LVS started early for me, arriving at 8:20 am to make sure I was able to get in and to the first lecture on my list. After some confusion about where to get my press pass, I eventually made it in and to the first lecture with minutes to spare. On the way to this lecture, I stopped at the Volition Veterinary stand to say hello to Tom Butera, Chief Executive Officer, Volition Veterinary Diagnostics Development LLC, who I first met at last year's LVS. The stand was busy with lots of questions about the new canine cancer screening test called Nu.Q® that has been available in the USA since 2020 — originally only at Texas A&M but now also available at a commercial reference laboratory in the USA. I gave a talk, as the Chief Executive of the Animal Cancer Trust (ACT) charity, at the BVNA Congress in Telford in October about the Nu.Q test and how to use it as a canine cancer screening tool. There was great interest from the veterinary nurses about this test when they visited the ACT stand in the exhibition hall with lots of questions about when it would be available and how much it would cost… well, it looks like it is going to be early 2023 before the test is available in the UK. Earlier this year, Volition granted the Heska Corporation exclusive worldwide rights to sell the Nu.Q® Vet Cancer Screening Test for companion animals as a point of care (POC) test for a very large sum. Volition also granted Heska non-exclusive rights to sell the Nu.Q® Vet Cancer Screening Test through Heska's network of central reference laboratories for which Volition will receive ongoing additional revenue. Heska is better known in the UK as scil for the POC unit called element i+ for immunodiagnostics. The Nu.Q test will be an add-on to this unit that already tests for levels of T4, cTSH, cortisol and progesterone.
My first lecture was in the Food For Thought Stream in the exhibition hall and the new president of the Raw Feeding Veterinary Society (RFVS), Amaya Espindola, gave a thoughtful and evidence filled talk titled ‘Raw feeding: an act of insanity or common sense?’ While all the folks from the RFVS were afraid that no one would turn up for this early talk, every seat was taken and there were more people standing at the back to listen. I was impressed when I noticed that many delegates were taking notes/photos of the slides and there were some good questions at the end. After this, I headed over to the RFVS stand to find lots of interest in what the society does and asking questions about the RawSAFE™ programme, which is a project that was started to provide manufacturers of raw diets with an independent audit in order to earn the right to display RawSAFE™ Certification Mark on their products (https://rfvs.info/rawsafe/).
Thursday morning ended with an inspiring talk by Paul Horwood of IVC Evidensia in the BVA Career Development stream titled ‘Wellbeing — treat people how they like to be treated (personality types)’. Paul used the profiles from the DiSC behavioural assessment (Figure 1) as an example of how to quickly assess the team that you work with. There are many other types of assessment tools, such as the Myers-Briggs test (MBTI) that is a psychology type assessment that takes longer than the DiSC profile. Here are just a few of the gold nuggets that I took away from this talk:
- It's not good enough to follow your mum's advice to treat others how you would like to be treated
- Understand how you come across… it can help you to spot those leaders that are not so good or are toxic to some members of their teams
- You can't motivate a team but you can have a motivated team
- So how do we lead different personality types?
- To quote Paul: ‘Don't change what you say, change how you say it’
- Tell everyone the same thing in different ways to suit their personality type and motivate them.
While everyone is a mixture of each style, most people tend to fall into one or two main DiSC style quadrants. It is common for one personality type to not like their diagonal but two diagonal types together can make a good team as they balance each other out.
Paul gave some great points of advice about how to deal with the different styles when communicating with them as a leader:
- Dominant types like facts, bottom-line issues and results so it is good to ask for their decisions and provide direct answers to questions; these types are quick to act and also want to be the boss/centre of attention.
- Influencial types like it if you can maintain a positive atmosphere, help them to achieve popularity/recognition and allow them to express themselves; it is good to be more expressive and enthusiastic with these types, focus on the big picture and the people aspects; they want to be recognised, be the go-to person, with a certificate and they need the chat/social interaction that goes with communication.
- Steady types are slower to make decisions because they understand that decisions have consequences (there will be winners and losers in the team because of a decision) so it is better to proceed in a logical order and at a slower pace; it is good to ask specific questions to find the true needs of these types and provide enough time for them to reflect; they need time to process the change you are proposing (or they will dig their heels in and become defensive and recalcitrant!) so provide support, ask for their opinions and keep quiet so you can listen to them.
- Conscientious or compliant types are evidence based and they like facts; they are reserved — it's all about trust with these types; they want to be right/correct and don't want to make the wrong decision; as a leader, one needs to discover the key issues and focus on them, answering questions carefully and calmly; it is good to be thorough and include all information — use supporting materials (facts, numbers, evidence), slow down your approach/presentation and listen carefully.
Finally, Paul ended with an observation that could not be more true: as veterinary surgeons and veterinary nurses, we are trained to spot the problem (diagnosis) and solve it (treatment) and we tend to focus on the complaint or the negative. As he said, ‘it's no good to look at the dog that is lame on his right foreleg and tell the owner that at least he still has three good legs to stand on!’ Paul concluded his wonderful presentation with these points:
- Understand yourself — how do you come across
- See how different people interact differently
- Identify traits in your team
- Flex your communication style to fit — with your team, clients, etc.
I spoke to Paul after his talk and told him that if we could assess the type of our clients, we would be able to correctly assign an appropriate length of time for a consultation appointment — those clients that are dominant could probably be sorted with a 5 minute appointment while the conscientious type clients might need a full 20 minutes… Paul said he was going to steal my idea!
After attending this lecture, I was too late for a quick lunch as the queue was huge so I went outside and bought an overpriced but tasty tuna melt and a much loved diet Dr. Pepper. I took my lunch to the BVA members stand to have a rest and do a bit of work on my laptop. After lunch I did a circuit of the trade stands and came across an old friend, Maggie Roberts, Director of Feline Welfare at Cats Protection. We had a heart felt conversation about the plight of unwanted cats in this country and her concerns about the effects of the financial crisis. She also told me that Cats Protection has a new CEO and they are working on a new strategy in these difficult times; the Cats Protection shelters are full and Cats Protection are not in a position to assist cat owners with veterinary fees.
Thursday done and I was invited to dinner with a group from a large practice; I have been doing some collaborative research with the head veterinary surgeon in an area of common interest. After a trip on the cable car across the river to the O2 to eat at the Cabana, we had some amazing Brazilian-style street food.
Friday was an early start again; no lectures for me as I had several meetings and some networking to do on my research collaborations. Met up with Ross Allan who I worked with on a dental study that was used in the BBC show ‘Trust me I'm a Vet’ — he sent me a mug with the following printed on it:
Epidemiologist
[noun]
Like a normal scientist,
but cooler [especially
after 2020].
Towards the end of the afternoon, I over-heard a lovely quote from first opinion veterinary surgeon Bella O'Connell who refers to a raw food diet as being the practice of ‘fresh food as therapy’… food for thought although not for every pet or every household — something that I hope we can all agree with as well as Amaya's comments in her talk about how what our clients feed their pets is their choice and all we can do as veterinary surgeons and veterinary nurses is inform them of the benefits and risks of different dietary choices — evidence-based of course says me, the epidemiologist!