Revolutionizing Pet Diagnostics: My Simple Pet Lab Co-Founder, Dennis Chmiel, DVM, MBA

About the guest on Vet Life Reimagined:
Dr. Dennis Chmiel, DVM, MBA graduated from Tufts University vet school in 1998. He worked in small animal and exotic veterinary hospitals. In 2011, he earned his MBA and became a Pfizer speaker. In 2013, he joined Zoetis later becoming a senior marketing manager in parasiticides where he led the launch of Revolution Plus. In 2022, he co-founded My Simple Pet Lab to address the gap in access to care, clinic inefficiency, and the rising cost of veterinary care.  Recently, My Simple Pet Lab Express came to a brick-and-mortar PetSmart in Denver.

Resources:
Episode on YouTube
My Simple Pet Lab
My Simple Pet Lab Express. 

Transcript

Dennis Chmiel: [00:00:00] Think about not just different careers that you may get into, but think about what you're passionate about in the thing that you're doing, like in the context of what you're doing, and try to lean into that, if you can, because at least I found that those things led me to use that ticket in ways that I would not have expected.

Megan Sprinkle: Business models within the veterinary clinic have evolved over time. One example is the business model around drug sales, and I really didn't know some of the background until this episode with Dr. Dennis Chmiel. Dennis calls the veterinary medicine degree a ticket to a plethora of opportunities, which is exactly what we are talking about.

Megan Sprinkle: all about here on Vet Life Reimagined. Dennis goes from practicing small animal and exotic medicine to working in industry for Pfizer, later called Zoetis, and earned his MBA degree. Dennis also discusses how business and medicine are really two sides of the same coin. He has had a behind the scenes perspective of evolving interactions between the vet clinic and industry.

Megan Sprinkle: He led the launch of Revolution Plus for [00:01:00] Zoetis and now is taking diagnostics into the future as he co-founded MySimplePetLabs. Allowing for from home diagnostics. Dennis explains how this model can be a game changer for pets, pet parents, and the veterinary team. My simple pet labs is also starting to come into brick and mortar PetSmart locations.

Megan Sprinkle: Dennis is very kind and humble, and I think you'll learn a lot in this episode. So let's get to the conversation with Dr. Dennis Chmiel. When did you know you wanted to get into veterinary medicine? 

Dennis Chmiel: Oh my gosh, I was one of those kids that always wanted to be a vet. I grew up with a, uh, as a four age kid, uh, with all sorts of animals from rabbits to Suffolk sheep to a plethora of chickens.

Dennis Chmiel: And when the veterinarian would visit the house, that was the highlight of my year. 

Megan Sprinkle: So were you in rural settings where you could have all this or with the [00:02:00] 4 H program, allow you to have those animals, but still kind of be more in a suburbia or something. 

Dennis Chmiel: Yeah, I grew up in Western New York, about 45 minutes outside of Buffalo, and so it was a relatively rural setting and my first jobs were with farms.

Dennis Chmiel: Both dairy farms and sheep farms actually used to clean sheep stalls as a, as a way to make money over the summer. 

Megan Sprinkle: Very interesting. I don't think, I mean, I I'm like, where are the sheep in the United States? So I think that's really interesting. Well, fascinating. And then. You know, as you were getting into vet school, which you went to Tufts, did you have an idea of what veterinary medicine was going to look like for you going in?

Megan Sprinkle: Did that change throughout vet school? And what was the vet school kind of like for you? 

Dennis Chmiel: Well, I loved like the large animal stuff. I I had never I've really done anything in small animal clinic. Really, my background was large animal and then through [00:03:00] undergrad, uh, with research as my sort of backup plan was the PhD research route if I didn't get into veterinary school, but going into veterinary school, I was really excited to be either a wildlife veterinarian or a zoo veterinarian, but to be very practical within that first year of veterinary school at Tufts, I really Was looking at what my loan payments were going to be and realized like there was absolutely no way I could survive Paying back these loans being a zoo or wildlife fed.

Dennis Chmiel: So what I did instead was I decided Well, maybe I could get close to that by doing exotics in small animal practice and so Every possible elective option that I had that allowed me to do something that was a strange creature, uh, I did, you know, through veterinary school. 

Megan Sprinkle: Yes. And actually, I noticed that when I was looking at your LinkedIn profile and seeing the veterinary clinics you worked at, they were [00:04:00] small.

Megan Sprinkle: animal clinics, but it was dog, cat and exotic pets as well. So I noticed you kind of followed that trend as you got into practice. 

Dennis Chmiel: Yeah, I had some great mentors in those early years. Alex Kilgore at Littleton Animal Clinic in Massachusetts. And then my first job was with George Messinger, who probably close to 50 percent of his practice was exotics up in Concord, New Hampshire.

