I know you know what I’m talking about when I say sometimes our veterinarians aren’t the best communicators.
Hell’s bells, Dani McVety told us as much on the podcast last fall. They’re introverts. They’d rather be dealing with our animals, not us.
So sometimes they tell us a lot of words that go in one ear and out the other. Or we run home and start Googling, doing our best to remember the words and take our best shot at spelling them.
Enter Tyler Sugarman.
An emergency vet in Tacoma, Washington, Tyler bridges the gap between vet jargon and pet guardians on his podcast Vetsplanation.
With a goal to help pet guardians keep their animals happy, healthy and safe, Tyler breaks the science of vet care down into simple, understandable terms.
Today, he shares that journey with us.
Where to Find Tyler
Angela
Tyler Sugarman. Hello.
Tyler
Hello. How are you doing Angela?
Angela
I’m really good. Welcome from the other side of my state Washington
Tyler
Yes.
Angela
How are things over in Tacoma?
Tyler
Nice and sunny right now, which is great. I get to look out the window right now, which is fantastic.
Angela
Oh, that’s weird for the coast. Sunny. Yeah.
Tyler
I a night shifter and so I don’t usually see the sun. So this is really nice.
Angela
Oh my goodness. So let’s get started with a little bit about you. You started working in the vet medicine business at the age of 13. What the heck possessed you to start working at 13? A, when you should be out riding your bike and playing baseball or something wrong and why vet medicine?
Tyler
Yeah, so I had, I mean, ever since I was little kid, I always was rescuing some sort of animal. I had, you know, lizards that had their tails cut off. And, of course, that really was just that they fell off. But I didn’t know that as a kid. But I would be rescuing those birds that hit windows, I would be bringing it into the house. At one point I worked at a place when I was a little bit older. And they had a sick chicken and I had a chicken in my house for a while. My mom didn’t even know about it for two weeks. But like always was trying to like help, you know animals ever since I was really little. And so then in junior high, they had this program that if you were really interested in certain types of certain types of work that they would allow you to go and shadow or go and like do hours there for a little while. And so I did that for veterinary medicine. I wasn’t really sure if I wanted to do that or not. But I was really interested in it since I’ve always been helping animals. So within like a week of just shadowing them, they’re like, Do you want a job? Because you’re great. So I started working there. I worked in the kennels where they put me in the kennels. But really it was that I was an assistant for a while. And then they started having me do even X rays and monitoring anesthesia before I was 18. Which wasn’t illegal then, but is illegal now.
Angela
Are you the reason it’s illegal?
Tyler
I hope not. I mean, they they let me continue. So I’m guessing not. But yeah, they started like so I learned a lot from a really young age. And then even before I was 18, I had moved out of the house, I started as a veterinary sort of assistant sort of a technician up in Northern California. I went through tech school, and then kept realizing that I just wanted more and more information, like I just wanted more and more knowledge. So went to vet school. And and that wasn’t until I was in my late 20s. So it wasn’t an immediate decision. I was a vet tech for quite a while it was I think it was 20 years. But before I actually went to vet school, and then went into emergency medicine after that.
Angela
Why emergency medicine.
Tyler
You know, when I was I always thought I was going to do general practitioner work, I thought it was going to do puppy vaccines and stuff. But when I was in my third year of vet school, I actually realized that I went into like one of the preceptorships where you can go and and be in emergency hospital and see what it was like and I really liked it for those two weeks. And so I decided to do another couple of weeks, like four weeks in my fourth year. So I was like, Well, I even if I’m a general practitioner, I need to know how to do emergencies. Right. So I went back for my fourth year did another couple of weeks. And I just just loved it. I just fell in love with it. It was it was like a calling essentially. And then ended up doing an internship in emergency medicine and debt emergency medicine since
Angela
I think there are some very intrinsic rewards we all get from being in a pet related business. Certainly, there are lots of rewards that come from being a vet. Do you see a difference between the rewards you get in general practician, general practice versus emergency practice?
