TechLife Has It Covered
March 30, 2022
TechLife has connected our technicians across the country since its start in 2020. Techs have been able to take advantage of enhanced benefits such as the tuition support program, a variety of educational events to advance skills, and sharing daily work life hacks with their peers. The tech community has exemplified the benefits of being part of a network. The group has shown that when given the opportunity to relate and share with each other, we are able to grow exponentially.
Tuition Support
When the TechLife group announced a new tuition support benefit to our employees, nearly 60 team members took advantage of the program and began the path to becoming credentialed technicians. The program grants eligible employees additional funds to be spent towards the tuition of an AVMA-accredited program that will lead to technician licensure.
Veterinary Assistant, Victoria Comandi, joined Goosepond Animal Hospital 4 years ago. She came with several years of experience as an assistant and was considering becoming a technician. When the COVID pandemic shut schools down and remote learning became popular, she decided to enroll in an online tech program. She was limited in the number of classes she could sign up for due to the cost. With the Tuition Support Program, she was able to sign up for more classes without having to work more hours to afford it. Victoria says “The Tuition Support Program has been very helpful. With it, I will be able to take more classes each semester and finish the program quicker.”
Educational Events
Each month, TechLife hosts virtual events with topics sourced from techs themselves. Pulling from the vast knowledge of our network, the most recent event was the Exotics Handling & Venipuncture webinar, led by Susan O’Toole Corbett, Technician at Animal House of Chicago, and Dr. Chad Harris, Vice President of Vet Leadership. The audience was able to interact with Susan and Dr. Harris and learn from their experiences about the most effective way to handle various common exotics such as rabbits, ferrets, and bearded dragons. There were a lot of “did you know” moments in this event, including “Did you know a defense mechanism for rabbits is to go into cardiac arrest, so proper, sensitive handling is super important.” The participants left this event not only with new knowledge but also a refreshed feeling of support and comfort knowing where to go if they have any questions on exotics in the future.
Sharing Work Hacks
Though tuition support and educational events are major parts of TechLife, the day-to-day tips that techs share over on the Facebook group deserve an honorable mention. Seeing and hearing how others make small adjustments to be more efficient is both motivating and impactful. A recent post about a simple soda can organizer for shampoo and ear cleaners inside the practice cabinets garnered over 50 comments and, no doubt gave techs an easy way to avoid a storage mess.
Our techs, bound by their shared compassion for their patients, have always leaned on each other. TechLife has taken it one step further by taking input from the network and turning the group into an amazing and evolving support system. If you have any questions about TechLife at VetCor reach out to techlife@vetcor.com. We can’t wait to see what comes next!
