See the Full Issue
July 2024
Empowering Veterinary Care Through Inclusivity
Esmeralda Cano, DVM, joined Central Line podcast to discuss the mission of Vetspacito, a platform aimed at breaking down language barriers in veterinary care.
A Conversation with Esmeralda Cano, DVM
Esmeralda Cano, DVM, joined Central Line: The AAHA Podcast to discuss the mission of Vetspacito, a platform aimed at breaking down language barriers in veterinary care.
Cano is a bilingual Latina and first-generation college graduate who completed her undergraduate studies at UC Davis and earned her Doctor of Veterinary Medicine at Ross University. She is passionate about overcoming language barriers and promoting diversity and inclusion within veterinary medicine.
Katie Berlin: Dr. Esmeralda Cano, welcome to Central Line. You and your partner Dr. Tyler Primavera have started a small business. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Esmeralda Cano: Tyler has been really the main force in leading Vetspacito to where it’s at right now. Currently Vetspacito’s goal is to bridge the gap of the language barrier. We’re focusing on the Spanish-speaking community. Our goal is to have resources for vet med professionals. This includes staff, CSRs, receptionists, technicians, assistants, and veterinarians like myself.
I’m fortunate that I speak English and Spanish. I grew up in a predominantly Latino community. My parents emigrated from Mexico. They unfortunately don’t speak English. When I was growing up, I did a lot of the translating, and I still do it now.
What we see often is family members’ children translating in the rooms. And we’re hoping that they’re able to translate big medical terminologies from veterinarian to the child, to the parents. That’s a very difficult job as a 12-year-old, sometimes even younger.
Vetspacito has educational videos that include everything that has to do with general practice (GP): dentistry, heartworm prevention, vaccines, microchips, etc. With a lot of these issues, clients don’t know what’s actually going on. Especially at that preventative care stage, there are not enough resources in Spanish. Our videos are meant to help them really understand what dental care is, why it’s important to spay and neuter, why vaccines, deworming, fecal, heartworm prevention is important. That way we can avoid those emergency calls down the road.
We have educational packages that focus on those top general practice themes. We previously created a mix of GP and ER videos. But we’ve condensed it to mainly GP topics. We still have those other ER videos in our packages as well as free brochures that you can visit our website for. They’re very colorful and beautiful. We worked very hard on them, and they’re free. We also have an intake form that is both in English and Spanish for people to utilize in their hospitals. Sometimes we’re having clients fill these things out and they don’t really know what to write down.
What we see often is family members‘ children translating in the rooms. And we’re hoping that they’re able to translate big medical terminologies from veterinarian to the child to the parents. That’s a very difficult job as a 12-year-old, sometimes even younger.Esmeralda Cano, DVM
I think it’s important that we really try to educate our community, especially if you’re one of those veterinary professionals that’s working in these communities. It’s so important to have that staff. Even if you don’t know Spanish, you can always have supporting staff that can do those translation services for you. It’s so important for clients to be able to come in and feel like they can connect with the people that they’re going to the vet with.
KB: So much of that resonates with me because my first jobs in vet clinics were in Los Angeles, and so many of the clients did not speak any English at all. We had assistants on staff who were bilingual and could translate for us, but without them, it would’ve been a lost cause. I definitely had no veterinary-relevant Spanish. “Where’s the bathroom” was not going to be that helpful.
As I’ve worked in other areas that are not so heavily Spanish-speaking, it’s been kind of eye-opening to see how few people actually possess that skill or even just the desire to learn it outside of areas where that’s so representative of the population. But there are plenty of Spanish-speaking clients in other areas and they’re not being served. What do you see as being one of the most essential ways that veterinary professionals now can start to bridge that gap?
EC: Vetspacito has great resources. We have videos, brochures, and intake forms. Tyler, my co-founder, has taken it upon himself to learn Spanish. Obviously you don’t have to go that extra mile, but even learning a word a day can help. I always tell people—Spanish soap operas. I have friends that watch soap operas, and that’s how they’ve learned Spanish. Just hanging out, meeting the culture.
If you work within that community, get to know the community that you work for, dive into their culture, into their traditions so you can understand a little bit of where they’re coming from. Oftentimes I think we tend to misunderstand them. And that’s because we assume things that are not correct. Whether it’s financial things, whether it’s their culture, we misrepresent them.
