Episode 4 – Vet Tech Chat with Jamie Wesolowski, AAB, BS, RVT, VTS (Oncology)

Jamie Wesolowski is a Veterinary Technician Specialist with Partner’s Richmond Oncology department. In our interview, Jamie discusses how she chose to become a veterinary technician, what some of the most important moments of her career have been, as well as some of the hardest. We also talk about how pet insurance can play such an important role in helping pet owners make difficult treatment decisions.

What You’ll Learn…

Why Jamie chose to work with Partner.
What some of the hardest moments are in her career.
How pet insurance can play such an important role in treatment.
What experience has made the biggest impression on her and the reality of how hard the veterinary profession can be.

But before we dive into our chat, here’s a quick Q&A about Jamie…

What was your first job? Cleaning up hair at a salon. Got my first PERM at this job. Let’s just say, the chemicals burnt my hair in the front and I had big scabs and missing hair, but she was curly and bouncy!

What’s one thing that can instantly make your day better? Gosh, there are a lot of things that can make my day better. Some of the big ones are educating clients and feeling the impact I have made, Beagles, iced lattes from Dunkin, a dance party, and taking a Harley ride with my husband.

What makes you laugh the most? Pissfingers (look it up—oh sweet pissfingers)

What’s your spirit animal and why? The Beagle—stubborn, food motivated, and loyal.

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Narrator:

Welcome back to “Did You Know,” a podcast by Partner Veterinary. In this series, we explore all things veterinary medicine and all things Partner. In each episode, we will answer some of the most common questions we are asked—from oncology to emergencies and everything in between. If it happens at Partner, we cover it. In honor of National Veterinary Technician Week, this episode features Jamie Wesolowski, an LVT, RVT, and VTS in oncology. Listen to hear Jamie’s journey from an early interest in veterinary medicine all the way to finding her place with Partner.

Jen Mellace:

“Welcome, Jamie. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got started in the veterinary profession?”

Jamie Wesolowski:

“Yes, hi, thank you, and thanks for having me. I’m Jamie Wesolowski , and I have my Associate’s in Applied Science, a Bachelor’s in Science, and I am an RVT and LVT, and then also I’m a VTS in oncology. I feel like I really started in the veterinary profession pretty young. I know that everybody kind of has one of those stories—’oh, when I was little’—but I really did have a story. When I was about two or three, my grandma’s cat would just not eat for anyone, and for some reason, I just kind of embraced the cat, and I started hand-feeding her. I feel like at that moment, obviously that was a very young moment, but I feel like my parents always kind of reminded me of that. I feel like that’s probably where I started in vet med—was at least the love of not just pets, right? I knew I wanted to care for pets and their owners, honestly, because the joy that I got to see out of my grandma when we were able to get her cat to eat was pretty heartfelt. Obviously, like I said, I was very, very young, but when I hear the stories my parents tell me about this, I feel like that had to have been kind of my starting point of when I knew I wanted to be in veterinary medicine.”

Jen Mellace:

“How did you get involved in your profession?”

Jamie Wesolowski:

“I feel like a lot of us—I too started with volunteering at different shelters. I started very young; I mean, I started in kind of elementary school where I was going and just kind of shadowing some of the people in different rescues or shelters. Then I started volunteering when I was in middle school and high school at a few of our general practices. I always thought that I actually wanted to go to vet school, so I went to Indiana State University, and there I was kind of in the pre-vet course. At that point, I actually started working at a general practice, and I was just doing kennel work, things like that, and then started coming on my days off and working with the veterinary technician. That’s really when I knew that I was going to shift from wanting to go to vet school to pursuing a career in nursing.

After I graduated with my Bachelor of Science from Indiana State, then I got accepted to Bel-Rea Institute in Denver, Colorado. It was such an incredible experience out there. It was two years, year-round, and was by quarters, so it was pretty extensive, but fantastic education that I got there. I did my internship at a GP, but I kind of always knew I was not going to stay in general practice. Once I got out, I worked at a general practice for about six months, and yeah, I just knew it wasn’t really for me.

So, I got a position working in emergency, and actually, I moved back to Indiana and started working at an emergency hospital. Worked there for about two years and then moved to where I am now in the suburbs of Indianapolis. Started working with a criticalist at the hospital, and then randomly, I was asked to start up the oncology department. I was like, ‘Sure, why not? I’ve never done oncology, but let’s try it out.’ I pretty much started the entire department by myself with the doctor, did a lot of learning on my own, but then lots of questions to my oncologist, and that’s kind of how I ended up being in oncology. I just fell absolutely in love with it and couldn’t imagine doing anything else in my career.”

Jen Mellace:

“So what is your role with Partner?”

