Get to know the story behind our founder’s journey in the veterinary field and how she created Relief Retriever to help make relief veterinary work easier.

Greetings Friends –

Welcome to Relief Retriever! Thanks for taking the time to learn a little about me and why I decided to go on this crazy adventure of creating my own online service dedicated to relief vets and the hospitals we help!

My name is Dr Aimee Cochell Stickney, founder of Relief Retriever. I have been a relief veterinarian for nearly 20 years. In that time, my professional journey has taught me a lot about myself, our profession and the communities we serve. As I am sure many of you can relate, it has come with both good and bad, but overall has been incredibly rewarding.

Relief work has shown me how truly amazing my veterinary colleagues and technicians are. Being a relief vet myself has opened my eyes to how isolated individual veterinarians can sometimes be in their practices. Even if you work with four or five different colleagues on a day-to-day basis, you come to know their patterns and eventually go back to the same people for advice and guidance, which can limit your growth. However, as a relief vet who works with many different practices, I am responsible for creating my own opportunities to learn, voicing my own concerns, developing my own feelings on issues and upholding my own boundaries. Relief work gives me perspective and distance from those work relationship dynamics that may inhibit my professional growth.

Relief work gave me the space to explore new ideas through working in so many different clinics and hospitals over the years. I see different ways to do EVERYTHING, based on learning from so many different people. This includes individual workflow patterns, medical record keeping systems, management styles, thought processes about cases, surgical procedures, and different treatments of similar medical conditions. I also see my colleagues’ varied approaches in their interactions with clients and staff while learning from each of them everyday. I really love that about this career.

I got my start back when I graduated from Ross University in 2001. I began my career as a full time associate doing mixed animal practice in Warren, Ohio. I won’t sugar coat it – my first job was a terrible experience. To say that I was not given adequate mentorship would be a gross understatement. I spent 2 ½ years struggling before moving back home to Michigan to start over. I spent those first couple of years wondering if I was cut out for this line of work. Honestly, I was disheartened, discouraged, deeply depressed, and felt very lonely.

After moving back home to Michigan in 2004, I accepted a job at a veterinary hospital on the east side of Grand Rapids as a full time associate. This time, I had a much better experience and still have many great friends from that hospital to this day. I had finally found the mentorship I was looking for. I was starting to think about how to grow in my profession, rather than just survive it. Unfortunately, that period of growth was unexpectedly cut short when my contract was not renewed. Like many people who have experienced losing a job they enjoyed, the employer never gave a reason, which left me questioning my skills as a veterinarian, my ability to contribute to a practice financially and my communication skills as a professional. This experience for many people (myself included) can be devastating and hard to move on from.

As you are all aware, being a Veterinarian requires so many different skills to be successful. It requires us to be surgeons, diagnosticians, and effective communicators. But after two rough experiences, it was challenging to gain confidence in myself and my abilities. It took time to find the right balance. I struggled to move forward while not knowing what I could do to improve. I became intimidated to try again.

One of my colleagues at the practice in Grand Rapids mentioned relief work to me as a possibility. It seemed like a great way to make money so that I could start paying off my student loans and pay the bills, while searching for my next full time job. At the time it felt like there was a stigma to relief work. But making money while I interviewed for jobs sounded like a great solution to my dilemma.

Having said that, I was nervous about my career’s direction after my first two job experiences ended poorly. I was really adverse to getting “stuck” in another toxic work environment like the first job and I doubted my abilities after the second. I wanted an escape hatch if my next job didn’t work out. I’m sure these ideas are familiar to many of you. So being a relief vet was comforting since it provided me with the possibility of independence, freedom and the ability to rely on myself for my own success instead of the approval of others.

Once I began practicing as a relief veterinarian, my experience in the field changed completely. My confidence started to grow in myself and my abilities. My professional interactions were overwhelmingly positive. I received “Thank You” notes with paychecks and was asked back to the same practices again and again. The genuine gratitude for receiving help was undeniable and it felt great to be appreciated for my efforts. With the stress of the employee/employer dynamic removed, the person I was working with became my respected colleague. We could focus on what mattered: the work we do.

Since choosing a relief veterinary career, I don’t stress about the practices that I never hear from again. Sometimes clinics only need a temporary person to fill in. Sometimes hospitals are just trying out new people to see if they fit. And like all areas of life, sometimes personalities don’t mesh well and you need to move on. Their opinions about me remain as they should: just one opinion out of many. Sometimes it’s great, sometimes it’s not. Not everyone needs to like me. That is one of the many benefits of relief work. I always hated those awkward conversations with office managers that go something like “Well, this client really didn’t like you.” Then they proceed to go on in detail describing exactly what said client did not like. I used to tie myself in knots trying to “fix” whatever character flaw my boss and the clients felt needed adjustment. But I know now, that for me, it’s just not worth the stress. In my view, if I am telling the truth as I know it, doing the best I know how to do (and am not swearing while doing it!), well then, that’s my best and it’s not going to get better than that. You can’t please everyone, but you can focus on your own happiness in what you do. You will find those who appreciate you if you are always true to yourself and what you care about. You will find where you fit.

I have also learned to understand the other side of this relationship. Practice owners, like all business owners, need to try their best to make their clients happy. They need to always be aware of the bottom line so they can keep the doors open, their people employed, and be able to fund the proper resources to help our patients. They are brave souls who buy practices with the dream of doing things their way. It takes a lot of courage to risk their finances and reputations to own an animal hospital. They work long hours, have their share of stress-filled nights, and have their own headaches dealing with finding the right employees or contractors to hire. Not having the resources to meet your clinic’s needs can be very stressful. Without a way to find help or manage the schedule effectively, life can become very difficult and prevent you from providing the level of care your clients expect.

As a relief veterinarian a clinic’s bottom line is very important to me, but due to my temporary status, it doesn’t need to be my ultimate priority. The independent contractor label seems to remove me from that association unlike my employed colleagues who must always keep it in mind. Instead, I can focus on doing the best work for the best patient outcome and leave the business side of things to them.

In many ways, relief work saved me. It saved me financially and mentally. The “Thank You” notes I receive with my paychecks is STILL one of my favorite things about relief work. The gratitude for my efforts. A simple “Thank You”. The knowledge that one’s employers recognize that you DON’T HAVE TO DO THIS, but you CHOOSE to help anyway. The distance of the relationship between clinic and relief vet is maintained such that the participants both retain respect for each other. They don’t fall into the comfortable routine that promotes taking each other for granted, which can often happen in the more traditional employer/employee relationship.

These are just a few of the reasons I love relief work. THIS is why I created Relief Retriever. I want to help others like me find meaningful and happy careers. To help those hard working people at animal hospitals find people who really want to help and be appreciated for their sincere efforts. To help new vets, fresh out of school, kick start their careers in a positive and exciting way while avoiding some of my negative experiences. To help independent vets build their own practices. After years of seeing both sides of our collective situation, I have realized we all have very common needs that so far have been left unfulfilled anywhere else. So with your help and support – I plan to change that with Relief Retriever.

Of course, there is more to my story and I look forward to sharing it with you. If you would like to share your story with us, send it to us. We may post it on our blog so others can find encouragement and learn from you as well.

For now, I hope you enjoy Relief Retriever.

Aimee