[00:00:00] Nikki Boutwell: “I love animals. I want to be a veterinarian.” They don’t understand there’s so many other options to work with animals, and they don’t have to be a veterinarian, number one. Number two, because you’re a veterinarian doesn’t mean that you’re going to work in a clinic. There’s so many other avenues that you can pursue through becoming a veterinarian. That’s one of the things that we really key into and show students that there’s options.

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[00:00:29] Gretchen Roe: Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to this session of The Demme Learning Show. I am so excited to have the opportunity to welcome Nikki Boutwell and David Sessum today to talk to you all about veterinary medicine, about what is available to your children besides a traditional Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree. Having a child in the field, I can tell you it’s wide, it’s vast. Boy, do we have a lot to talk about today. Y’all provided us with some amazing questions. I’m really excited today for us to have this conversation. Nikki, we’ll start with you.

[00:01:07] Nikki: Hi. Thank you for having us. We’re super excited to be able to share not only about our program, but all the opportunities for students young, high school, and older. I am a little unique to this program and the way that I’ve come into being able to work with fine professionals, but with animals as well. I am not a veterinarian, I am not a licensed veterinary technician, I am not a veterinary assistant, but I get to work with these people all day, every day, and it’s a really different path.

I’m from El Paso area, a small little town called Clint outside of El Paso, so the farthest west that you can get in Texas. Born and raised there. I’ve traveled all over, but really that’s where my roots are, where I’m from, a mile from the Mexican border, probably 20 miles from New Mexico. A very diverse population. I graduated high school from Clint High School and I went to New Mexico State University. I have a bachelor’s degree in animal science.

I was raised on a farm and always just knew that that’s what I wanted to do. I liked animals, considered vet school, but really didn’t want to go to school for eight years. I wasn’t really that studious. I figured out once I started to get my bachelor’s that I could have a life and a career with animals and not go to vet school, and so I got a degree in animal science.

Went on to get my master’s degree later on, but I actually started teaching. I taught middle school science, grades 6 through 8 at. Took me back to my hometown and where I knew where I was comfortable with. My husband and I have two kids, and so that was perfect. I started working there. I worked for four years as a middle school science teacher. I coached volleyball and basketball and cheerleading, track, all the things that you can do.

I left there and went to a middle school in the same district and became a professional curriculum coach doing professional development for middle school teachers, mostly math and science, and then about 45 teachers that we had on campus, sixth through eighth grade. Got my master’s during that time. My master’s is in educational leadership from Grand Canyon University. I thought that that’s what I was going to do, was stay in education and stay with schools.

While I was there, I was given an opportunity, asked to take an opportunity to be an ag teacher at Clint High School. They didn’t have a teacher. They couldn’t find a teacher. I was the only person in the district that was certified to teach ag. I gladly went back to the classroom and I taught ag at Clint High School for six years.

Once I got there, I was given, “Hey, I want to start a vet science program.” I said, “Okay. Give me a deadline. If you don’t put a deadline on it, I’m not going to get it done.” My principal said, “I want to start next school year.” Long story short, I started a vet science program at Clint High School and certified all my kids as veterinary assistants through that program. I used this curriculum from VSCP when I was in the classroom. That’s really how I got to Texas A&M, because I was using this program. They were looking for somebody to give feedback on public education and how this program is used in public education.

I started volunteering for the program, working through the program. I eventually got to Texas A&M through this program and became the coordinator. My background is really education. I enjoy kids. Mostly secondary kids is my forte, middle school and high school. I really have a niche and a mission for the underserved, rural. Those kids is my mission and what I like to work towards. Obviously, all kids, but I know what it’s like to come from small town, long way from services. That’s really what I work on mostly.

Currently getting my PhD at Texas A&M in ag education and working on mentorship of youth students to pursue a degree or some sort of profession, trade in veterinary medicine, animal science, whatever that may be. I travel a lot back and forth. My office is there on campus. That’s why David and I are in different locations. I am not on campus all the time. We work with a network of people that hold us down and hold down the fort for us. I’m the educator. That’s what I bring to the group and have really been able to use my animal science degree and a lot of my professional career and stuff to be able to help students and parents in that aspect.

