A Veterinarian

Calming scared cats with pheromone sprays, advising families how to balance their pet's well-being with budget realities, and diagnosing mysterious animal maladies with Dr. Hindatu Mohammed, a veterinarian in Austin, TX. What breed of dog, when having its nails clipped, responds as though it's being murdered? And how did an injured ant shape her career choice?

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Transcript

Dan Heath: Dr. Hindatu Mohammed always had a sense that she'd be a doctor. 

Dr. Hindatu Mohammed: I'm from Nigeria. I was born in Nigeria, but I grew up in this country, and so sort of immigrant family. My dad at an early age for me said, "Oh, you know, you should be a doctor." And I said, "Okay, your immigrant parent tells you to do something, you just do it." So, I was like, "All right. I'm gonna be a doctor." 

Dan: But what kind of doctor would she be? A fateful encounter with an insect helped her answer that question. 

Dr. Mohammed: One day, and it was so clear to me still years later, where I was outside kind of playing in the dirt and I, uh, came across an ant. And I had inadvertently, like, dismembered this ant just by, you know, with my stick. And I just felt this overwhelming sense of just sadness and this guilt that I was like, "Oh, my gosh. Like, I hurt this animal, this creature that I didn't intend to, and it's not their fault." And, and I tried to repair this broken ant. Uh, spoiler alert, it did not live, you know? 

Dan: Mm-hmm. 

Dr. Mohammed: And so I just remember feeling that day like, "Gosh, animals really... We as humans are so much more powerful than them, and and they're so vulnerable compared to us." And, and it really... It just got me thinking about like I really think that they deserve to have people that are looking out for them and that are advocating for them. And I think that once that shift kind of took over for me, that was it. I was like, "People don't need more people to take care of them. The animals need more people to take care of them." 

Dan: And so she did become a doctor of veterinary medicine, a vet. She's been practicing for nearly 20 years and owns Allandale Veterinary Clinic in Austin, Texas. Her sympathy for ants, though, did not extend into adulthood. 

Dr. Mohammed: The irony of it is that now I'm an ant killer. Like, I'll kill any ant. I hate insects so badly. I don't care about them at all. But, you know, back then when I was pure and innocent- 

Dan: That one ant got you on the path. That's so funny that you remember that. 

Dr. Mohammed: Oh, I remember it so clearly. It was a really pivotal moment for me in my life, and I've never stopped. You know, again, asterisk, not mosquitoes or roaches or ants or insects, but other living creatures, I've never stopped caring about them and really wanting the best for them. 

Dan: I'm Dan Heath, and this is What It's Like To Be. In every episode we walk in the shoes of someone from a different profession: a high school principal, an ocean lifeguard, a London cabbie. We wanna know what they do all day at work. Today we'll ask Dr. Hindatu Mohammed what it's like to be a veterinarian. We'll talk about how she diagnoses patients who can bark but not talk, what breed of dog sounds like you're murdering them when you cut their nails, and how she uses pheromones to calm down cats. Stay with us. 

Dan: If your mental model of what a veterinarian does is kinda like your own primary care physician but for cats and dogs, you're missing just how many hats a vet has to wear. Doctor Mohammed works 10-hour days four days a week. On Tuesdays and half of Wednesdays she's performing surgeries. 

Dr. Mohammed: We do a lot of mass removals. And so, an animal has a tumor and needs to have it taken off. 

Dan: On any given surgery day, in addition to removing tumors, she's spaying and neutering and removing teeth. 

Dr. Mohammed: If you didn't brush your teeth for four years, your teeth would look pretty terrible. And so that's generally how most of these guys end up in that situation. But for sure, animals, particularly dogs, make a lot of poor choices. And so they will bite things and, you know, break their teeth. So, all of the above can land you in my dental chair, which is actually not a chair. It's a table, but anyway. 

Dan: On Mondays, half of Wednesdays, and Thursdays she has 30-minute exams with patients back to back. These exams are complicated by the fact that her patients, who are cats and dogs, cannot tell her how they feel, and there's always a risk they'll lash out. 

Dr. Mohammed: I've never, thankfully, been bit by a dog, you know, beyond a, a warning bite. That's, you know, whatever. I've never been seriously injured by dogs. But I know, I know peers of mine who have, who have gotten serious injuries. And so it's a really dangerous job, honestly. 

Dan: Being a vet means you deal with the patients. Patients are the animals. But also, the clients. The clients are the cats’ and dogs' owners. And they can be challenging because on one hand, they can speak to you. On the other hand, they sometimes misunderstand things, things as simple as a word. Like, your pet probably gets annual vaccines, but one client didn't pay careful attention to that word annual and... 

