Your Guide to Texas Veterinary Regulation with Brittany Sharkey and Mark Lee

Transcript

Narrator: 0:01

This podcast is for educational purposes only, does not constitute legal advice and does not create an attorney-client relationship. If you need legal assistance about a legal problem contact an attorney.

Cimone Murphree: 0:15

Good afternoon and welcome to another exciting episode of Know your Regulator, the podcast. Joining us today from the Texas Board of Veterinary Medical Examiners is Executive Director Brittany Sharkey and Staff Attorney Mark Lee. Thank you both so much for joining us today. We’re very excited to have an opportunity to speak with you about your agency and share some insights with our viewers. How are you guys doing?

Brittany Sharkey: 0:42

Doing great. Thank you so much for having us. We’re so excited to talk about the very exciting world of veterinary regulation today.

Troy Beaulieu: 0:49

Yeah, it’s really great to have y’all here. You know, like Simone said, we’re excited to have a conversation. Before we kind of jump in, Mark and Brittany, would you mind telling us a little bit about your backgrounds and your roles over at the board?

Brittany Sharkey: 1:08

Sure Mark, do you mind if I go first?

Mark Lee: 1:10

Please do.

Brittany Sharkey: 1:12

So I have been executive director over here at the Veterinary Board for just over two years. Prior to that I’d served the agency as general counsel and then before that I worked in the legislature for a number of years. So I’ve kind of come at this from the view of actually creating the regulation and now enforcing the regulation. But prior to that I was just your average attorney in private practice here in Austin. So it’s been a very interesting and varied career.

Cimone Murphree: 1:38

I’m sure the perspectives have kind of changed from being in different roles. So that’s really cool to hear, brittany. As most of our viewers know, the Texas Board of Veterinary Medical Examiners is responsible for the regulation of veterinary professionals. But I’m sure that is not all that you guys do. Can you tell us a little bit more about your agency, how it functions and some of the work that you guys do? It’s a great question One.

Brittany Sharkey: 2:03

I think the most important thing to know about our agency is our mission is always to protect the public. You know, I want our licensees especially to know that we’re not in the business of gotcha regulation. One of my favorite facts is that we license over 13,000 individuals across the state. We get anywhere from around 500 to 600 complaints a year, meaning that 95% of our licensees are doing a great job and not interacting with us except to renew their licenses. So I love that we get to talk about what a wonderful community the veterinary profession is in Texas and the great work that they’re doing for our people and pets.

Brittany Sharkey: 2:40

So that’s really so. A we license our folks and then we also regulate. So that’s really so A, we license our folks and then we also regulate. And that can involve either complaints that come in against our licensees or on-site inspections is something that controlled substances, and so that’s the agency really kind of provides a first line of defense against diversion and sort of related issues there, and so that’s kind of a very interesting and unique aspect of the agency.

Troy Beaulieu: 3:18

So I think always helpful for the public in general and license holders to know. Mark, I know you and I have known each other for years as friends and colleagues and even worked together on several occasions, but why don’t you tell our listeners a little bit about your background and your role at the board?

Mark Lee: 3:35

Well, actually this is my third career. I started off in the Navy. In fact, one of the reasons I did that was I couldn’t afford to go to a very good school without some help from them and had originally intended to make that a career. But sailor’s life was not for me, so I ended up taking advantage of my computer engineering degree to go into that field. And then, when my last assignment for that was with Lockheed, and when they packed up and left town, I had to either move to Pennsylvania or Colorado and neither of those seemed appealing. So I had a friend of mine convince me that law school would be a good idea. And here I am.