I have also homeschooled my kids. As a parent, I have a little bit of public school, homeschool, virtual, online, public school, is what my daughter is doing right now, so as a parent and as an educator, what that looks like. I am not a professional. We have David and Dr. Susan Kolb. If we need something in the profession or in the veterinary world, per se, those are the professionals that I rely on. We make a really good team to be able to help each other in most aspects. I’m glad to be here today. Thank you very much for having us. I’ll turn it over to David.

[00:06:54] David Sessum: My name is David Sessum. I’m a licensed veterinary technician here in Texas. As Nikki mentioned, she’s a program coordinator. I’m the program manager for the Veterinary Science Certificate Program I’m coming to you live from Kleberg. We’re in the Department of Animal Science here with AgriLife Extension. This is my 26th year as a credentialed veterinary technician.

My hometown’s about 40 miles north of Houston, which is now Houston. It wasn’t when I grew up there, but it’s now Houston. It’s been consumed by Houstons. It was a pretty small town. I grew up in 4-H and FFA and doing all of the things that small-town kids did. I’d always had animals. I’d always enjoyed being around animals. I always thought that my career would lead me to being a veterinarian from Texas A&M University because at the time, that was the only vet school in Texas.

As my career went or my high school career went, growing at that time, our community was economically challenged. We were rural at the time and my path changed. I got out of high school and didn’t really know what I wanted to do at that point. I was an electrician’s apprentice for two years after high school. My boss knew that I wanted to go back to school. He basically fired me and gave me a Christmas bonus to enroll in college.

My aunt was a licensed veterinary technician at Gulf Coast Veterinary Specialists. They’ve been featured on Animal ER and things on Animal Planet. It’s a really successful surgery practice. She had graduated from Lone Star College-Tomball, and was a registered technician at that time. She knew what I wanted to do. I knew that vet school wasn’t in the cards at the time. I’d always had probably this illusion of everybody else that I’m going to be a vet tech first, and then I’m going to go to vet school. We will definitely talk about that pathway today.

I went down to Gulf Coast Veterinary Surgery. My aunt said, “You need to come down here and see that this is what you want to do.” I went down there, and they were doing arthroscopy and hip replacements and knee surgeries. I was like, “Yes, this is it. This is what I want to do.”

I graduated from tech school. I have an Associate of Applied Science in Veterinary Technology from Lone Star College-Tomball. Then I went to work for Gulf Coast Veterinary Specialists and then went to the College of Veterinary Medicine at Texas A&M, and was there for about 10 years and then helped found Blinn College’s vet tech program. Then I went to work for Blinn’s vet tech program, became Program Director of Blinn, became Program Director of Lone Star College. I went back to my alumni.

Nikki and I had dinner one night. I’d been on the ad hoc committee for the VSCP program for about 10 years before that. I’ve been here a little over three years now in this role as Program Manager for the Vet Science Certificate Program, so not really a different pathway. All the questions that we got beforehand about people asking about career roles, and I get to work with even vet tech students now because my job is considered non-traditional. I spend a lot of time in a clinic. Now, I’m not affiliated with the clinic any longer, so it’s a different pathway. We’ll talk more about our program in a bit, but I’m excited every day to come to work. The clinic, there’s literally something different every day, but we get something different every day about what we’re involved in with AgriLife Research. Nikki, you’ll smile too, about screw worms, when I mention that. That’s a big part of what we’ve– tons of meetings for those, but it’s almost like a disaster response, which I’ve also been involved with in a lot of different assets in my career. I’m excited to share that with students about when you find your niche and you find your passion, and then follow that pathway to get there.

[00:10:35] Gretchen: My middle daughter came home with everything fuzzy. She brought home everything from birds to turtles to squirrels. We raised them all. When she was 11, she said, “I want a pet rat.” I said, “Over my dead body.” Long story short, 21 years later, I have two rats in my office because they’re cool, they’re fun, they’re amazing little creatures. These two have very different personalities, but they are amazing.

