Monday Madness

Today is Monday and Mondays are really busy here. Especially first thing in the morning, and again around 4 pm. First thing I do, before the hospital even opens, is check and respond to all the emails. On a typical Monday, I’ll have about 30 emails I need to respond to. Some with extreme emergency and others I will come back to after the morning rush. After emails have been prioritized, it’s ready, set, go time.

Mondays are Dr. Rich’s surgery days, so between 8 – 9 am, we’re checking in all of her surgery patients. Today’s surgery schedule consists of a couple patients that need lumps removed, a spay, a neuter and an anal sacculectomy. Anal Sacculectomy?!! What is that you ask. It is the removal of the anal glands. . . Anal glands or anal sacs, are two small glands, located just inside your pet’s anus. There is one on each side, with a little tube connecting it to the rectum. Every time stool is passed, a little bit of secretions from these glands are expelled. Sometimes, the normal secretions become thicker than normal and are unable to be expressed, which can then lead to them becoming impacted and possibly rupture. Some pets that continuously have these issues, become candidates for the removal of the anal sacs. What else does the anal glands do other than secrete some really foul smelling substance? Nothing. It’s just like humans and their appendix. No need for it and if it’s causing problems, get rid of it and worry no more.

Mondays are also busy due to the pets that have been boarding with us over the weekend or longer, usually go home on Mondays. Most people are rushing in before they have to go to work and retrieving their furkids because if their pet is picked up before 12 noon, you’re not charged for another day. Or it’s the opposite. The owner is trying to check their pet in for boarding so they can run! Being as close to the airport as we are, sometimes dropping off their pet for boarding is the last thing done on their list. Unfortunately, we have a checklist of things to go over, before they can run back out the door.  

Along with surgeries being checked in, boarders checking in and out, we also have grooming  and daycare clients coming in.  Usually, with the grooming clients, we just need to check and make sure the pet is current on all of it’s vaccines and we have a current phone number. We then hand them off to our groomer, Melissa, and she gets all the details on how the client is wanting their pet groomed and what time the client would like for their pet to be ready for pick up. For the daycare doggies, most of them are regulars and we know who they are and why they are here. Checking them in is the easiest part of the morning and is normally done within a minute.

Oh, and let’s not forget about the appointments that are starting to be seen! Time to get that wiggly puppy to stand still to get a weight for him. And what gift have you brought in the bag?! A nice, fresh sample of poo. Thanks. Just what I always wanted.

At 8:30 am, the phones get turned on. Our Monday morning phone calls keep us running if we weren't already. We have patients that have ran out of meds and need refills. We have pets that started showing symptoms as soon as we closed on Saturday and now need in ASAP. We have owners that have been meaning to call for weeks to get Fido’s vaccines up to date and calling us was the first thing on their list of “To Do’s”. And of course, the owners that unfortunately had to hospitalize their furkid, want to know how their baby did through the night. For us in this business, that can either be the highlight or lowest part of your day, depending upon how the patient is doing. I love being able to tell an owner that their pet has made great improvements and the doc said they can go home. Great way to start your day and week!

Come 9:00 am, our surgery patients, daycare dogs and grooming clients are checked in, and our first few appointments have been seen. Within our first hour of business, we can easily have had at least 25 pets come through our doors and answered just as many phone calls, if not more. From this point of the day on, it’s mostly getting patients checked in and out for appointments and taking care of the clients that are picking up med refills or food for their pet. When 4:00 pm comes around, the phones start getting busy again and clients start coming back to pick their pets up from grooming, daycare and the surgeries that are able to go home the same day as their surgery.

I normally leave by 4:00 pm so I've only heard stories about how the evenings go. Usually they are filled with emergencies, doctors running behind (as doctors commonly do) and preparations for the next day. There is never a dull moment here and every day is something new. Whether it be a new client to our hospital, an old client with a new pet, and old pet with a new lump or learning a new way to treat a symptom, we’re always learning someone or something new. Monday or not, this place is busy, busy, busy and if you happen to come in and we don’t look busy, just like Ohio weather, give it a minute, it’ll change.   

My Newest Adventure

  Here goes a new adventure for me...blogging. Once again, being the Social Media Director for Gahanna Animal Hospital is causing me to step outside of my comfort zone and try something new. So here goes. 

  I'll start off with giving you some background on myself. My name is Michelle and before working here at the hospital, I helped manage a large dog grooming salon for 12 years. After becoming pregnant with twins and being put on bed rest at 25 weeks, the grooming shop was sold to someone else and underwent some changes that caused me to look elsewhere for another job. Four months after having healthy twins, I was hired at Gahanna Animal Hospital in February, 2007 and was very grateful to have been given 40 hours and scheduled the perfect hours for being a single mom to 4 amazing kids! I was hired at the front desk as a Client Care Representative. With the hours I was scheduled, I was trained under the watchful eyes of Amy and Kim. These two ladies are recognized by many of our regular clients as staples to the business and I was lucky enough to work side by side with them! I learned a lot from these ladies and with this business, the learning never stops.

  After being here for a few years, Lisa, the Hospital Administrator, asked if I would be interested in getting a Facebook page for the hospital up and running. Sure, why not, I thought. How hard could it be to post cute pics and videos about puppies and kittens? I already had my own personal page and was active enough on it to know the basics of it. So on March 23, 2011, I started the hospital's Facebook page. Lisa was smart enough to hire a professional media spokesperson to show me some of the ropes, but a lot of what I was about to learn was mostly through trial and error. And still is.

First thing I did wrong was not setting up our Facebook page as a business. There for a while, the hospital actually had 2 different pages, and I was constantly trying to get everyone to look at both. Boy was that exhausting! Then came the day that I was courageous enough to combine the two and the seconds that passed while I waited to see if it actually worked seemed like an eternity. But as I began to see that it was actually all coming together and nothing was lost...I couldn't have been more proud of myself!  This girl, to this day, still considers herself computer illiterate so to accomplish such a feat when I knew how disastrous it could have been was a big deal to me. I've always been one to play it safe, and that day I was completely out of my comfort zone. But I did it!

  That's not all I did either. I've went to several seminars for Social Media Marketing and learned all the different platforms of social media and where an animal hospital should be placing themselves. I also got our Twitter page, a Pinterest page, Linked In and most recently, an Instagram account started. The Twitter thing though, I've just never gotten into too well, so I asked if I could pass it along to one of my co-workers that is considered a hash tag queen. Tiffany is now in charge of that and I wish her well with her tweeting. I've also learned that Linked In isn't really worth my time when it comes to trying to promote our hospital. Maybe if I was looking for another job or someone was looking for a job here but I'm not going anywhere and right now, we're not hiring. The Pinterest page and Instagram are easy and fun to work on so I'll continue to put my time and effort into them as well as Facebook and now...this blog

  Just like everything else I've attempted, I'm going to give this my best effort. I hope that others will enjoy what I will be sharing from behind the scenes here at our hospital. I'll try to keep things on the positive side because that's how I prefer to live my life, but working in an animal hospital has its moments of smacking you in the face with reality, and at times I'll share that too. One thing I can guarantee my readers, there is always going to be some cute pics of puppies and kittens on my blog! So stay tuned, and wish me luck!