Jamie Wesolowski:

“My role is pretty unique. We’ve actually kind of just made up the role a little bit in the oncology department for Richmond. I’m kind of working almost as like a nurse practitioner type of role. It’s something that we’re kind of leading up to. The idea is that I’m going to be doing these pre-visit consultations with the clients, where I’ll be going over the cancer itself, I’ll be going over staging, treatment options, and then I will go over a little bit on the finances and things like that. If the clients decide that they do want to pursue everything that we’ve talked about, then they actually come into the hospital, meet Dr. Miller, and then we’ll pursue on from there.

That’s kind of what the end goal is—what my role is going to be. But right now, I’m doing a lot of team training, a lot of mentoring within the hospital. I actually am a hybrid, so I work half of my time in Indiana and then I’ll do some of my time in Richmond. That’s a pretty unique circumstance, which I never thought in veterinary medicine I would ever be able to do something like this. It’s a pretty unique role and I’m loving it, and it’s kind of developing as we’re going, which is even more exciting—just to find the different ways for my expertise of how I can be the right-hand man to Dr. Miller but then also support and guide the team as well. So it’s a pretty exciting role that we’re developing right now.”

Jen Mellace:

“That is exciting, and it’s exciting that that’s part of the way that Partner is reimagining the veterinary profession—that we are allowing staff to do hybrid roles like that. That’s pretty exciting. Why did you choose to work with Partner?”

Jamie Wesolowski:

“Kind of that big thing of them just seeing me, seeing the vision and what I can bring to the field and what I can bring to oncology. I feel like once I became a VTS, which was incredibly exciting and I’m very proud of the accomplishments that I was able to achieve, there’s been a lot of people who just don’t know how to utilize the VTS properly, at least in oncology. I just had a vision of how I wanted to be able to be utilized, and I think that was scaring a lot of people off, which was kind of surprising to me because we are in veterinary medicine trying to find new ways of treating patients. I was finding a lot of roadblocks with people who were very interested but nobody really was like, ‘Okay yeah, let’s do it.'”

Jen Mellace:

“Can I ask real quick—what is a VTS? What is your role as a VTS?”

Jamie Wesolowski:

“Yeah, that’s a great question. So VTS is a Veterinary Technician Specialist. I have additional training that I did kind of as on-the-job training, where I had a very extensive application process. You have to be in the field for at least three years in oncology. It’s a very extensive application process where I had to do 75 logs, I had to do four case reports that were 10 pages each, I had to come up with different exam questions, I had to get references. The logs and the reports are grueling, grueling work. The whole process takes a little over two years. That’s kind of, you know, in a very quick nutshell, what the VTS application process looks like. Then once you get approved, that your application has passed, then I had to sit for boards—a 400-question board exam that I had to complete as well.”

Jen Mellace:

“Okay, and so then that is why that brought you to Partner—because they allowed you to use this within the hospital?”

Jamie Wesolowski:

“Yes, I would say that Partner really understood—I mean, at least was very open to—how we can utilize a VTS in a clinical setting, and not just ‘Okay, yeah, we have a VTS, but let’s keep them doing the exact same thing.’ Partner really understood that vision that I had for myself and what I could bring to veterinary oncology. I had worked with Dr. Miller previously, and I knew that she and I had a very similar vision of what we want for oncology and for our patients and clients. So we just kind of reconnected, and Partner just really understood what I want for my career, what I want for my path and journey, and what I want to be able to provide for patients and clients. Partner was a good fit for me and what I’m trying to do for my career.”

Jen Mellace:

“Excellent. What has been one of the hardest moments in your career?”

Jamie Wesolowski:

“I know that everybody has this viewpoint that oncology is just sad all the time—which would be very ignorant to say that it’s not—but honestly, I feel like what’s most challenging for me is those times where either we have gotten to a point where we’re in treatment and we have just kind of run out of drug options. In veterinary oncology, we only have a limited amount of drugs that we have seen that actually are efficacious and actually are going to work for our patients. So that gets pretty heartbreaking where you have those clients that want to treat, that will do anything, and we just run out of options.

Then it gets to the other point, the complete opposite spectrum, where you have clients that really want to do things but they just don’t have the finances, or we’ve started treating and things are going really well and they’ve just run out of money. That is an unfortunate reality in veterinary medicine, where finances really are a big driver. I hate saying it, but it is a big contributor to what we can do for our patients and clients.

I will say, a lot of times I have seen so many clients be able to do so much for their pet because they have insurance. Insurance really has made a big difference in how we can treat our patients. I look at human medicine, and we never talk about finances—you go into the emergency room and they do the gold standard every single time. You just don’t talk about it. In veterinary medicine, we would love to do the gold standard for every patient, but the reality is that we have to talk about finances. I’ve actually seen with insurance, we can say ‘Hey, this is what we would like to do,’ and if they have their insurance, great, then we can do everything we need to do. Those are the biggest struggles, at least for oncology, that I really run into, and they can impact a lot of things in what we do.”

Jen Mellace:

“Yeah, absolutely. What experience has had the biggest impression on you in your career?”