Tyler
Absolutely. I feel like general practice as a lot of management of diseases, you know, you’re helping people like almost, I want to say at a slower pace, like everything is more of a, you know, lots of communication back and forth and trying different things. versus mine is more of an immediate gratification. You know, pet comes in in an emergency and I need to immediately be able to solve the problem and try to fix that pet. So I think that it’s just a different mindset. Also, when you’re In general practice, a lot of it is doing one patient at a time versus an emergency, I have to have maybe three patients at a time, maybe 12 patients at a time. You know, sometimes in the hospital, we have 16 patients plus I have the other 30 patients that I have to see for that night. So it’s you’re juggling a lot of things at one time. I think that I always like the not knowing what the next thing is going to come in the door.
Angela
Ah, that’s what I always loved about journalism. What … I imagine that you see a whole range of of injuries, illnesses, etcetera. Can you dig into that a little bit?
Tyler
Absolutely. I mean, I see very simple things as far as like torn toenails, all the way up to things that require emergency surgery right now. You know, I have patients who are hit by cars a lot. Lots of dog bite wounds, cat abscesses, I get a lot of surgeries, we talked a little bit about like gastropexy before this. So I have a lot of dogs that have bloat, or gdv is the technical term for it. When their stomach twists, and it becomes an emergency right now, or dogs who have bleeding into their abdomen that we have to do surgery on, lots of pets who have difficulty breathing. So we have to like figure out what is the difficulty breathing, getting him into oxygen and trying to help fix them there. And, and unfortunately, a lot of euthanasia is as well. So it’s quite a range that I see.
Angela
You see a lot of, of stomachs full of socks and toys, too, don’t you?
Tyler
Absolutely. Lots of foreign bodies.
Angela
With at what level of injury or illness should we wait to see our general practitioner tomorrow morning, versus rushing in to see an emergency hospital?
Tyler
Yeah, I think that there are certain things that you can kind of take into account. So one of them is going to be knowing your pet. So if your pet is the type of like, let’s say maybe you have a cat and you know that cat vomits once a week, if that cat is vomiting, and it’s been once a week, that’s probably not something that you need to be rushing in for. But if that cat is vomiting multiple times, will not stop, then we know that that’s probably a much bigger deal. And they probably need to come in if they have been not eating but not vomiting is like well, you might be able to wait unless you know that there’s been like a sock that the aid or some sort of other object that they got into things like torn toenails and stuff. Like those are things that can wait for your regular vet unless they’re very uncomfortable, or other things like skin issues. I have a lot of people who come in for skin issues, but I always tell them, I am not an expert at this. This is not my forte, so I will help you the best that I can. But you’re going to need to see somebody else. Go for all of the follow-up stuff.
Angela
Do we treat our dogs or any of our pets in much the same way as parents treat their human children wherein, you know, some of us just might panic at any little sniffle and get on to urgent care.
Tyler
Yeah, yeah. And I feel like it’s kind of the same way your very first pet, like you’re kind of the same way you’re like little over protective. You’re like, oh my god, they were murdered once we got to get them in, you know, or they tore their toenail. You know, we got to get them in the emergency right away. They coughed we got to get him in versus then your second and third pet, fourth pet, you’re like, they’ll be okay. Well, we’ll see if they’re okay.
Angela
I feel very seen right now. Of course Shep was rushed off to clinic and every time anything happened and now Bella has to wait.
Tyler
Right? Like, you’ll be okay. Yeah. Well, we’ll see how you do. Yeah.
Angela
Buck up, little girl. So how did COVID change your approach to emergency care? Because that must have really screwed a lot up.