Dr. Mohammed: They said, you know, "Why... I didn't get a reminder about my pet's anal vaccines." And I'm like, "I don't know what an anal vaccine is, and I don't want to know. I don't ever wanna know. But I can tell you your annual vaccines are due, and here's what we can do for them." 

Dan: Clients sometimes make strange requests that you must navigate as a vet. It's a delicate art telling a client that... 

Dr. Mohammed: I cannot put your dog's testicles back after I've taken them out if you've had remorse about neutering your pet. That's just not a thing I can do. And I, I had to have that discussion with someone as well. So, you know, there's sometimes education requires lots of patience, but really, truly, it's, it's worth it. There's no better feeling than feeling like you're helping the world in that small, or seemingly small way, but really big way. 

Dan: You opened up this line of discussion, but I have to ask now. A friend of mine told me… I said I was talking to a veterinarian for the show. He had heard there are now artificial testicles. 

Dr. Mohammed: There are. They're called neuticals. 

Dan: Come on. 

Dr. Mohammed: Neuticals. 

Dan: Neuticals. 

Dr. Mohammed: There are in fact, yes. Yes. 

Dan: And why? 

Dr. Mohammed: Uh, if you, you know, really care about your, your dog's manhood and you want to have them neutered, but you don't want them to be punked at the dog park. I don't know why. I don't, I don't still... I've never actually understood why anyone would do this. 

Dan: I cannot believe that that product exists. 

Dr. Mohammed: Oh, believe it, sir. Believe it. 

Dan: “Neuticals, the newest sponsor for What It's Like To Be.”

So on the normal appointment days, Mondays and Thursdays, I'm curious about your diagnostic lens. So I bring in my dog, and Fido's been acting weird, and, and he's not eating, and he just seems a little depressed, and I don't know what's going on. How do you try to get from these vague signals, by way of your clients, to the diagnosis? What's the process? 

Dr. Mohammed: Magic. Uh, no. But also... Uh, no. It actually truly is one of the hardest parts of the job, is the idea that, you know, not only, of course, can the animal not tell you what they're experiencing, but you also have the clients which are not always reliable reporters, right? And it's always both funny and awkward when, you know, you get a couple in there and one person's saying this way and the, and the other one's, "No, no. That's not how it goes." And so, you know, my job is try to sort through all the noise of that. And so one of the first things, uh, and a shout-out to my technicians, who are amazing, but one of the first important things is a solid history. So, you know, when they come in to see me, they're gonna talk to a nurse first, and they're gonna go through their history of like, "Hey, so why are you here today? What's happening?" And next step, of course, is going to be a physical exam, which is, again, the cornerstone diagnostic-wise of any veterinary practice, is listening, looking, feeling. 

Dan: And is it... And what's kind of the same and different from a human annual checkup? Is it blood pressure cuffs and hearing heart and lungs and... I mean, what- 

Dr. Mohammed: Yeah. We definitely use all those things. We do take blood pressure, probably not as regularly as humans. I feel like I always get my blood pressure taken when I'm going to the doctor. But we definitely use stethoscopes daily, so a lot of the same tools, honestly. I'll use an ophthalmoscope to look at eyes. I'll use an otoscope, you know, with the cones to stick that in their ears. And nobody likes that, kids or- or dogs or cats, really. And then we also utilize a lot of actual diagnostics, including things like blood work, urinalysis, X-rays, ultrasound. So it's a really stepwise kind of approach to learning more about what's happening. 

Dan: What percentage of the animals that you see is the diagnosis pretty clear versus you're really having to read the tea leaves? 

Dr. Mohammed: I would say 70% of the things that I'm looking for are common and easy to find with enough looking. Now, the caveat, of course, of enough looking is, it may not be my first, second, or third test, but if I can keep looking, I can usually figure out the answer. There's absolutely, for sure, been and will continue to be animals that I went, "Oh." Or, "I don't know what was wrong with that animal." 

Dan: Yeah, yeah. 

Dr. Mohammed: And sometimes they get better, which is frustrating-slash-good-question-mark. You know, 'cause you're like, "I'm happy you're better," but I really... You know, veterinarians especially, we're like problem solvers and we're really, you know, we're really... Uh, it's always hard for us when we can't figure out what's wrong with your pet. So yeah, I would say 70% of them are gonna be, okay, yeah, we can figure that out, and 30%, no idea. 

Dan: And what do you do with the no idea ones? 

Dr. Mohammed: You turf 'em. You tag team. You phone a friend, you know. No, people don't realize this, but there are a lot of veterinary specialists. So there's the veterinary cardiologist, there's the veterinary neurologist, there's veterinary surgeons, there's ophthalmologists. And so if I can even- 

Dan: Wow. 

