← The Cone of Shame Veterinary Podcast
Loading summary
Transcript36 lines
- [00:00]
Dr. Andy Roark
Foreign.
- [00:08]
To the cone of Shame veterinary podcast, I AM your host, Dr. Andy Roth. Guys, I got a really good one for you today. I am here with Dr. Matt Sylvias. Matt is the managing veterinarian and partner at Eagle Animal Hospital, which is a four location practice in Kansas City that's part of the NVA general practices, 900 plus veterinary clinics across the country. This is a really fascinating, he's a fascinating person. It's a really fascinating story of entrepreneurship and you guys will hear me geek out in this episode. I am a huge believer in veterinarian and supporter of veterinarians and I want veterinarians to find the career path that works for them and that lights their fire and it keeps them inspired. And Matt is one of the neatest case studies I've ever found of someone who started off as a veterinarian, actually started off as a kennel technician at this practice and later on he became a co owner and so anyway, but he's a veterinarian and he was an entrepreneur. He ran this business, he expanded this business and then he joined NVA General Practice and then he added another practice after he had joined NVA General Practice, which I think is fascinating. We talked about comparing and contrasting his experience before when he was by himself versus when he worked with NVA General Practice to do this expansion. And just, it's just really fascinating what he's built inside of this really large organization. And so if you're someone who, I don't know, who worries that you might get bored one day in practice, if you're someone who's like, oh man, I work in a corporate practice and I just don't know that there's going to be doors for me to open later on. What if this gets stale? Where are there paths for me to explore here? I think you need to hear this episode. It's just really cool. So anyway, guys, I am going to stop explaining the episode and just let you hear the episode. This episode is made possible ad free by our friends at NVA General Practice. Let's get into it.
- [02:07]
This is your show. We're glad you're here. We want to help you in your veterinary career. Welcome to the cone of Shame with Dr. Andy Roark.
- [02:25]
Welcome to the podcast. Dr. Matt Silvius. How are you, my friend?
- [02:29]
Dr. Matt Silvius
Excellent. Excited to be here, man.
- [02:31]
Dr. Andy Roark
I am, I'm. I'm really glad to have you. For those who don't know you, you are the managing veterinarian partner at Eagle Animal Hospital, which has, which is a four practice, four location practice in Kansas City and is part of the NVA General Practice Group. They've got over 900 hospitals. And so you've got that's sort of a four practice group inside of that larger organization. And so, Matt, I wanted to talk to you today because I'm always really interested in veterinarians building their careers inside of larger organizations. So my idea really is that intrapreneurship is a growing area in our profession. I think, you know, the old model of vet medicine was just independent practice is the only way to go. And if you want to be a leader or a manager, you need to start your own thing. You need to hang your shingle out. And that's just not where I'm seeing a lot of leadership opportunities going now. There's still independent practices and practice ownership is great, but there are more and more leaders that I'm working with who are building their sort of career the way they want it to be inside of larger organizations. So can you tell me, tell me, tell me a little bit more about what you do with MVA general practice?
- [03:33]
Dr. Matt Silvius
Sure, yeah. I mean, and to back up even another step, I kind of have a unique perspective because I've been on both sides of it.
- [03:39]
Dr. Andy Roark
So you started as like a kennel technician, right? At the same hospital and moved all the way up?
- [03:44]
Dr. Matt Silvius
Yeah, I started this practice right out of high school school. This practice, ironically, or strangely enough, we're celebrating our 80th anniversary. So this practice has been very old. Started by Dr. Eagle, got ownership when I became a veterinarian after about five years or so with my ex business partner. He was at the point of retirement. So we needed to be able to wait a transition into something else and looked at a lot of different opportunities and just fell in love with what NVA was doing at that time. And that was four years ago. And so since that four years, I've been able to develop with them and see how we've been able to grow just as an overall company throughout the entire country. And now the support that they're giving veterinarians in those organizations, it's really been fascinating to see. So I've been the single, you know, entrepreneur outside of a corporate group and now I've been within a corporate group. And so I've done both of those things.
