Christine Crick
CVT, RVT, LVT VTS (Anesthesia/Analgesia)(ECC)
Career Summary:
My path in veterinary medicine has always been highly clinically focused and wanting to see veterinary nursing really change into the profession of public trust that I believe it to be. With this responsibility come leadership and career coaching which I was incredibly lucky to receive early on from some brilliant mentors, managers and clinical practitioners. My roles have included leading a very large privately owned specialty hospital in Chicago where I saw eminent need to support peers. I moved to a Regional Technician Director in Northern CA over 28+ hospitals where I was able to help 'weave' a community of performance but backed with friendship, not competition and community where sharing became more important than being #1. My role has now changed and I've been blessed to try and create this same community in specialty nursing for VCA on a much bigger scale. For the past 3 years, I've been in Medical Operation as the National Director of Specialty Technicians and I'm loving every challenging minute of it.
Interested in sharing:
In my position currently, I have recently been able to develop a national Leadership for Veterinary Technicians and Assistants. The goal of this program has been to either identify or allow self directed growth in leadership and mentorship skills. We focus on the individual to do some self inventory and looking inside at areas of growth needed to excel before leading others. We sponsor the growth of others in this program by bringing them along with a peer rather than a 'top down' approach of a manager assigning a responsibility to the program and in that, we're looking at the greater goal of creating true collegial interactions, sharing of challenges, learning to coach without 'pushing' and applauding our successes while supporting one another through failure. I'd love to share more on this program and the courses therein but also ... this isn't about VCA's program. My goal is to learn more about what the overall veterinary world is doing to support veterinary nursing and try to replicate the 'sisterhood' I see in so many human nursing factions and associations. It's my dream to rid our workspace of 'mean girl' mentality and have the very best interests of one another at heart.
