think a lot of people go into veterinary medicine, at least they make a joke of it as, oh, I don't really care about people, I care about animals. But we're treating the people just as much as we're treating the animals.
It's really important for us. And we are very customer focused company. And that is, that's what is changing the way that em, emergency medicine is being practiced right now. So let me ask you a question. Have you ever been to an emergency room with your pet? Yes. You have? Dog or Yes. Was it the bearded dragon?
It was the dog, yes.
Okay. What
happened? We had gone to my visit my parents for Christmas and put him at a really awesome, like doggy playgroup babysitter place. And when we picked him up, it was not the same dog, wasn't walking around literally went from, if he was a 10 when we left, he was a four, and we're like, what happened?
Maybe a four? And so I thought, maybe this is just his time, so I ran to the emergency room on to your point of the days you guys have to work, I think it was New Year's Day. Because we picked him up maybe the day before New Year's Eve, and I'm like, no, this isn't right.
I'm not gonna wait any longer. Yeah. And we get there and they did all this work on him and they're like, we think all his blood work was fine, everything was fine. He just looked miserable and in pain. And they're like, we think that what may have happened is that when he was at the, kennel, that some other dogs may have jumped on him, hurt his back because he's an older guy who doesn't look like he's an old guy.
He probably got in the mix when he shouldn't have. Yeah. So he had to get laser therapy on his spine and he had to get meds. He like all this stuff. But then like after he started getting his medication, he got so much better. And then shortly thereafter we did follow-ups with our regular vet and I realized that he has the, he has the hormone imbalance, the cortisol imbalance.
Oh, is it low or high? He's low. I, no, he's high. Cushings. Cushings. Yes. Thank you. Yeah. And so ever since he went on the medication for Cushings, that's also been like a game changer. Oh good. That's all he needed to like suddenly have energy back. Oh. But yeah, it was, yeah. I was a mess taking him to the vet, like trying to be normal.
And then all the nurses there were like, listen, some dogs just know they wanna make it through the holidays, so this is our busiest day of the year. I'm like, what? I know.
So lemme
ask
you a question about that experience, if you remember Yes. When you walked into the hospital, what happened when you first walked in?
I think I walked up to a desk where I filled out some information and then I waited with my dog for a little while and then they took him, and then I waited a whole lot more.
Okay. So let me tell you how we're different at veg. And this is the biggest thing of why I love my job so much and I am so passionate about it, is because of.
We are completely revolutionizing the way that this is done. It's been done the same way for so many years. What we do is when you walk through our hospital, you don't fill out any paperwork, you don't do anything when you come in besides go straight to our treatment area, you and your pet, and you see a doctor right away.
So you'll see an a doctor in under 10 seconds. So you go straight to our back and you never ever leave your pet. So you are gonna be with your dog the entire time. Because I think that's a, the, a big problem is these are our children, right? Like these dogs and cats and iguanas and bearded dragons, they're are children.
They're family. And so if you go into a pediatrician's office, would they ever take your child away from you? Never. No. You would never let them. Not in a million years. And so they shouldn't be taking our dogs and cats away from us either. So you are, we have our owners present for everything. So if they feel comfortable, they can see blood draws.
They can see surgeries. They even see us doing the x-rays. They can't be in the actual x-ray room because of radiation, but they can watch through a little window. We have owners that camp out there, they'll sleep there overnight and sit there in the cage or right outside the cage with their pet. So there we don't really have any rules with that because you really should be part of it.
You should be there. You should see everything we're doing. That's another thing we get yelled at a lot for I, why am I spending all this money? What are we even doing back there? No one really sees it. So we have a very open transparent way of practicing medicine so you can see absolutely everything.
And also the animals are much calmer with their owners there. If the owner's there and talking to them and petting them, and sometimes the owners hold them while we place catheters and draw blood. They're so much calmer, so much happier, and the owner is much happier. Because I, when I was getting when my dog was getting chemo, I was at another hospital and I was in the lobby and somebody comes in and they're holding their limp dog, their dog who can't move unconscious in their arms.
And they took the dog away and brought the dog to the treatment area. The back and the owners are sitting there in the lobby pacing and crying, not knowing what's going on. Is my dog alive? Is it not? Like they have absolutely no idea and that's a terrible feeling. And so we decided, hey, listen, this has to be completely changed.
And David Besser tried this out in one hospital and realized, Hey this is revolutionary. And we are literally the only emergency hospital doing this in all the world it is. And I guarantee you, in 10 years every single hospital is gonna end up doing this. This is gonna be the norm. They're gonna be like what?
