In this episode of the Inventory Nation Podcast, I am delighted to be joined with David Liss, MBA, CVPM, PHR, the director of operations at AmeriVet Veterinary Partners, the nursing content expert at Ignite Veterinary Solutions, and lecturer extraordinaire.

David is a skilled and experienced management professional with specialization in all aspects of veterinary hospital operations. From his humble beginnings as a veterinary technician through his journey as a technician educator and a double board-certified veterinary technician specialist in emergency/critical care and internal medicine, David has a diverse background in the veterinary industry. For the last 10 years, David as performed as a veterinary education program director, hospital manager, and multi-site operations manager.

During our conversation, David shares his advice with other inventory managers and veterinary professionals: “The biggest advice is look outside of your clinic. What I mean by that is, [veterinary medicine] is a profession, and that means that there are peer groups, networking groups, organizations both legal, like medical boards, and non-legal like the NAVTA and AVMA that expose you to the profession as a whole. The point of it is, for example, if you’re struggling with something at your practice, my guess is, someone else at another practice is struggling too. Guess what, we help each other. For example, if you are dealing with inventory struggles, you don’t really know what else to do besides count your pills and do your want list, Nicole’s got resources, the VHMA, you can Google, or go to a lecture, and that’s all outside of your practice. It’s great information to take back to your practice.

If you’re a technician, join NAVTA and your state and local technician association. If you’re a manager, you can join the VHMA. You don’t ever have to be a CVPM, if that’s something you don’t want to do, it’s just not your jam, you can join the VHMA and not be a CVPM and get access to all that information. You can join Nicole’s Veterinary Inventory Strategy Network that’s all about inventory. Find what really excites you and you can focus your passion on. No one really loves everything, so you get a couple things you really enjoy and then dive in head first and enjoy that stuff. Because, a profession is different than a job. A profession becomes part of your life. Just by the nature of it, I have to go to CE on my own time to keep my RVT license up, that’s eating into my personal life. A profession is that line that crosses over. Take that in so that it doesn’t feel to heavy, you’ve got all these resource outside of your practice. What’s kept me in the profession in for so long is my colleagues, networking, and organizations outside of the practices I’ve worked in; not that the staff is great but there is more out there. There is a world of veterinary medicine.”

• Veterinary Hospital Manager’s Association – CVPM: https://www.vhma.org/cvpm-certification/about-certification
• National Association of Veterinary Technicians in America: https://www.navta.net/
• Veterinary Inventory Strategy Network – https://www.veterinaryisn.com