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Tag: MRCVS

Dangers of festive gatherings
Christmas is a great time for family gatherings, but this does not necessarily mean it is a great time for pets.

In fact, it can often be the opposite, with veterinary clinics seeing a major increase in patient numbers that come through the door.

One common emergency we see at the emergency hospital during the festive season is dog fight and bite wounds. As vets, we have a duty of care to educate pet owners during this time, so they – and their pet – have the best Christmas possible and do not end up in the emergency room.

Why do dogs fight and bite at Christmas?

Usually during the festive period, family or friends increasingly gather to celebrate. Whether it is people coming into their home, or them being taken to someone’s home, this can be confusing and cause anxiety levels to rise.

When a family member or friend brings a new pet into the house with an existing pet, it creates competition for food, space, affection and attention – and this can lead to dog fights. Even usually mild-mannered pets can easily feel threatened by a new pet entering their territory, and may lash out.

Increases in noise, people, decorations and general chaos during the holiday season can cause stress and anxiety. For dogs protective of their domain and the people in it, this can be a difficult and uncertain time.

Children not used to pets, and pets not used to young children, can also be a dangerous combination. Dog bites are a common injury sustained by children during the festive period and it could often be avoided.

Solutions

Although dogs are part of the family, it is important owners understand leaving their dog at home when they go to a festive gathering is not leaving them out, but protecting them and making sure they are more safe, comfortable and happy.

If hosting a party, owners can shut their dog in another room away from the chaos and noise – they will be grateful to have a peaceful space. This is a must for a dog already prone to stress.

Children and dogs should not be left alone and should be monitored at all times. If the dog starts to show signs of anxiety and stress, it should be taken somewhere it feels comfortable and calm.

Owners can take their dog to their vet for a behavior assessment. Anti-anxiety medications could be considered in extreme cases, but this would be a last resort.

Communicating messages

We can educate pet owners in the lead-up to Christmas in many ways. We can offer thoughtful, engaging and informative advice and guidance.

Some ways to communicate festive dangers to pet owners include:
- infographics
- videos
- social media posts
- posters in the hospital or clinic
- blogs
- email campaigns
- discussing the dangers at check-ups and appointments
- newsletters
- flyers
- special calls to clients with an anxious pet
- education events, such as how to manage pets and children
Here’s to a very merry – and safe – Christmas.
December 19, 2022
Cats reunited

The day-to-day working life of a vet can be tough for a multitude of reasons, but sometimes it’s the simple things that make it all worthwhile – for example, something as simple as a microchip.

While dog microchipping is now compulsory, cat owners retain the freedom to decide whether they wish to chip their beloved felines.

Accident(al) reunification

Recently, a concerned member of the public brought a cat into my practice that had, unfortunately, been hit by a car. Once establishing the injuries weren’t life-threatening, on scanning the chip and searching the pet ID database, we were able to get in contact with the owner.

It transpired the cat had been missing for three years and travelled an impressive distance before coming under our care. After some emotional telephone calls, owner and cat were reunited.

But this isn’t an isolated case.

Déjà vu

Just a month previously, I was visiting another practice when a cat was bought in by a lady who’d taken it in as a stray and looked after it temporarily.

When the cat’s microchip was identified, she was more than happy to try to find its previous owner. However, the chip was registered to someone who’d given the cat to a friend. Despite, this, the person who’d last owned it was eventually tracked down.

Having been missing since 2010 – and, therefore, assumed dead and reported to the pet database – as such, they were shocked and delighted to discover the cat had resurfaced after so many years of getting up to God knows what.

Chip importance

In my short time in practice so far, I have personally witnessed these two long lost cat scenarios – on separate occasions, two felines were reunited with their respective families several years after having gone missing. The cats, having been found by members of the public, had been scanned and identified thanks to their microchips. The joy and gratitude these owners had was so heartwarming to witness.

As a cat owner who has personally experienced the trauma of having cats go missing, there is no question whatsoever of whether to chip.

Luckily, in the second case, the owner was still found, despite the details registered to the chip having not been updated. This just highlights the importance of not only chipping, but also ensuring the details registered are accurate.

However, it is surprising how many owners still don’t bother. If these anecdotes don’t persuade potential cat owners to chip their pets, I don’t know what will.

September 30, 2017
Accountability and responsibility: which causes more fear?

It’s very daunting standing in your first consult as a real, qualified vet – even if it is “just a vaccine”, which invariably turns into “actually, this has happened“, or “now you mention it“, and so on.

But why is it we have that constant feeling of being on edge – more so than a few months previously, when we were still students?

A noticeable shift certainly occurs to being an actual vet, rather than someone who always has a supervisor to have the final say, or take the brunt of the backlash of a mistake.

However, is it the accountability or the responsibility worrying us the most?

Pressing concern

Mistakes are inevitable, but rarely catastrophic. IMAGE: pathdoc/Fotolia.

As soon as we swear the oath enabling us to register as veterinary surgeons in the UK on graduation day, we become accountable to the RCVS.

