Stephen Cital, RVT

In This Episode
Despite the positive results it facilitates for people with chronic pain or specific ailments, cannabis has always been somewhat swept under the rug. Its status as a controlled substance meant that no matter how widespread or easy to obtain it was, it was resigned to being little more than a hushed whisper in a conversation.
This week on the Veterinary Innovation Podcast, Shawn and Ivan speak with Stephen Cital of ElleVet Sciences to demystify cannabis and some of the interesting applications it has in veterinary medicine.
Topics Covered
- Veterinary applications of cannabis
Transcript
Shawn Wilkie: You’re listening to the podcast. We’ve got a great guest really excited to talk about marijuana. Ivan get us in here. Let’s get it started
Meet our guest – Stephen Cital
Ivan Zak: Sweet. So anxiety and I’m happy to introduce you guys to Stephen said he doesn’t need an introduction. Everybody knows who he is. He is the co-founder although he claims. He’s not off and season. There is a group that has 42 and a half thousand followers and members of the moment, which is pretty crazy. This is how I found about Steven and then recently he became a director of education and development at El Vettes Sciences, which is bringing cannabis into veterinary world, and he’s an executive director of Academy of Laboratory animal veterinary technicians and nurses. He’s also co-founder of veterinary cannabis Academy pretty cool on a personal side of things. He originally wanted to become a human nurse. And last time I checked you said it was gross and you decided not to do that
Stephen Cital: Ya people are dumb.
Ivan Zak: Yeah, and then started working in very few of when he was in high school and he performed relief working Oakland Zoo and San Francisco’s changes dancing hiking reading and teaching from what I know of any occasion or drinking. So what it was like to work in the zoo.
Stephen Cital: The zoo was really really fun II did that is kind of a meditation, you know that the regular Clinic can be quite stressful you’re dealing with the owners you’re dealing with really really sick animals and the zoo. I got to use all my skills as a technician and as a practitioner to play with these awesome crazy exotic animals that usually were less sick and we didn’t have to deal with the crazy pet owners and the normal drama that we would experience in the clinic. So that was just for pure fun. I loved it. I was even taking poor pay. You know, what am I big my big things that I try to educate Veterinary technicians on now and that in your Professionals in general is to not accept these low wages anymore. But that was my own fault there with taking low pay the zoo just because it was therapeutic for me to restart my brain and get me out of sticky situations that I may get in and veterinary clinics.
Ivan Zak: I just want to jump in I mean this is such a cool topic that cannabis and and a little bit of a story if you could give us how do you kind of transition from the anesthesia and the whole world in there? And then how do you now into cannabis and how do you become passionate about bringing that into veterinary medicine and bringing the awareness and education into our profession?
Veterinary applications of cannabis
Stephen Cital: Yeah. Absolutely. So the Cannabis stuff all started with the anesthesia and Pain Management side of things. So that’s kind of what I think I’m best known for is is anesthesia pain management stuff and education and then I started having pet owners ask about cannabis products for their animals that were really really painful. Maybe they are in a palliative care situations that are dying of cancer. They’re dying of some other disease and they just want to keep their pet comfortable. And so, you know with those palliative care situations, I was like, well they’re going to die anyway, so if you want to try it try it be really careful with THC, that’s the molecule that gets people and animals high, but why not if it seems to be effective in people, we had Illuminati research at that time suggesting that was going to be Be affected. So why not and then seeing the success with these pet parents that have these really sick or dying animals not euthanizing maybe on the date or the time period that they had set to euthanize our animal for quality of life issues. I’d ask them. Hey, what’s going on? Why haven’t you euthanize the animal? Not that I’m pressuring you but they would often come back and say my animals doing great on these cannabinoids products. Mostly CBD products. Sometimes lower levels of THC in them and their quality of life has improved significantly. So we don’t feel the need to euthanize at this point. And so I was like, well hmm, you know, not that I’m a veterinarian and can prescribe your dispenser anything a lot of these products are marketed as a supplement. So I was like, well I can talk to you safely about that and started researching and discussing it with clients that had pets that were really really painful or anxious or weren’t necessarily going to be euthanized again saw this really great success. And so it just really triggered me to dive deep into what’s called cannabinoid medicine figuring out the pharmacology the safe dosing kind of the harm reduction approach when discussing Canada’s type products with pet owners and just like anything I get myself into I just became really passionate about it. I thought it was a really cool subject. It’s not something that’s taught in vet school in tech school. It’s barely taught in human Medical Professional schools. So just fell into it and became a can inured I did I think Tasha would get mad at me if I had endured to something else other than they had a seizure but she holds the brand because she does
Shawn Wilkie: Can you talk about some of the most insightful or kind of amazing cases where cannabinoid oils have been used?
