Guest: Heather Sartorelli. Heather is a Registered Veterinary Technician, Fear Free Certified and the Lead Consultant with Sartorelli Consulting Services. She specializes in helping spay/neuter clinics, moving them to a high-quality, high-volume level by working closely with the surgical and management teams. She has 18 years of spay/neuter experience and 10 years of Shelter experience. Throughout Heather's career of animal welfare, she has worked as manager of Clinic Mentorship Programs for Humane Alliance/ASPCA Spay Neuter Alliance and as the medical manager and lead surgery technician at SPCA Tampa Bay.

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Main question: What advice would you have for clinics to function effectively and efficiently amid this current public health crisis?

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Takeaways:

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• Make sure staff is feeling safe and healthy. You can do this in a number of ways:

  • Hold a brief team meeting to start each day where people can share concerns and information.

  • Cross-train to be able to better handle absences.

  • Be supportive of staff who don’t feel comfortable doing a task for safety reasons.

  • Create a culture that doesn’t tolerate gossip.

  • Make change easier to embrace by making it fun (the new policy bingo game Heather mentioned is an example).