Mark Lee: 4:14

I started off in private practice, despite my evidence professor’s admonition that I was minimally competent, and I started off with the state at the Texas Workforce Commission being a hearing officer, then went over to the appraiser board thanks to Uteroy, where I was a staff attorney, and then I ended up here at the veterinary board and I have to tell you we have a really good team now and a board that’s really interested in making things better for everyone, including licensed holders, although we protect the public, you know, like, like Brittany was saying, we see 5% of the people is really the 95% of vets who are out there doing a good job, and part of the idea of being a regulator isn’t just enforcement, it’s setting standards so everyone knows what to expect and so that all those vets who are doing a good job aren’t facing unfair competition from some of the vets out there who, you know, aren’t quite as diligent.

Troy Beaulieu: 5:10

I think that’s very well put. And that kind of leads me to my next question. Brittany, I know agencies are always looking at the upcoming legislative session. Do you have any legislative initiatives or things that the agency is looking at and maybe you could talk about how the public or the industry members can get involved in and be aware of and participate in those processes?

Brittany Sharkey: 5:36

It’s a little bit of a it feels too soon to be talking about January already.

Brittany Sharkey: 5:40

I was like I feel like we were just in legislative session.

Brittany Sharkey: 5:43

It can’t be already, but we are gearing up for it again. I think you know, as an agency our position has always been that we are here to enforce the regulation and not sort of create the regulation, and so we really just try and sort of stay on the sidelines as a resource to legislators when questions about the veterinary community come up. Some things we’ve kind of seen interestingly in the industry and across the country with some of our other state veterinary boards we’re seeing issues about like telemedicine are kind of cropping up and expanding access there. We’re seeing direct access to sort of like alternative therapy providers, whether it be chiropractors or things like that, and also kind of a call for mid-level practitioners. So we’re while we don’t necessarily have a specific, you know, view on those, we’re there to provide sort of insights and you know any issues that might come up with regulation, because those are all very unique issues that are going to present new and sort of novel issues around regulation and you know how we as a board are going to regulate any of those if those initiatives pass. So we’re definitely keeping an eye on some of those issues, interested to see where the legislature lands on that.

Brittany Sharkey: 6:55

As an agency. We actually had a really great legislative session last go around in terms of funding and we’re able to grow our staff by 33%, able to implement a new licensing database. So this session is actually really this is a very easy session. I get to come in and say we’re not asking for nearly as much as we were last session. Thank you, legislators. But one of the things we’re really excited about is building out our database system to include our compliance and enforcement modules so we can really be making these data driven decisions and sort of regulating from the 21st century space instead of Excel spreadsheets like we currently are. So really excited to talk to legislators about that.

Brittany Sharkey: 7:34

But I definitely just encourage folks to you know, kind of keep an eye. You can do some keyword searches in the Texas legislature online about veterinary medicine. So if you aren’t so inclined to want to participate and sort of track some bills and see what’s happening, I think legislators hearing from members of the public, members of the profession, really go a long way in helping inform some of those decisions and providing you know that kind of front line what’s actually happening in clinics and in practices or what our consumers are experiencing day in and day out. So definitely really encourage folks to like make their voice heard if that’s going to make their lives better or more challenging. Getting that industry perspective is invaluable for legislators to make those decisions. They’ve got 100,. I like to tell folks we had 140 days to make these decisions. Anything you can do to help provide more context and more color is always going to go a long way. Less busy, and that’s kind of my next question.

Troy Beaulieu: 8:24

I know y’all went through sunset last session and just wondered what your takeaway from that was and maybe you could explain to the viewers the role that TDLR now has with the agency in the wake of kind of the sunset changes that were made.

Brittany Sharkey: 8:53

Sure. So when I came aboard to the agency as executive director two years ago, the agency was in a bit of a free fall. We had lost, you know, 60% of our executive level staff. We were in the middle of a sunset review that found a lot of glaring problems with the agency, and so we had a lot of work to do to help restore sort of public trust and accountability. And so Sunset actually devised a really interesting scheme where we’re administratively attached to the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation for a period of four years. This is a first of its ever kind of program or statute that’s ever been passed, and so they’re kind of providing almost consulting and oversight services and audit services to us for this period of four years.