Dr. Mohammed: Yeah, right? Isn't that awesome? 

Dan: A veterinary ophthalmologist. 

Dr. Mohammed: I know. I'm here to spread the word. 

Dan: So your cat needs glasses, you just send 'em right there. 

Dr. Mohammed: Yeah. 

Dr. Mohammed: If your cat needs LASIK... No, I'm kidding. They do not do that for cats. 

Dan: I'm curious about the kind of emotional reception you get from patients. If you have 10 dogs and cats coming in, how many are gonna be terrified and shaking, and how many are gonna be wagging their tail, and how many are gonna try to bite you? Like what's... 

Dr. Mohammed: Uh-huh. Well, depends on if there's a full moon or not, and I'm not joking about that. 

Dan: Really? 

Dr. Mohammed: Yeah, 1,000%. 

Dan: And the full moon means what? Worse behavior or better? 

Dr. Mohammed: Chaos. Chaos. 

Dan: Oh. 

Dr. Mohammed: It means mayhem with both the clients and the patients, interestingly enough. Like, it is absolutely... There's been so many times where I've been like, "Okay, what's happening right now? What- what's going on?" And then I'm like, "Oh, it's the full moon. Okay." That, you know... So, you know, I think throughout the day, if I'm seeing 15 appointments, probably close to half of them are going to be afraid of me, which is hard. 

Dan: Mm-hmm. Yeah. 

Dr. Mohammed: You know? 

Dan: Yeah. 

Dr. Mohammed: And the other half are gonna be somewhere in between indifferent or actually excited to see me, which is fun. 

Dan: And the afraid ones, do you have to sedate them, or what's your approach to those? 

Dr. Mohammed: So there is a movement, I think, I don't know if you can call it a movement as much, but called “fear free” based practicing, which is not new anymore. But in any case, that has really kind of, I think, changed the way a lot of us veterinarians approach our care. I remember even as a young person, not when I was practicing, but going to observe different veterinarians, and the philosophy was get it done no matter what. And so there's a lot of really intense restraint that happened, a lot of physical sort of like forcing, you know, this animal to just kind of take this thing. And it's not abuse specifically, but it felt very, in hindsight, very abusive in that it was really traumatizing for a lot of these pets. And so now, I would say a lot of practitioners, even if they're not fear-free certified, really have an approach of like, "We want to try to make these visits as calming as possible, minimize stress wherever possible." So we do a lot of things to help with that, and one of them is absolutely drugs. The first time I meet a patient, if I see that things are going- they're having a hard time, I'll say, "Hey, next time, why don't we try this?" 

Dan: So is this like doggy Xanax or something? 

Dr. Mohammed: Yeah. Well, it's actually drugs that, you know, a lot of times are used in people, too. So gabapentin, trazodone are two big ones. We definitely do use that whole class of drugs, Xanax, um, for- for dogs, for animals, too. That's a trickier one because it's, uh, controlled, and so I tend to stay away from that just 'cause you do have to worry about, unfortunately, you know, sort of diversion. Situations where patients are not getting the medications 'cause their people are taking them. 

Dan: Oh, dear. 

Dr. Mohammed: So I- I tend to... Yes. 

Dan: Okay. 

Dr. Mohammed: Yeah. Womp womp. So... We do a lot of treats, you know. We're very treat-heavy in our practice. We do lots of words of affirmation, you know, positive... you know, things like that to help- 

Dan: The candles, the gentle- 

Dr. Mohammed: Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. 

Dan: Yeah. 

Dr. Mohammed: You know? 

Dan: Xylophone music, yeah. 

Dr. Mohammed: We should add that to the list, for sure. 

Dan: Yeah. 

Dr. Mohammed: Uh, and there's different, you know, there's different pheromones that have been produced that you can spray in a room to try to help calm an animal down, but- 

Dan: Really? Oh, tell me about that. 

Dr. Mohammed: Yeah. So a shout-out to Feliway, who is, I think, a really great company. They have a whole line of products that they kind of developed to help bring about calm in spaces for cats, right? So initially, I think the product was developed for, like, marking. So cats that were, like, peeing in the house and what have you. Um, but you can use them anywhere. And there's a synthetic pheromone that's supposed to just communicate a sense of like, "Hey, let's everyone chill out. Let's just calm down. It's no need to be stressed out here."

Dan: Really? 

Dr. Mohammed: Yeah. 

Dan: And can you smell it?

Dr. Mohammed: ... no, no, it cannot. 

Dan: No? 

Dr. Mohammed: No, it cannot. I mean, it smells like a little alcohol-y, but- 

Dan: Is it like Febreze, you just kinda like squirt it around before the- 

Dr. Mohammed: Yeah. 

Dan: Wow. 