Dennis Chmiel: And I was one of only a few veterinarians back when I graduated in 1998 in New Hampshire. did exotics. And so that, and especially with me and George in the same practice, we would see birds and reptiles from all over the state. And over the course of my, really the first third of my career, that first 13 years that I was in small animal and exotics practice, I averaged about 25 percent of my clinical caseload was birds, reptiles, and small mammals.

Dennis Chmiel: And I squeezed in wildlife whenever I had the opportunity. 

Megan Sprinkle: Yeah. Well, that's fantastic. You were kind of [00:05:00] finding your niche in the, in the area of being a practice that only did that, which is, it's a great opportunity as well. And then I noticed about 2009 is when you started working on an MBA program. So what inspired you to start working on an MBA?

Megan Sprinkle: Yeah, It's 

Dennis Chmiel: a great question. It wasn't my planned path. I would never have expected to go to business school coming out of veterinary school. But I spent about 10 years with an NVA practice, a National Veterinary Associate practice. And it was a really good experience for me at the time. And I learned a lot about practice management and running a business.

Dennis Chmiel: I was also during those years involved with what is now VMG, Veterinary Management Group. And so twice yearly, I would meet with other people. Practitioners to talk about leadership and management and best practice. And what I really learned over those years was that business and medicine were really two sides of [00:06:00] the same coin, meaning that if you really wanted to have a, a Great business in the industry.

Dennis Chmiel: You needed to practice really great medicine. And if you really wanted to practice great medicine, you needed to run a great business. It oftentimes in practices that I would go to and practices I had worked at and would see that if you didn't have that right balance, it was really hard To either run a successful business, meaning have a great culture as well.

Dennis Chmiel: Cause that's kind of tied into that because you're able to pay your staff better, uh, you're able to, you know, run a more stress less if that's possible business, but yeah, you really need to have that. That balance. And so I became really interested in trying to understand business, not just within the industry, but outside of the industry.

Dennis Chmiel: I wanted to understand, like, what are other industries learning about business and how could some of those best practices be transferred to our industry? [00:07:00] 

Megan Sprinkle: I am very passionate about being able to look at perspectives outside of the veterinary industry to understand not, it may not be direct that we translate it, but just to get those ideas and different perspectives that can help our profession.

Megan Sprinkle: So, kudos to you. What were you seeing in other industries that you wanted to bring in more into the veterinary side? 

Dennis Chmiel: Yeah, I think that there is, in medicine, I'll start with this, in medicine, I think there are reasons that we tend to be very habitual, and it can be very difficult to change, and do things differently.

Dennis Chmiel: I think, Part of that comes from the nature of medicine, which is that, uh, you know, over the course, say, of a day in practice, there is a lot of things that happen that are routine, but there's a number of things oftentimes that happen that are not routine, and you need [00:08:00] to have those. Routines in those habits in practice in order to make sure that you're not making unnecessary mistakes right for you and your staff right?

Dennis Chmiel: Think of the just the complexity of a small animal appointment for example. And I mean if you think about just like the vaccines moving around and maybe the blood draws and the education and trying to like do the dance with the pets and no one gets injured. And you're also, you know, fear free and like all this, right.

Dennis Chmiel: It's very complex, but because of that, it can be very difficult, I think, to change operations and maybe that's one of the things that I took away from that. Away from the MBA experience was the importance of operations and how you lay out a practice and think about just a business, almost like a manufacturing plant, right?

Dennis Chmiel: Like if you, if you're laying out, if you're designing a manufacturing plant and you need have to have raw materials input. into that building, you want the factory line [00:09:00] to start right at that garage door, right? It is a really simple thing, right? But if you look at a veterinary practice, oftentimes those basics of where the raw materials come in and how they're utilized don't make any sense at all, right?

Dennis Chmiel: They create tons of inefficiencies, which lead to inflexibilities in the operations and an increased likelihood of, of mistakes being made. So anyway, that was like a really big thing for me, just everything from like, Almost like looking at a practice top down and seeing how the people and materials flow through the practice and how you could tweak those things to make things more efficient and easier and minimize mistakes.

Dennis Chmiel: Does that make any sense? 

Megan Sprinkle: It does. So, when I started at Royal Canin, I had a really neat position where I could really see all the different parts that were going on in the practice. The industry and the group that I thought sounded like the most stressful job and the most complicated job was logistics.[00:10:00] 

Megan Sprinkle: So there is something to having to understand, like all these pieces from a to B, how does this all work smoothly and effectively? And yes, I think sometimes we forget all the moving parts. 

