Who Is Vetsymphony?
Symphony is a veterinary management company that owns, operates and starts-up veterinary specialty practice. Symphony was established by management professionals with vast experience in veterinary practices of all types in all types of roles. In 2008, the Symphony team cut back on consulting to general practices because the process of consulting with each practice from assessment, solutions development, training, metrics and monitoring, strategic planning and budgeting, was too labor intensive to continue while trying to focus on other opportunities. This decision to shift focus left a hole and requests for consulting services by the Symphony team did not cease.
So the question arose: How can we get what we know and do to more veterinary practices en mass in a cost effective and efficacious way. The answer to this question resulted in a year and a half of programming and web development that has yielded vetSymphony.com.
We are proud to have vetSymphony.com to offer all of the benefits any consultant can offer at a scant fraction of the cost of a consultant in your practice. VetSymphony.com provides tried and true, proven philosophies and methods to help your management team be effective and stay that way so that your practice yields optimal results. The entire Symphony team from the principles, to the administrators and managers, staff trainers, inventory managers, bookkeepers etc. are all involved to keep sharp and make vetSymphony.com an unparalleled resource.
Greg Stoutenburgh
CEO, Symphony
Greg grew up in southern California and started his first business breeding rabbits at the age of 9. His veterinary career began in 1989. While en route to his undergraduate degree of a BS in Biology: Ecology and Environmental Biology, with minors in Chemistry and Philosophy, Greg worked his way through school, first as a veterinary technician, bookkeeper, and then manager. This experience extended into his studies in a Masters Program in Evolutionary Ecology in which he spent much of his energy studying population biology, stochastic systems, chaos/complexity, systems modeling, and statistics. It was the combination of these studies and his work running a veterinary business from which Greg developed and tested systems, concepts, and methods, unique to the veterinary world that would shape and benefit every practice he worked with from then forward. From there Greg went on to start his first new veterinary practice, which he built from the ground up and won Veterinary Practice of the Year for the facility. Midway through development of this practice he ventured out and began consulting in order to help troubled practices find success. Through the years he tested and honed his principles, methods, and systems and has worked with well over a hundred practices, teaching them how to find success. In 2001 with four partners he founded California Veterinary Practices, a group that provided exit strategies for practice owning veterinarians while offering career opportunities and training for young veterinarians. Greg has extensive experience working in all aspects of general practice, emergency, specialty, and multispecialty practices. During his career he has published in multiple texts and periodicals and has lectured internationally.
In 2005, while maintaining his work with hospitals, Greg also took a job with Sound Technologies (now Sound-Eklin) working as VP of Marketing teaching veterinarians about diagnostic imaging.
Symphony is the culmination of the vision and planning that Greg has developed with the best of the people he has worked with. Symphony is the managing partner of a network of veterinary specialty practices that are unmatched in quality of operations.
Greg lives in South Orange County, in constant awe of his spectacular children that keep his world spinning. There will be no dogs in his heart for an undetermined time yet, as he is still in mourning of his two labs lost in a single year Hobie at 18, and then Darwin at 14. He does have a cat named Jade, an eclectus parrot named Jack, and his kids keep several reptiles.
Leah Basinais
COO, Symphony
Leah Basinais' career in veterinary medicine began in 1992, after spending her childhood raising rabbits, dogs, cats, rats, birds, and chickens. Beginning at the age of 16, she worked in various capacities within veterinary hospitals, from receptionist, to technician, to manager. At the same time, Leah completed a Bachelor's Degree in Biology in Boston, as well as a highly competitive internship at Massachusetts General Hospital's Cancer Center in Tumor Genetics. During this time Leah also discovered her love for teaching, and worked for her college as a tutor in Biology, Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, Evolution, Genetics, and Cell Biology. Though she began a PhD at UCLA in the Molecular Biology Department, she soon discovered that her love of people and their pets outweighed her interest in working in a lab. She left her PhD program in 1998 to return to work with a general small animal practice in Studio City, California. It was there she discovered her passion for the operational aspects of veterinary medicine. Leah completed her MBA with a specialization in Health Care Management in 2003, and used her education and experiences with people, science, and management to develop operational, leadership, and training systems allowing general practices to flourish under her guidance.