Dr. Mohammed: There's a Febreze-like spray version. There is an actual diffuser that you can plug in. I actually recommend the diffuser a lot for people if they're having issues with their cats at home. It's like, "Hey, just plug this in and just see what happens." So yeah, there's pheromones, there's pre-medications or sedatives, there's, uh, treats. There's sometimes, interestingly enough, sometimes the best thing to do is to have the owner leave the room, which is always so interesting to me. 

Dan: They're just picking up on reflected anxiety or something. 

Dr. Mohammed: Yeah, absolutely. And I think for a lot of dogs too, it's a protective thing, too. It's like, "Well, I'm scared and I don't want them to hurt me, but I also don't want them to hurt my mom, you know, or my dad,” or what have you. So yeah, having the person leave can really actually help. Like, I have a patient that literally, when he comes in with his owner, he is lunging, growling, like attacking. So the owner has to hand him to us and leave the building. And then he's like, "Oh, hey guys, how's it going?" Like literally, it's like someone turned the light off. 

Dan: Wow. 

Dr. Mohammed: Um, yeah. And so we have a whole protocol. We're like, "Okay, the eagle has landed. Okay, we're ready to give you back..." You know, like, it's like a whole situation. We have to be like, "Okay, okay, you go, you go to the parking lot, we'll hand him off to you and we'll run away" because this dog is so protective of his people. It's actually so precious to me. I love him so much 'cause I just, you know, when you can kind of try to understand where they're coming from, you can just give them, again, a lot more grace. 

Dan: Well, and it's so interesting that you, by virtue of what you do, you've just picked up so much animal psychology. Like if a dog was lunging at me, I would just be sheer terror. Uh, and you, you're sort of like, "I get what he's expressing." 

Dr. Mohammed: Yeah. No, it's very cool. And it's interesting. I would say, I can't speak for veterinary education kind of right now. I mean, I've been a vet for 18 years, so I've been out of school for a long time, but when I was going through school, there really wasn't a lot of behavior in the curriculum, which is really unfortunate, and I hope that's changed. And so a lot of this is stuff I've had to pick up just over the years with going to different CE or just, again, learning and making plenty of mistakes too, right? And I think the thing that's really important is just being able to really, uh, appreciate that each dog is different and has different things. That there's not gonna be like, "Okay, every time a dog comes in, I do this and this is gonna work out." Some dogs love restraint and it actually makes them feel safer, you know? Like, the dogs that like the wear the thunder shirts during a thunderstorm. And other dogs, restraint is like panic mode for them. So you have to really tailor your approach depending on who's in front of you. 

Dan: What's the strangest condition you've ever had to treat? Like, have you had to operate because a dog swallowed a iPhone or, you know, just something kind of, uh, strange? 

Dr. Mohammed: You know, I don't know if this is strange, but it always is confusing to me, is I've had dogs who eat rocks and pebbles. So I've seen in my career several situations where a dog will come in uncomfortable, like painful, can't... you know, vomiting or whatever. And then you take an x-ray and you see literally a belly full of rocks. And I'm like- 

Dan: No way. 

Dr. Mohammed: ... No, yes way. I have a friend whose dog had to have surgery because he ate a piece of concrete that had poop on it. So, you know, he said, "I want to eat this poop so bad, I'm willing to take the concrete that comes with it." And he had to have surgery to remove- 

Dan: Ugh! 

Dr. Mohammed: And I'm like, first of all, it's poop. Second of all, it's concrete. Like, what in that scenario was attractive to you? And I have to remind myself that these are dogs. And as I mentioned earlier, dogs make poor choices. 

Dan: Hey, folks. Dan here. No real important news today, but if you're interested in more healthcare professions, definitely check out the brain surgeon just a month or two back. You'll find out how a surgeon knows where to cut and not cut in your brain. It's not as high tech as you might guess. Or episode 13 with a nurse. She worked in a burn unit and had some really powerful stories to tell. You can also find out what “code brown” means in the hospital. Or if you just need more of an animal ph-

Or if you just need more of an animal fix, check out episode 18 with a dog trainer. What is something you definitely do not want to call a dog trainer for fear of offending them? You can find out. And now back to the show. 

Dan: I wanted to talk to you about the money side of all this because I know it's a really fraught issue for a lot of clients. It's like if your son or daughter needs some kind of healthcare, like, you're gonna bankrupt yourself providing it for them. And then you love your dog and you love your cat, but you can't mortgage the house to, to do a surgery for your cat. And so all of a sudden you have to carry the cognitive load of, "Is this worth it?" Which is really not there for your family loved ones. How often does the financial side of things come up? 