Dennis Chmiel: Yeah, the simple things that can, uh, you know, that would be regular, like in a, in a manufacturing line to like reduce unnecessary movements, to reduce unnecessary complexity, to reduce unnecessary decision making, it could be like in a practice, like a great example would be, you know, and if you got a four or five doctor practice, like I did, you have different doctors using different size needles to give vaccinations, for example, and now the technicians are trying to, you know, Always remember, which doctor is this and which size needle do I need to put on the syringe to give it?

Dennis Chmiel: Some doctors want a 25 gauge, some doctors want a 23 gauge, some doctors want a 22 gauge. If you can create doctor alignment that, okay, everyone's going to use a 23 gauge needle to give vaccines, you've reduced [00:11:00] complexity. increase simplicity, reduce stress, and reduce the likelihood of a mistake being made.

Dennis Chmiel: So simple things like that, if you start to add those up over time, can really reduce the likelihood of a medical error and reduce the overall stress of the practice. It takes time to work through those things and to gain alignment, but I found the Those can be really, really valuable for the team and to reduce medical errors.

Megan Sprinkle: I can definitely see how that would be very rewarding once you actually get it all in place and you can see how you've reduced all of those things that can be kind of Inspiring like you want to keep doing it kind of thing And I saw that you you I mentioned I had gotten into industry and you did as well around 2011 you started working for pfizer and then later zoa edis.

Megan Sprinkle: So You What was the interest in moving out of a clinical setting into more of a industry setting? 

Dennis Chmiel: Yeah, and I've been fortunate in the [00:12:00] different phases of my career that I've loved each phase, and they've all been, you know, very different. But coming out of clinical practice and, Doing my MBA, that was the, the transition.

Dennis Chmiel: And as I was coming out of my MBA is when I landed with Pfizer Animal Health as a, uh, area veterinarian for New England, which was a veterinarian that supports the sales team through science training of the team and, uh, uh, education of veterinary teams consulting work with veterinary teams around.

Dennis Chmiel: Products at Zoetis or science topics at now Zoetis that the sales team would be focused on. But what led me to that transition when I was doing my MBA, I've always had an entrepreneurial mindset in that I always just love innovating. And even if I've been in jobs where innovation wasn't part of my responsibilities, I can't help myself, but to find ways to innovate and like, You know, how can we do things better?[00:13:00] 

Dennis Chmiel: But in coming out of my MBA, I had this idea like, Oh my gosh, I want to be an entrepreneur. You know, I didn't have like any really great ideas, but at the point that we really, I thought could translate into a solid business, but I wanted to be an entrepreneur. But I had an advisor in my MBA who said, Dennis, if you have the opportunity to work for a big company, you should, he's like, you can, you can quit your job at any point.

Dennis Chmiel: And be an entrepreneur, but to see how those wheels turn those cogs of a big company and really learn like what that environment looks like, he felt like that would help me tremendously as an entrepreneur in the future. And he was 100 percent correct, at least for me. So I had an eight plus year run with Pfizer, which became Zoetis.

Megan Sprinkle: And you got to do, it looks like a lot of different things in Zoetis, which I found really interesting. So not only were you appreciating how a big organization works, [00:14:00] but I think I saw you go from, yes, a technical service veterinarian, but then you did digital services and then a senior marketing manager.

Megan Sprinkle: So you were able to participate in a lot of these different areas too. What were you kind of learning as you went through this that Set you up for success and maybe help you make some decisions when you did become co founder of your own company. 

Dennis Chmiel: Yeah, great question that, you know, I always thought of the DVM degree or the VMD degree as a ticket to a variety of different career shows.

Dennis Chmiel: Although like when you get that ticket, you know, after you graduate from. Veterinary school, you don't necessarily know where that ticket is going to be used, right, in your life, and you'll probably, at times, be surprised. And I came to think of the MBA, the business degree, in the same way, and it certainly opened up doors for me in [00:15:00] Zoetis.

Dennis Chmiel: I might not otherwise have been able to get through. There are, I will say that there are some veterinarians. My current co founder being one of them and many other veterinarians that I met through industry who are phenomenal business people. They do not need to do an MBA. They don't. Period. I did. Some of the financial aspects that come naturally to some did not come naturally to me.

Dennis Chmiel: Strategy. Marketing, organizational behavior. Like those are the things that I love and are very natural to me, but there are other things like finance that are not, but that said, like having the MBA, I think changed some people's mindsets as to how they could first impression define me. And I was always very, to be honest, it seems it's like a little bit embarrassing, but I've always been very forward in my thinking.

