Vetnuus | June 2024 9 Events I WVAC 2024 The presentation that, according to the available statistics, gathered the greatest crowd in the Personal Development Category, was the presentation by Etienne van der Walt on the topic of Neuroscience for high-performance resilience in a chaotic world Pierre Ettienne van der Walt Neurozone, Cape Town, South Africa The current global ecosystem is rapidly paced. It is also riddled with a number of ‘pandemics’: The ‘Mental Pandemic’ is rife, causing a steep increase in depression, anxiety, addictions and suicide. Burnout is now known as a medical syndrome and is affecting ever increasing numbers of employees and leaders globally. The ‘Great Resignation’ and increased staff turnover, demands a new way of thinking about the way we design our business ecosystems. This is also true for the veterinary profession who have additional challenges of compassion fatigue, small business challenges and unrealistic expectations from their clients. In this keynote, neurologist and CEO of Neurozone, Dr P Etienne van der Walt will provide a perspective on the global factors contributing to burnout and mental health challenges. He will unpack the nature of psychobiological resilience and then translate it for practical application in today’s world. Etienne will provide a framework for collective resilience that may well be the antidote for burnout and even the mental pandemic. In the process he will highlight the most important themes that underpin high-performance resilience, always simplifying the complex from biological neuroscience to personal self-leadership application. Then Etienne will anchor the practical drivers of resilient, high performance such as sleep, exercise, nutrition, social safety, psychological safety, mindset, mindfulness and highperformance energy for practical individual and team integration, to enable veterinary professionals to unlock the best version of themselves and their people they lead. Resilient Veterinary Teams: how to ensure our teams are prepared to face the changes and challenges to come Jessica Moore-Jones Unleashed Coaching and Consulting, Perth, Australia. Taronga Zoo, Sydney, Australia There’s no denying that times are tough in the veterinary industry and might be about to get tougher. Our teams are tired, frustrated, and can’t see a light at the end of the tunnel. Attrition rates are high, burnout rates are worrying, and mental health is suffering. There is no silver bullet for these issues; they’re big, wicked problems that take a whole industry to start improving. BUT there are things we can do to support our teams. This session covers the scientifically backed factors that influence the resilience of teams in the face of adversity, what that looks like in the veterinary setting, and most importantly, it provides ideas and solutions for how you can start to build the resilience of your own team. Delivered by an experienced vet and executive manager who has led large teams through complex, contentious challenges, who actually knows what it is like to be in your shoes, as well as your teams’. The session is practical, engaging and based on the honest realities of leading a veterinary team as well as the most up-to-date science of leadership and resilience. You’ll walk away with real, useable tools and solutions that you can implement immediately, as well as long-term strategies and skills to start ensuring that your team is ready for challenges and changes to come. Human behaviour is the answer to animal outcomes: why the conventional teaching on communicating with clients doesn’t work, and how to actually get people to follow your recommendations Jessica Moore-Jones Unleashed Coaching and Consulting, Gidgegannup, Australia. Taronga Zoo, Sydney, Australia We’re taught at university, and by most conventional training, how to tell people what they need to do for their pets. As scientific professionals, we value best practices, scientific data, and peerreviewed research, and when we make recommendations to pet owners, we often use these same tactics. These methods assume that knowing better immediately translates to doing better. But humans don’t work like that. Logic and science may occasionally change someone’s level of knowledge, but it’s not the same as getting them to change a behaviour. The human health, public health, government policy and commercial marketing industries have understood this for decades, yet the veterinary profession, in our desire to maintain scientific integrity, continues to believe that improving knowledge will improve behaviour. To really make an impact on the outcomes for our patients, we need to understand how people DO work, rather than how we wish they did. This session offers an introduction to the science (and art) of human psychology and behaviour change, with a focus on getting our clients to follow our recommendations. If you find yourself having the same conversations over and over and never seem to see people doing differently, this is for you. Whether it’s finishing a whole course of antibiotics, encouraging expensive treatment options, improving a raw diet, helping obese pets lose weight or improving uptake of preventative medicines, if we confuse telling people the information with being able to change their behaviours, we will forever be chasing our tails. This session is high energy, fun, and a completely fresh perspective on how to reframe our conversations with clients to improve outcomes for our patients and reduce a vast proportion of the frustration that vets experience when dealing with clients Resilience and burn out in the vet practice Desiré J Rees Humanco, Durban, South Africa Part of the journey in managing stress is learning how to develop Resilience. The stronger we are at bouncing back after adversity, the greater our ability to take on the challenges and unforeseen events that usually floor us.
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