Dr. Mohammed: Every single day. If you're talking about pain points in veterinary medicine, that is like at the top of it because I think for a lot of reasons we talked about already. So one, there are a lot more options for treatment and diagnostics these days, right? You can go to see a veterinary cardiologist and have, you know, your pet's condition managed. You can go to a surgeon and have this fixed, right? And so now that these options exist, you know, they of course are costly, right? And so you are having daily people having to make this choice between doing what is best for their pet from a medical standpoint. And I say that specifically because what's best for them medically may not necessarily be best for them overall. 

Dan: Can you give us an example, you know, without needing to name names, but just a recent time when one of your clients was really struggling with, uh, with a decision that, that hinged on finances? 

Dr. Mohammed: Yeah. So a common thing that we can see, eh, with the particularly older animals is they can get splenic tumors. So a tumor in their spleen, and that can be pretty debilitating. It can definitely make them very weak. Can be, of course, life-threatening. There are not many options but to take that spleen out. Now, when you take that spleen out, it can be a benign blood clot of some sort, right? Or so hematoma. So you can have a benign situation where you can take that spleen out and then that animal is good, right? Or you can take that spleen out and that animal still has this cancer that is at this point already spread. So I had a client recently who was really having to go through that discussion and decision with a, you know, 14-year-old dog, which, you know, a 14-year-old dog is pretty much… at the end of their lifespan no matter what we do. Right? And so it's really, really difficult to kind of talk through, "If you don't do the surgery, your animal will die now, but your animal might still die in a month, or two months, or three months." You know?

Dan: Yeah. Yeah. 

Dr. Mohammed: Those people ended up going to do surgery, but I think at great financial cost to them. And then unfortunately, their animal passed away shortly after, and I don't know that they felt great about that decision. But I think it's the sort of thing that… Hindsight is 20/20, right? But that was a really, really, really hard... Uh, they had to think a lot about whether to do that surgery or not. 

Dan: How often do you struggle about what to do or what to recommend? I mean, I, I can certainly empathize with the clients and thinking, "Do we have the money to afford this?" But do you ever find yourself wondering, "Is this treatment too costly or too intrusive to even recommend?" 

Dr. Mohammed: Uh, no. And so I guess, I guess I'd separate, do I think that some treatments are too costly? Absolutely. But not to recommend. I think it's my job to not make those kind of decisions for clients and even assumptions because I actually don't always know, right? And so, you know, I always kind of lead with a, "In an ideal world, if we wanted to be the most aggressive, this is what we would do." But... And I always kind of leave a lot of room and a lot of understanding for the fact that, that, that might not be the best option for, uh, for your family, right? That doing this surgery that's gonna cost $6,000 and that might only give you three more months with your animal may not be the best decision for your family. But it's so important, I think, as veterinarians, or really anyone in, in a field where you're making recommendations medically, that you provide people the information that they need and then guide them to that decision, but not making it for them. 

Dan: And in those situations where it doesn't make sense for them to move forward with the surgery, or procedure, or whatever, what are the usual alternate paths? 

Dr. Mohammed: So the usual alternate paths are going to be some form of palliative therapy. So just some understanding that, okay, this is a terminal condition and our goal now is not cure, but trying to provide comfort for as long as we can, right? And we know that at some point, we're going to have to make the decision to euthanize them. So there's not always a palliative option, but I always try to find that 'cause I think it's important to give people time to really make peace and wrap their head around the decision that needs to be made. Because deciding to euthanize an animal is obviously not something anyone wants to ever do lightly or without lots of thought. 

Dan: How often do you have to euthanize animals? 

Dr. Mohammed: Several times a week. I did one yesterday, and the patient was one that I've had the pleasure of treating for her entire life, which is really special. 

Dan: Oh, wow. 

Dr. Mohammed: Yeah, I mean, she was- 

Dan: Dog or cat? 

Dr. Mohammed: A dog, and she was 12 years old. And this actually was one of these people who I have, uh, let into the inner circle, and I did give my phone number to at one point. And so I checked on them today, and I said, "Hey, I'm just thinking about you guys." You know, and by the way, in the context of this, they're having to euthanize their pet, and then they also have a parent who's in the hospital who just had a major surgery. And so it's like, you just cannot imagine what people are going through sometimes. But, so I checked in on them today, and I said, "Hey, I'm just hoping you guys are okay, hoping your mom's okay." And they wrote back just such a simple thing, and they said, "We just want you to know that all those years when you were caring for her, you were caring for us as well." And I just thought that was the most, like… incredible thing to hear about yourself. 

Dan: Is there a particular patient case, looking back, that you found especially heartbreaking? Maybe you'd grown attached to the patient? 