Dennis Chmiel: Signature like my email signature to put the MBA after the DVM because I wanted to be defined [00:16:00] in that space is more than a DVM in order to be able to maximize the use of that ticket. I had to bring the goods too, I suppose, but it did lead me into a headquarters role with Zoetis where I spent years.

Dennis Chmiel: Working in the digital space as a scientific support of digital projects and one of those projects ended up being the, um, it's it's now called the Pet Wellness Report. But really, what it is is it was the first. Health risk assessment that was ever truly designed for dogs and cats. I led that project with Ted Gannon, uh, who is a brilliant business colleague at Zoetis.

Dennis Chmiel: And again, like here's another example of like, you know, like the science and medicine and the business, two sides of the same coin. But we worked really closely with Iowa State University to develop this health risk assessment. That was a really fun project. I [00:17:00] did other projects, including, uh, working with HABRI, the Human Animal Bond Research Initiative, and some of those things led to work with marketing, the actual marketing group in Zoetis, and that eventually led to a senior marketing role where I was able to quarterback the launch of Revolution Plus, and that was about a three year endeavor.

Megan Sprinkle: Yeah. I need to go back and, and say something about something you said. Cause again, you hit a hot button and that is trying to help other people understand your potential when they only see a DVM or VMD. And you know, one of my, my big things is you're not in a box. Like the whole point of that life reimagined is to understand who you are as a.

Megan Sprinkle: As a human being, and I loved how you described that degree is really a ticket into so many different other avenues again, hence MetLife [00:18:00] Reimagined to show off some of those things. But just to acknowledge that one is sometimes it can be hard enough just within our own profession for people to understand that we can do lots of different things like this.

Megan Sprinkle: The types of skills that we develop are very useful in a lot of different ways. But also when we come into other people who See us as Just a doctor, which, you know, who, you know, you don't know business and that kind of thing. So just to acknowledge one, I think it's most important for you to understand your, you know, your personal potential and the capabilities, but also to understand what are the tools that I could use to help me further communicate to other people that I'm serious about this.

Megan Sprinkle: Maybe an MBA isn't necessary for everybody, but you definitely get me excited about it. So there are some. Other ways that you can kind of help communicate how serious you are and help you continue to develop the skills that you [00:19:00] want to go to the places you want to go to. So sorry, a little soapbox there.

Megan Sprinkle: Um, 

Dennis Chmiel: but 

Megan Sprinkle: yeah, and I think it's important. And my mission is that we continue to broaden our definition of things. And again, look at the human being and the skills that they can bring. And. I just think when we can bring a lot of these people with very diverse backgrounds and perspectives, we are able to see things in a way we would never see them before and therefore come up with some amazing solutions or, you know, how can we do things better that we wouldn't have maybe been able to do if we were all just alike.

Dennis Chmiel: It's talking as they think back about like how that, you know, has related to, you know, my path. I remember something that an early mentor said to me, Eric Cluff, a veterinarian who started practicing in the 70s. He really encouraged me and other veterinarians to find [00:20:00] something, you know, during the day that you're passionate about and really lean into that.

Dennis Chmiel: And don't worry so much about the money part. When I graduated Tufts, I had a 120, 000 20, 000 worth of debt. And at that time, my starting salary was 35, 000 a year. And my wife is a veterinarian. We met actually in undergrad in Buffalo. She's a Cornell, a Cornellian, and she had a similar debt load, even though she was in state.

Dennis Chmiel: And I know that that's dwarfed by some others with debt today. But even with that, it's, I found it really important that yes, like I've You know, got to figure out like how to pay back those loans and balance a lifestyle that, you know, will allow me to do that or allow us to do that. You know, as well, finding something that you really love in the context of the environment that you're having to make money in.

Dennis Chmiel: So that led me down paths [00:21:00] during my clinical career of anesthesia and sedation. I became really passionate about that and that actually Led me to being, you know, one of the first practitioners that started using dextrometer based sedation protocols. We were in the early years of that. And that led me to doing speaking and teaching for Pfizer.

Dennis Chmiel: I wasn't working for them, but I would, I would go to other practices and teach them what we learned about it. how to get an animal into anesthesia as comfortably and as safely as possible and how to get an animal out of anesthesia as comfortably and safely as possible. It also led me to getting really passionate about endoscopy and you know doing all sorts of endoscopic and endoscopic assisted procedures that, you know, I found just really fun.

Dennis Chmiel: Like they were, like, I could have made more money by going into, you know, more appointments, but I had to balance that with things that really got me, you know, excited over the course of the day. So anyway, like, you just made [00:22:00] me think about, like, there's, think about not just different careers that you may have.

Dennis Chmiel: You know, get into, but think about what you're passionate about in the thing that you're doing, like in the context of what you're doing, and try to lean into that, you know, if you can, because at least I found that those things led me to use that ticket in ways that I would not have expected. 