Jamie Wesolowski:

“There’s so many. I feel like a lot of it is the people that I work with—fellow technicians, fellow doctors—but honestly, being in oncology, I would have to say my clients have had the biggest impact. I don’t even know how to explain the connection that we’re able to make with our clients and patients; it’s just so incredibly special in oncology. We’re seeing some of these patients weekly. I might be talking to clients, especially with my role—I do such heavy education with clients that I’m talking to them constantly. The relationships that I get to build with these patients and clients is just hands down the most rewarding. Sometimes it’s hard for me to put in words how wonderful that experience really is for my career.

I’ve had so many clients that have impacted me—clients and patients that have created my greatest memories in veterinary medicine. There are still some clients that I talk to this day. I have clients whose pets are now deceased, and they will comment on a Facebook post that I made, like when I got my VTS or when I started with Partner. I have some of these clients still being my advocate, which is just incredible.

I’ve got to experience so many ups and downs with patients. I really try not to get so connected, but it’s impossible. The patients in oncology—if you’ve not got to experience patients in oncology—I feel like the perception for people is that they’re always sick, they’re not feeling well, and that really is not the case. For a majority of our patients, they’re going to be the ones hip-hopping around the hospital, they’re the ones being crazy, especially the three-legged dogs. It’s really fun to be able to get to know the patient personalities and their little quirks.

I did a lecture a couple of weeks ago, and one of our patients—he will sit in his kennel, and he’s just this big, flat-headed pitty. He is the most handsome boy in the entire world; his name’s Benny. He just looks so sad in his kennel, so my lecture was about exposing oncology myths. I put that picture up and I put the ASPCA Sarah McLachlan song because he just looks so pathetic and sad. Then the next picture I had, his face is just completely smooshed up against his kennel and he just wants treats. It’s like you can almost visualize his face just going down the window. Then I have this party pump-up song, and it’s just things like that that make my day, that make it so exciting to come into work.

The impact that those pets can make on us is just incredible. And then I would say another impact that has really been something significant in my career is after we’ve lost a patient, the outreach from the families is just incredible—just the gratitude that they have, the love that they have. Sometimes it can be a lot; it really can kind of overwhelm your heart on how impactful we made… [gets emotional] Oh, I like get teary… the impact that we’ve made on their family.”

Jen Mellace:

“It’s okay, it’s okay.”

Jamie Wesolowski:

“Just the impact that we’ve been able to make on families—and then they want to thank us. They want to show how much that we mean to them. That really says a lot about what we can do in our field, and it really makes all those sad times worth it. When we get all these cards—I got a video from a client the other day that they were celebrating his last chemotherapy. Those impacts just make it… God, it’s just a really, really special specialty that I’m in. I know that everybody is going to say I’m being biased, but it really is a very, very special department.

I will say too, one thing that I really love about working with some of the oncologists that I have, especially Dr. Miller… [laughs] alright, I’m gonna go from not being sad and like happy tears to… One thing that I love about Dr. Miller is that we can just sit there and just talk about medicine all day long. That is just such a cool feeling that the doctor wants to hear my input. She wants to hear how I’ve experienced some of these cancers or some of the treatments that we’ve tried. That’s something that’s also been very fulfilling in my career—just being able to have that fulfillment of just talking medicine and bouncing ideas off of each other and how we can improve treating patients. That’s something that’s so exciting and fun for me—very nerdy, but I love it. So yeah, I would say that is a long, long answer, but those are probably my biggest impacts for being in oncology and what I do.”

Jen Mellace:

“That’s fantastic, that really is. And I think that showing how emotional it is—you folks are very, very committed and tied to your patients and to the clients, and that is the reality of this. This is hard for you folks as well, it’s hard for the teams at the hospitals as well, and that is the reality. And you guys are in there every day doing the best that you can for these patients and for the clients.”

Jamie Wesolowski:

“I know, and that’s tough to navigate, right? You don’t want to let it engulf you, but again, it’s just so hard not to when you’ve learned to love these patients. Like some of the patients that have really touched my heart the most—I have incorporated them into my life. I feel like that’s a service that I want to do. I don’t have to do it; it’s because they have impacted me. When I can allow them to be in my life, whereas that will hurt just as equally as if I’m losing my own, I think that just shows the type of commitment that I want to have to my patients and that I have to my clients.

It can definitely be overwhelming, that’s for sure. I think that in vet med, just in general, I think that all of us do take a lot of that burden on, as do human medical professionals. I know talking about mental health is really a big thing that we’re all trying to work through, especially with how COVID impacted everyone so much. But yeah, I mean, I just don’t know any other way other than just allowing them in my heart, and I think that’s the best way I can treat patients and clients.”

“That’s why you got into this profession. I think that’s why a lot of you folks have gotten into this profession.”

Jen Mellace:

“Yeah.”

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Narrator:

“Thank you for listening to ‘Did You Know.’ Is there something about Partner that you want to know? Email us at [email protected]. Who knows? We might turn your question into an entire episode. You can now find us wherever you listen to all of your other favorite podcasts.”

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