She wanted to be a veterinarian when she was tiny, and then she said, “No, I don’t want to do that.” Now she’s a biological researcher. There’s so many paths forward, and I’m so excited for you all to talk about that today. David, you have a PowerPoint you were going to share with us.

[00:11:22] David: We talk about exploring diverse careers for all animal lovers. That’s what we’re going to talk about. Briefly, we’ll discuss our Veterinary Science Certificate Program. We are part of Texas A&M. We are part of AgriLife Extension. I saw in some of the questions that were submitted in, we are not part of College of Veterinary Medicine. We are Texas A&M University, but a lot of people think that our program is a feeder into the vet school, and it’s not. We’ll discuss what it is real quick.

Our program was started in 1995 by Dr. Buddy Faries. He had an appointment with AgriLife Extension, but he was also a faculty member at the College of Veterinary Medicine. At the time, nothing like this existed. When this was developed, it was classroom education for 4-H and FFA programs across Texas, and then it got picked up nationwide. Now we’re international. We have a lot of customers in different nations as well. At the time, it wasn’t created to be an on-the-job training program. It was a classroom education for instructors to use to be able to have a curriculum to work through.

Since then, like we said, as Nikki had mentioned, we’ve expanded to include homeschool programs, adult learners. We even have undergraduate students who are– This is ways for them to get into clinics. We’ll talk more about those in a little bit, but really ways to strengthen veterinary school applications or explore veterinary career opportunities. Our emphasis is career exploration. “I want to be a veterinarian.” “Okay, what kind of veterinarian?” “I don’t know.” “Let’s figure out.”

Equine, regulatory, public health, a lot of those. We have programs and curriculum for students down to middle school. We’re working our way to elementary at this point. Really, we try to provide them access to a curriculum, career exploration, skill development. As we mentioned, our undergrads right now, we have an animal science program where animal science students can credit their classroom hours to get their certification through our program to help with their vet school application and their career making, decision making. Our curriculum, it was designed for 4-H and FFA, but now it’s homeschool.

We also have an industry-based certification that’s recognized by the Texas Education Agency, and that helps other states develop that as well too. Nikki went through a laborious process to obtain that for us about what we had to do to obtain that. It is helpful for states that are looking for completers and things as far as public school goes. Really, our emphasis, as we said, is career exploration for students to figure that out.

The way we do that, we offer instructional resources and training for FFA teachers and 4-H leaders. Even with 4-H leaders or homeschool parents, they’re all the same. We think of it as different silos, but it’s not. They do the same thing in what they do. We’re able to offer teachers opportunities for professional development. Our events are career development events. That’s the FFA term, skillathons or 4-H. We do a lot of day and overnight camps. These are focused on food animal, equine, and conservation medicine. We’ll talk more about those in a minute.

Really, not to spend a lot of time on this, but this just shows you– I think, Nikki, when we started, this had, what, two trees to it, two branches as it comes off. A lot of our products are developed on requests from teachers and educators or parents that come through. We have independent study. We have a virtual vet academy that’s more structured for students who need a little more support or interaction with a teacher, in a classroom. There are virtual online. You’ll see these different programs for parents because we have a lot of parents who lead these in the homeschool arena.

Then, to move on to our events, our mission is to help students who want to go to vet school or are interested in careers in veterinary medicine. Every now and then, we reach out. We show this and want to talk more about it. We organized the youth track for the Beef Cattle Short Course. We just finished this a few weeks ago. This is always our favorite event because it’s the last event of the summer, our busiest one of the summer. You’ll see the brochure for one of the camps. We’ll talk more about these, but our food animal, medicine, career day camps. We’ve got other options for those.

We do offer equine-focused camps. We typically partner with the Texas Equine Veterinary Association to offer camps. This particular one is at our Brazos Valley Equine Hospital in Navasota. The students got to see a hyperbaric chamber. They talked about different career pathways. They saw a farrier. We saw a dystocia that day, a difficult birth, and a horse that was having issues for those.

We try to bring them in and show them because a lot of these kids, “I want to be an equine veterinarian.” They get into a clinic and they’re like, “I don’t want to do this anymore,” or, “This is really cool and this is for sure what I want to do.” Either way is an acceptable answer.