Brittany Sharkey: 9:41

This is a really unique way, instead of just kind of rolling our program into TDLR, kind of keeping us a separate entity, but also providing this kind of extra layer of oversight. We’ve just kind of completed our first year under this attachment and it’s been really interesting to get that kind of expertise and resources of a larger agency. You know, even now, with the expansion of our staff, we’re still only at 29 people. That’s a very small agency. Tdr has over 500.

Brittany Sharkey: 10:01

So it’s always really funny to call them and be like hi, I have a question about this and it’s like oh, we have a specific person who does this here at the agency. We’re all wearing a lot of hats. Some are more flattering than others is the joke I like to make. But getting to sort of talk to those like subject matter experts and get and leverage that expertise has been has been really helpful and I think I give the legislature a lot of credit for thinking of it instead of you know, but kind of providing this extra layer of help has been really has been really interesting and unique and it’s been a really great learning process for us. So that’s that’s kind of they’re playing and that’s that’s that’s where we are.

Troy Beaulieu: 10:53

Yeah, it sounds like a very innovative. I mean, I’ve never seen that, that, that mode, that approach to things. I think it’s really innovative and I think it also, like you said, it gives you a great resource to bounce some of these ideas off of a larger agency that may have seen and done things and have a different perspective or different suggestions. So that’s great.

Brittany Sharkey: 11:14

And again too, just I think we understand, coming from where we were, that we’ve got to do a lot of work to sort of restore that trust in the agency and that was definitely lost in the previous administration. And so you know, having this kind of level of oversight and somebody sort of checking our work and saying, nope, they’re good thing. You know, licensees are knowing that they’re getting a fair shake. The public knows that their complaints are being handled appropriately. Anything we can do to help restore that public trust is really important to us as regulators. If we don’t have that, we don’t have anything.

Mark Lee: 11:43

So yeah, I definitely understand A point or two, troy. You know, because our staff is limited, we’re always trying to do more with what we’ve got or try to do things better. You know, trying to be more efficient. And two of the programs that are coming out of the enforcement side that I’ve already talked to Brittany about is we’re trying to implement a contingent dismissal program where a veterinarian who just has some issues and needs some help you know, everybody makes mistakes and so if we had a tool where we could offer them the opportunity to make some improvements, recognize the deficiencies, but not result in a disciplinary action, that serves everybody’s interests.

Mark Lee: 12:20

It saves us time and effort and energy. It keeps the veterinarian from having a disciplinary action, which really may not be appropriate, and it also addresses the issue that they may need some help. Another one is we are currently having to go to the state office of administrative hearings when we get complaints about people engaged in an unlicensed activity, and we’re trying to change that so again, we don’t have to go to SOA. The due process that’s given to somebody who’s a licensee and has spent a lot of money and time and effort getting this license is different than a person who’s doing something that’s illegal. And as long as they have an opportunity to present their side of the story, then we believe that’s a much more efficient way to address things, and we’d like to be able to do that in-house as opposed to taking it over to SOA.

Troy Beaulieu: 13:09

I definitely remember at my old agency when we adopted contingent dismissals. I think that’s a really great thing. It’s a win-win for everybody and it’s a very innovative take on how to handle unlicensed activities. So be interested to see how those proceed.

Brittany Sharkey: 13:26

And Troy, actually back to one of your earlier questions. You know kind of asking how folks can engage with us. Right now we are actually taking a public comment on potential legislative or statutory changes for the agency until about the middle of September. We have a report due to all the members of the Sunset Advisory Commission and other legislators at the start of December of this year, kind of in advance of legislative session. So if If any listeners or viewers out there have any ideas on legislative changes they’d like to see or support for some of those proposals that Mark has made, we’d love to. You know, we’d love to hear from the public and have that backup as we go into session.

Troy Beaulieu: 14:07

Well, that’s great. So I’m assuming they can go to the website and find that information and you probably have like an email address where they can send in their comments address where they can send in their comments.