Megan Sprinkle: Yeah, I'm so glad you said that because I did see that you had been a speaker for before you joined, and Who knows that helps you build a relationship with the company and may have helped you because industry jobs are very competitive too, especially right now.

Megan Sprinkle: So just by leaning into what you're interested in, really help open doors and find new opportunities along the way that continue to. Meet your interests because you're, you're putting forth the energy and effort into it. So completely agree. 

Dennis Chmiel: Exactly. 

Megan Sprinkle: So, you know, it talked about very early on coming out of [00:23:00] your MBA, you are already interested in potentially being the entrepreneur and starting your own company.

Megan Sprinkle: And so here you are, you've been in Zoetis for a while. When did you finally start hinting at, Hmm, I might be getting that idea that I need to start developing my own company. 

Dennis Chmiel: Yeah, it really started thinking about it in 2018. So I was in the process, you know, back then of preparing for the launch of revolution plus, and as you'd said earlier, I was the, um, the, the senior marketer, the lead for getting that, uh, launch with, you know, the help of countless other people.

Dennis Chmiel: And oftentimes I think of marketing is like the, the center of a, um, of one of those old wagon wheels. You don't really. in that kind of role, really any direct reports, but there's all of these people, each spoke ends with like a person or a group that has a stake in what you're doing and has input in what you're [00:24:00] doing.

Dennis Chmiel: And so you as a marketer at that center, just like taking feedback and trying to make the whole thing work, which we ultimately successfully did. I became a blockbuster medication in veterinary medicine, but I've always had a passion for, you know, just innovation, making a difference. And I love my industry, I love veterinary medicine, and I truly believe that the world is a better place when veterinary medicine is healthy and strong.

Dennis Chmiel: But I've also been a believer that the industry is, is slow to change, like too slow at times. And if we could be. A bit more visionary and a bit more paying attention to where the world is going, we might have a better chance of putting our profession in the best position possible for that future. And maybe an example that I would share that will, you know, help explain what [00:25:00] I, what I just said was, was really pharmacy back in the early days of me practicing in the early 2000s, you know, we started to.

Dennis Chmiel: You know, understand that the business model of pharmacy might not be appropriate for the future. In other words, we had come off of several decades of basically a monopoly on small animal pharmaceuticals and vaccines. And then more recently, you know, from the 90s, heartworm and flea tick products. And what that created in the model for the industry was an ability for us to.

Dennis Chmiel: Charge relatively high margins, right? Or high profits on those products. And we did it not because we were like bad people. We did it to subsidize low cost services. So you could get a spay done on a cat or a dog for really nothing. Exams were typically lost leaders, right? Where it actually [00:26:00] cost more to provide the exam and consultation service than the retail price of that exam or consultation.

Dennis Chmiel: But it worked out okay because you knew like you're going to sell heartworm and flea tech. You were going to give vaccines that had higher margins and so then it could balance. But what happened was that eventually other industries, other companies from other industries looked at that and said, Oh my gosh, like look at the margins on those products.

Dennis Chmiel: I would happily, outside of the industry, take much lower margins for a piece of that, you know, market pie. And that led to what became, you know, a 10 to 15 year fight for those products and led to what we'd call like a gray market situation where we had products being sold legitimately into the industry, which are then Being resold [00:27:00] to, like, essentially middlemen to get them to retailers that were willing to go through middlemen back channels to get it.

Dennis Chmiel: But the problem with that is it led to challenges with supply chain credibility or integrity. Like, were those products being maintained properly, either like through refrigeration or, you know, just regular temperature? I would argue that today, pharmaceuticals have become now more accessible. The cost for many of those pharmaceuticals have come down to make the net, so not only are they more, like, channel accessible, like, retail accessible to pet parents, but the costs have come down and the veterinary industry is still, pharmaceuticals is a very important industry.

Dennis Chmiel: It's a really important aspect of their business and their profit center, and it's supported by new innovations, right, that are coming out. Talking about Zoetis, right, the monoclonal antibodies are a great example of that, that are [00:28:00] not easy products to go over the counter. But it's a long way of saying, had we as an industry looked ahead and said, you know what, like, having pharmaceutical products more accessible to the pet parent is actually better.

Dennis Chmiel: Good for pets. Bringing down those prices is, is good for pets because it makes it more accessible. How could we, as an industry, see that that happens, but do it in a way that is also really good for us? Because I believe, had we done that, and, and I, I was absolutely responsible for fighting it, but had we done that, we could have maybe, you know, Change the outcome a bit and maybe as an industry better serve the pet parent better serve the pet and I'm even better served ourselves That is a long story, but it brings us to Why I did this entrepreneurial thing why eventually launched my simple pet lab because we saw diagnostics [00:29:00] Being set up in the same way in that veterinarians were able to charge high margins, again, subsidizing lower cost services and with a belief that diagnostics could never like go away from the veterinarian.