Stephen Cital: Yeah, so some of the coolest cases I’ve seen and I have to be careful because I am at a director level with a hemp CBD company. So I have to be careful with what I say because this is a unregulated industry so far when it comes to CBD products and cannabinoid products in general in particular from him products, not necessarily marijuana products, which is still a schedule 1 drug at the FDA level and DEA level. So some of the really interesting cases that I’ve seen so far are really those cases with the old animals that have had cognitive changes, right? So as an animal gets older just like our grandparents they get a little fuzzy. Maybe they’re a little bit slower. They’re slow to recall may be slow to do some of the tricks that they were once so good at and then physically slow as well getting up the stairs not time to run around or be active and engage with you as much anymore. I have just seen Amazing Stories when starting to use the CBD products and waking them back up again. You see the brightness and their eyes come back you see them acting like a puppy. I actually had a colleague of mine named Annette and she had this little Chihuahua dog that totally senile old dog would walk in circles and Pace all the time. And I said, hey, you know, why don’t you try this product? So I gave her some of the elbit stuff because I had a bunch of samples of it and I gave it to her and the next day she came back to work and gave me the bag of treats back and I said what happened and she was like my dog was acting like a puppy and wanted to play in the middle of the night. So I had to lock her in the laundry room because she was annoying me so I don’t want to give her this stuff. I’m like but a net that’s a good thing. You want her to be normal like it’s normal life to use the CBD products and waking them back up again. You see the brightness in their eyes come back you see them acting like a puppy.Let’s get it’s a great a little sick. Yeah, it’s a great story because it I mean it really just shows the power of the stuff and being able to kind of bring these animals back that example.
Shawn Wilkie: Was that CBD or was that THC or a blend or what was that?
Stephen Cital: That was a what’s called a broad-spectrum product. So it does have CBD and all the other molecules that the plant has to offer but has a very low amount or Trace Amounts of THC in it. Okay, certainly if it was like a THC dominant product for the first couple of doses may be first couple of weeks. We would definitely see some lethargy some more classic THC symptoms that we would see in dogs and cats and people so that was definitely a CBD dominant product.
Shawn Wilkie: And then the next question is two dogs get the munchies. Yes. That is a great question and we certainly have a lot of anecdotal evidence and suggestion and we are doing studies now on utilizing these types of molecules to increase appetite not just the munchie state which is usually short-lived but generally increasing appetite for animals in particular if the animal has some other sort of ailment going on so things that people don’t necessarily remember all the time and certainly is Veterinary professionals were guilty of this is just because an animal is not eating doesn’t mean they’re just not hungry or they don’t have an appetite. Maybe they’re not eating because they’re painful maybe they are not eating because they are confused. They forgot where the food bowl was. They have this sundowner syndrome that we see in older people and animals and they forgot where that food bowl was. So maybe it’s not that they don’t want to eat. It’s just they’re incapacitated at a cognitive level or they just is feel like shit and and these cannabinoids can make them feel better and make them want to eat. So it’s not necessarily just an appetite thing, which we do know that these molecules have therapeutic effects on those centers, but just a holistic approach to the animal.
Ivan Zak: So do you see the application of this in something like in an emergency room department or in the recovery phase with the appetite is suppressed. Like is that something that people are trying already or
Stephen Cital: Yeah, so the best success is far as using cannabinoid type products in conjunction with typical therapies, or in more acute settings is certainly for like our cancer patients. So, you know, everyone wants to use cannabis type products to cure cancer. So we have to be careful there as far as my affiliations with a supplement company, but also just the science that we have so far and we are doing research and Elevate Sciences has sponsored in Each are studying now in Vivo study looking at three different cancer cell lines lymphoma mammary carcinoma and osteosarcoma, and we are finding cell death, which is really cool and exciting. But also using these molecules in combination with traditional therapies, like chemotherapy. Can we minimize some of the inhabitants some of the just crumminess that these animals may feel after large dose or acute dosing of chemotherapy agents. We also have another study going on right now for the acute pain patient. So the model is T PL, o– so post tibial Plateau leveling osteotomy surgery in lieu of using things like traditional non-steroidal anti-inflammatories and maybe even cutting back or even completely cutting out opioids, which is obviously a crisis of ours down in the United States, which I think is really interesting and then the other really interesting thing that I think it’s going to take awhile for veterinary medicine to accept and catch up on is using CBD whether it’s an isolated or a very CBD dominant product to actually antagonize and reverse THC toxicity. So THC toxicity is something that we’ve seen a 500 plus percent increase since legalization in the United States or several states that have legalized marijuana because animals are getting into their parents Edibles or whatnot CBD has antagonistic effects for THC. So when we give a high dose of CBD to an animal that has just ingested a bunch of THC we can actually reverse some of those super stoned effects that we see in dogs and cats.