Brittany Sharkey: 14:18

Yes, it’s actually on the TDLR website. So if you go to the TDLR website, there’s a great little link on their homepage that has a specific email address to reach out to. So definitely look forward to any comments and suggestions.

Troy Beaulieu: 14:27

Perfect. Yeah, because I think that’s one of the biggest things I noticed as a former regulator is making sure people get involved and when they know where they can go to have their voice heard. I think that’s great, that y’all are making those outreach efforts. So definitely, hopefully, people see this podcast and maybe go and make some comments, cause, like you said, getting feedback from the community, from the industry, is really what makes things go well when you’re trying to go through session and figure out how to implement some of these things.

Brittany Sharkey: 14:58

Absolutely.

Cimone Murphree: 15:00

And kind of speaking on, you know TDLR in your relationship with them. Are there any other instances in which your agency interacts with other agencies and what are some scenarios in which that might occur?

Brittany Sharkey: 15:15

I think probably the biggest instance is with the pharmacy board, you know, with the prescription monitoring program. That’s a really great resource for us to, you know, especially as veterinarians are direct prescribers, to see if there’s anything. You know, to kind of do some of the pre-work before we go into a clinic, look at what’s going on, see if there’s anything untoward, because you know there’s a lot of controlled substances that veterinary that have no use case in veterinary medicine, that are only in human medicine. So if we see a troubling dispensing or prescribing pattern there, we kind of know something is something’s rotten in the state of Denmark and so that gives us, I think, that chance ahead of time to know when those issues are, kind of line that out and make sure that we’re really getting, we’re getting to the heart of these. You know this very serious matter and using our resources in a way that makes sense to make sure that we are seeing, getting those issues brought to light. So that’s kind of our, I think, our biggest outside of TVLR.

Brittany Sharkey: 16:11

The pharmacy board is one of our biggest collaborators and then also I. It’s great All of these kind of healthcare regulatory agencies are in the same building. Now we just moved in about two years ago, right at the start of my tenure, and it’s great to just be able to walk down to the dental board or physical and occupational therapy and just kind of have these discussions and say, hey, are you guys seeing this, or we’re dealing with this issue, what does this look like for you? And just being able to sort of bounce ideas off of other regulators and see what they’re up against, see what they’re contending with and you know if anyone’s got great ideas. So building those relationships and across agencies has been, I think, really critical in a way that just like wasn’t done in previous administrations. So that’s something that’s been important to me and has also just been really helpful to me.

Troy Beaulieu: 16:58

Oh yeah, I think that’s really great. I mean, I remember when I was a regulator, it was all about the mortgage financial crisis back in 2008 and 10. And talking with the other regulatory partners was so instrumental and helpful because they have other ideas, like you said, about how to tackle some of the same challenges that your agency is having. So that’s great that y’all are centrally located and you can do that in a much easier way.

Brittany Sharkey: 17:25

Yes, it’s great, you know, especially as these smaller agencies and you know we’re trying to sort of grapple with you know, hey, what are you doing for, you know, your social media presence? Are you finding that worthwhile? Who’s doing that? So, just even from a management perspective, being able to sort of have those kinds of resources and knowing that we’re not out here navigating these waters alone has been really helpful, and I think it’s been a really great experience to be in this building and working with our other agencies.

Mark Lee: 17:53

And I give a shout out to the nursing board, who I contacted at some point to discuss some of our enforcement ideas with, and they supplied me with some of their information about how they handle things, which you know. If you don’t have to invent the wheel each time, then it’s again more efficient and usually gets a better result. So they were very helpful.

Cimone Murphree: 18:15

A big thank you once again to our special guests Brittany Sharkey and Mark Lee from the Texas Board of Veterinary Medical Examiners. For more information on Know your Regulator, visit our website at wwwvertolinolawcom

Narrator: 18:29

Know your Regulator the podcast that inspires you to engage.