Dennis Chmiel: It's same thing that we thought with pharmaceuticals. Pharmaceuticals never go away from the veterinarian, but the reality is, is just look at human medicine. And that's what we were doing, right? It started in the 1990s with Ancestry. com and then 23andMe, right? The DNA genetic test. Fast forward to Everly Well and Colagard, right?

Dennis Chmiel: People were pooping in a box and giving it to their, to their mail person to send it to the lab. And then, of course, COVID. And COVID really is what taught everyone that you could do a legitimate scientific test on your kitchen countertop or by collecting a sample and sending it to an outside laboratory and getting results back directly in a way that you could understand and share with your virtual or physical [00:30:00] physician.

Dennis Chmiel: And so it was really that, it was really for Nancy, Dr. Willerton and I, who both lived through the pharmacy transition, believing that If we could go back, we'd do that differently and now seeing that diagnostics we felt were being set up in the same way and that maybe, maybe this time around, we could help the industry part in home diagnostics in a way that would ultimately improve access.

Dennis Chmiel: Be better for the pet parent and be better for the pet. Allow prices to be accessible to the pet parent in the home diagnostic space, but also figure out how to unlock the connections to make it also an important business integration with the veterinary practice. 

Megan Sprinkle: I think this really hits on quite a few hot topics that are going on in vet med right now.

Megan Sprinkle: I think that access to care has been like, [00:31:00] like a tagline for a little while now and trying to help get more pets health care. Also something that I think we have all noticed just in the past year or so is the substantial increase in the cost of veterinary care, which can Be counter helpful to access to care.

Megan Sprinkle: And then something that I didn't even think about, but I saw it in a pitch deck. I think that you had online is around clinic inefficiencies, too. And so I'm curious how you were seeing. Seeing some of these challenges, especially I think now, maybe even more so than ever and how having diagnostics that can be used at home and sent from home to a lab is able to address a lot of these.

Megan Sprinkle: big topic concerns that we have in our profession. 

Dennis Chmiel: Yes. 

Megan Sprinkle: Yeah, [00:32:00] 

Dennis Chmiel: this, you know, there's definitely some challenges, right, for the profession right now. There's, uh, there's not enough of us, um, not enough veterinarians, not enough veterinary technicians. And there was a, uh, you know, the AVMA has done some nice work on this.

Dennis Chmiel: And then there was a recent, maybe in the last year ish, a study that I believe was in JAVMA on operational inefficiencies and, In veterinary practices, but, and really that sort of circles back to earlier in a conversation where, you know, you asked me, what did I take out of my MBA that we learned from other industries and, you know, and I referenced manufacturing and looking at a veterinary practice top down, like take the roof off and like, look and see how your people are moving like through that operational inefficiencies, especially in the face of workforce Shortages is a material thing, right?

Dennis Chmiel: And it is very impactful and can really increase the stress load, you know, of a practice. And so if we think about that, I think it's good [00:33:00] to consider what has to be done patient side. And what is currently being done patient side that doesn't have to be? What could be done to support the visit in advance of the visit?

Dennis Chmiel: And what could be done to support the visit? After the visit. And so, as we think about diagnostics in that way, there are certain things, right, like a blood draw or maybe a cystocentesis that has to be done patient side, right? Like, you need the pet there, but Does a stool sample need to be collected from the pet during the visit?

Dennis Chmiel: Well, that was a really common practice decades ago. I think now we know better that that's not really, you know, very nice. And we really should try to encourage the pet parent to bring in the stool sample either pre or post. That's a simple, right, example. But we felt like [00:34:00] we could enable More opportunities for home collection.

Dennis Chmiel: They've got kids. They've got other pets. They've got a work life, right? They've got like all sorts of things that get in the way. And as veterinarians, we oftentimes and veterinary teams, we oftentimes want to, you know, we were taught like, like I was taught anyway, like recheck everything. If there was any abnormality, ask that pet to come back and recheck it.

Dennis Chmiel: And we always feel good, right? If that pet comes back for a recheck. Okay. And we're like, great. Everything's normal. Thanks for coming in today. And that's a wonderful outcome, you would think. But a lot of pet parents interpret that as like, I just wasted my time. I just paid to have the vet tell me that everything was fine.

