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Random freezes, missing sound and display glitches usually trace back to one bad driver. Find and replace yours safely.Free scan · under a minuteVeterinary practices can support new team members more consistently by pairing structured, role-specific training with intentional mentorship. Formal instruction teaches clinic protocols and practical skills; a mentor helps a new colleague navigate communication, workplace expectations, and questions that are harder to capture in a manual. Gregory Carastro, LVT, an AAHA Board director, recommends using both approaches to foster collaboration across practice roles.
Why combine formal training with mentorship?
New employees need to learn more than clinical tasks. They must also become familiar with the practice’s equipment, protocols, communication habits, and team culture. A packet or informal shadowing can introduce some of this information, but may leave instruction uneven or important expectations unstated.
Formal training makes learning objectives explicit and gives the practice a repeatable way to teach essential knowledge and skills. Mentorship complements that structure: a trusted colleague can help a new team member work through interpersonal challenges, ethical questions, and tacit knowledge about how the workplace operates.
Carastro’s recommendation is to treat these as complementary supports, not alternatives. The AAHA article describes potential benefits for teamwork, morale, retention, and patient care, but reports no measured program outcomes or statistics establishing that a particular approach produces those results.
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Build onboarding around each role and experience level
A useful program gives every new employee a clear path while recognizing that learning needs vary by role, licensure, education, and prior experience. One curriculum for everyone can miss the practical demands of different jobs; entirely informal instruction can make the experience depend too heavily on who happens to be available.
Carastro recommends combining modular instruction with hands-on and applied learning. Practices can use:
- Interactive modules to teach policies, protocols, and shared expectations.
- Hands-on skills labs and procedural demonstrations for practical tasks.
- Case-based scenarios to help employees apply what they have learned.
- Emergency simulations to rehearse responses in a structured setting.
Adapt the objectives and practice activities to the employee’s responsibilities and starting experience. The aim is not to make every role identical, but to ensure that each person receives consistent instruction relevant to their work.
Make mentorship an organized part of onboarding
Mentorship is more dependable when it is designed into the workday rather than left to chance. Carastro recommends assigning mentors, clarifying what mentors and mentees are expected to do, preparing mentors for the role, and setting aside time for regular contact.
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Defined goals and scheduled check-ins give both people a basis for discussing progress, questions, and challenges. Organizational recognition can also signal that mentoring is valued work, not an extra responsibility that should be squeezed in whenever time permits.
Adapt the plan for shifts and departments
Emergency and specialty hospitals may operate around the clock, with teams working nights, weekends, or in departments that have distinct workflows. A single daytime orientation may not reach every new employee or reflect the conditions in which they will work.
Carastro recommends staggering onboarding where needed, providing shift-specific instruction, and using experienced peer mentors or unit champions who understand a department’s work. This helps connect a shared practice-wide foundation with guidance relevant to a particular shift or service.
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Onboarding should be reviewed and adjusted rather than treated as a one-time event. Carastro suggests using surveys, feedback loops, and performance data to identify where instruction or mentoring may need to change. Practices can also recognize learning milestones and align training with relevant accreditation and safety standards.
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These are improvement methods, not guarantees of better retention or patient outcomes. The AAHA article does not specify a validated evaluation method or report that any single measure has a particular effect. Practices should use the information they gather to refine their own program and avoid treating an isolated indicator as proof of impact.
Further guidance from AAHA
For practices seeking additional mentoring guidance, Carastro’s article points to the 2023 AAHA Mentoring Guidelines and the AAHA Mentoring Toolkit.
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