In 2001, Leah began to work in multispecialty veterinary medicine as well as general practice, and began to implement her experience, philosophies, and systems at a both levels. Focusing on the operational aspects of systems development, inventory management, budgeting, utilization of metrics as a management tool, and improving customer care, Leah has worked to enhance the client / patient experience within hospitals, as well as ensure employee satisfaction and enhanced performance.
A firm believer in leadership as a management tool, Leah has focused on training for all areas within the hospital, including client service training, technical training, leadership, and management training. In addition, Leah lectures internationally on topics such as Owner Compliance, Client Service, Establishment of Value, and Principles of Operation.
Leah is active in a number of veterinary organizations. She is the current President of the Veterinary Specialty Practice Alliance (VSPA), as well as the Chief Financial Officer for the Animal Health Resource Fund (AHRF), a non-profit organization geared towards increasing the education of the veterinary community through research grants.
As the COO of Symphony, Inc, her work does require some travel. Despite that, she is always happy to come home to Moorpark, California, where she lives with her husband, her one-eyed two-pound Chihuahua Piglet, and her very overweight orange tabby, Clifford.
Dr. Kenneth Bruecker, DVM, MS,
Diplomate American College of Veterinary Surgeons
A San Fernando Valley native, Dr. Bruecker attended Pierce College then received his bachelors degree in Animal Science from the University of California at Davis. He then entered the University of California at Davis, School of Veterinary Medicine, graduating in 1983. After one year of general small animal practice in San Fernando, Dr. Bruecker completed an additional year of clinical internship at the West Los Angeles Veterinary Medical Group. He received his master of science degree at the completion of a three year surgical residency at Colorado State University and moved back to Ventura County in 1988 to establish specialty veterinary care. Dr. Bruecker is the Medical Director and Chief of Surgery at VMSG. He is also the Chief Medical Officer for Symphony, a specialty practice management company.
Dr. Bruecker has also been providing regular surgical support for practices in the state of Hawaii since 1996.
A Board Certified Surgeon, Dr. Bruecker's primary clinical interests are spinal surgery, sports medicine/orthopedics (including arthroscopy, TPLO, TTA, cementless total hip replacement and limb deformity correction), minimally invasive surgery (such as laparoscopy) and peri-operative pain management. Wobbler syndrome of Doberman pinschers is his special area of expertise and interest. He has authored numerous articles and book chapters on Wobbler syndrome, treatment of intervertebral disk degeneration and spinal fracture management. He has been an invited speaker throughout the United States, Latin America, South America, Europe, Asia and the South Pacific on a variety of topics in orthopedics, neurosurgery and pain management. He is an active participate in working groups on elbow dysplasia, shoulder injuries, advanced techniques in small animal arthroscopy and cranial cruciate ligament repair. Dr. Bruecker was the first to offer TPLO surgery, TTA surgery, cementless hip replacement, arthroscopy and laparoscopy to owners of pets in Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo Counties, as well as to the State of Hawaii. He has been an innovator in the development of new surgical techniques and orthopedic implants.
Dr. Bruecker is a past program chair of Neurosurgery for the American College of Veterinary Surgeons and a past program chair for the technician program for the American College of Veterinary Surgeons. He served as the orthopedics program director for 2004 and 2005 for the American College of Veterinary Surgeons. He was also program director for orthopedics, pain management and anesthesia for the 2006 American Veterinary Medical Association annual symposium. He is a past Executive Board Member for Veterinary Orthopedics Society (2004-2007).
Due largely to his commitment to education and training, Dr. Bruecker was selected as the Veterinarian of the Year for the State of California by the California Veterinary Medical Association in 2004.
Dr. Bruecker, his wife and sons are owner/operators of avocado and citrus farms in Ventura County. They enjoy golf, scuba diving, sea kayaking, mountain biking, snow skiing, snow boarding, tennis and home winemaking. They especially like spending time at home on the farm with family and pets.