Shawn Wilkie: Well, that’s amazing. I didn’t know that that’s really interesting. So the CBD versus see sativa, I think there’s another word that I’m missing. Yeah, can you give like our listeners like the basic kind of run down because I think a lot of people are probably listening and maybe smoked marijuana once in university but but don’t really understand all of the the new lingo
Ivan Zak: That is kind of all of a sudden like that you a very specific and universities. It’s a Canadian thing that can University you said so
Stephen Cital: So I will admit I am an avid marijuana cannabis hemp user like every single day. I usually use a THC product to sleep to Aid in my sleep and it’s funny I travel so often and there’s been a couple of times where I didn’t bring anything with me and I have a lecture the next morning and I am just tossing and turning and I’m so uncomfortable because I’m just not getting that sleep quality of normally would get when I have that tHC on board but some of the things that we’re going to have to really start defining as clinical people and talking about these types of products and a clinical setting is getting away from the typical cannabis culture of calling different strains or different types of plants with different profiles things like strains or calling it. Oh, it’s a sativa or oh, it’s an Indica the sativas are uplifting where the indicas are more calming and better for sleep. So to me is a science-based person a molecule is a molecule and when we start formulating these products for Animals, I don’t really care if it comes from a sativa plant or a plan that would be considered a sativa plan or an Indica plan. I care about the total makeup of these cannabinoids in these products and their therapeutic effects on the patient that they’re going to be given to so the other thing that that we get confused with as far as terminology as we call everything strains, you know, what strain is this is it’s a better stream for I know cancer. Is this a better strain to make you go be more social or something like that? So strain is a more appropriate word for something like a bacterial line not necessarily a plant. So when we’re talking about different plants, we should be using the terms icky mobile or or a cult of or instead of the word straight. So that’s it’s technically incorrect. But it’s a hard at cultural thing to overcome at this point.
Ivan Zak: It would be a cool word to use for the party.
Stephen Cital: Yeah. Oh what cultivar is that?
Shawn Wilkie: You said that before or after you smoke it?
Ivan Zak: Yeah, definitely after death to pay depends on what I use I may or may not be able to pronounce it at that point.
Shawn Wilkie: But a close friend of mine. He’s in his 80s. He has chronic pain and me and Ivan went to the cannabis store in Halifax, which was a tasting experience for Ivan. I think especially when we showed up in the Ukraine with the pictures of what looked like an Apple store in Nova Scotia, but actually was a cannabis store so I bought him this CBD oil because he’s got this chronic pain and he’s literally petrified to take it. I think he’s going to his doctor this week with the CBD oil and he’s going to ask his doctor about it again. I think for the second time and you know, this man suffers like chronic headaches chronic back aches. He’s in his 80s, and I don’t know if it will help him. You know, I just picked it up because he asked me to.
Stephen Cital: Have been on maybe non-steroidal anti-inflammatories or they’ve been on oral narcotics. So things like codeine and an oxy and all these other things that have gotten us into this crisis when they add things like CBD to their their pain management protocols. We can see a decrease in the overall Pharmaceuticals. That’s her taking by 30 to 70 percent and in some of those populations. We have a hundred percent of people that have just gotten off of those traditional Pharmaceuticals and relied on these cannabis based products instead, which I think is really cool.
Shawn Wilkie: And then what about the interplay between those drugs that they’re on versus ceiling that’s one his you know, biggest parents. Yeah.