Dr. Mohammed: Yeah, so, so, so many. I also kind of... Interestingly, I always think about the story of my own pets too because I think a lot of people forget that veterinarians have lots of animals themselves, right? So I think a lot about my experience with my childhood cat, Theo, who had cancer. And I grew up in Pittsburgh, and so my mom had him at her house in Pittsburgh. And I was, at that time, living in New Jersey and working at a specialty hospital doing lots of high-level things. And so my mom tells me that, "You know, my cat's sick." And I said, "Okay, well, you know, take him to the vet." And, and her vet says, "Oh, you know, there's nothing we can do about it." And I'm like, "Oh, well, that's what she knows." At this point, by the way, caveat, I was a young vet, so I was very cocky since, you know... But I was like, "Oh, I'm sure that vet doesn't know what she's talking about." And so, you know, I go home and I see this animal who is wasted away and is just in miserable condition. And, and I say, "Okay, we should let him go." And then I made an appointment at a hospital in town there, and then I just last minute couldn't do it, you know? And I thought, "No, what if, what if, what if, what if?" And so I took this very sickly cat, very old cat, and drove him six hours to New Jersey to bring him to my hospital so that I could have my doctors look at him and, you know, my, my specialist who I really respected and, and loved.

And so this cat, in this six-hour journey, was just vomiting in the car. I mean, he was miserable, right? And so then I get to my hospital, and over the course of that ride, it became really clear to me there's nothing anybody could do, right? But I, I, um, just, you know, showed him to one of the doctors there, one of the oncologists there, and, and I just said, I said, "I just wanted to confirm that this is..." And he said, "Yeah." And I left him. Um, he was on the table at one point, and I went to go get something. And another doctor comes over and is like, "What's wrong? Who's this? Who's this?" Like, basically, like, made a sort of disparaging comment like, "Oh, this cat looks like terrible." You know? And it was such a painful but necessary experience for me to have because it really snapped me out of like, "Oh, this is terrible," like, and, and she felt terrible because, of course, she didn't know it was my cat, that I was sitting right there. But it was true. It was true. You know, I had, like, taken this cat who really just wanted to rest, right? And driven him six hours away to try for what? For my own benefit, right? Because of my own inability to say goodbye to him. And I tell that story all the time because I think it's important for people to illustrate a couple things. One, veterinarians, when I'm giving you this advice, I, I'm giving it to you from my own experience, right? I, I know how hard this is. I know this is excruciating to, to decide to do, but I also have never forgotten that feeling of doing that to that pet, right? That has never left me, that feeling that this was such a selfish thing to do. And so if I can get people to avoid that feeling, I really want to. 

Dan: Let me switch gears, and, um, I want to ask you a little bit about the business side. Am I correct that you own your clinic? 

Dr. Mohammed: Yes, I do. 

Dan: Is that common for veterinarians?

Dr. Mohammed: No, I don't... I would say no, and I would say even less common these days. There's definitely been some attention paid lately to the sort of increase in corporate-owned veterinary clinics nowadays, right? So, yeah, a lot more sort of private equity focus and, um, corporate ownership of veterinary clinics. 

Dan: What have you learned over the course of your career to make you a better business person? Like, do you make more money now than you did 10 years ago? And if so, why? Like, what did you, what did you do differently? 

Dr. Mohammed: Yes, I do, in part because I'm an owner. The thing that, uh, I don't think people realize about veterinarians, um, really much at all is how little they are paid compared to the amount of education and training that goes into being a veterinarian, right? 

Dan: Hmm. 

Dr. Mohammed: I think probably the... over the years being a vet- business owner, the things that have been the most successful, and this is gonna sound so cheesy for me, but like, the things that have been the most successful in terms of my, um, business choices have just been things that are aligned with my values and sort of my core principles. And so, if it feels right to do this because it's the right thing to do, then I'm going to do it. And I have to trust that that will pay off in the end, and it does. Because what it does is, it creates a a reputation in the community of, 'We are trustworthy, honest clinics.' It creates a reputation that I am a fair, compassionate boss, right? And so then I will have employees that stay with me for as long as they want to, and I will have clients that come back to us. You know, so those are the things that I think have made me the most successful. Not necessarily trying to think about how to get people to buy more, uh, X, Y and Z test, or X, Y and Z product. I think that's always felt really gross to me and just unnatural. 

Dan: Do your clients ever treat you skeptically? Like, do they ever impute some financial motive to you when their pet needs some kind of care? 

Dr. Mohammed: All the time. All the time. 

Dan: Oi. 

