Alyssa Mages is passionate about creating positive working environments via growth and empowerment, and at ‘Empowering Veterinary Teams’ creates multi disciplinary veterinary training in clinical and non clinical skills. It was great to hear how as a business EVT have been conscientious about their impact on the planet – in creative ways.
Your team, your practice, and your planet will be all the better for it.
Alyssa Mages
Those of us in veterinary medicine tend to be those with big hearts and even larger consciences. Stemming from our desire to help those without a voice – our animal friends & patients – this extends out and beyond to that of preserving and defending our planet. But…we work in a medical profession that necessitates sterility and single-use items be used daily, so how can we truly make a difference in this realm?
This is where ingenuity comes in. Starting a recycling program at your clinic is great, and yes it will make a difference, but take it a step further; begin a repurposing campaign! Empowering Veterinary Teams (EVT) makes this a core tenant of our mission, to continue to practice awareness and enact a positive momentum for change.
How? By working with local veterinary practices to have them set aside used IVF bags and lines, rinse out used suction tubing, and save the air-filled packing materials their shipments come in. For what? Training materials. IVF lines & bags can be reused in calculations demos. Suction tubing becomes tracheas and/or rib cages when reinforced with tape (recycled plastic formula of course). Air-filled packing materials transform into lungs. All of which are combined and turned into mannequins for venipuncture, CPR, and a multitude of other trainings.
It’s incredible what you can create when you think outside of the box, and literally turn trash into training treasure! Make sure too that when you’re done, you recycle what you don’t use, and if you’re sending your finished products you use eco-friendly shipping materials & elect to pay that $0.10 more to negate your carbon footprint.
What it comes down to is taking those extra – and yes, I know each one is precious – moments and outline what you could reduce in circulation, what can in fact be reused, and if neither works, then repurpose, and set up a thorough recycling program. Your team, your practice, and your planet will be all the better for it. If you need any tips or would like to learn how to make your own DIY repurposed training mannequins, please reach out: hello@empvet.team. Because we’re in this, for the long haul, together.
Alyssa Mages