Are you eager to improve your surgical skills but not sure how to ask your employer to invest in you?

Sharing the huge list of benefits for your employer, your practice and your patients is a necessary step – but you will need to be prepared.

Here, we share our top tips on asking your employer for veterinary mentoring.

Have a plan of action

When approaching an employer to ask for mentoring or training from an external provider, it’s important to have a plan of action beforehand, so you’re well prepared to answer any questions they may have.

List all of the benefits of the training or mentoring

This likely won’t just relate to you; think about the positive impact your training or mentoring will have on your practice and the wider team, as well as your individual performance.

Knowing what the benefits will be in advance and how they will affect others in the practice is a great selling point.

What does the long-term picture look like?

Having a list of the benefits will enable you to have an idea of what the long-term picture looks like for you and the practice.

This is always a good picture to paint for an employer; a member of their team is getting trained in-house to become a surgical superstar and will have the skills, confidence and passion to perform surgical cases they previously weren’t able to. That makes the future look very bright!

Carry out a cost analysis

Keeping the long-term picture in mind, it’s worth doing a cost analysis beforehand, too. 

A lot of practices we’ve been to were previously referring their cases elsewhere because they couldn’t offer the services… think about how much money your practice will generate by no longer having to do that. 

Typically, our clients make up the cost of their training after performing one or two surgeries. After that, it’s extra income for their practice!

Some employer benefits

If you’re struggling to think of the benefits your training or mentoring would have on the wider practice, here are just a few…

• Keeping surgery in general practice, rather than having to refer elsewhere.
• The ability to bring MSM in when the surgical caseload is busy – that practical assistance is very beneficial.
• More satisfied vets doing the job they love, meaning lower staff turnover.
• Improving the scope of services being offered by the practice.
• Our mentoring can be classed as CPD, so vets can meet their professional learning targets.
• Inspiring and reigniting passion for veterinary surgery with all members of the team – not just clinical staff.

Returning to veterinary work after maternity or paternity leave

Returning to work after parental leave or an extended time off can seem daunting, and often parents can feel they’d like a helping hand in the process. 

When organising your return to work, it’s worth letting your employer or practice manager know you’d like some extra support to help you get back on your feet. This will have a real benefit to your practice as you’ll be much happier at work and will be able to ‘get back to it’ much quicker and with more confidence.

Support for newly graduated vets or those needing a boost

We can all have a wobble from time-to-time. As vets, we hold ourselves to extremely high standards and can often be hard on ourselves if a case hasn’t gone as well as we’d hoped.

If you feel like you need some moral support, would like to try a new technique, or just need a confidence boost, our training or mentoring sounds right for you. 

Let your employer know how you’d benefit from training or mentoring from MSM Vets and how it will impact your quality of work and your happiness. 

Get in touch

You’ve read this blog, followed our steps, and now your employer’s on board with veterinary training or mentoring. What do you do now?

You contact us! 

Email us at info@msmvets.co.uk outlining what you’d like support with, and our amazing Operations Manager Jo Wright will get back to you with our availability.

Posted by Rhea Alton