Stephen Cital: Yeah and so on the animal side again the company I work for a we sponsored a study out of Cornell University and they were looking at Osteo arthritis in dogs and really old old GAO Murdoch’s were on their last leg. No pun intended and some of them were on non-steroidal anti-inflammatories and we wanted them to maintain their Regiment of non-steroidal anti-inflammatories while taking our product for the study and what they found was a greater than 80% efficacy and decreasing pain scores for the animals that were of the test article groups and not in the placebo group, which I think is really cool. And what we also found is these products even though they are also anti-inflammatory or we know that part of their mechanism of action is anti-inflammatory don’t have negative consequences when mixed with non-steroidal anti-inflammatories, which is a rough concept for us as practitioners to kind of think about because we’ve always been taught, you know, never give steroids with an anti-inflammatory, right a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory. But here we are giving to anti-inflammatories at the same Time we don’t see renal effects and we don’t CGI effects like we would normally see if we were to combine two other medications.
Ivan Zak: How about how about the side effects? So is it dose-dependent as well? Because you know, I presently are bad. I’m you know, I’m familiar with it dogs have incontinence coming in and the teenager owner pretending that he doesn’t know what’s going on. Is this dose dependent? And how do you cope with those when you apply cannabinoids to a patient with a chronic pain or cancer patients? How do you manage that?
Stephen Cital: Yeah, so I wanted to touch on one more thing as far as drug interactions when we start a patient on a CBD product and they are maybe on something like Gabapentin or if you’re one of those old-school that still prescribing Tramadol for pain for Campbells. We do see a little bit of extra sedation maybe for the first week or two until their body figures out. Hey, I can metabolize these things build up a little bit of tolerance to it. So that is a very common side effect that we see and then side effects with these products alone are definitely dose-dependent and their patient dependence. So there’s this Theory called the endocannabinoid system tone. And so the endocannabinoid system is a series of receptors throughout our body. There are periphery there in our CNS and depending on how many, you know cannabinoid receptors you have and how many of them are may be empty and not holding what’s called an endogenous cannabinoids. So a molecule that your body produces we can see varying effect from Patient to Patient, especially if they have a pretty severe inflammatory disease already maybe their body is fatigued and not producing these endocannabinoids as much so we see better effect when we start to supplement them with these plant based molecules, so it is going to be variable And that’s why I always tell everyone to start low and go slow. If we’re not seeing the effects at the dose that we immediately tell you to start at and we know we can safely increase them and we increase until we see the desired effect.
Ivan Zak: Okay. So this is a little onion unfamiliar area for me. So there are receptors that are specific to cannabis in the body. So let’s say lately talk about hydro and opioids. There’s yum yum, Kappa Gamma of those things and then there’s naturally produced cannabinoids. And then that’s why we’re targeting those with these new drugs exactly which is fascinating not something we learned in school. We did more the the Sean’s version and University. So this sort of self-taught but this is very interesting.
Stephen Cital: Yeah, so it’s cool because the endocannabinoid system is actually one of the largest receptor systems that we have mammalian physiology and it’s just so weird that we never learned about it in school. And what’s also cool is we now know some of the medications that we use every single day in practice also work on the endocannabinoid system, propofol and ketamine specifically work on the endocannabinoid system and I always tell people I have no proof of this and no one quote me or put this in lecture notes or whatever, but we know that propofol when given in short boluses to patients can induce or short period of time the munchies, I suspect I’m postulating that hey baby, it’s the part of that the endocannabinoid system that creates munchies when we consume THC that’s creating this this short-lived munchie syndrome that we see when giving propofol which I think is really cool. The classic system is comprised of two different types of receptors. There’s called a CB1 receptor and a CB2 receptor. And then there’s also another receptor. Our that’s called an orphan receptor. It’s a another G protein-coupled receptor number 55 that is also really receptive to these molecules from the plant that’s fascinating.
Ivan Zak: So with the abuse, you know, historically of other drugs that historically were pain control like opioids and then it be used for recreational and addiction. Do you see any evidence? And is there any evidence that the doses of inhuman I guess because people do abuse cannabis or use I should say abuse some of you some do abuse with regular use if you do end up with a chronic pain when you have to use it. Do you have overwhelmed sort of system and the I don’t know if your liver with the p450s adapting to join your doses are stunning higher you see a resistance. Yeah. I don’t know if there’s dogs that have used it and there’s probably occasional exposure. But but in general is there is there evidence that that It would be sort of competitive or is there a depletion like with the sir tonin when you need to use it?
