6 November 28 - December 4, 2024 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents Lying Like a Big Dog Dallas CEO catfishes veterinary community with fake Facebook profile. BY KELLY DEARMORE I n September, D CEO ran a glowing pro- file of Elise Burns, an up-and-coming local founder and CEO whose company raked in $35 million last year, the maga- zine reported. Her veterinary staffing company, Evette Staffing, connects relief vets with clinics in need of extra hands. The article notes that Burns, who is not a veterinarian, overcame a childhood fear of dogs to become the leader of a company that helps provide care for animals, all while be- coming a dog owner herself. Evette Staffing, the gushing copy offers, has 70 internal em- ployees and works with more than 300 vet- erinarians to staff clinics across the country. The D CEO piece ends with an impas- sioned quote from Burns about her compa- ny’s mission. Being a relief veterinarian isn’t easy and can be a mentally and emotionally taxing job. Burns said Evette is focused on helping be a part of the solution. “They need more support,” Burns says of veterinarians. “They need more options. The suicide rate tells you that, and the men- tal health issues tell you that. I’m an entre- preneur and want us to be the best and the biggest, but by other companies copying what we’re doing, it means vets across the board getting more of what they need.” Last week, however, Burns issued a very different type of quote for reasons that com- pletely fly in the face of what she said in her magazine profile. In an email dated Wednesday, Nov. 20 and sent by Burns to “members of the Evette community,” in- cluding the relief vets who work with Evette, the CEO admitted to creating a fake Facebook profile and using the name of a real veterinarian so she could participate in private Facebook groups. Those groups are dedicated to various veterinary interests, in- cluding at least one group devoted to the mental health and well-being of vets. “We did this with only the intention of gaining a better understanding of the issues and frustrations plaguing the industry — with the ultimate goal of better serving the community,” the email reads. Burns noted in the email that the fake Facebook account was made eight years ago when the com- pany was started, and she apologized to the person whose identity was used for the fake profile. “While the account was not created or used with malicious intent, we understand that what we did was wrong,” the email continued. By using “we,” Burns didn’t specify in the email whether she had personally set up or used the fake profile. Also in the email, Burns mentions “a” Facebook group, but screenshots provided to us by Facebook group moderators and other veterinarians show the fake profile was a member of mul- tiple private groups, not just one, designated for vets only. We called Evette Staffing and were told to email the company’s human resources manager with our questions. We didn’t hear back from them. We visited Evette’s Dallas office on Friday and were told Burns was not in for the day. We eventually heard back from a PR representative for Evette Staffing, who declined to comment on Burns’ state- ment but offered to link us up with some of its doctors who are happy with the firm. Although the doctor whose identity was used for the fake profile is named in the email and is referred to in various social me- dia posts, we’re not including the name in this report after multiple unsuccessful at- tempts to reach them. The online reaction from the veterinar- ian community online across Facebook, Reddit and Instagram and even Google re- views has been swift and passionate. That a staffing company with a stated goal of pro- viding relief to often overwhelmed clinics acted in an underhanded manner for so long has fueled negative reviews and comments for the past few days. Greg Echols, a veterinarian from Charlotte, North Carolina, has been a relief vet for Evette for more than two years. Last week, Echols posted a video to his Instagram account apolo- gizing to the doctor who was impersonated and expressing his disappointment in a com- pany he had advocated for. In the video, Echols says that he heard from other veterinarians that the fake pro- file had been used to “get information on contract agreements” and other financial and business information. In an email to the Observer, Echols said he would not be working for Evette Staffing anymore. He added that he had not spoken to Burns or anyone else with the company, outside of receiving the email with the com- pany’s admission and apology. We’ve received a number of emails from veterinarians from different parts of the United States who were Facebook friends with the fake profile or were in the same private group as the fake profile. In several instances, we received screenshots of Evette marketing and recruiting emails and text messages re- ceived by veterinarians who otherwise had no contact with the staffing company. We were told that, in their view, the only way they think Evette Staffing would know to reach out to them offering their services was by getting the information shared in a private Facebook group. In these cases, the Facebook groups were only for vets, not for people with businesses that may be associ- ated with veterinary practices, such as a staffing company. Carrie Jurney, a veterinarian from Cali- fornia, provided us with a screenshot that shows the fake Facebook account that Evette admitted to in a posting in the Relief Veterinarians private Facebook group. Ac- cording to the screenshot, the false account posted on several occasions from 2018 to 2021 seeking advice on clinics in various cit- ies that might be looking for relief vet help. Short-staffed or overworked veterinary clin- ics would be prime candidates for doing business with Burns and Evette Staffing. But for many what rankles most is the breach of trust and the invasion of privacy in the context of a close-knit professional com- munity that sees a great deal of problems with mental illness and suicide in its ranks. “This profession is filled with really em- pathic and smart people in very tough sce- narios trying to help very sick animals and their owners,” said Ezra Ameis, the CEO of Vet’d Veterinary Relief, a California-based online platform that connects relief vets with clinics in need of help. “There is a true mental health crisis in veterinary with a re- sultant high suicide rate… There is an invite only/credentialed veterinary group only for veterinarians called ‘Not One More Vet’ where veterinarians speak about their dark- est times, thoughts and worries. The fake ac- count had been a member of that group for quite some time and was privy to very sensi- tive private information.” Jamie Perkins of DVMoms, a private Facebook group with more than 20,000 members, echoes the notion that what the fake Facebook profile represents is more than your run of the mill trust-breaking aimed at the relief veterinary doctor profes- sion. The fake profile created by Evette was a member of the DVMoms group, and at least on one occasion in 2018, that account made a post seeking advice on some sort of employment program that had allegedly been offered to the person writing from the fake account .(Note: the description of the services offered to this person looked simi- lar to the way Evette lists its services, ac- cording to the screenshot provided to us.) What Elise Burns has admitted to is the opposite of the support that’s needed for re- lief vets, and it’s nowhere near what Burns might tell a local magazine she is in this business for. “When someone impersonates a veteri- narian and infiltrates this community, it’s not just a personal betrayal — it’s an affront to the progress we’ve made as women in this field,” Perkins wrote in an email to the Ob- server. “In the case of Evette, this act of de- ception was compounded by an effort to exploit our community for financial gain. Whether through accessing opportunities, leveraging the trust of members, or benefit- ing from resources meant for licensed veter- inarians, this behavior is not just unethical — it is predatory. It devalues the safe space we’ve built for authentic connection and mutual growth, and it undermines the trust essential to the functioning of a supportive community.” ▼ ECONOMY ‘TRUMP 4 LESS DALLAS VOTERS GRAPPLE WITH GROCERY PRICES. BY EMMA RUBY W hen Innocente Escamilla goes to the store for her weekly grocery shopping, she focuses on pur- chasing the necessities: eggs, milk and bread are priorities. Meats and fresh produce are added to the basket depending on how much wiggle room she has in her budget that week. Escamilla has found it difficult to keep up with the price of groceries in recent years, and a survey published by Change Research found that three-quarters of Texans agree that groceries are becoming more and more difficult to afford. When inflation spiked dur- ing the COVID-19 pandemic, she adopted a weekly budget to keep her shopping on track — a tool she’d “never had to” use before. “[When we shop] we just have to get the bare minimum,” Escamilla, an Oak Cliff resi- dent, told the Observer. “Everything else has to wait. That’s how bad it’s gotten.” On Nov. 5, Escamilla decided she was tired of waiting. Like millions of Ameri- | UNFAIR PARK | Getty Images A CEO faked a Facebook profile to gather information for her veterinary company. >> p8