My family had to come to this country to provide me with a better education and that really set the foundation for me. But they didn’t realize that dogs needed vaccines. Throughout my childhood, I demonstrated to my parents that taking care of an animal is way different than what they were used to.
So I was able to teach them that great lesson. As veterinarians, that’s what we can do. We can teach clients great lessons so they can teach their children and so forth. I worked as a vet assistant for three years before becoming a vet. People thought I was a doctor and I’m like, I am not, I am an assistant. I established relationships with them, and then they would call before they would come in just to make sure that they had someone that spoke Spanish. If you provide them with those resources in your clinic, they will come even if you don’t speak Spanish because you’re making them comfortable and wanting to seek that veterinary care.
KB: I love all that. And I love that they would call, looking for you. They were looking for you and you were getting that experience before you ever became a doctor.
We’re talking now more about ways to support your team members. Continuing education and professional growth opportunities are important for everybody on the veterinary team, not just veterinarians. If you have a team member who really wants to spearhead this, but isn’t fluent in another language, they could take it upon themselves to learn enough to communicate with clients that speak that language. So, if you live in an area that’s heavily Spanish-speaking or Korean-speaking, how can you serve that population better? It doesn’t have to be you. It could be someone on your team who’s always wanted to do that. It gives you a really good perspective as a doctor now looking at the team around you and seeing who really wants that, who has that as a strength and who might want to learn it.
Even if you don’t know Spanish, you can always have supporting staff that can do those translation services for you. It’s so important for clients to be able to come in and feel like they can connect with the people that they’re going to the vet with.Esmeralda Cano, DVM
EC: Absolutely. I recently started doing some relief work, and I’ve realized they were really excited to bring me in for even if just a couple of days a month to say, hey, we’re going to have a Spanish-speaking doctor. And the technicians were like, oh wow, I don’t have to go in there and like translate for you. It has a big impact within that community.
I always go in there and sometimes they’re already speaking to me in Spanish before I even start introducing myself. They know and they’re comfortable with just talking to me and expressing their concerns. So it really does make a difference.
KB: We are talking a lot about team members, nonveterinarian team members and veterinary technicians. Vet techs deserve to be celebrated. So I was wondering if you had a shout out to a vet tech in particular or to a group of techs who have really helped you in your journey so far.
EC: Yeah, absolutely. My Overland Vet Clinic team, they’ve been wonderful. The technicians, Lisa, Nera, Darlene, my CSRs, Helen, Maggie, y’all have been super helpful in my transition and welcomed me into the hospital and the community. My cat friendly and McKayla and Sam, y’all really helped me and empowered me to continue to get educated on better feline handling and better practices, because our feline friends need it.
I really want to give a huge shout out to everybody else at the Overland team. All of our technicians. Everyone has done an exceptional job in really guiding me as a new recent grad. I’ve had the pleasure to just continue to grow my skills because of them.
If you work within that community, get to know the community that you work for, dive into their culture, into their traditions so you can understand a little bit of where they’re coming from.Esmeralda Cano, DVM
KB: I think if you asked me to write down who has taught me the most in my veterinary career, it definitely would not be veterinarians. It would be the technicians. And not just about medicine and patient care, but also just how to relate to people and how people on the team need and deserve to be treated. I feel like you have a really good appreciation for that so early in your career and I think that’s wonderful. And it’s going to help your mission at Vetspacito too because the skills that you’re describing are going to help everybody do a better job at their role in the clinic. So thank you for being so passionate about that and knowing that right off the bat, like coming out of school gangbusters, like going for it. I just . . . It makes me feel really hopeful.
EC: I’m very passionate about just bridging this language barrier gap. I’m very passionate about diversity and inclusion. Especially as a person of color, I struggled to get here. So all of this really motivates me and impacts me. Thank you.
What is Vetspacito?
Vetspacito is an organization founded by Esmeralda Cano, DVM, and Tyler Primavera, DVM. Vetspacito seeks to improve pet care through education and outreach. Their website has resources for serving Spanish-speaking clients, and they have produced a series of videos explaining various procedures and veterinary protocols in Spanish.
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Central Line is generously supported by CareCredit. Catch the full episode, and every other episode of Central Line: The AAHA Podcast, on major podcast platforms and YouTube.
Photo credits: SelectStock/Vetta via Getty Images Plus, aldomurillo/E+ via Getty Images