It’s noon on a Thursday, but students at the Tufts University Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine have put their own feeding time on hold. They’re streaming into an auditorium for “Conflict Management in Animal Care Settings,” a presentation by Bentley professor Helen Meldrum.

The associate professor of psychology launches into a case study: Fluffy is Failing. The setting is an emergency critical-care veterinary hospital.

“A woman came in with her dog about an hour back, but stormed off after being told she couldn’t see a vet instantly,” Meldrum relates. “She must have realized she didn’t have many options late on a Saturday night, because she returned.”

Diffusing Distress
We enter the case when the veterinary technician arrives to triage the dog, an elderly Shar-Pei. The situation goes from bad to worse, as the tech realizes that Fluffy is critically ill. But the distressed and demanding owner will take direction only from her vet, who isn’t there; she wants the dog sedated so she can bring him home. The vet on call is unable to convey the seriousness of Fluffy’s condition.

The aspiring vets in the audience alternately nod in agreement and groan in sympathy.

“Most students get into veterinary medicine because they love animals – not realizing it’s much more about handling the owners,” Meldrum says later. “At this point in their education, these Tufts students have done clinical work. They understand that they’re never going to get burned out working with animals, but they will burn out from dealing with demanding humans.”

One point that can’t be argued: Pet care is big business in this country. According to the Humane Society of the United States, 40 percent of U.S. households count at least one dog or cat among family members. U.S. residents spend $31.7 billion each year on the well-being of their furry friends. 

Meldrum’s presentation at Tufts goes on to highlight good communication as a key strategy for the vets-to-be. “You have to keep the owner non-defensive, to get at the issue underlying her unreasonable demands and focus on the common concern: making sure that Fluffy doesn’t suffer,” she says. “If you get at the real issues, you can then set about problem-solving in a different way.”

Animal Instinct
The interaction between veterinarian and pet owner may seem unlikely territory for a psychologist. But Meldrum finds many parallels to her work on human patient–health care provider communication, which she has studied for 25 years.

“I’ve looked at topics like breaking bad news, transitioning to palliative care, and talking about sensitive issues,” says Meldrum, who holds a doctorate in psychology and education from Clark University and a master’s in counseling and consulting psychology from Harvard University.

She has presented workshops in the U.S. and abroad; co-authored more than 20 training scripts for health care professionals; and consulted to hospitals, health insurers and pharmaceutical companies. “It wasn’t a stretch to extend this work to the veterinary world.”

It was a former student who suggested the new track. The woman, an administrator at Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals–Angell Animal Medical Center, saw the similarity of issues and asked Meldrum to run a workshop for shelter volunteers.

Some of the MSPCA staff sat in, and Meldrum’s session soon became required for all shelter employees and volunteers. The MSPCA–Angell connection would lead to annual presentations at Tufts and, most recently, to speaking engagements for national veterinary groups.
 
Closer to Home
Her passion for work in health care settings led Meldrum to develop the Bentley course Human Relations Analysis in Health Care Organizations, which debuted this spring. The syllabus included two hands-on projects for area organizations.

One group of Meldrum’s students created a daylong training workshop for the Cambridge Health Alliance.  “CHA is a multicultural health care provider,” she notes. “Many entry-level employees speak Creole, Portuguese and Spanish as a first language.”

The students developed and presented a session for new employees, covering work ethic, team work, and other common expectations among employers.

The second group of students in the course surveyed pharmacy customers covered by Medicare Part D, the federal government’s new prescription drug plan for senior citizens.

“There are hundreds of companies providing the coverage, creating a confusing patchwork for both pharmacists and consumers,” Meldrum explains. “Sometimes — particularly when claims are denied — the process produces fundamentally unsatisfactory interactions for everyone involved.”

In collaboration with the Northeast Pharmacy Services Association, Massachusetts Pharmacy Association, and Massachusetts Independent Pharmacy Association, the student project team charted customer satisfaction over the last 24 months. Plans called for presenting their findings to the groups at the end of the semester.

“Most likely, their work will be published in one of the pharmacy journals,” says Meldrum. “The course brings together my professional interests in a way that benefits students’ education.”