They used to separate animals. That's crazy.
No, for sure. And I'm just even thinking about the, my own pets, that there's so much more, there's so much calmer if I'm there of course, it's, there's so much of a stress element, right? If they can just calm themselves down, like everything, you can't get.
I imagine it's so hard as Yvette, right? To get like the correct heart rate and everything else because this dog's under stress right. On top of whatever else they're dealing with, right? So to have their owner there, just that alone to like just calm the pet down. Even, bandit being a geriatric dog, like when he gets, goes to get grooming, I'm like, listen, if he's fighting you in any way about this 'cause he doesn't know what's happening i'm like, just call me. 'cause I just want the job done and if I'm holding him, it won't be an issue. Just call me. Yeah.
It seems so obvious, right? Like of course you're gonna have the owners there, but I don't know why no place has ever done it until Veg said, I'm, we're gonna do it. We're gonna change this.
And it's been, I'm telling you, it's a revolutionary. And the other problem, the other thing that I think leads to so much fatigue and distress in the emergency veterinary field is we get yelled at. A lot or I used to at least. So in my old job, I used to get yelled at all the time. People saying, you're trying to kill my dog.
You don't know what you're talking about. You're trying to steal my money. All of these things. And it almost. Creates this trauma for us. We become afraid, I'm afraid of being yelled at or cyber bullied. A lot of veterinarians are cyber bullied and bad reviews are left online saying that we kill animals and we're so money hungry, all that kind of stuff.
And so all of that completely goes away when you have this different structure. In veterinary medicine. So for them to be able to see everything and visualize that there's no secrets, I will tell them everything. I'm so honest with them. They get to see everything with their own eyes. And like I said earlier, I give a lot of shit away for free.
So if I see a little puppy that's lying on his side and not really responsive, I'm just gonna check a blood sugar and see what it is before anything. I'm not gonna ask them for money. I don't want them to put money down. I'm just gonna do it because it's what needs to be done. So open transparency, it just totally changes the game.
And instead of getting yelled at, now I get cards and cookies and treats. Over Christmas time, everybody brought over some gifts for us. It's been a huge transformation and it's because it's, we're doing it right for the first time in years and years. It's finally done.
And I also just see so many possibilities to crossover into human medicine.
There's such a, even with the pet insurance in the vet world, it's still a much cleaner transaction when you look at the business part there's less of all the stuff involved of, between lobbying and middlemen and all that stuff, right? So if you can be providing this exceptional level of care for the cost that you are, which in compared to human costs is like staggering, right?
And to make to put the, the pets or the animal and the human owner first in that whole process. It's not just changing the vet world it's really just changing the world of medicine, I think.
Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And just the idea of waiting in an emergency room is mind blowing to me.
Like the fact that you are concerned, you're there because you think something is seriously wrong either with yourself, your child, or your pet. And so yet you still have to sit there and wait for an hour just to be seen. You're filling out paperwork when you think you might need to go see a doctor right away.
Yeah. Like I had an episode of shortness of Breath recently and I. It wasn't terribly concerned, but it concerned enough that it brought me to an er. And I sat there for maybe two hours and I said, what if this was something really bad? What if my oxygen levels are really low and I'm just sitting here? No one has asked me any questions about why I am there.
If I'm okay, if I'm stable, no one triaged me nothing. It might just be an ear infection. The dog's gonna be fine, but you're there because you're worried. And I always think about my mom because she's always very nervous about her pets. And so I always think, Hey, these people could be like her and really nervous and not know if it's an ear infection or something more severe.
So they need to be seen right away. And even if it's me just talking to them across the room, like sometimes it gets pretty hectic in our treatment area. Five cases there, and I'm doing CPR on one dog and another dog is on oxygen. And then another owner comes in and the dog has an ear infection and I'll talk to 'em from across the room, but they say no, go ahead.
Do what you need to do. I'm okay. I'll just wait here. And so even if they have to wait for about 10 minutes or so before I put my hands on their dog, they're okay with it. And it creates this totally different. Level of customer service and customer experience where they're all there for each other. So they're all in one room seeing what's happening.
And I see owners who've never met each other, don't know each other. And these are people in New York and New Jersey, so not the friendliest of people. They go up to each other. They're hugging. Yeah. They're hugging each other. They're giving each other their sweatshirts and buying coffee for each other and holding each other's hands.