Tyler
Yeah, it was really, really hard. You know, we had so many people who got pets, and everybody was staying home. And so they saw their pets getting sick. And we had tons and tons of people coming to the ers to get treatment. At look for me, I’m very much I will see everybody and so I almost never shut down my er, but there was tons of people who did you know, there were of all the pet clinics that were around us all the emergency clinics. I was the only one seeing pets for about a 40 to 50 mile radius. I had people coming from like I’m in Tacoma but I had people coming from Oregon, to see us from Idaho to see us slots. Yeah, because there was nobody who would see them. They were they were driving that far just to come and see us because I would say if you can get here, I will see you, you know. But so that definitely changed my approach a bit. because I had to be, I really liked being able to talk to people and educate them about what’s going on with their pet, you know, especially if it’s something that’s a long term disease, I want them to understand what’s happening. But when I have 60, other pets who are now waiting, there really became a challenge to do that. So instead, I had to, I actually created a podcast. So I could hand people information and be like, hey, here is the information that you need to know, because I don’t have the time right now to sit down and talk to you about this, I have two minutes before I have to get to the next emergency that just walked through that door. So that definitely created a bit of a challenge, because there were so many people who couldn’t see all those things. So we were seeing so many things. And then also just the way that things were working, you know, we had pet parents who were not allowed in the building, that make them very anxious, their pets were anxious. So we had this this disconnect as well, because we’re trying, we were trying to not get sick as vets so that we could continue to see our pets. But we at the same time had pet parents who are really upset because they weren’t away from their pets. And he, because they’ve been with them on on quarantine. And now I’m asking them to step away from their pet at a time when they’re really sick. And that almost created a bit of a distrust, because they couldn’t be there to see what was happening. Oh, yeah. So since then, like letting people back in and being able to talk to them face to face, I feel like that’s helped quite a bit more, even though we still still have quite a bit of pets more than we had seen before. You know, it still helps to be able to have that one on one with people.
Angela
It’s crazy that hopefully, COVID is in our rearview mirror, at least for the time being. But it had such an incredible impact on the entire world. But more specifically, the veterinary care world didn’t it?
Tyler
Absolutely it had a huge, huge impact. But people did not realize, like how how a huge like how we were almost like drowning, because we couldn’t get enough people to work. We so we’re we’re limited. We’re working on limited skeleton crews, as well as trying to get so many more pets than we ever had before. And with less supplies, because we had a lot of people. We had all of the hospitals taking a lot of our supplies. There were my friends who are in California, we had a couple who are critical Lis and their ventilators were being taken by human hospitals, because humans were valued over pets. And so they had so many things that they could not do, because they didn’t have the equipment that they needed. We had to like worry about you making sure we didn’t use exam gloves very often because we had limited supplies and some gloves and, and fluids. And it was crazy. medications. Yeah,
Angela
I did not know that kind of impact happen. That’s and obviously drug shortages too, I would imagine.
Tyler
Yeah, lots of drug shortages, things that they were like, well, you just you can’t have it because we needed and better. And we did in human medicine first.
Angela
Yeah, of course. So how are we progressing? And I mean, everybody has staff shortages. Now, how is your clinic managing in the aftermath of it all?
Tyler
Yeah, I think that it’s gotten a lot better. We actually had huge shortages. But now it’s gotten much, much more manageable. We have more crews on now, which is great. We have more people who are coming back to work and are able to stay at work. So we’re able to see a lot more. And we even have more doctors than we had before, which is also fantastic. So that was another big problem. With me being an overnight doctor, unless one of the other overnight doctors could drop everything that they were doing and could come and work. That was it. We had to not see any pets for that day. If for some reason one of us got sick. So now we have like two doctors on and that’s been a huge help.
Angela
Our society has shifted to a place where we’re very opinionated and vocal about those opinions. And I know that that vets can take an awful lot of … abuse. that might be too strong a word, but then maybe it’s not.
Tyler
Sometimes. Yeah.
Angela
How would you tell somebody who is young and thinking about entering that medicine? What could you tell them to expect? Like did the do the benefits outweigh those negatives?
Tyler
For me, you know, I’ve asked been asked for what I do this all over again. And I absolutely would even though it’s can be really tough and we have I’ve definitely had clients who have tried to punch me I’ve had clients who have been verbally abusive towards me. We have clients constantly say that we are in it for the money and I’m like if you knew how am I det i was in to do this job, whereas I could have been making three times the amount as a human doctor, or not even three, I think the last time I saw was like five times the amount as a human doctor, you know, like this, you would see that this is a much different story. Or, you know, we get a lot of people getting really upset about cost of veterinary care as well, like, well, I know what it costs to buy that object. And I know what it costs for you for it to be used in the human hospital. And we’re nowhere near that. But people don’t see that. And so I think that that is, you know, again, like, it just becomes a little bit harder, because people will see what they pay for insurance stuff, but they don’t see what you are actually paying for. Like, they don’t look at an itemized bill for like those kinds of things. So when it comes to like a new veterinarian, if they decide that they do want to go into veterinary medicine, I think that they have to look at not only the bad things that are there, because there are going to be bad things on each day. But there’s also so many good things that happen as well. Even if it’s not through the pet parent themselves, it was through the pet, you know, you still got to do something to be able to help that pet and, and I really appreciate that I get to be the voice for that pet. Even when the pet parent doesn’t understand that.
