The Cone of Shame Veterinary Podcast

Tabitha Kucera, VTS (Behavior) and founder of Chirrups and Chatter, joins Dr. Andy Roark to unpack what "keep them quiet" actually means after surgery. Using real cases like a beagle mix post-abdominal surgery and a cat post-PU, Tabitha shares low-mobility enrichment options such as snuffle mats, frozen Kongs, and scent work that support recovery without heavy sedation or strict confinement. The result: better client guidance, stronger outcomes, and stronger relationships.

Episode Links:
chirpsandchatter.com
small-paws.ca
@chirpsandchatter

Tabitha Kucera is an Elite Fear Free Registered Veterinary Technician, Veterinary Technician Specialist (Behavior), Certified Cat Behavior Consultant, and Karen Pryor Academy Certified Training Partner. She owns Chirrups and Chatter Cat and Dog Behavior Consulting and Training and is the animal behavior technician at The Gentle Vet in Ohio. Tabitha lectures at both regional and national levels, enjoying the opportunity to help people better understand and connect with animals. Additionally, Tabitha is a Fear Free certified speaker and coach, a Fear Free Practice Certification and Implementation Consultant, and the host of the podcast, Tails from a Vet Tech.

Tabitha offers organizational consulting and education for veterinary clinics and animal shelters, focusing on best practices that address both the emotional and physical needs of animals. She specializes in behavior and training programs and handling skills. Tabitha has contributed to the development of training and behavior programs for numerous veterinary hospitals and shelters and continues to provide ongoing support to these organizations through her consulting work.

Dr. Roberta Westbrook, DVM, takes us inside the world of shelter medicine and challenges what many of us think we know about high quality, high volume surgery, access to care, and animal welfare. From the evolution of modern shelters to the realities of pet homelessness, community responsibility, and the future of keeping pets with the families who love them, this conversation will leave you with a whole new perspective on the incredible work happening behind the scenes.

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Dr. Lisa Radosta, DVM, DACVB, joins Dr. Andy Roark on the Cone of Shame Veterinary Podcast to discuss canine cognitive dysfunction syndrome (CDS) and how to tell normal aging from something treatable. Radosta emphasizes screening all dogs starting at age seven, tracking mentation and behavior changes against each dog’s baseline, and watching for signs such as disorientation, interaction changes, sleep-wake disruptions, house-training lapses tied to learning and memory loss, anxiety, and aggression. She recommends annual screening until about age 10 to 11, notes CDS exists on a spectrum that can affect quality of life, and advises working up systemic disease while starting symptom-focused treatment immediately. She also highlights brain health support with researched supplements introduced gradually and encourages regular enrichment and “old dog” learning activities to help cognition

Dr. Radosta graduated from the University of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine in 2000. She completed a residency in Behavioral Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. During her residency, she was awarded the American College of Veterinary Behaviorists Resident research award two years in a row.
Dr. Radosta is the owner of Florida Veterinary Behavior Service, a specialty behavior practice in southeast Florida and co-owns Dog Nerds, an online educational resource for owners whose pets have behavior disorders.
She is a sought after speaker nationally and internationally. She is a coauthor of several books including: Behavior Problems of the Dog and Cat, 4th edition and From Fearful to Fear Free. She is a contributing author for Blackwell’s Five Minute Veterinary Consult, Blackwell's Five-Minute Veterinary Consult Clinical Companion: Canine and Feline Behavior, Decoding your Cat, Canine and Feline Behavior for Veterinary Technicians and Nurses and Feline and Small Animal Pediatrics. Her new textbook, Handbook of Behavior Problems of the Dog and Cat, 4th Edition is due out May, 2023.
She has published research articles in the Journal of Applied Animal Behavior Science, Journal of Veterinary Behavior and The Veterinary Journal and written review articles for Advances in Small Animal Medicine and Surgery, Compendium, NAVC, Veterinary Team Brief, Clinician’s Brief and AAHA Newstat. She has served on the Fear Free Executive Council and the AAHA Behavior Management Task Force.
She has been interviewed for many publications including Cat Fancy, Dog Fancy, Palm Beach Post, NAVC Clinician’s Brief, Sun Sentinel, WebMD, AAHA trends, Real Simple, Good News for Pets, Catster, DVM 360 and AAHA News Stat. She has appeared on Lifetime television, Laurie Live, local news in southeast Florida, Mitch Wilder's Amazing Pet Discoveries, Nat Geo Wild, Animal Planet, Steve Dale's Pet Talk and Dogs, CNBC and Cats and Scapegoats.