Dr. Mohammed: Yes, all the time. And, like, when you say clients, you know, not usually... Again, this is the real joy and benefit of being a practitioner in a place where I've been working since 2014, I've been an owner since 2016, right? So I've been there a long time. I know a lot of people. I am also, again, by being a independent owner in a city where I live and where my kids go to school, like, I know so many people here. I don't take that trust lightly at all. Like, I see people at the grocery store, I see people at the school who are clients. And so, I don't get a lot of that from people who know me. For sure, people will come... You know, we get new clients all the time and they will come with a certain, um, bias or suspicion or distrust. But I don't have control over their reaction to what I'm telling them, right? I can only tell them what I think is best because of my training and experience in caring for these pets, right? So, there are people who absolutely have left. I mean, you can just go on Yelp and look at them. There are people who have left our clinic because they think that it's too expensive, or we upsell, or we charge things and that. You know, and I don't want those people to stay because it's just too much pressure and anxiety and just stress to deal with someone who doesn't trust you. Like, I just... I don't want anybody in my life that doesn't trust me. I don't... Not a client, not a friend, not a family member, right? I cannot handle daily coming in and having to prove my worth to you, or having to prove that I care, or having to prove... If I haven't done a good enough job of showing that to you through my actions, then you should find someone who can and does, you know? And so, that's sort of the approach for me and for our clinic. But no, everyday people are like, "Oh, you know, this seems too much money." And, oh, my favorite, slash sarcastically favorite is, uh, when people say, "Oh, that cost me less money to have my, you know, hysterectomy or my knee surgery- 

Dan: Right 

Dr. Mohammed: ... at my, you know, my doctor." And I'm like, "Well, that is because of a thing called insurance," right? You know, so- 

Dan: Right 

Dr. Mohammed: ... it's very much educating people on the differences between human medicine and- and the care and- and the payment of it. 

Dan: So, Dr. Mohammed, we always end our show with a quick lightning round of questions. Here we go. What is a word or phrase that only someone from your profession would be likely to know, and what does it mean? 

Dr. Mohammed: Okay. Uh, ADR. So, ADR literally stands for “ain't doing right”. And it's something that you can write in your medical records to just say... So, an animal comes in, you say, you know, "BAR, they're bright alert responsive," but you can just say, "ADR, somethin' ain't right about this animal." And that's an actual- 

Dan: And another vet would use the same terminology? 

Dr. Mohammed: Absolutely. ADR. Everyone knows what ADR means. Yeah, that's right. 

Dan: What's a tool specific to your profession that you really like using? 

Dr. Mohammed: You know, I... It's not specific to my profession because obviously a lot of other people use it, but microscopes are integral to veterinary medicine. 

Dan: Really? 

Dr. Mohammed: Yeah. Yeah. I'll use a microscope several times a day. Yesterday, so many times a day, because I'll take samples and be able to look at them in real time, you know, right away. 

Dan: Samples of? 

Dr. Mohammed: Ear gunk, you know, urine, poop. Anything that I’m trying to learn.

Dan: Really? 

Dr. Mohammed: Yeah. 

Dan: So, like, you can look at a drop of urine on a slide and, like, know what you're looking for? 

Dr. Mohammed: Yeah, I'll look. I'll see bacteria, I'll see crystals. So I can see, "Oh, there's bacteria in here, you have an infection." Or I'll see crystals, I'll be like, "Oh, you might have some stones." And so... Or even just looking at the concentration level, which is not necessarily with a microscope. But yeah, i- it's a really, really useful tool. It’s an inexpensive test to run. It's really, really helpful. 

Dan: That seems like a difference between human medicine. Like, I don't imagine many primary care physicians are using microscopes. 

Dr. Mohammed: No, they are not. They are not. They are not. I would say, you know, they're sending that out, they're outsourcing it. And, you know, it's because they're seeing 20 times the animals or the patients that I'm seeing in a day. But no, I love my microscope so much. I use it all the time. 

Dan: By the way, isn't it kind of funny that your average visit times are- are longer than most people's?

Dr. Mohammed: Isn't it funny? I have had many people tell me over the course of my career, they're like, "I wish that I could come to you for care." And this is no shade to doctors at all. I think that, you know, human doctors, human physicians, you know, think they have a lot of pressures, you know, based on how medicine in this country is performed and insurance and things like that. 

Dan: Has anyone ever asked you to be their doctor? 

Dr. Mohammed: Oh, my God. People have shown me lesions on their body. Please stop doing that, people. Don't do that to your veterinarian. Do not show them gross things on your body. We're vets 'cause we don't want to treat people.

Dan: What phrase or sentence strikes fear in the heart of a veterinarian? 

Dr. Mohammed: Oh, goodness. When a client calls you after surgery and says their animal isn't doing well, you know? You're always worrying. I mean, I think post-surgical complications are a fact of life, and they happen, But, you know, I can't even think of how many nights I've woken up at 3:00 in the morning and been like, "I wonder if that animal's doing okay." But having them call and say, “No, they're not doing okay,” is just gut-wrenching. 