- [04:35]
Dr. Andy Roark
Well, you've kind of built this, you know, a pretty significant, like mini organization and sort of this larger organization. You know, one of the things I think a lot about is, you know, I'll start to look at like, you'll like where you are and how you're positioned, it seems like you've just done thing after thing after thing really well and correctly. And from the outside, it looks like a really clear, manicured, well orchestrated plan. But is it, you know, like, did you have a sense of where you were going? Did you have a plan of how you wanted to kind of grow your career up to this point? Like, walk me through kind of what that development pathway looked like and sort of your certainty at each step, you
- [05:12]
Dr. Matt Silvius
know, as most entrepreneurs, I mean, what people see is just you standing on top of a pile of mistakes. And that's, you know, where, where I'm at of just trying one thing, it not working, and then moving to another. I grew up on a farm. Never thought I would end up in an urban setting in a small animal practice, only when I grew up with pigs and cows. And so we kind of twist and turn and find all these different directions. I've always loved entrepreneurship. I mean, I, you know, start little companies when I'm in fourth grade and selling stuff to my friends. And so I always knew, like, I loved that spirit. My, you know, ex partner, he was, did such a great job with people and taught me how to interact with people and grow that. And that just kind of grew my love into running a business and being able to help people and pets and, you know, veterinary medicine was just perfect for that. So we have our, our single practice for, you know, 70 plus years. It starts to grow, we remodel it, it kind of just expands further. And then as that time happens, we're able to even add other practices that were surrounding us into the fold and make them other eagle animal hospitals when it wasn't until then, when I'm with nva, we had our fourth practice, so I added other practices without mva and then I got to do it with nva. And so that those two different processes were kind of fascinating to see as well.
- [06:35]
Dr. Andy Roark
That's, that's a wild model that like you like joined Nvidia general practice and then you added an additional hospital after the required like that. That kind of bends my mind. But I want to, I want to jump back to that, Matt. Jump back like five years, right? So it's before, it's before you joined nva and were you the vet that was cutting, you know, that was cutting foreign bodies? Were you in the exam rooms or had you largely transitioned over to a leadership role at that time? Talk to me a little bit about kind of how. When did you, when did you double down on sort of this entrepreneurship? You Know, sort of streak that you had. And did you compartmentalize the vet medicine part? Did you kind of set that aside, like, like, what was that pathway, like, from clinical practice into sort of leadership for you?
- [07:20]
Dr. Matt Silvius
Yeah, you know, I mean, I think for me personally, I just took the extra stuff on. I love being in the trenches with the team. And so, you know, probably my first five years out, I'm trying to learn how to become a veterinarian. I'm, you know, doing everything I can. I'm trying to make mistakes, learn from my mistakes and move on, just as an associate. But I also treated my business and our business as it was mine from a standpoint of I want to do right by the business. So I feel like I always had, even if it was just me, like, a sense of ownership within the business, even though I didn't have a title at that time because I wanted to be a leader. So I'm working as an associate, and then as I gain a little bit more traction within our own leadership, I'm getting handed new opportunities, responsibilities, and just trying to run with those and make those the best thing I can until I'm offered a position to, to buy in. And then even today, like, I'm still in the trenches. I love the business aspect of things, but I just love being with my team and, like, being a vet. Yeah, too.
- [08:21]
Dr. Andy Roark
But so tell me, tell me a little bit more. I wanted you to compare and contrast the. Sort of, like, you were expanding your own practice. Right. So you're a single location. You're going to multiple locations. You talk, talk to me about what that was like after you had joined, like, NVA general practice. Like, like that had to be an entirely different experience. And like, what, what was most striking to you about when you under your own sort of steam, thought, yeah, I think we, I think we should add a practice I think we should have at another location versus when you were like, man, we're part of this 900 plus practice. Extensive resource space. If it seems like that would be a night and day experience, was it? And if so, like, what were. What were the differences in the experience?
- [09:01]
Dr. Matt Silvius
To be honest, joining nva, you're a little bit nervous. Like, how flexible is this company going to be with aiding you? And, you know, I came into this saying, I love entrepreneurship. I want to be able to do stuff like this. And I've just been pleasantly surprised that they just add fuel to my fire and give me the resources to look at these different opportunities. And I can tell you right now, I mean, before in the past, when I would do these things, it was based off of a gut feeling.
- [09:26]
Dr. Andy Roark
Yeah.
- [09:26]
Dr. Matt Silvius
And now to work with them and have the analytics and be able to look through systematically on opportunities and really break down the numbers, the data, to make a good decision. I never had that before, you know, before I'm just going off a whim, going off a pretty good gut feeling, granted. Gut feelings. Usually we were like, we were very blessed they worked out. But, you know, to have now, to be able to dive deeper into analytics just made the process way better.