We also do some food animal-focused camps. This one’s at Hereford Veterinary Clinic in Hereford, Texas. This particular camp, we go to a clinic for half a day and then go see a feedlot for half a day to talk about feedlot medicine. This one’s in the Panhandle in Texas. That’s where the feedlot cattle are. We really try to recruit students in some of these niche areas because we do need more large animal veterinarians, both equine and food animal.

I don’t have a picture of it, but we do Fossil Rim as a conservation thing here in Texas that we go through and we do a lot of those. Then our youth track, this just shows the pictures. We did tours of 44 farms one year. One year, our focus was meat science. This year, we’ll talk about what we did as well too. In our Beef Cattle Short Course, one of the things we did was take a tour of the Texas Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Lab. This individual pointing to the screen, this is a former student of mine, and she’s the assistant section head for parasitology now as a licensed veterinary technician. She did not go to vet school, but she’s the assistant section head for the clinical pathology department there.

You’ll see what our students do. We talked them through TVMDL. Really, the focus on this was for the students. Most of these students that were on the Beef Cattle Short Course track were- they’re interested in cattle. Probably 20% to 30% of those students wanted to go to veterinary medicine, but we were showing them the relationship with industry and what TVMDL does for cattle producers. They were talking about all the testing and things they do there, so they got to see that.

Then one of the days, we took a tour to Trans Ova Genetics, which is a bovine reproduction facility. The students got to see behind the scenes of what happens in a reproduction facility. Even this career with Trans Ova and TVMDL, if you want to be a veterinarian, you still have those opportunities.

What was amazing to me was the students, when we went to TVMDL, there’s about probably five of the students. We had 30 students at that camp. About five of them raised their hand and said, “What do I have to do to work here?” simply from a tour, from being introduced behind the scenes to see what– They see this big, fancy building. It is a laboratory setting. TVMDL, they built the building for tours. You don’t go in the labs. It’s like fishing in a bowl.

The students, they saw the things that was going on, they saw some of the screw worm research. They saw some of the diagnostics. That day, actually, the students got to see a necropsy on a lion. It was just random that it happened that a lion came in that they got to see a necropsy on. Then they’re like, “What do I have to do to work here?” To work there, you don’t have to have those advanced degrees and things that– We’ll talk about that more this afternoon.

To me, that was fascinating and one of the things that we do that’s an intentional effort to show these students about career exploration. It doesn’t feel like it after our summers and our events and things. That’s a brief overview of what we do.

[00:18:21] Gretchen: All the things that you all are doing. This is why we’re, in August, having this conversation because you guys have been so busy all summer.

[00:18:30] Nikki: Summer is our– It’s just nuts, but that’s when kids are available, and so we try to make ourselves available. I did want to add just a couple basic notes about our program. I know we’ll get a lot of these questions answered later on. Basic things is that we start kids at age 12. You can start our program at age 12 with the curriculum, hands-on clinical experience at age 14. Then they can sit for certification as a veterinary assistant as early as age 16.

[00:19:05] Gretchen: Now, is that specific only to Texas?

[00:19:08] Nikki: No. We’re in all 50 states.

[00:19:10] Gretchen: You could sit for a veterinary tech license at 16?

[00:19:15] Nikki: Not tech. Assistant. We have to be very specific about that word. It’s very common we get that. A parent will say, “I want to enroll my kid in the vet tech program.” In order to be a tech or a veterinary technician, you have to have a high school diploma, you have to be 18 years of age, and you have to attend an AVMA-accredited institution. Those are going to be something like your community college, Lone Star College, those things.

We do veterinary assistant, which is the basic introductory, get-your-feet-wet role in a veterinary clinic, hospital. I hate to even say “Clinic.” I think that’s probably one of the major things that I want people to understand from this is that we have to get out of our mind that you have to work in a clinic. There’s so many things that you can do as a veterinarian assistant and never even work in a clinic. You have to have clinic experience probably, but that’s what kids don’t understand is that, they think, “I love animals, I want to be a veterinarian.” They don’t understand there’s so many other options to work with animals and they don’t have to be a veterinarian, number one.

