The Uncharted Veterinary Podcast

Maria Pirita, CVPM sits down with Ron Sosa, CVPM to tackle a mailbag question every practice runs into: how do you build veterinary technician decision-making skills without risking patient safety or liability? They dig into why technicians hesitate to act, the real difference between a training gap and a performance issue, and how psychological safety shapes whether a team member speaks up or sta...

Urgent care slots turning into a dumping ground for recheck visits? Maria sits down with Dr. Andy Roark to unpack why forward booking breaks down, how to get doctors comfortable handing recheck visits to trained technicians, and what it actually takes to build team accountability around the schedule. If your practice is drowning in progress checks, this one's for you. Mentioned in this episode: Ca...

Bring back smoke breaks! Well... kinda. Your team skips breaks, works through lunch, and pushes through stress because there's "too much to do." But what if that's actually hurting productivity, resilience, and patient care? In this episode, Maria Pirita, CVPM and Ron Sosa, CVPM discuss why veterinary medicine may have accidentally created a culture that discourages breaks, what we lost when "smok...

Is managing feelings just practice management life? Host Maria Pirita and Dr. Andy Roark tackle a mailbag from a practice leader exhausted by constant team “feelings,” passive-aggressive conflicts, and the sense that leadership must coddle and babysit instead of getting work done. They agree that emotions are part of leadership, but emphasize the goal is not endlessly mediating drama, it is buildi...

Host Maria Pirita and guest Ron Sosa, CVPM and author of Rewriting the Rules, tackle a mailbag question about what to tell a veterinary team when a well-liked employee must be fired for reasons that did not directly affect coworkers. They discuss the leader’s mindset, balancing empathy with business needs, and avoiding over-explaining, justifying, or revealing confidential details. Key goals are s...

Dr. Andy Roark joins Maria Pirita, CVPM, to tackle one of the most emotionally charged challenges in veterinary medicine: client financial conversations. How do you recommend the care a pet truly needs without judging a client's wallet, carrying the weight of their financial decisions, or compromising your standards? Together, they explore spectrum of care, pricing transparency, client communicati...

When veterinary leaders build a culture centered around support, flexibility, and growth, it can feel deeply personal when the team still says, “I don’t feel supported.” In this episode, Maria Pirita and Dr. Andy Roark unpack the tension between caring for your people and protecting the operational health of the practice, especially when multiple team members go back to school at the same time. Fr...

The veterinary clinic is fully staffed… so why does everyone still feel completely overwhelmed? In this episode, Dr. Andy Roark and Maria Pirita unpack the hidden systems, workflow bottlenecks, communication breakdowns, and leadership challenges that leave veterinary teams drowning despite having enough people on paper. If your practice struggles with burnout, operational chaos, client service pre...

Dr. Andy Roark marks the 400th episode of the Uncharted Veterinary Podcast with a solo reflection on how Uncharted started in 2016 to go beyond entry-level practice management, grow a community, and balance practical strategy with the human side of leadership. He credits key contributors including Stephanie Goss, Dr. Jessica Vogelsang, Danielle Lambert, Ron Sosa, and Maria Pirita, and shares plans...

Thinking about selling your veterinary practice but worried about losing your culture, team, or control? Dr. Mary Sheridan shares her real experience navigating the sale process, what she got right, what she’d do differently, and how she protected what mattered most. This episode is brought to you ad-free by Blue River Pet Care! This podcast is intended for informational and educational purposes o...

Maria Pirita hosts the Uncharted Veterinary Podcast with guest Ron Sosa to answer a mailbag from a practice manager who feels stuck after a visionary practice owner announces exciting upgrades and perks to the team before anything is approved, budgeted, or discussed, leaving the manager to backtrack and appear like the “bad guy.” They discuss assuming good intent, how visionary leaders often verba...

Dr. Andy Roark and Maria Pirita respond to a mailbag from a “soul tired” veterinary medical director who has spent a year writing SOPs, mentoring early-career vets, and trying to fix culture, only to feel ignored, unsupported by upper management, and financially penalized because leadership time pulls her out of the exam room. They unpack the resentment and burnout risk, emphasize acceptance of “w...

