Veterinary Communication: Dead Giveaway—Your Vet’s Tone of Voice and the News that Is Coming

A very small portion of communication is conveyed through actual words. Some sources indicate that it is as little as 7%. It makes you wonder why we talk so much all the time.

When your veterinarian walks into the exam room with your dog’s lab results, do you already know what kind of news they’re bringing before they open their mouth?

Veterinary Communication: Dead Giveaway—Your Vet's Tone of Voice and the News that Is Coming

I still remember the phone updates I was getting when Jasmine was in the ICU. I remember the monotone voice reciting her vitals, “her blood pressure is good, her heart rate is good …” Translation: “she’s hanging in there but I have no good news to give you.” Morning after morning after morning.

When they were releasing her to home care, the non-verbal communication was saying, “there is nothing else we can do for her, it’s up to her now. Hopefully, she’ll bounce back when she’s in her home environment.”

I remember the message between the lines when discussing Jasmine’s prognosis on her last days.

The messages between the lines

When I was discussing Cookies ALT elevation with her vet, the tone of voice was quite neutral. No alarm bells going off. It was a mild anomaly which could mean something or could be normal for Cookie.

The phone call after her ultrasound was much more guarded. Before we even got to discussing the actual results, I was already worried. No word has been said about the actual ultrasound yet. But I knew that while it wasn’t going to be horrible news, something about the ultrasound wasn’t quite right.

Just the time it took for them to call me about it at all was suspicious.

As time went on, I started thinking they saw something and were waiting for the biopsy results before talking to me. As it turned out, it was exactly why they were making me wait. It took three phone calls from me to finally hear back.

I was on pins and needles awaiting the biopsy results.

We were out walking the guys when the phone rang and it was from the vet hospital. By the time the vet introduced herself, made sure I was who she was trying to talk to and that I had time to discuss things, I KNEW it was going to be good news.

Does your vet’s non-verbal communication give away the news they’re bringing?

Related reading:
What Makes a Good Veterinarian: Veterinarians Are People First

Further reading:
Communicating with Clients through Body Language

Categories: Dog health advocacy • Working with Veterinarians

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Jana Rade

I am a graphic designer, dog health advocate, writer, and author. Jasmine, the Rottweiler of my life, was the largest female from her litter. We thought we were getting a healthy dog. Getting a puppy from a backyard breeder was our first mistake. Countless veterinary visits without a diagnosis or useful treatment later, I realized that I had to take Jasmine's health care in my own hands. I learned the hard way that merely seeing a vet is not always enough. There is more to finding a good vet than finding the closest clinic down the street. And, sadly, there is more to advocating for your dog's health than visiting a veterinarian. It should be enough, but it often is not. With Jasmine, it took five years to get a diagnosis. Unfortunately, other problems had snowballed for that in the meantime. Jasmine's health challenges became a crash course in understanding dog health issues and how to go about getting a proper diagnosis and treatment. I had to learn, and I had to learn fast. Helping others through my challenges and experience has become my mission and Jasmine's legacy. I now try to help people how to recognize and understand signs of illness in their dogs, how to work with their veterinarian, and when to seek a second opinion. My goal is to save others the steep curve of having to learn things the hard way as I did. That is the mission behind my blog and behind my writing. That is why I wrote Symptoms to Watch for in Your Dog, which has turned out being an award-winning guide to dog owners. What I'm trying to share encompasses 20 years of experience.

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