Number two, because you’re a veterinarian doesn’t mean that you’re going to work in a clinic. There’s so many other avenues that you can pursue through becoming a veterinarian. That’s one of the things that we really key into and show students that there’s options of being a poultry veterinarian. You don’t work in a clinic, you work on a poultry farm. There’s so many different avenues that students can pursue.

What I really want to make sure that people understand as an educator, and I don’t think parents understand, is that in the education system- and Texas, I would say, is a leader in this, but I think it’s rolling out to other people, other states, is that in Texas, you have to pick your career pathway at eighth grade. What are we doing as parents and as educators to give students opportunities to really experience something that they might really be interested in if we’re not giving them that face value experience of, “I really like animals, what could I explore or look into?”

Things are changing a little bit now, but for a long time, it was computer science, engineering, computer science and the medical profession, and so that’s what everybody got pushed into. We’re leaning more back towards trades and trade professions, electricians and plumbers and HVAC, those things which I think are highly valuable. A four-year degree in college is not for everybody. Even in the veterinary profession, we have space for all of those things, and so we need to be able, as parents and as educators, to push our kids to explore those things. We can’t do it when they’re at juniors and seniors in high school. We have to start exposing them at a younger age and giving them the opportunity to say, “Oh, I really don’t want to go to vet school,” or, “Oh, I really want to be an equine veterinarian, but I’ve never been around horses. I was raised in the city. I don’t have a horse. How am I going to be a veterinarian for horses if I’ve never even touched a horse?” It is a possibility, but they have to have that experience.

That’s one of the key things that this program focuses on, is providing opportunity for students, working with veterinarians to provide that, working with parents to say, “Hey, your kid can do this. This is the way that you’re going to do it.” Veterinary school is very competitive, and we’ll talk about that. As a parent, we need to start helping our kids get prepared at a younger age so that they have the ability to build up their professional resume. You’re never too young to start working on that resume.

If a student is wanting to go to vet school, they should be documenting what they’re doing now and working towards that goal at age 12, 13, 14. That doesn’t mean if you decide at 17 that I’m going to go to vet school, it’s too late, but we have seen that the kids that are very adamant and passionate, know at a young age, we need to start working with kids as educators and as parents at a younger age, not once they’re out of high school. What is it that they want to do? Give them the exposure and the opportunity so that they can figure out that path and that they can go down that through their high school career.

[00:24:10] Gretchen: It’s also important, equally as well, that exposure rules it in or rules it out. In my own family with six children, I’ve had some children who were very determined for a particular career path until they had the opportunity to do an internship in that particular career path, and then they decided, “No, thank you, that is not what I want to do.” [laughs]

[00:24:36] Nikki: Let’s say you want to be an engineer and you don’t get an internship until your second or third year of college, and you just spent how much time and money, and then it’s like, “I’ve already gone this far, so I might as well just finish.” That’s not really what they’re passionate about, they’re not happy about it, or they have to change and backtrack. We want kids to be able to explore that. A lot of students don’t know that they can be a technician, that they can be a licensed veterinary technician. They don’t know that that’s even an option. They just think, “I have to be a veterinarian, I have to do this.” You don’t.

[00:25:12] Gretchen: Actually, Nikki, the first conversation I had with Susan, almost a year and a half ago now, was that kids only saw one path to be able to work with animals, and you all have provided them with so much more to be able to see and quantify.

[00:25:32] David: There’s an assumption by the public that when you take a pet to the clinic, you come in, you see the receptionist, then you see a staff member, and then you see the vet, and then the animal goes to the back. This is a small animal clinic. The public’s under the assumption that the vet’s doing everything, and that’s not the case. That’s not the case at all. That’s where a lot of the push with veterinarians is for technician utilization to better use credentialed technicians and their staff.

If you read the Practice Act, in most states, veterinarians are allowed to do surgery, diagnose, prescribe, and then typically extract teeth with an elevator. Those are the four things that you go to vet school for. Everything else, to be an effective practitioner, you should be delegating to your staff. Then there’s the levels of supervision and requirements as well, too. Then there’s the opportunities for education.