We have some immensely insane stories of people who pay for other people's treatments. They see that somebody's struggling and they pay for their treatment for their dogs so they can get the care that they need. And we had in one of our hospitals in Florida an owner called because their pet she couldn't transport her pet.
She couldn't lift him up. He was a large Rottweiler and somebody in the hospital, another owner didn't know this person said, I'll go pick her up. So went over to that stranger's house and picked up her dog. And it's all just because everybody's in that back in the treatment area, seeing everything that's happening.
They see what we're doing as doctors, what my staff is doing, they're seeing what all the other customers are going through, what these pets are going through. Like I'll have one owner holding oxygen for a completely other animal, someone that they don't even know. It's just, it forms this community.
It's really remarkable. Especially if you're in there and you can see it with your own eyes. It's quite an experience.
It's, and when you take the literal walls down, that usually separate people. Yeah. Like suddenly everyone remembers that we're on, in, on this together. Exactly.
Exactly.
Yeah. It's it's really been life changing for me, and I always say, yeah, it sounds like I drank the Kool-Aid, but I'm just so passionate about this place and what we're creating and we're growing so fast because we're doing something right. We're, you look online, like you look at if you look at like Google reviews and Yelp reviews for many veterinary hospitals, especially emergency, it's, they're not always great and for us it's mostly five star reviews and there's a reason why, it's not like we're writing them ourselves. It's people who just have this experience that is, they're like, I can't believe I just had an emergency room experience this good. You don't expect that. Yeah.
You don't expect it.
No, and I think also some of the, I get why you're so excited, with a lot of the clients that I work with, we talk about how if you can align the work you do with one of your love languages
it
changes everything. And most people talk about I need to find my purpose and my strengths.
And I'm like, yeah. But there's a way to combine your skillset, your natural talent and your love language where you get to a place where like you can't, like you would do what you were doing, whether you were getting paid or not. And getting paid is the bonus part because like, when you feel it that way, like you can't but not share, you can't, but not go above and beyond.
You can't, you get energized from it instead of it always taking from you. And like, how lucky for you to be in that space right now where. Like your values, your skills, your talents, like what matters to you has have all kind of aligned at this moment in time to be like, yes. Like my job is awesome and I get to help people experience it better on all facets, like every day.
Yeah. And I think I try and use that everything that you just said to help lead my team. And I think that's what has gotten me to where I am now at Veg, is I'm trying to use this enthusiasm, which is real. It's so profound how much I love both emergency veterinary care and veg itself. I just love what we do and I'm trying to inspire people, and get them. Just as enthusiastic as I am over this, because I'm trying to enable them to act and create this sense of ownership. So if you go to my hospital in union, New Jersey, I have the most incredible team there of technicians assistants. I work with a practice manager there who's fantastic as well.
And they all have this sense of ownership in this hospital. They love what we do. They love taking care of these customers and the patients. And they have so much passion for it that they feel like it's theirs. And that was, that to me is a success. If they have this sense of ownership of this hospital and they wanted to succeed, I've done something right.
I don't know what it is. But it's. I, that to me is a success if my team is this happy, our, another big thing at our company is our culture. We wanna create a really positive culture and you walk in and you can just feel it. We're a family and our whole motto is to lead with love.
I know it sounds like kind of hokey, but we just, not at all. Yeah. We just wanna I truly love every single person in that hospital. It's I really do. And we just have this family vibe to us, and we understand each other and we're there for each other. And so they all have grown so much over the past year and a half that I've been with them.
It's incredible. So now that I've spoken to two butlers of the family, yes. What is it about you think your up upbringing or, the insights that you guys shared as a family that has at least for you and for Lauren, put yourselves in positions where you see, like you I get the impression that you guys are tapped into how capable you are to really make an impact in the world, and where did that come from?
Interesting question. Both my parents are extremely supportive, but in very different ways. My dad is one of the smartest. Hardest working people I have ever met in my life. And he came from nothing and he built a very successful life for himself. And he's a human radiologist. Like I said earlier, I have to differentiate human versus animals for this type of stuff.
Everyone always laughs at me. But yeah, he's a human radiologist. He created his own company. He's a businessman entrepreneur. He's just, he's so intelligent and so hardworking that it was really inspiring for all of us, I think. And he. What he lacks. My mom has. So my mom is calm and patient and she instilled, I, I think that's probably one of my weaknesses and that's something that I have been working on for years, is my patience level.