Stephen Cital: Yeah. So those are really great questions and there’s probably like ten different tangents that I could talk about with the stuff you brought up. So as far as a tolerance build up what we know from the literature so far is you can have a tolerance to the euphoric or the psychotropic effects that THC specifically produces in the rodent model. We do not see a tolerance to the pain relieving their anti-inflammatory effects of things like the other minor cannabinoids. So things like CBD CBD a CVC as far as serotonin is concerned that is a new lecture topic. I’m actually going to be talking about soon because we know that these cannabinoids also have Affinity or allosteric modulation so they sit on the side of the receptor and still activate it with dopamine and serotonin receptors specifically. So if we have a patient, that’s maybe on ssris or snris maybe we do need to be a little bit more careful. So if they’re on these Max doses of trazodone, maybe if they’re on Trazodone and tramadol together already where we’re cautious and nervous about creating serotonin syndrome specifically adding a cannabinoid product may or may not be a good thing for that patient and we’re really going to have to play with the dosing and maybe consider getting them off of one of those pharmaceutical drugs because we just don’t know how that’s going to react in Veterinary patients at this point so far. It looks pretty safe. But with that we’re still in the infancy of this this research
Shawn Wilkie: Cannabis has been so demonized, you know, especially if you look in the u.s. Depending state-by-state, you know, which one you’re in. It’s been so demonized and so has that had any negative like impact on you as a professional like when people kind of associate you with cannabis.
Stephen Cital: Yeah, so I guess one of my claim to fame ziz being a little bit edgy in general. So, you know, I just was interviewed for an article that came out that the scourge of discrimination. It was an article written about diversity issues and Veterinary Medicine by Sarah Rumple, which is a whole other topic but I’ve always been a little bit edgy. And so I think people that know me know to expect that and certainly as far as what it’s done for me professionally. It’s only elevated me professionally without sounding too haughty and trying to sound fool of myself. But you know, I’m speaking at 22:30 conferences a year specifically on this topic, you know, People are so hungry for it. So it certainly hasn’t taken away any business but it is it is something that we really need to re-evaluate, you know, the government for such a long period of time has scheduled cannabinoids in general as a schedule 1 which means they have no therapeutic effects, which means you have to have special permitting to actually do research on them yet the federal government in the United States has multiple patents on these cannabinoids and different profiles for medical uses. So it’s a bit hypocritical and it’s you know, definitely a little bit of a conspiracy theory thing that I have going on, but it’s only open doors so far and I think that we as a medical community also need to be receptive to this. I was just looking at a diagram of different Pharmaceutical companies that have patents for cannabinoid type products and all the big players that were used to seeing being produced traditional Pharmaceuticals that we have on our shelves and Clinic they all have patents. They are all developing these types of products. So whether you like it or not, it’s going to be coming into this industry as sooner or later at at eight more pharmaceutical level instead of a supplement level. So we have to prepare ourselves whether we want to or not.
Shawn Wilkie: Yeah changes afoot I mean you look at what happened in Canada, you know, I think it was October of last year when marijuana was legalized and and started to be sold by government entities. And you know, I think the public opinion was that it was going to be pandemonium and craziness and stone people in the streets and you know death and destruction and you know, there was a lineup at the cannabis store for I think the first couple of days and then seemingly it’s just kind of disappeared and it’s you know, kind of settled into the Canadian culture as something that’s just there. It’s kind of bizarre and interesting and I think it has actually created a lot of tourism In Canada, I think there’s a lot of people coming from you know, America the states that are that are just like they did before turning 21 anyway, so right exactly four other thing.
Ivan Zak: Yeah, and I have a Russian friend. She’s you know, we have kids a similar age and she is from her in Russia. It’s all illegal year like you go to jail and murdered there if you have a joint on you and surely Karen though, and then she was she was like, oh my God, they are legalizing this stuff now everybody’s going to drive hi and I said, well the law is not about you being able to drive. Hi, you shouldn’t do that. Just like you don’t want you drinking. It’s not about that. It was so funny that she had this perception. I’m like those people that were driving high. They will continue doing that. So don’t worry about it.
Stephen Cital: And you know that that the interesting thing when it comes to people using it and in these states, you know, I can only speak from United States living here, but the statistics that were finding as far as people harming themselves or harming other people when they’re under the influence of cannabinoids compared to alcohol is no man, so minuscule.
Ivan Zak: Yeah people blow their minds try to make any eye with a high guy in the drunk guy.
