Career Journey At Safari Veterinary Care Centers

This workflow enables the most important asset in the Safari System to be spared: “Veterinary Face Time”. This way the veterinarian can be the most effective at what they are trained to do. Within this workflow, the client’s perception of value is enhanced by all the members of the team guided by the Safari Standards to provide an efficient, consistent and accurate veterinary visit.

Veterinarians are trained to save lives, cure disease, and correct damage; all of which focus the purpose of the veterinarian on the pet. The Safari System, however, focuses on the client and how the entire team can better communicate with the client, so the informed client can now choose what is best for the pet.

Understanding this purpose enables you to appreciate your membership in the most rewarding profession on Earth — being a veterinarian. At Safari, we have a system of practice that magnifies your knowledge; enabling productivity and patient care standards to soar.

We are looking for bright, energetic, people–oriented veterinarians who love to teach their knowledge to join our staff. Those that accept this challenge will be rewarded with the following five Safari attributes:

• Learn how to Minimize the Complexity of Veterinary Medicine. Technology is defined as anything that increases certainty. Increasing certainty minimizes complexity. The more technology applied to a case the more certainty is created. Safari will support you by enabling the most advanced forms of technology to be applied to each case. Diagnostic technology at Safari includes in–house advanced laboratory, ultrasound, endoscopy, MRI accessibility and radiology (direct digital x–ray, dental x–ray and C–arm fluoroscopic). Therapeutic technology includes state–of–the–art anesthesia and monitoring systems for small animals and exotics, specialized micro–surgical instrumentation for eyes, exotics, laparoscopy and arthroscopy. Orthopedic surgical instrumentation including almost every power tool made.
• Discover how to Create a Decision Path to a Diagnosis. How to pick and choose the most likely scenarios for illness by using ethical guidelines for decision making. Veterinary school gives you all the information but does not help you rate the relative value of these learned facts. Employment at Safari will give you support and guidance as to how to apply your knowledge to the case in the most productive manner. This guidance is based on decades of practical experience distilled into a meaningful set of guiding principles. These principles focus on doing what is best for the pet first, respecting all life, diagnosing before we treat, and touching before we teach, just to name a few.
• Maximize Your Productivity to enable Financial Security. As a Safari veterinarian, you will require the advanced diagnostic and therapeutic tools and training to practice at the levels that match your educational attainments. These tools are expensive. In addition, you need to be productive financially for Safari to compensate you appropriately for your skill and knowledge. You will also need medical healthcare and benefits that you deserve to provide for a stable current and future existence. Fortunately, Safari has just the system that can engage your productive potential enabling you to capture the value from the knowledge you have obtained. Because veterinary medicine has evolved to a higher level its delivery requires a new system that engages the productivity of the whole team not just the veterinarian. Team–based multitasking workflows increase productivity and reduce stress, enabling you to practice veterinary medicine the way it should be — at its highest level.
• Learn how to Dissolve Conflicts. Management of conflict is one of the key elements to successfully exist in today’s complex decision ridden society. Our decisions, when made focusing only on our personal needs, create conflict when placed in the context of a team–based environment. Each week Safari has team meetings designed to dissolve this conflict. These meetings are an essential element of Safari’s success and teach not only how to work together to serve our customer better but also how to live better in our complex, multi–cultural, pluralistic society. By valuing the opposing view, which we discover by the properly questioning, we can interact with fewer conflicts.
• Learn how “Influence vs. Control” affects your whole life. Learn how to influence the proper outcome instead of stressing over control of all the variables. Your ability to influence the outcome of a situation varies inversely to the degree that you can control the situation. Learn how to influence outcomes instead of exerting energy trying to control the parts. Influence is used to attain future long–term goals with the understanding that small course changes today result in great differences in the final destination. By focusing on the destination these course changes become almost innate. At Safari, we want you to set high goals and we want to help you attain them. The more successful you are, the more successful Safari will be.

The five dimensions of culture defined:

• “Beauty” is a term for. what an individual sees as valuable. If a person thinks something is beautiful, they want to share it with another person. This is an innate human quality. If you see something that you think is “cool”, it is human to find another human to show it to. To the degree they also think that thing or idea is “cool” is the degree that you are bonded to that person. The shared “Beauty” of veterinary care as provided by Safari is “cool”, and sharing the appreciation for that beauty each week is a way to enrich our culture and to motivate our team members.
• “Knowledge” is essential to. cultural development. The knowledge of how things work about the veterinary care of animals is an essential part of our business. When you share your knowledge, your esoteric knowledge (or knowledge that is difficult to acquire or previously unknown), you give value to that person. That person is bonded to you, becomes loyal to you and is motivated to help support you as a veterinarian in the Safari System. This reinforces the need to share knowledge – not hoard it as many in our profession do.
• “Values” are an expression of. what is fair, just, ethical and moral. Value appreciation is important to all people and all people are drawn and attracted to those that express those values. The Safari weekly Customer Service meeting reinforces the values we strive for and those values are exemplified in our Safari Standards and our Safari Ethics.
• “Wealth” is essential in. any self-sustaining culture. Money is motivational, but it is not the “Wealth” that is denoted here. There is an emotional wealth that is received when you do something that is good. This wealth is inherent in doing good but is also magnified when another human appreciates the good you have done. We care for pets and I am sure they appreciate what we do, but it is difficult for them to show the same appreciation that their human owner can. When we all work as a team to care for pets, and the clients show their appreciation, and the team co-members show appreciation, it is called an “emotional paycheck” and that is more motivational than any money paycheck that you can receive.
• “Power” is the ability to. choose. If you have power you can choose how to work, act and behave. If you do not have power, then others tell you how to work, how you must act, and how you must behave, which is not motivational. When team members have the choice of how to work, they are empowered and motivated. Empowerment comes from knowledge of veterinary care issues, giving them choice of how to deliver this information to the client or utilize it while working. Veterinarians working at Safari control how the cultural dimensions are managed, and by understanding the power of these concepts, a veterinarian can go further, save more lives and enjoy a more rewarding career.

Our software, VetPlan, creates customized wellness plans for each of our pets. Safari receptionists, as well as the rest of the Safari Team, are trained on how to communicate the benefits of these plans. The Safari veterinary staff benefits from this structured, standards-based system because, by the time the veterinarian sees the client, these discussions and many of the decisions about the wellness care of the pet have been made.

The veterinarian then focuses on the exam findings and the communication of recommendations about future care of the pet. Properly delivered HealthMaps, for example, result in urine screens on “healthy” pets. Many times, these urine screens show crystals and inflammatory changes that support there are conditions for urolith development before there is an actual stone. This proactive approach prevents the need for surgery and arrests disease processes earlier, to the benefit of the client and the pet.

Dr. Garner has been through the University of Tennessee CCRP course in Rehabilitative Therapy and our rehabilitation technicians are known worldwide for their expertise and care of pets. Our rehabilitation technicians at Safari select from a wide range of equipment to match the needs of the pet with the best physiotherapy regime. Starter exercises include balance pads and wobble boards, while more advanced exercises involve balancing with 1 to 4 paws on a donut or peanut. Safari has full rehabilitation facilities that includes:

• Land and Water Treadmills… The treadmill is used for both balance and proprioceptive training (knowing where the feet are) and strength training. Strength training is best done with the water treadmill. The water treadmill is state–of–the–art in pet rehabilitation. The water buoyancy helps supports the weight of the pet, enabling the pet to use its limbs more naturally, while the moving floor encourages walking. This builds strength without damage to the surgical correction. Land (or dry) treadmills are an advancement for the pet that can use and bear weight, but still needs to work on coordination.
• Therapeutic Ultrasound… Therapeutic ultrasound uses sound waves to deliver energy to tissues with two types of effects. Therapeutic ultrasound is primarily indicated in the treatment of chronic scar tissue and indolent decubital ulcers (bed sores). It may also be effective for palliation of muscle spasms and for enhanced tendon healing. Therapeutic ultrasound offers many benefits, some of which are heat energy delivered to tissues, increased blood flow, flexibility and extensibility of connective tissue, pain relief, decreased swelling and muscle relaxation.
• Electrostimulation and TENS… Electrostimulation Therapy (or NeuroMuscular Electrical Stimulation –NMES), is the electrical stimulation of muscles, or the nerves that feed muscles. The purpose is to make the muscle contract. This contraction of muscles is necessary when there is nerve damage to the brain, spinal cord or other nerves that feed the muscles, and they cannot move on their own. Electrostimulation is also beneficial in cases where there is trauma or surgery to the bone, joint or muscle that makes it too painful for the muscle to move without electrostimulation. TENS (Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation) is different from Electrostimulation. TENS is electrical stimulation to the skin; versus electrical stimulation to the muscles and nerves. When TENS is applied to the skin large nerve fibers (A-β) are stimulated. These A-β fibers synapse in the spinal cord and stimulate nerve fibers that block the perception of pain in the brain. This is called the gate control theory of pain. The frequency of electrical impulses that stimulate the A-β fibers also causes the release of endorphins from the pituitary in the brain. Endorphins are natural opiates that produce analgesia when released. The synapses in the spinal cord also stimulate another nerve fiber (A-δ). A-δ fiber stimulation blocks other nerves headed for the brain and are also involved in the mechanism of action for acupuncture. The effect of TENS is like the effects of acupuncture for pain control.
• Cold Laser Therapy… Clinical studies have shown that laser therapy reduces pain and inflammation and, thereby, stimulates tissue healing, regeneration of nerve cells and reduces recovery time. Laser therapy can be used in addition to medication for pain management, or as an alternative to pills. Laser therapy is non-invasive, requires no sedation and is free from side effects. At Safari, we use a high-powered laser, so treatments take just a few minutes and can be performed on an out-patient basis. Laser therapy is suitable for all ages and all species of pets. Many pets show rapid improvement with reduced pain scores and less lameness after only 1 treatment. Treatment schedules are tailed to the pet’s condition and rate of recovery.
• Pilates and Obstacle Courses… These lessons are designed to strengthen core muscle strength as well as to work on specific leg muscles. Balance exercises not only improve balance and confidence, they strengthen joints by making micro movements which exercise the muscles surrounding the joint. Improving balance and coordination is an important component of improving mobility in pets with chronic arthritis, post–surgery or recovering from injury.