Dennis Chmiel: I took time off of work. I had to find a babysitter for my kid, right? Like, I had to pull this dog that hates being in a car and vomits every time. I had to pull them back into the practice. It's just, you know. Awesome. So which is why so many recheck appointments [00:35:00] are either missed They're canceled. And even if they get back in, they're the lowest revenue visit, and they're oftentimes take, they're in the way, especially with workforce shortages, right?

Dennis Chmiel: And not enough appointment availability. They're in the way of wellness appointments, and then they're in the way of what arguably are often priority illness appointments. Now, I'm not saying that nothing should come back in for a reject. That is not what I'm saying. But what we were able to, you know, eventually unlock is we would.

Dennis Chmiel: Wholesale, and we do this today, we wholesale ear infection, as an example, ear infection test kits into a veterinary practice. So they buy these test kits at wholesale. The dog comes in for an ear infection. The veterinarian does a cytology of the ear, of both ears, to find out, is this yeast? Is it blood? Is it bacilli?

Dennis Chmiel: Is it cocci? Is it a mixture? And then they prescribe treatment or apply treatment. But what these practices do, that are really passionate about, creating the best client experience that [00:36:00] they can, and reducing the unnecessary workload, trying to get back to doing only what they have to do patient side, they will, with treatment, Send home a test kit with a date on it.

Dennis Chmiel: So based on the timing of the treatment, they are telling the pet parent when to collect swabs from home. And when the pet parent does that, and we've become over the years experts in being able to instruct a pet parent on how to do this safely and get a great sample. They'll collect the sample, mail it in, within two to three days, we have it at our lab in Denver, a quick turnaround on the results within one business day, and when the pet parent activates that test right before they send it, it includes a symptom survey as well.

Dennis Chmiel: So that veterinary team gets the results along with the pet point. pet parent in a way that they can understand. And the veterinary team is able to decide based on that symptom survey and the psychology results whether they're going to recommend that pet [00:37:00] parent stay home. And 75, 80 percent of the time that's what these veterinary practices do.

Dennis Chmiel: And they say like, you know what, this looks fine, dog's doing well, you're in for a vaccine this summer, we'll check the ears again then. Or 20 to 25 percent of the time they'll say, you know what, Based on the symptoms and or the cytology results, this pet really needs to come back in. But from an experience standpoint, from a perception of value standpoint, that pet parent now has been given evidence that they should come back in.

Dennis Chmiel: So we sort of get these different wins that, you know, are, come back to the very beginning of what we talked about. And they get, which is this two sides of the same coin, right, that if you can make medicine and business work together in balance, you can have some really fabulous outcomes for the pet, the pet parent and the veterinary team.

Dennis Chmiel: So we got reducing of workload, increasing compliance, but also being able to get high quality diagnostics done. 

Megan Sprinkle: Yes. And I really think we've been doing this [00:38:00] maybe even longer than people think. I, again, working at Royal Canin, we had blue care. There's another one called like pretty litter where they urinate.

Megan Sprinkle: And if it turns a certain color, it means it's detecting levels of red blood cells or, you know, those kinds of things that we've been doing for a little while now that are a lot less traumatic on the, on the cat or, you know, on the pet as well. And again, like you said, it signals to the pet owner, Oh, I have proof.

Megan Sprinkle: It was like, Oh, And, you know, there is something wrong and it helps them peace of mind, you know, call the vet and figure out what they need to do. So I just, I have to try to sneak in a really quick question because of being a nutritionist, we are, we have also seen where diagnostics, yes, these, At home tests have become very popular, both in people, but also pets.

Megan Sprinkle: My goodness, someone told me a human story not too long ago on a little snafu with a test that was not really up to par. And so especially in the nutrition space, you know, we've [00:39:00] had where they have sent in some fur samples of a stuffed animal and the poor stuffed animal came back allergic to all these food things.

Megan Sprinkle: So how I've seen that study. Yep. It's one of our favorites in nutrition. How do you do quality control when it comes to these diagnostics? And I, it's really just to kind of help those of us who are science y and have seen when tests go wrong. And it's really hard to communicate with the client when you, you basically have to tell them, actually that test really helps us.

Megan Sprinkle: Nothing. So how do you help with quality control and know that these tests really are effective and useful? 

Dennis Chmiel: I think in the nutrition space, you guys are fraught with pet parents that are trying to solve either real or perceived food or environmental allergy problems. And in the human health care space, there are legitimate diagnostics that can be done in home.

Dennis Chmiel: or from home and there's snake oil, right? There's like just [00:40:00] garbage. And we as veterinarians, we were really concerned about that when we entered the space. It was actually one of the reasons that we did enter this space because we thought that what we could end up with is a variety of tests that are out there that no one trusts.