Stephen Cital: It’s not even funny and I mean, you know, the I guess the benefit of using cannabis culture nomenclature of using something like an indica is you get so stoned. Anyway, you just want to veg out on the couch and eat a role of cookies and not go drive somewhere. Like that’s the last thing I want to do when I get stoned is have to go through so I can only think about drunk Canadian and then now high and Canadian you’ll be apologies before he getting the exact. Oh so sorry.
Shawn Wilkie: Yeah, I’d be good at that. It’s interesting because you know, you think of that specific example, and if I was to prescribe treatments for at least three of my friends Is it like to drink alcohol? It would be to stop drinking alcohol and to start smoking marijuana because you just don’t see that you don’t see somebody that’s you know, crazy drunk causing a ruckus, you know, the people outside the bars that are fighting and University are drunk not stoned.
Ivan Zak: Yeah. I want to shift gears just a little bit because you’re well known for the anesthesia nerds and everything you’ve done in that community. And where’s the future of that? And how do you intersect this with cannabis? Was there any kind of blowback because everybody loved you in that sort of genre if you will in medicine and now you’re here, I mean, this is amazing as well. It’s so you but do people say that you’re going to drop from that because I’m sure that you’re really busy here is I’m going to be sort of a connection in between where’s the future for that?
Stephen Cital: Yeah again without you know, making any claims towards anything being affiliated with the company now, I think the They go hand in hand. So half of the anesthesia nerds is anesthesia Focus. So making things go to sleep so we can do surgery or whatever procedure on them. The other half is pain management and I think this fits in perfectly, you know part of our goal with the anesthesia nerds is education that that’s our main goal actually and this is a whole industry that people need all new education on you know, it’s I sometimes feel like I’m banging my head against the wall repeating myself teaching people about opioids and safe use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatories and other modalities. This is something that people just have zero concept of we have to start from scratch. So I think they go hand in hand and I definitely try not to mix the two different groups because we do have two very active Facebook groups granted the the veterinary cannabis Academy is only at like 7,000 members, but it’s starting from scratch, but it is definitely a piece of what the anesthesia nerds is trying to do as far as keeping animals comfortable and education and another turn we talk a lot about it on the show and week because it because it’s such an active topic about the burnout in the industry and things like that. And I find you know, I’m a huge fan of technicians and I rely on them completely when I work as a vent and then I also find that it’s such a sort of a dead-end career because people just get stuck in it and there’s not many people that find so many Avenues and that’s exactly what I did with vet medicine because it’s exactly the same you become a vet and then day-to-day routine and you just kind of get stuck. That’s why I think that you know, that suicide rate is up and and all of those things. So can you share a little bit of your experience and just sort of a you know, the direction to the technicians that feel like they’re stuck in, you know, holding animals and and assisting stupid doctors and and you know, can I say that? Yeah, I can’t it’s and it’s yeah, I’d say whatever you want and and how to find a path to do something really cool, like you’re doing and different areas and just you know, how to break through and do cool things.
Stephen Cital: Yeah. So one thing I am steering some of my lectures towards is technicians breaking this glass ceiling that we have put upon ourselves and then have had organized veterinary medicine kind of install for us as well. And I just want to shatter it it’s bullshit. You know here I am thank you detective technician in a doctor’s position at a company. This classically would be a veterinarian’s position. It just so happens that thankfully of a lot of veterinarians don’t know about this stuff and I happen to know a lot about it. So I was a good fit for the position then and to get away from that mentality. I actually use it threatened to write up my employees when I was a manager at my clinic when they would say, well I’m just a technician that fucking mentality drives me insane like just a technician that doctor can’t do anything without you you were just the hospital in my opinion then because the hospital would crumble without you. So I just hate that mentality. Yeah, the other thing that I think that are nearing medicine needs a big overhaul with are those veterinarians that’s still under utilized and still don’t necessarily value their support staff, whether they’re a crucial veterinary technician or an assistant, you know, they need us and they need to understand that just because we don’t have a doctorate degree does not make us stupid or less than and then we also need to start praising more and elevating these credentialed Veterinary technicians that also hold a doctorate degree. Doctorate degree, whether it’s in nutrition, whether it’s in company organization or pharmacology. There are doctor technicians. Hello. I’m you know, dr. Stephanie technician person, you know, they could have these advanced level degrees and can be utilized in a more glamorous role than just holding animals or mopping up at the
Shawn Wilkie: Thanks so much for listening to the veterinary Innovation podcast. We’re pretty social people. So you’ll find us on every social media channel. Also, you can check out our website at the veterinary Innovation podcast.com. Thanks so much for listening.