• Stem cell therapy requires the ability to collect tissues and process them in a sterile environment for administration or culture.
• This process requires a biologic safety cabinet with laminar flow and ultraviolet sterilization.
• Cell processing and culture requires incubators that can increase the CO2 and decrease the Oxygen tension so that the stem cells are grown in the optimal conditions.
• Cell growth requires a sterile microscope for visualizing the growth characteristics without bacterial contamination.
• Cell therapy requires viability testing, which requires fluorescent viability testing, thereby, requiring a fluoroscopic enabled microscope.
• Cell therapy requires a count of the number of cells per ml, which requires an automated cell counter.
• Cell preservation requires a controlled rate freezer that takes the cells down one degree per min until the point of ice crystal formation, then down 10 degrees per minute, then back to one degree per min until the -86C is reached.
• Storage of frozen stem cells requires a liquid nitrogen storage system.
• Running a stem cell laboratory requires trained laboratory technicians and the necessary space for them to work.

Stem cell therapy is transformational to a veterinary practice. Stem cells can be used to reset the major histocompatibility factors of T-cell, effectively stopping most autoimmune diseases. This allows us to treat IMHA, Pemphigus, Feline Stomatitis, Feline Asthma, Chronic Inflammatory Bowel Disease, Keratoconjunctivitis Sicca, Atopic Dermatitis, and many other similar diseases.

Stem cells are anti-inflammatory and can be used acutely in spinal cord and brain trauma to reduce damaging inflammation.

Stem cells are regenerative and can be used in chronic degenerative diseases, such as arthritis or degenerative disc disease. Stem cells promote neurogenesis and neuroplasticity, allowing pets with spinal cord damage or brain damage to respond to therapy.

Dr. Garner is a pioneer in stem cell therapy and has had advanced training in stem cell culture and propagation. Dr. Garner uses stem cells for therapy of many common, and not so common, illnesses in pets. Dr. Garner works with pet rescue organizations at a greatly discounted rate to gain the cases necessary to prove these treatments work.

Dr. Garner has a special interest in exotic animals & birds and promoted this avenue of practice to differentiate Safari from the rest of the pack.

Safari believes in a proactive approach to wellness and preventative care with the utmost concern for the humane treatment to all species. We do not turn away from any challenge where we can make a difference; we embrace wildlife, exotic animals and even insects with the understanding that our mission is to promote life wherever we find it.

Safari not only has state–of–the–art diagnostic tools to treat the conventional pet, we also have specialized exotic equipment that is essential for the handling, diagnosis and treatment of exotics, birds and even primates; complete with an in–house, well–equipped Laboratory. Handling wild or exotic animals requires specialized training, skill and expertise. Birds, in particular, require small instruments and magnifications for surgery, requiring special skillful knowledge. One must be comfortably confident, cautious and efficient in the treatment of exotics.

Anesthesia of exotics is necessary in many cases for proper examination. At Safari, we only use Sevoflurane, which is a gas anesthesia that has been proven safe for our exotic animals. Wild or exotic animals hide their symptoms so as not to appear vulnerable to other animals in the wild that may prey on them. The more exotic the animal the less obvious disease becomes, therefore, an animal that is very sick on the inside appears healthy on the outside. It is this reason that we must sedate and palpate, listen and look at all the body systems to make sure the pet is well. Blood and urine tests are essential to knowing if an exotic animal is healthy or not.

Safari has created well–educated, qualified staff that is knowledgeable in the care of each species. We stay up–to–date on exotic medicine and continue to educate our team members and our clients. Many of the exotics treated at Safari come to us with health problems that are a result of the owner not being properly educated in the care of that specific species. It is for this reason that educating our client’s and keeping them up–to–date is extremely important to us.