- [09:54]
Dr. Andy Roark
Well, so this is a sort of a type of personal development that we don't talk a lot about. Right. So, you know, you've got this experience as a leader and then you join nva and my. It sounds like, you know, obviously they're going to be very involved in this idea of expansion. And you're like, oh, we're, you know, we're working with a level of clarity and insight that we didn't have before. Did you feel like that was an investment in you by, like, NVA General Practice? Talk to me a little bit about your professional development. I asked that because one of the things that I see just across the whole profession is once you have a veterinarian and they climb up a certain amount of the ladder into, like, the leadership space, the development opportunities seem to kind of cap out for a lot of people at that level. And here you are and you're running this multiple practice, and then it feels like you're still involved in this sort of developmental process, even though, I mean, you've already been really successful. Talk to me about what that looks like.
- [10:51]
Dr. Matt Silvius
I look at it through two different lenses. I mean, one of them is my development and being able to even work through and sit on advisory councils of NVA and really be able to help NVA General Practice shape decisions as far as how we're going to help veterinarians, how we're going to mentor. But what equally has meant the most to me is the other opportunities for our associates within the practice. With nva, I think a lot of times we struggle with our small practices. I know I did where I'd have a great veterinarian that wanted to do entrepreneurship, and we just had limited opportunities for them. When I was able to go with NVA General Practice, now I have managing DVMs at all of our sites. And so we were able to elevate people within our organization up into leadership roles that we just. That just didn't exist before. And so having associates that wanted to take that on now, I had an avenue to give them leadership and run their own spot while working with me. And that's meant the most to me because I've been very blessed in my life and be able to pass that down to our other veterinarians that wanted those leadership roles has been fantastic.
- [12:08]
Dr. Andy Roark
Talk to me a little bit more about kind of the different leadership roles that you sort of engage with, because you were on the chief medical officer's sort of advisory council, so you're working at sort of a high level in the organization to sort of set policy and stuff. But then NDA's got like, they've got medical directors, they've got medical leaders, but then they've also got your NVA mentors, your sort of designated advisors, you've got area directors. Talk to me a little bit about what that ecosystem sort of looks like and then how connected to those people are you? Like, how does that. How does that work collaboratively, Matt?
- [12:38]
Dr. Matt Silvius
Yeah, absolutely. So over the past five years, it has really transformed within NBA general practice on how they support the hospitals. And so I think I'll take step one. I love hiring new grads, and so they're my favorite people to get in. Tons of energy, tons of ideas. NVA setting up their PET1 training center. Now we have official mentorship programs for these new graduates to walk into. And I mean, as you know, Andy, I mean, mentorship is just. It's such a big buzzword. Everybody wants it, we're all looking at it. But they really took it a step further with developing their own training center, having a specific program, and so being able to, you know, talk to the head of mentorship within NVA and sit on councils with her, we're able to just come up with a very collaborative approach, get these younger veterinarians the training they need. And then I think a spot that gets lost that we've really focused on is that graduate that's been out three to eight years. It's getting kind of in the middle of their career, and maybe they're starting to get drawn towards something specific. Well, now we can double down and really lean into what those veterinarians want to do. Send them to the proper training so they can really excel in the things that they care about. So from top to bottom, we're able to provide leadership opportunities for people that want that, but even develop those advanced skills when an associate really wants to hone in on maybe echoes or ultrasound or surgery. And now we've got platforms for all of those things. It's been fantastic.
- [14:13]
Dr. Andy Roark
One of the sort of concerns that I hear from general practice doctors talking about joining larger groups, like, you know, like nva, for example, or things like that is there's a concern about either. Either sort of being forced into a cookbook protocol or being a widget in a machine. And, you know, I've worked with a number of groups. I don't tend to really see that very often. Matt, can you sort of talk about, like, can you talk about the diversity of sort of career paths that you've kind of seen at NVA general practice? Like, what does that look like? You've made this sort of path and you're overseeing these. These sort of four hospitals, and you're involved in all these other things. Like, how do you see doctors say, let's say you've got. Say you've got young doctors that think I might be interested in leadership, but I'm not sure. It's not one size fits all, I'm assuming, as far as what, where that person goes or the opportunities that are open to them. What does. What does that look like?
- [15:04]
Dr. Matt Silvius
First and foremost, I think a big question that I always get in the fear that I had was just even talking about the medical autonomy and being able to practice the way that you want to practice. And we pride ourselves, you know, within NVA of really leaning into that first and foremost of doctors getting to practice the way that they want to. But then I think you lean into the things that that associate wants to do. And so you're going to have avenues to serve potentially even as a mentor for somebody that maybe is a little bit later in their career. But then the different mentorship opportunities that are available within our organization, I've just really been impressed with, you know, I think as a selling dvm, back in the day, we always, you know, being younger, I was concerned about who I was going to be partnering with.