I'm the most impatient person, but I see my mom who's calm patient, she always looks at the big picture of those type of things. And that's really inspired me too. So I have two polar opposite parents that I look to my dad's more go, like act now, think later type thing. But I try and, I think self-awareness I'm reading this book called Primal Leadership.
It talks a lot about emotional intelligence, especially in a leadership role. And it talks a lot about self-awareness and for me, that. Completely changed my life is when I was able to be aware of myself and my emotions and recognize that my emotions have an impact and be able to have an accurate self-assessment of myself.
Know my strengths, know my limitations. Like when I started to realize that it totally transformed my life. And for me, one of those big things is I'm extremely impatient and I anger easily, which are things that I get from my dad. But I've looked at my mom my whole life who is the opposite of that.
She's very common, very patient, and it's really inspiring and it really helps me on different aspects. So I think I get, I think my sister as well, we get some different skill sets from each of our parents and we also get weaknesses from them, but we learn from the other one almost. So it's quite interesting.
Yeah. No it's I find it really fascinating when you stumble upon a family that. Like the whole group is dynamic and powerful and like just being, taking charge of, crafting the life they want versus the one they're given. And that's so much what we talk about on this podcast of whatever life you want to have.
Like it's totally possible. And so I just, I love tapping into people who are, chasing what matters to them. And they're going for it and they're making it all work. It doesn't mean it all works all the time, overall we're moving in the right direction and you can feel it, I think when you are.
Yeah, absolutely. And I think making the leap. Another thing that I have struggled with for probably my whole life is anxiety. I had debilitating anxiety, and especially with any type of change. So even small things like going on vacation, I would get so anxious about it. And my dad has this too, and it it, it really created this barrier in my life.
I was so afraid to do things. And so if I didn't work on myself and do all these things to help overcome that, over the past few years, I would never have taken that phone call from David Besser. I would never have come for the interview, and I definitely wouldn't have moved to New York for a completely new job, a new life.
And every day I'm trying to work on being better and understanding my weaknesses is step one.
When you think about all the people in your life who would you say has inspired you the most and kept you closer to the path that matters to you?
I'm really close to my family, and so they, hands down has been.
The biggest inspiration, all of them, like my sister she's the total opposite. So she doesn't really get anxiety. She's very open to change. So I stayed in Florida my whole life to be close to my family, close to home in the place that I know. She moved to Colorado. She's okay, bye guys. I'm ready to, didn't know anybody.
She moved to Colorado. Away from her whole family. Now she started her own law firm. She's always been open to new adventures and new change, and it's been really inspiring. My brother is very similar to my mom. He's so compassionate. He's so patient. He has two twins and so he's just a wonderful father to them.
He's really an exemplary human being. So my family's been really inspirational, but with regards to this specific career path and where I'm at now, I know I've talked about him a few times, but the CEO of the company, David Bessler, he was an emergency veterinarian. He still is. And he started this company and he has mentored me since I came here.
And he is the most exceptional leader I've ever met. He's taught me everything I know and just sitting with him for five, 10 minutes, I feel like I'm a better person. It's just been. So he's so inspiring and I don't think, I don't think. You can talk to one person that's met him and doesn't just love him right away.
He's really passionate about what he does. He's an extraordinary leader and he teaches all of us so much about how to be better and lead a company to excel and to be happy and focused on culture. And it's really remarkable.
Very cool. When you are not fully immersed in all things veg Yeah.
What are you doing? What are you taking on and how are, what are the things that you're up to in 2020 to bring some of that work-life balance?
Oh, that's fine. Yeah. I love to travel. Like I said earlier, I think I told you a little bit earlier I have anxiety really bad and so I've been working on it for years and I grew up in a household where we didn't really take medicine for things like, if I have a headache, I'll wait it out before I take an Advil, things like that.
So I always try to find other ways to deal with my anxiety. And one of them is. Doing things outta my comfort zone and one, and that is solo travel for me. So when I finished my internship I think it was like 2015 or 2016 had no money. You make no money in your internship. I was about to start my job and I said, listen, the only way I'm gonna start is if I can get two months off.
So I got two months off. I said, I'm going to just travel the world. I wanna do everything that I wanna do in these two months. And so I opened up all these credit cards. I, I had no money to my name, but I showed them the letter. My contract that had for next year, but I had no money in my bank account and I just went into crazy credit card debt.
But I traveled all around. I went to Iceland with my sister and then she went back home and I just traveled around Scandinavia and it was the most, I had no plan. I just went there. I didn't even have a flight home. I just went there. I traveled and met so many people, some crazy adventures. It was absolutely remarkable.