Dennis Chmiel: That there's, that we sort of ruined the space for veterinary medicine because of this. Either non veterinarians, we felt that if we could get into the space and do it in a really credible, authentic way that we could potentially help open the door for others. And I, and I think we're doing that. And there are, there are plenty of others in this space that are doing really tremendous science, like some of the microbiome stuff.

Dennis Chmiel: Some of those companies that are in this space are led by PhDs that are profoundly impressive, but there are. you know, bad apples as well. What we do is we have, you know, first we do tests that everyone understands, right? There's no when O and P to an ova and parasite test on a fecal with a Giardia Eliza.

Dennis Chmiel: We all know what that looks like. And we run those just [00:41:00] as you'd expect like an Antec or an Idex or a Zoetis to run those. Our head of laboratory in Denver is 20 years in the industry. She's led teams at, you know, Dan Tack, she's led teams at IDEX. Uh, she's worked for HESCA. She's been a practice manager.

Dennis Chmiel: She's an RVT. We also have our senior lab technician as an example. She is 15 years with IDEX doing quality control and training. And then our research lead is from Ray Kaplan's lab at the University of Georgia. She's obsessed with hookworms and hookworm research. So we We do a lot of hook room stuff.

Dennis Chmiel: Part of our research, like what we do from a research standpoint is answer questions that are different from what you might be expecting. For example, we've presented twice at the veterinary pathology conference on the stability of ear swabs. In Amy's media over three days and then over five days, and the stability is tremendous for work that we're doing with the [00:42:00] stability of urine at room temperature in preservative tubes that are used in human medicine.

Dennis Chmiel: We've. Presented last year at ACVIM and will be presenting this year at ACVIM as well. So I think it's a combination of things, but demonstrate credibility wherever we can. And it is important to evaluate if you're going to be using a home diagnostics company to really think about that, because yes, like there are bad apples that are out there.

Megan Sprinkle: I think it's helpful again for the veterinary peace of mind. And then now you are getting into brick and mortars. So you opened up the very first clinic in a PetSmart in Colorado. So you want to briefly share a little bit about the reasoning from. getting into brick and mortar. And I know that there are veterinary professionals who are at those clinics to talk with pet owners who come in, which I think again is another piece of mind for the veterinary community.

Dennis Chmiel: Yeah. And we, we probably do an entire podcast on this [00:43:00] part, but you'll be happy to know that this is a very sort of nutrition focused approach. We have basically what we've done is created what would be a new category called express care as you you differentiate it from. Primary care, which we all know urgent and emergency care.

Dennis Chmiel: There's also wellness care that's out there. There's also to the vaccine specific care, like a vaccine clinic express care is more like the minute clinic concept in human medicine, where it's some wellness and minor health concerns and we're retail based. So These express clinics we've started in the Denver metro area and they're within PetSmart and they're in the nutrition section because one of the reasons for being is nutrition education.

Dennis Chmiel: We've been complaining for years, right, that there isn't enough expertise in the nutrition aisles at pet retail stores. Well, Yeah. Yeah. We're here to change that and create an accessibility for some minor things like ear infections, skin and itch, [00:44:00] like hot spots, diarrhea, that when a pet parent can't get into their primary care vet or quite frankly doesn't have a primary care veterinarian or is afraid to go to urgent care, you know, oftentimes because of the wait times and the, and the prices.

Megan Sprinkle: Yeah. And I just want to comment, you made that one share earlier, right before we started that one of the surprising things you have found so far doing this is that a lot of the pet parents that come into this clinic do not have a primary care veterinarian. So again, kind of goes back to that access to care and that there's still a lot of people who really do want to help their pet and they're, they're looking for ways.

Megan Sprinkle: So I think this is a really exciting. shift and change that's coming into more brick and mortar, creating a different experience when you go into the pet store. So I am very excited to see more from you and My Simple Pet Lab. 

Dennis Chmiel: Oh, thank you so much, Megan. I really appreciate you having me today. 

Megan Sprinkle: I hope you enjoyed this.

Megan Sprinkle: Fascinating veterinary story. [00:45:00] We can make an impact in so many places. Check out the show notes for lots of resources. Please make sure you are subscribed on your podcast app, subscribe on the YouTube channel, and follow me on LinkedIn where I hang out the most. You can contact me on LinkedIn on the website at vetlifereimagined.

Megan Sprinkle: com. And brand new is that you can text me to send me a text message. Find the link at the top of the show notes below that says, send us a text message. I want to thank our longtime sponsors, FIRE Consulting and Will Hughes who support the podcast over on our hosting platform, Buzzsprout. You can support the podcast too.

Megan Sprinkle: Just check out the show notes for a link. And I hope to see you next time on Vet Life Reimagined.