President’s Letter | Q2 2022
By Timothy Smaha
When I first addressed the membership late last year, I promised that the goal of our board in 2022 was to revamp the organization to be more about YOU as the member. You will see that many of these changes are in the works. I want to highlight some of those for you. Before we dive in, I would also like to welcome our newest sponsors: Vetoquinol and Antelligence (The Fountain Report). Look for more information from these and all our sponsors in the future.
First, let’s talk about the newsletter. The Board of Directors voted earlier this year to go from six newsletters a year to a quarterly newsletter. Our goal is to streamline the newsletters and enhance the content to make it more applicable to your everyday life. Having said that, welcome to the first quarterly AAIV newsletter! Look for these to come in the middle of each quarter. In addition to content from our board members, we will also be featuring articles and blog posts from partners outside of AAIV so to bring more applicable content to our members.
Secondly, having launched our mentorship program last year, we continue to grow the program and are always looking for new mentors and mentees. Hopefully we can utilize our mentorship program to match our sponsors and members with veterinarians who are seeking to transition in their careers. We need mentors from all aspects of industry! If you have not signed up yet, please go to our website and check it out.
Mentorship
Next, the annual compensation survey has historically been a major endeavor for our group and there is no other survey out there like it. Look for us to begin soliciting responses in early fall for the 2021 compensation survey. Additionally, we have made some strategic changes to make this more applicable for our members. This includes:
· Formation of an “advisory committee” from our industry partners to help select questions and analyze data
· Partnership with Antelligence for press releases and periodic analytical articles
· Agreement with a statistician to have the data analyzed before AND after the survey to ensure that the data is useable and statistically significant
· More HR specific questions that focus on benefits, quality of life, financial questions and additional data points
· Compiling of data for an eventual “5 year trend” to mark any changes seen over time
Lastly, let’s talk about our webinar series “AAIV presents.” We have already had two webinars this year: Dr. Darby Affeldt talking about the top 10 financial mistakes you could be making and Christine Splichal talking about leveraging your LinkedIn profile. With that, we are very excited to announce the lineup for the remainder of the year. Stay tuned for announcements about the exact dates and times.
· June 9, 5 p.m. CST – Amy Grice, V.M.D., will present on “Leadership at All Levels.” Dr. Grice is a renowned speaker and one of the founding facilitators of Decade One, a program that focuses on mentoring Equine Veterinarians in the first 10 years of practice.
· September 2022 – Betsy Charles, D.V.M. will present on conflict management and resolution for future leaders in veterinary industry. Dr. Charles is on the Board of Directors for Veterinary Leadership Institute and the executive director for Veterinary Leadership Experience.
· November 2022 – Offered in conjunction with VMRCVM Public Health and Corporate Medicine and ‘Friend of AAIV’: Pawsibilities Vet Med. We will have a hosted roundtable discussion with a group of industry professionals to discuss career transitions and how to land that perfect industry position.
As always, if you need anything from me or from any of our board members or AVMA HOD delegates, please reach out to us at industryvets@gmail.com and we will get you in contact with the right person as quickly as possible.
Sincerely,
Tim Smaha