I saw something yesterday, I was watching a video yesterday about micro, was talking about just the workforce that for every five people who retire, two people come in. It’s the same, especially with large animal veterinary medicine that way. Making up the shortage, they talk about a shortage of veterinarians, but a lot of that’s definitely large animal. There’s a place for credentialed veterinary technicians and their utilization and things in clinics.

We have to train the veterinarians to better utilize their staff. That’s an issue with students who don’t necessarily want to go to vet school. As a licensed veterinary technician, there are schools that offer four-year degrees, so you become a veterinary technologist. Then I know on one of your questions, we’ll just answer it now, too, they were talking about specialization. For every human medical doctor specialization, there’s typically one that’s equivalent to veterinary medicine. If you want to be a surgeon, you can be a surgeon in veterinary medicine. If you want to be a neurologist, you can be a veterinary neurologist.

There’s also veterinary technician specialists. There are specializations available for credentialed technicians that– In that case, I work for a surgeon, but I’m a veterinary technician specialist in surgery. I’m trained in that niche of surgery and the implants and things for those two. There’s a lot of opportunities outside of– Even with the things that we keep talking about with our veterinary assistant certification, that opens the door for kids.

All the questions on, “How do I get a clinic? How do I do this? How do I become an equine vet?” A lot of veterinarians will take students in when they’re on the educational track versus when they just show up. There’s literally a class of 300 students here at Animal Science that will start in the fall, and they all want to be veterinarians. That’s going to change when they get through at the end of their Animal Science career.

A lot of these students that Nikki had talked about, those students that come in that have that advantage because they’ve been in a clinic already, they know that this is what– “I want to be a horse vet,” and then they get called at three o’clock in the morning to a colic, and they’re like, “I don’t like this.” That’s the benefits of getting that experience urban.

[00:28:44] Gretchen: My vet tech started volunteering at the age of 14 in a veterinarian practice. She swept floors, emptied waste baskets, booked appointments, did those kinds of things. One thing led to another, and now she does stem cell research.

[00:29:03] David: One of our favorite vets to work with, he tells a story that he went to a clinic and said, “I want to volunteer.” The vet, on purpose, he washed his boat, washed his car, washed his kennels, did whatever for a year. Then the vet finally found out that he really wanted to be a veterinarian, but he said, “I needed to make sure you had to work ethic and things that you wanted to do.”

There’s a lot of those stories that are out there. It’s not the greatest way to get into a clinic, but Dr. Alvarez was determined. He was going to wash the boat, he’s going to wash the car and do whatever he needed to do. We see a lot of those kids. We see that a lot. That’s just dedication of some of the students that we work with.

[00:29:41] Gretchen: I think it’s also important to recognize as a parent, and Nikki- I don’t know about you, David, but I can say this, I can’t want for my kids more than they want it for themselves. If you have a child who says, “I want to do this,” and you push open all the doors so that they can do it, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re going to walk through those doors. We have to equip them to go walk through the doors.

[00:30:13] Nikki: David and I deal with this all day, every day. We’re similar in age, first of all, but my children are 20 and 17, and his children are 3 boys under the age of 8; 2, 4, and 8. We’re at different times in our lives, but we experience it daily. We have parents that will call and say, “My kid can’t get in a clinic.” I say, “Okay. Tell me what you’ve done. What has your child done?” They’ll say, “I’ve called every clinic and nobody will call me back.” I say, “Red flag. That’s the first problem. Number one, are you going to go to work for your child?” “No.” “Then why are you calling the clinic?” That’s the first thing.

We have documents to help students what to do, how to gain a clinic, but parents just think that they can do the work for them. Number one, they can’t do the work for them. They need to be doing the work, and we need to be able to empower our children to step up to the plate, do the work. We laugh because David and I talk about, our generation, we have helicopter parents.

You know exactly what I’m talking about. You have six children, and we talk about how our parents were just– I don’t know if they were, but maybe in between us and these kids that we have now. Now we have what we call lawnmower parents. Lawnmower parents are what we call going over the weeds and clearing out all of the problems so that there’s a clear, clean path for their kids.