Dan: I'm kinda curious about the opposite situation. Like, h- have you ever had a situation where you thought it was a real Hail Mary to even attempt treatment and it turned out to work? 

Dr. Mohammed: Yes, I did. I did. Um, I remember years ago, there was a cat that was an outdoor cat, and so had been attacked by something. Like, something real bad, right? So we don't know what it was, but came in with these, like, just terrible wounds and, like, hernias and, like, things. Like, intestines were not where... You know, like, everything was-

Dan: Oi…

Dr. Mohammed: ... really messed up down there. So we basically kind of... I went in to do a reparative surgery, but, you know, the anatomy is completely... Nothing looks like it's supposed to. So I really didn't know what I was doing. And so, I just kinda tried to start closing up holes, you know? And trying to patch things together. It felt very much like a, "Well..." "We'll see how this goes," right? 

Dan: I can't make it worse, so I might as well try something. 

Dr. Mohammed: I literally cannot, literally cannot. And, uh, and that cat did great. The cat did great. And then, you know, I felt so proud of myself because I saved that cat's life. And I had to, um, kind of... You know, in situations like that, you really have to remind yourself that you have the training that it takes to be able to be successful, right? I don't know what I'm doing right now. However, I know how to approach the situation in a way that is methodical and is based in science and is based in my knowledge. And so, you know, just kinda giving yourself that boost of like, "You got this." 

Dan: We talked to a brain surgeon recently, and he said that he thought that brain surgeons' superpower was just their ability to stay calm in a situation where every stroke of the hand could be the difference between life and death. 

Dr. Mohammed: Yes. I can only imagine. Yeah, no, it is... Really is a lot... It's a lot of times sort of having... You know, there's the story of like, be like a duck underwater. Like, on the surface, your duck seems really calm, but underwater, the feet are paddling furiously, right? Because, uh, you have to stay afloat. But it doesn't serve anyone if you're freaking out or panicking, right? So a lot of my day is spent just being like, "Deep breath. Okay. Oh, I'm sorry, you've been vomiting for how many days? 17? Okay. All right." You know? It's like a work... “And yeah, and b- blood. All blood all the time? Oh, cool. Okay. Yes, tell me more about that.” 

Dan: That reminds me of, uh... Gosh, it's been 20 years since I thought about this. But I heard a veterinarian one time tell a story where he was saying that when he was doing some kind of treatment or maybe procedure with the client in the room, and, you know, he had learned early on that you don't ever want to make a negative noise like, "Mm," or, "Whoops," or, "Ooh." You know? He, he said every time he had the urge to say, like, "Mm," or, "Whoops,", he substituted the word, "There." 

Dan: That was like his... 

Dr. Mohammed: I love that. 

Dan: “There.”

Dr. Mohammed: I love that. 

Dan: What's a sound specific to your profession that you're likely to hear? 

Dr. Mohammed: Um, the sound a pug makes when they're getting their nails trimmed. 

Dan: And what is that sound? 

Dr. Mohammed: Uh, it sounds pretty similar to what sound one might make if being murdered in an alley somewhere. So it's like a, "Ah!" It's literally a... just a shrill scream that shouldn't come out of any animal ever. And yeah, they all make it. If you have a pug, you know what I'm talking about. Yeah, I encourage you not to do your pug's nails at home, because your neighbors will think you are murdering someone. So just bring him to the vet. We'll take care of it. We got earplugs. 

Dan: Dr. Hindatu Mohammed is a veterinarian. She's the owner of Allandale Veterinary Clinic in Austin, Texas. 

I just want to pull one thread from the interview. We're all in the midst of what you might think of as the “experience” revolution. Like, if your hospital delivers great medical outcomes, for instance, but treats its patients with contempt, it's not good enough anymore. It's not enough to be fixed. The experience matters. And this same transformation has happened with customer experience and employee experience and other domains. And clearly, it's come to veterinary medicine, too. As we heard, Dr. Mohammed's team works really hard to make the animals comfortable during their visit. So no more strapping down an anxious pet and forcing them to comply. Instead, it's pheromone sprays and treats. And the staff has acquired enough emotional animal intelligence to know sometimes you just gotta kick their owner out of the building. Managing the animal's experience has become a key part of being a good vet. 

Attending to the temperament of each individual animal, working diligently to diagnose patients who can't speak for themselves, coaching clients on hard financial decisions, and pulling rocks out of the stomach of that dog who just can't help himself. Folks, that's what it's like to be a veterinarian. 

This episode was produced by Matt Purdy. Thanks to Jamyla Krempel for scouting help. I'm Dan Heath. See you next time.