Building Confident New Grad Vets: Mentorship, Psychological Safety, and Onboarding That Works

Dr. Jason Szumski, DVM, joins Dr. Andy Roark to tackle a problem every hospital feels, new grads want to do great medicine, but they are often scared of mistakes, lawsuits, and being “on their own” before they are ready. They dig into why mentorship is the top priority for vet students, what strong onboarding actually looks like (psychological safety, structured but flexible timelines, and honest expectations that new grads are an investment), and how to build real autonomy without ripping away the security blanket. Jason shares practical mentor and mentee strategies, including having new doctors bring a plan, getting hands-on in surgery, using curiosity instead of confrontation, and reinforcing confidence by revisiting past wins. Gang, let’s get into this episode.
Keywords: veterinary mentorship, new graduate veterinarian, veterinary onboarding, clinical confidence.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonszumski (LinkedIn)
Dr. Jason Szumski is an entrepreneurial practicing veterinarian, speaker, and educator focused on helping veterinarians work more efficiently and sustainably in clinical practice. He graduated from the University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine in 2023, where he served as both class president and president of the Veterinary Business Management Association (VBMA). After spending three years in a fast-paced suburban Chicago emergency hospital, he transitioned into his current role as Medical Director of a five-doctor general practice, giving him experience in both high-volume ER medicine and long-term primary care leadership. He is also the co-founder of VetSOAP, an AI-powered workflow tool used by thousands of veterinarians daily to streamline medical records, improve communication, and help teams get home on time. Jason regularly speaks on topics including new graduate development, AI in veterinary medicine, and clinical efficiency, with a focus on building practical systems that help doctors move from chaos to confidence in practice.

A Cry for Help in Veterinary Pathology, Burnout, Economics, Digitization, and AI with Dr. Eric Fish Dr. Eric Fish, DVM, DACVP, joins Dr. Andy Roark to tackle a tough question: Why does being a veterinary clinical pathologist feel darker right now, and what happens if AI turns “nice to have” diagnostics into “don’t need to have”? They unpack burnout and pay compression (including pathologists earning less than new grad GPs), consolidation in the lab market, and how digitization has pushed cytology toward point-of-care and high-volume “turn and burn” workflows with per-case bonuses that can be as low as $8 to $12. Eric explains how consultative lab medicine has shifted toward internists, why cytology’s cost and turnaround time are eroding its value, and what a better future could look like with AI that augments, triages, and keeps a human in the loop. Gang, let’s get into this episode. Keywords: veterinary pathology, clinical pathologist burnout, digital cytology, AI in veterinary medicine. Links: Substack newsletter All Science Great and Small; LinkedIn. Dr. Eric Fish is a veterinary clinical pathologist and laboratory director at a large private referral center, with a career spanning academia, entrepreneurship, and industry. He co-founded Lacuna Diagnostics, the first point-of-care digital cytology company, spent years at IDEXX as a diagnostician and technology scouting manager, and even found time to work occasional relief ER shifts. Eric brings a unique perspective to the conversation around artificial intelligence: he has not only used voice recognition and large language model AI tools in his own practice, but also worked on teams building computer vision applications for medical imaging. He writes about AI and other hot topics in veterinary medicine in his Substack newsletter, All Science Great & Small.