While as parents, we sometimes think that we want to make things easy for them, we’re really not doing them justice. Stumbling and falling down and having to navigate those difficult situations builds character and grit. The things that our kids need, and not just in veterinary medicine, in life in general. We really need to be able to empower our kids to climb that mountain, jump over the weeds, go through the thick of it. You’re supposed to be there as a parent to help them, but I think this day and age, we’ve missed the boat on that and something that we deal with. It’s constant. It is an everyday thing. This is not just one or two parents. This is all the time. They come to check in at camp and I’m like, “Where’s the kid? I want to see the kid. The kid can check in. The kid can take their stuff to their dorms.” They think that they have to do it all for them. I think we’ve lost a little bit of touch on that. We need to get back to being able to help our kids, push them forward and let them do the work.

I also wanted to mention, David was talking about utilization. Again, I’m from El Paso. We’re in a veterinary desert- literally the desert, but a veterinary desert itself. At any given moment, I can go look for a veterinary position as a technician, an assistant, or a veterinarian, and there’s over 50 jobs that are open. We’re in a crisis. I actually travel about five hours to Lamesa, Texas, to take horses to our clinic.

We really have to get back to showing kids that this is an option. You can specialize and pretty much go anywhere and do anything. They can live in any town that they want. There are so many options for technicians, for the industry, for professionals, for veterinarians. Lots of different options and opportunities for students.

[00:34:07] Gretchen: Nikki, I learned something this past week that I didn’t know even existed. My daughter works part-time in an urgent care veterinary hospital. They have traveling techs who actually come and will do a stint in their clinic and then move on to another location. It’s not even limited by your geography anymore. We need to think differently as parents.

[00:34:40] David: There’s a pro and con to what you mentioned because that clinic may be owned by a private equity firm. Private equity is buying a lot. That’s also why it’s one reason it’s harder for kids to get into a clinic because these corporations are setting limits about, “We don’t want anybody under 18.” I’m like, “You’re cutting off your nose to spite your face because you’re limiting your workforce and the exposure and things for those.” That is a benefit. I know a lot of these clinics are paying over $40 an hour to their technician and some of them even higher than that. There is a pro and con for those.

[00:35:13] Gretchen: In fact, when my daughter was telling me this story last week, the clinic she works for is not a private equity. It’s owned by an individual veterinarian. I found it absolutely fascinating because they also have veterinarians that come in. There’s a particular veterinarian who lives- She’s a relief veterinarian. She lives in the Cayman Islands, but she comes to the US for three months at a stint. She says, “Look, I live in paradise, but there’s no money to be made here.” She comes to the United States for three months at a time, works her behind off, and then goes back to paradise. I thought, “That’s interesting based on this conversation that we’re going to have today.”

[00:35:59] David: There are companies now that are relief services, and it’s for veterinary practitioners. It’s veterinarians and technicians. As we mentioned, there’s always staff shortages. There’s always maternity leaves. There’s always issues that come up. Some of these clinics, as an individual, to me, it’d be fun. It’s a different clinic every day, every week. Sometimes it’s hard to stay there long-term, but some of them end up in long-term positions. They’ll offer them a visit for those. It’s a neat way to see what each clinic’s about.

[00:36:27] Gretchen: I think you need to be a little bit of an extrovert to make that work. I would think it would be amazing, but I am an uber-extrovert, so I love meeting new people and being in new environments and figuring out how things work. A little bit of that is your student doesn’t know who they are yet, so you’ve got to give them the opportunities to explore, to figure out who they are. In these last few minutes, you guys, what do you want people to take away from our conversation?

[00:36:57] David: I think that the opportunities are there. It’s like I tell my kids, you get out of this what you put into it. I get that the parents want to support their kids in doing those, but I think a lot of the questions that we went through– Where there’s a will, there’s a way. Figuring out on where you fit in.

We have students here that their end goal is to be a veterinary assistant. That’s it. That’s okay. That’s a job opportunity. That’s an opportunity for advancement, or it’s at least a foot in the door where they at least see, “I did that, now I can do this.” They never had aspirations to move forward, but now they’re like, “You know what, I’ve done this now, and now I want to be a licensed veterinary technician, then I’ll move to that.”