- [15:49]
Dr. Andy Roark
Yeah.
- [15:50]
Dr. Matt Silvius
And because I'm going to be sticking around for a while, I love to do this, and it was very important to me to find a partner that wanted to grow veterinarians and take care of the profession. And I think we hit a home run with joining MVA Journal practice.
- [16:02]
Dr. Andy Roark
So when you were looking at joining NVA and like you're a young guy, so people who are listening on the podcast don't see you're kind of a baby face guy. But you don't strike me as the type of person who was like, hey, I was at a place in my career where I thought I would like to sell the practice off and move towards Retirement or right off into the sunset, Was that in your mind at all? Was there a time when you thought, hey, I might sell this practice and be done? Or was it always your intention when you sold the practice and partnered with MVA General practice, was it always your intention to stay there? And how much certainty do you have about what was going to happen after you went through this process?
- [16:40]
Dr. Matt Silvius
100%. My plan was to stay. I mean, I love my team. I loved what NBA was doing. I mean, you're still. You're scared, you know, you're worried. Am I. Am I getting sold a bill of goods that it's not going to live up to? And you do as much research as possible, but you're still nervous about it. But to work through it and to make it a year and see that all of these things that you were told are coming true was just. It gave me a lot of peace in making that decision. But I was. I'm a busybody being an entrepreneur at heart. Like, I did not go to the golf course every day right now. I love solving problems, creating jobs, you know, helping pets. I love all of it. So I wasn't going to give that up.
- [17:20]
Dr. Andy Roark
What is the part of being in this much bigger organization that you have been most, like, excited by? And what I mean by that is like you didn't know exactly what you were getting into. You hope for the best. You have a plan, you've done your homework. What opportunity has it presented itself to you inside of NVA General Practice that you were like, this is amazing, or this has been surprisingly rewarding. What's filled your bucket?
- [17:47]
Dr. Matt Silvius
For me, for the longest time, my world was our four walls here at our small practice. And then going into an organization now with 900 practices and getting asked to, you know, speak with other hospitals and help other hospitals. I have really enjoyed watching young leaders at different hospitals outside of mine and being able to work with them, like collaborate on different ideas, what's working for them, what's not, and trying to offer up wisdom of just, once again, a pile of mistakes I've made and hope that they don't make them. But being able to just expand that footprint of help outside even our small hospital, that's been very rewarding for me. And I know, I think a lot of our mentors feel that way that are around the country, and the leaders across the country, I think, like leading these teams. And we're seeing a lot of young leadership, you know, come up. And that's been a lot of fun
- [18:40]
Dr. Andy Roark
to see if, if you could go back and give yourself advice as you came out of that school based on what you know now and sort of the path and the journey that you had. What would be, what would be your piece of advice to just about to graduate, Matt?
- [18:54]
Dr. Matt Silvius
Don't be scared to make mistakes and find mentorship and leadership that you can trust and work with.
- [18:59]
Dr. Andy Roark
That's 100%. That's fantastic. Where can people learn more? Like I said, you're really involved in VA general practice at the leadership level and things like that. If people are interested in learning more and maybe looking into NVA for themselves, where should they go?
- [19:10]
Dr. Matt Silvius
Yeah, absolutely. Careers.nva.com is where to go. And, you know, love to speak with anybody about opportunities across the entire country.
- [19:20]
Dr. Andy Roark
So how can, how can people reach out? How can they connect with you?
- [19:23]
Dr. Matt Silvius
Yeah, you can find me on LinkedIn. Matthew Silvius. And happy to answer any questions there as well.
- [19:28]
Dr. Andy Roark
Outstanding. We'll look up both of those things in the show notes. Matt. Thanks for being here, guys. Thanks for tuning in and listening, everybody. Take care of yourselves, gang. And that's what I got for you today, guys. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you got something out of it. Thanks to Matt for being here and kind of sharing his journey. It got me all kind of fired up. I just, I think that this is really cool. I love to see veterinarians getting to do jobs that didn't exist 20 years ago, and I feel like Matt's right there doing that. And also, NVA General Practice has clearly figured out how to use him and his skills in a way that is interesting for him and beneficial for them. And I just. I don't know, guys. I. That's. That's my optimistic hope for the future. I hope that's how medicine works going forward and how it keeps working. But anyway, I just, I really enjoyed this episode, guys. Thanks again for being here. Thanks to Matt. Thanks for NVA General Practice for making the episode available ad free. Take care of yourselves, everybody. I'll talk to you.