Angela
Let’s go back to the education aspect of it, then you strike me as a very even tempered patient person.
Tyler
I try to be
Angela
it is it important to you for for your human patients, your human clients to understand exactly what’s happening with their pet, especially if you’re taking their pet behind a closed door. Absolutely,
Tyler
I try to be very, like, I try to like make them understand like what I’m going to be doing, you know, I don’t want there to be any surprises will always tell them like this is what I want to go do. Or if people are upset that they can’t go back with them, I’ll let them know why you know, but unfortunately, sometimes we have aggressive pets back there, or I have procedures that are going on back there that we don’t want to have other people see because I also don’t want people to faint on the floor either. But but you know, I try to make sure that they understand what we’re doing, why we’re going to be doing this and and most of the time. You one of the one of the other hard things in emergency medicine is I have to build rapport very, very quickly with people. And as long as I can do that a lot of times people are okay with that they’re okay with me taking their pet back to do a rectal exam were to do an ultrasound really quickly, you know, as long as I’ve explained those things to them.
Angela
Most of the vets I’ve encountered and I actually I think I spoke with Danny McFadden about this not too long ago. But a lot of vets are introverts. And they, yes, they don’t necessarily do very well with their human clients. Do you identify as an introvert?
Tyler
I guess in my work life? No, I am. I am very good at talking to people and obviously have my podcasts and so for that. For those like like work related things, I am very much an extrovert. But when it comes to being at my house, like I’m, I am very much an introvert. Like when we when we talked about getting this house that we live in now, my wife said she wanted to live as close to her friends as possible. And I was like, I want to live as far away and do not want to see a single person. They did find a house like that. So you know it was great. But she’s very she’s much more of an extrovert wants to go hang out with friends, which is where as I’m like, alright, I’ll go. I’ll go when you chew. But yeah.
Angela
All I want is a firepit and a whiskey thing. Yes.
Tyler
Yes, exactly. And my dog Yep.
Angela
So now tell us about your podcast and and how you use that as an outreach vehicle for your education.
Tyler
Yeah, so my, my podcast is called vets planation. My, my goal is I want to be able to explain veterinary care for pets, I want them to understand what it is when I diagnose them with some disease. You know, one of the things I have noticed, like blocked cats, I see those constantly catch you can’t urinate. And there’s so much that goes into it. And so much that you need to understand for the future. I feel like sometimes I might tell you everything that you need to hear in five minutes, but how much of that did you actually retain? I can still send you home with the paper that you’re probably going to lose I lose mine constantly. Right? So that my best that when I was thinking about how I could like get this information out to people in a better way. I thought about doing podcasting because that way I you can listen to it anytime. If you’re like I don’t remember What he said, you can go back and listen to almost any, I use the same information. When I’m talking to people just I’m explaining it better in more detail. If you have a person to like, I have this a lot that the wife comes in with the pet, and I diagnosed with them something. And then the husband calls in 30 minutes later, and it’s like, I, my wife has no idea what you’ve just explained her, can you explain to me again? So then I explained it to him? And then the wife will call back? And like, will you explain it to him? But I don’t understand it as well. Now, can you explain it to me as well. So I was like, here is the podcast, you can both listen to it at the same time. And then if you have questions, and they can call me after that, but you know, even if they need to know, in the future, when I talk about like, say with bobcats, they have to they have a very specific diet. So if I tell them, I need you to not feed anything else, but this diet, they can go back 10 years later and be like he said, Don’t feed anything except for this diet. So let’s not change his cat’s diet.