There’s opportunities that are about. The limitations are us, usually, or self-limitations on that. It’s like, “I can’t communicate.” No, it’s just a stone. You’ve got a hill you’ve got to crawl over. Figure that out. There are resources available.

[00:37:59] Nikki: There are resources available. I think that that’s something that parents can’t make excuses. You’ve got to make a way. There is a way. We have opportunities. We have scholarships. We work with professionals that want to give back. There is hardly a kid that I can think of that we’ve said, “No, you can’t. You can’t do it. We can’t help you.”

Parents just need to help empower their kids, give them the opportunity and challenge them to rise up to the occasion and get them to do the work. If they’re really interested, help them. Kids need a cheerleader. If it’s not their parent, send them to us. We’ll help them. You don’t know what you’re doing, we’ll help them.

[00:38:48] Gretchen: One of the things that’s important for parents to recognize is if you have an eighth-grader, and Nikki was talking about a 12-year-old, this is the perfect opportunity for them to do a unit study on what is available to them in the career of veterinary medicine. Have them go do the research. Don’t begin and end with AI. AI is a great starting place to get some questions. “Tell me 10 questions I need to ask about veterinary careers,” but then go and do the work.

Have them do the research because if they own it, they possess it, and they’ll do something with that. If you do it for them, it’s not going to go anywhere. As the parent of six adults, I can tell you for a fact what they research, they own.

[00:39:43] David: Actually to add on that as well, too, one of the things that we mentioned, we keep talking about these ages. One of the questions somebody sent in, “What can my younger kids do?” A vet practice is a small business, and there’s liability and things that are concerned. If you think about it, if you were a business owner, would you want a nine-year-old in your practice there? The risk is there. There’s a risk of injury.

That’s the beauty of 4-H and FFA and these programs and HOSA is that, “My kid is 12. He may not be able to get into a clinic at 12.” Sometimes they can at 14. Sometimes vet clinics want employees. They don’t want volunteers. They want employees, when they’re of employable age. Those are things to consider. That’s the beauty of 4-H and FFA is that they have programs for these kids.

My kid’s a Clover Kid. He’s third grade this year. He’s going into actual 4-H. For the past two years, he’s been in Clover Kids. He’s been involved and been around it and saw. At first, he went to the entomology department. Now, he wants to be an entomologist. He wants to work with robots one week. That’s the thing. It’s just that career exploration. That’s the thing with these kids that we can get them in early in these programs.

4-H and FFA are bringing the industry into the classroom and working that way before the student goes out into the clinic. We talk about these younger ages about what to do to get them involved. Just find a vet science program. If you don’t have one, that’s what we do. We can help start one.

[00:41:08] Gretchen: I’m laughing, David, because my husband majored in biology, minored in entomology. For 21 years that we homeschooled our kids, all of my friends would come over and say, “Don’t ever open their freezer. You never know it’s going to fall out because somebody’s got something in there they’re going to pin.” My kids were pinning bugs at the age of five. [laughs]

I want to thank you both for joining us today. This has been a fascinating conversation. Nikki, I want to thank you. Susan had a schedule conflict and you stepped in at the last minute. It has been just lovely to have you here. We will have some extensive show notes for you all. I have some follow-up based on the conversation that we’ve had today. I had the pleasure of interviewing Temple Grandin a year and a half ago. I think we’re going to include that in our show notes.

I’m also going to include a webinar that I did this spring with a gentleman who teaches college-level online chemistry to homeschoolers. We’ll include that because you need to do some more exploration if you’re a parent. Then the last thing I’m going to include is one of the career exploration webinars that we did a year ago with my daughter Shelby, who is a research veterinary technician. She does stem cell research. I think you need to see, here is a pathway with a child who started at 14 volunteering to sweep floors and wash out kennels in a veterinary office. Now you can see what she does as an adult. I think this will be great homework for our families who’ve joined us today.

I want to thank you all so much. Maybe a year from now, you’ll come back and tell us how the program has grown.