Veterinary practice owners often assume they’re doing well because revenue is up, but hidden inefficiencies and poor financial visibility can quietly drain profitability. In this episode, Dr. Andy Roark sits down with David McCormick of Simmons Veterinary Practice Sales and Appraisals to break down how veterinary practice valuation reveals what’s really happening inside your business and how to us...

If your CSRs are escalating everything, it’s not a people problem, it’s a training problem. In this episode, Dr. Andy Roark and Maria Pirita, CPVM break down how to build confident, decision-making receptionists who reduce doctor interruptions, improve client experience, and keep your practice running efficiently. If you’re a veterinary leader tired of answering the same questions all day, this on...

Ron Sosa joins Maria Pirita on the Uncharted Veterinary Podcast to tackle how lack of confidence derails leadership in veterinary practice management, using a case study of Jessica, a practice manager whose hesitation and inconsistency after team pushback causes flexible enforcement, stalled progress, confused staff, and worsening results. They discuss why confidence struggles are common after pro...

How do you get your team excited for the mundane, downtime tasks? In this episode of the Uncharted Podcast, Dr. Andy Roark and Stephanie Goss tackle a question from a veterinary practice experiencing a slowdown in appointments. Together they discuss the challenges of managing a veterinary team when business is slow, including maintaining team morale and motivation. They emphasize the importance of...

Dr. Andy Roark and Maria Pirita tackle a challenge every veterinary leader knows too well: what do you do when your most technically skilled technician is quietly damaging your team with poor communication? In this episode, they break down the tension between clinical excellence and team culture, exploring how confidence can tip into condescension, why “I’m just being direct” is not a free pass, a...

An associate veterinarian who always has an explanation, a reason, or someone else to point to when things go wrong can quietly erode team trust, frustrate leaders, and stall growth, especially when accountability never quite lands. In this episode, Uncharted Veterinary Podcast hosts Dr. Andy Roark and Stephanie Goss unpack what’s really driving excuse-based behavior and how leaders can shift the...

Ron Sosa, CVPM and Executive Director of Uncharted Veterinary Conference, joins Maria Pirita to tackle the question every practice manager secretly wonders: Is getting your CVPM actually worth it? If you've heard mixed reviews about whether CVPM certification leads to better pay, opens career doors, or just adds letters after your name, this episode is your honest reality check. Maria and Ron dive...

Can you be an effective practice manager of a veterinary hospital if you never scrub in? In this episode, Dr. Andy Roark and Maria Pirita, CVPM respond to a mailbag question from a new-ish practice manager whose team says she’s, “not helpful because she can’t draw blood or place IVs” even though she’s been fixing administrative problems that keep the hospital functioning. Andy and Maria frame the...

Veterinary leadership burnout can leave even the most dedicated practice managers wondering if life would be easier back at the front desk, free from the constant pressure of staffing decisions, client complaints, and carrying the emotional weight of the whole hospital. In this episode, Dr. Andy Roark and Stephanie Goss respond to a heartfelt mailbag question from a manager considering stepping do...

Dr. Andy Roark and Maria Pirita, CVPM, tackle one of the most emotionally charged realities in veterinary medicine, when corporate leadership changes clinic schedules without local input and leaders are left to deliver the news to frustrated teams. In this episode, they respond to a multi-site medical director caught between upper management directives and the trust they have worked hard to build...

A former associate leaves your veterinary practice, opens their own clinic, and now your team members are getting recruited, leaving you worried about staff loss and wondering whether to fight back legally or double down on fixing things internally. This week, Dr. Andy Roark and Stephanie Goss tackle the emotional and practical reality of veterinary staff poaching, walking through how practice own...

What happens when the people meant to lead and support the team slowly become the emotional shock absorbers for the entire hospital? In clinics everywhere, practice managers and medical directors step in to help because they care. A team member is overwhelmed, conflict pops up, a client is upset, and leadership jumps in to fix it. At first, it feels supportive. But over time, every problem starts...

The veterinary clinic winter blues are real, and many practice leaders quietly struggle when team morale dips even though nothing seems obviously wrong. In this Uncharted Veterinary Podcast mailbag episode, Dr. Andy Roark and Stephanie Goss tackle what happens when teams feel heavy, drained, and stuck in what one manager brilliantly called “wet sock energy.” No drama, no major conflict, just colle...