Angela
Gotcha. And you keep it in very non technical terms, I would imagine. Absolutely.
Tyler
I want to make this as simplified as possible. You’ll one of the things that we learn in veterinary medicine is to speak veterinarian and to use these really big technical terms. And then we get out of of school. And I think that’s something that’s lost is people don’t understand as well how to like put that in a simplified terms. And when I was a veterinary technician, that was something I saw a lot, I would come go walk into the room after the doctor had been in there. And the people would say, I have no idea what he said, could you explain to me what it is that he just diagnosed our dog with? So I learned like from that moment that you need to keep things a lot more simpler, especially not even because I don’t think that people can handle it intellectually. I think it is also the emotional part as well. You’re so emotional when I’ve diagnosed them with something that could be a life threatening illness. And so you’re not going to hear everything that I’m saying.
Angela
Right. And I think it’s really important to have a resource like yours on the internet, because if I just randomly go to Google and search, or do a reverse image, like Bella has a scaly nose, ya know, now that it’s because it’s drying out, because she’s 10. But I could ask in a Facebook group, and somebody’s going to tell me Oh, that looks like lupus. And I’m like, Yes. And or, you know, I do a Google search and it comes up cancer, your dog is full of cancer just because their nose looks weird, right? So there’s a lot of not reliable information out there on the internet. Absolutely.
Tyler
And I’m hoping by having the podcast that makes it to where you’re getting that reliable information. And not just information from Facebook groups and other people. And, you know, the Google searches where literally everything is cancer. That is definitely something I hear every day. They’re like, well, I Googled it. And it said that it was cancer. And I’m like, right. Well, luckily, it’s not. So this is this is great news.
Angela
Yeah, the last time I said I googled it to my Vet Tech, she was like, you know, I might have to slap you at some point. I should.
Tyler
I do appreciate that. People want to get the information. And it’s really hard to discern between what is the correct information and what is incorrect information. You know, what,
Angela
because I don’t have the years of schooling to write me know what is the correct information. Exactly. Exactly. And I have to trust my veterinarian. Right. Right.
Tyler
Exactly. Which is also hard. I get it like especially if you don’t know that person, especially coming in and emergency you don’t know that person, you know, right.
Angela
Okay, well, let’s go into that a little bit more. You mentioned building a report but not having a whole lot of time to do that. How do you very quickly establish trust when you’re in emergency
Tyler
that yeah, so most of the time like if I’ve already seen the pet in the back a lot of times I’ll will comment on something that I really liked about their pet you know, like Oh, I saw fluffy in the back you know, it’s a super cute face. I really liked him and then asking information Okay, so I know that you know, your pet basta at home. Tell me like what you saw was different at home. So you, it shows that I it’s not that I’m just taking the information that I’m doing just on my physical exam. It’s also your your pets expert. I need you to help tell me what you’ve seen at home. Because I do also get a lot of people who are like, well, they’re a friend brought the dog in and they’re like, Well, I don’t know. Don’t you know what I’m like? Well, I don’t know. The dog didn’t tell me a vomited, so I have no idea. So just trying to build that rapport of like you You are also your pet’s health expert, and that’s what I want you to be I want you to be part of this journey. So I want to make sure it’s it’s a reciprocal thing.
Angela
Two part question: How important is it to be a good advocate for your pet? What are some tips on how How to Be a good advocate for your pet. And when do you shut up and listen to the vet?
Tyler
That’s a good question. I do think it is very important to be an advocate for your pet, you know, you see them every day at home all the time. Whereas I’m seeing them for five minutes, right? I have to get as much information as possible just from my exam or from the diagnostics that I can do. But really, like you’re the person who sees your pet every day. So if, if you feel like there’s something abnormal, and there probably is something abnormal, and it’s really hard sometimes for us to be able to find whatever it is, and it might not be that we don’t find it for a week or two later. But it’s still something that you should continuously try and be trying to look for. If you’re still seeing those those problems. So I do think it’s really important to like be a really good advocate for them. Especially if you feel like there is something wrong, because we even see this in human medicine constantly. You know, my wife goes through this all the time that she goes in, she’s like, well, this is the problem. They she doesn’t feel like she’s listened to. And then later on, they’re like, Oh, you do have a problem. So yes, I know. Right, exactly. As I do feel like it’s the same way for pet parents that they really should be an advocate for them. What’s the second question?