And so for me, I've built on that over the past few years and traveling alone, really pushing myself physically. And so that's something that I love to do and I hope that I'll have a few trips planned in 2020. My sister and I are thinking about going to Sylvania, so that's our, yeah, that's our next trip.
I also, I'm not a runner at all. Some people, they just are born runners, like they can run 10 miles outside, no problem. I don't know if you're that person or not, but I definitely am not.
I am not, my boyfriend doesn't need to train and he can run a half marathon, so it makes me angry.
It's
wild. I can't run one mile without training. Like I, I am just not a runner. But two years ago I decided I'm gonna run a marathon. I wanna push myself. And so I trained for about six to eight months, worked my ass off, and I ran the New York marathon. So I, it was exhilarating. It was a wonderful feeling from hoping that maybe I can do that.
Maybe another marathon this year, I'm thinking maybe Chicago. Very cool. Yeah. We ask everyone on the podcast where they put themselves on the powerful 80 scale, zero being average everyday human, and 10 being super powerful lady. Where would you put yourself today, and where would you put yourself on average?
Where would I Say that again? Where would I put myself today? Yes. How would you rate yourself today, and where, how would you, how do you rate yourself on average, nor a normal day?
I think today's a pretty normal day, so I think I, I would like to say three. And the reason I go so low is because I think humility is very important.
And for me, I have a lot of strengths that I could focus on and that people tell me that I have, but I also have a lot of weaknesses and a lot of things I need to work on. And the second I get that, I say that I'm a 10 is the second where I need to reevaluate in my mind, because for me, I need to really be aware of that and and it's important.
It's important for me to grow. So I would say three.
I like it. Thank you. As for people who are inspired by your story and, are hesitating to go after the path of veterinary medicine of any kind, or to like, take the leap and move to a place that seems scary and far from, what matters to them, what tips would you give them and how would you guide them in making decisions and making it happen?
Yeah. I
think there's a lot of options for us out there. We have so many things that we can do, and I think the biggest thing is knowing there's always going to be another path that you can go down. So always knowing that there's options out there is really important. So when I was having my quarter life crisis, I didn't know what I was gonna do, but I had a million options.
And was it hard? My sister completely changed her career. Is it difficult? Absolutely. Is it challenging? Of course, but you always have options out there. So pick what you're passionate about. If you love something, if you truly are passionate about what you do, you'll find a place there for it.
And there's always many different paths and you just gotta seize opportunities and not be afraid. I always give advice to new people, young leaders, people who are thinking about joining veg. I say, listen, you can. Either choose comfort or you can choose a challenge. And what's gonna yield the best result is the challenge.
Maybe it'll swap and it'll be terrible, and you'll have to go back to where you were before, but that's okay. At least you tried and you're gonna grow from it. So for me, I always will pick that challenge and that's the best advice I could give to somebody.
Awesome. Thank you so much for being on The Powerful Ladies, being a Yes to what we're up to, being a yes to Your Sister's recommendation.
This has been such a pleasure and I'm so excited for everyone to hear your story.
Oh, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. This has been wonderful.
Lauren is correct. Brooke is incredible. It gives me such relief. There are people like Brooke and organizations like Veg Out. They doing everything they can, making veterinary experiences for both the animals and the humans the best it can be. You hear the pure passion in her voice for what she does and who she gets to be.
I think she's also a great example for people who like her deal with anxiety and showing all of us how it's something to manage and not to hold you back from adventures that are waiting for you. To connect, support and follow, Brooke, you can follow her on Instagram at dr BBUT. And of course you can visit the website, for Veg veg.bet.
All other ways you connect with her and show notes from today will be available on the powerful ladies.com. Forward to us podcast in her show notes. I hope you've enjoyed this new episode of The Powerful Ladies Podcast. If you're a yes to powerful ladies and want to support us, you can subscribe to this podcast anywhere you listen to podcast.
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I'd like to thank our producer and audio engineer Jordan Duffy. Without her, this wouldn't be possible. You can follow her on Instagram at Jordan K. Duffy. Thank you all so much for listening. We'll be back next week with a brand new episode. Until then, I hope we're taking on being powerful in your life.
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Created and hosted by Kara Duffy
Audio Engineering & Editing by Jordan Duffy
Production by Amanda Kass
Graphic design by Anna Olinova
Music by Joakim Karud