Angela
Tips on how to be a good advocate?
Tyler
Thank you. So tips on how to be a good advocate. One, I’d say is to like ask questions, when, especially if they have been given a diagnosis. So let’s say they’re diagnosed with diabetes, you should be asking the questions of how long do what is their prognosis? What do I have to expect lifelong for them? What are the follow up diagnostics and stuff that I would need to do for that? What are the signs that you would normally see for diabetes, you want to make sure that you have complete understanding about that disease. So that way, you know, for the next time, what to do about it. You know, we talked a little bit before about bloat and the stomach twisting, it was really important to know what those signs were beforehand. So that way you knew when to go into the vet. So even just when they are a puppy, if you are a kitten and you ask them, What are some of the common signs that you see with this breed? Or what are the common diseases you see with this breed, you’ll have already gotten that information to know what to look for in the future. So if you have a giant breed dog, a lot of times I’ll be talking to him about bloat and see, you know, this is what you should expect, this is the things that you should be looking for. So that way, if it does happen one day, then you’re on top of it, or I’ll also talk about if you have a giant breed dog, whenever they get spayed, I highly suggest having them paxied at the same time. Me too. Yeah. So I feel like it’s you need to be an advocate for them in both in when they’re healthy, and also when they are sick as well. And just knowing what all the medications do as well as another big tip, lots of people who come in and they’re like, I don’t know, they just take this yellow pill. So knowing what the medications are for, why they’re taking them what disease processes they have, even if it’s just bringing in a binder of notes from your previous veterinarians, so that that way we have those records, because a lot of times people don’t think also about the fact that when when I see them at night, their day veterinarian is closed, so we can’t get those records. And you can ask people, you can ask the veterinarian for a copy of those records every single time. And that we just keep it in a binder. And so whenever they come in, you have one ready to go like okay, these are the things that they’ve been diagnosed with. This is the medication that they’ve been taking. And and just being on top of that. I think that’s for human medicine and for veterinary medicine, as well, you know? And then third question,
Angela
when was when is it time to shut up and listen?
Tyler
So I would say a lot of times when somebody starts saying, Well, I Googled.
Angela
I apologize.
Tyler
I say that to one of them. Because I mean, you can say like, you know, I did some research on this, and this is what I found, is this correct? But a lot of times when it’s arguing against what the veterinarian is telling you, you know, Google cannot tell you what your veterinarian is seeing. You know, I have also have definitely had people who have diagnosed their pet with something deadly. And they say, Well, Google said, they just have an upset stomach. I’m like, but I’m physically seeing this, like I know what I am seeing. So, you know, if you go off of what Google says, unfortunately, your pet is going to pass away at home very quickly, versus who you have to trust what I’m telling you because Google cannot do a physical exam on your pet. The other time too, is just arguing in general. I just do get A lot of people who just want to argue and and not believe what I’m trying to tell them. You know, it’s one thing to say, you know, can you explain it better to me? Can you explain it more to me versus just arguing? Because I feel like that’s counterintuitive. Like we’re both here to help your pet. Like, that’s what my job is. That’s what I want to do. I’m not here to to sell you a bunch of things like I really just want to help your pet. And so just listening to those things as well. Oh,
Angela
Tyler Sugarman, where in the world do we find you online?
Tyler
Yeah, on the Vetsplanation podcast.com. And then I’m also on on YouTube on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, get all the threads, all the things? Yes.
Angela
Awesome. Okay. And we’ll have all those links in the show notes for everybody to go find easily.
Tyler
Perfect. Thank you. I appreciate it.
Angela
Thank you so much for joining us today. And I really hope you come back soon. And we can talk about some more specific things that people need to watch for like gdv and float and all of the fun things. Absolutely.
Tyler
I’m happy to come on anytime. Wonderful. I’ll
Angela
talk to you soon.
Tyler
Thanks.