In the past year, I have witnessed more than one speech telling us a) not to be scared of the college, and b) not nearly as many complaints, disciplinaries or registration removals occur as we think.

Exact figures aside, the take-home message has been: if you don’t knowingly do anything wrong or illegal, the likelihood of serious consequences is very low. You can’t get struck off for making a simple mistake.

The veterinary press, however, seems to over-represent those who are struck off or reprimanded; after all, you never hear about how many vets were not struck off this month or doing their jobs as they should.

Perhaps this is where the unease stems from? And why the RCVS seems so keen to tell us these individuals convicted of misconduct are a very small minority of the profession?

Are new grads really scared of the RCVS?

Talking to my colleagues, the general feeling is we understand we won’t get struck off for making a mistake. However, if the fear has anything to do with our regulatory body, it’s more the confidence knock we would have as a consequence of having a complaint against us made to it.

Of course, an element of worry surrounds being banned from practising as a vet, but I don’t think I would rank it top of the “things to be afraid of as a new graduate” list.

Instead, in that list, I think responsibility carries a greater weight. As students, we were always supervised and, ultimately, the fate of an animal’s life never truly rested in our hands. Any decisions we made were either backed up or steered in the right direction by clinicians.

Now, it’s down to us. Yes – other, more experienced colleagues should be in each practice with whom to discuss cases or reaffirm decisions, but when it comes to the consult room, you’re on your own.

Experience is king

Jordan, pictured during her final-year rotations.

What if I miss a heart murmur? What if miss signs of glaucoma, a pyometra or a lump? The list goes on. What if I could have done more investigations earlier? What if I misdiagnose something and prolong pain because I didn’t prescribe the right treatment first time?

These questions going on in our heads, coupled with a niggling feeling we have forgotten something or misread a dose, are the root of the fear. I believe this is what scares us, more so than the RCVS.

The animals – and us inherently wanting to do our best for them – makes us worry. We worry our lack of experience could be at the expense of an animal’s health – or even their life.

The only way to get past this is to gain that experience to have confidence in our decisions and learn from the mistakes we will, undoubtedly, make.

My mum said to me this week: “This is the only time you’re ever going to feel like this,” and she’s right. (But don’t tell her I said that). Even if we start a new job in the future, we will have a lot more experience under our belts, so shouldn’t, in theory, feel as lost or scared as we do now.

Being a new graduate vet is a unique position for a myriad of reasons and we need to embrace it. The fear that comes with this newly found responsibility will ease with time, and we can take our careers in whichever direction we choose.

August 16, 2017
New vet schools are not the solution

We’ve barely had a day of news in the past year that didn’t include Brexit. Yet, do any of us really know what the real consequences will be?

Within the veterinary profession, specific factors are undoubtedly going to be influenced by Brexit, even if we don’t know the extent of these yet. They do, however, include a great deal of legislation on welfare and meat hygiene, but also the future of the UK veterinary workforce.

It has been suggested the proposed coalition of Keele University and Harper Adams for yet another UK vet school may help boost numbers of veterinary professionals in the UK post-Brexit, especially when it is suspected we may be facing a shortfall.

I disagree.

Not a new problem

Is training new vets going to be of detriment to the health and well-being of those in the profession already? IMAGE: GianlucaCiroTancredi/Fotolia.

Yes, the veterinary profession has a shortage of experienced veterinary surgeons right now, but this was the case before the EU referendum was even in the pipeline – SPVS, for example, called for veterinary surgeons to be added to the UK’s shortage occupation list in 2015.

Sure, post-Brexit, it is likely to get worse – for example, the uncertainty surrounding the whole situation is (anecdotally) already seeing some of our EU vets searching for jobs overseas and leaving. This isn’t just “vet news” either – the BBC (despite the ambiguous statistics quoted) also recognised the effects of Brexit on the veterinary profession in an article this week.

But opening new vet schools isn’t the answer. For example, there is increasing awareness in the veterinary profession of the importance of mental health and a resultant expanding of the resources available for those who are struggling.

We also frequently hear buzzwords such as “compassion fatigue” and “burnout”, which we need to do more about.

My point is: we need to look after our current vets. This would prevent them getting tired and fed up, and ultimately leaving the profession – or, at least, leaving a clinical practice role.

Sold the wrong idea?

The Voices from the Future of the Profession report produced by the BVA/RCVS Vet Futures initiative in 2015 stated 50% of recent graduates thought their working lives did not meet their expectations. This disillusionment, set among a feeling of being undervalued, overworked and lacking a good work-life balance (something I’ve written about at length) leads to vets turning to other careers before they have a great deal of experience – this is what should be addressed.

We need to focus on the well-being of the vets we have instead of luring even more school leavers into a profession they have false preconceptions of.

More new graduates will not solve the problem – and this is coming from one. They will simply dilute the profession and struggle because there are less “experienced vets” to mentor them and help them hone their skills and knowledge. Ultimately, a large proportion of these will become stressed and leave within a couple of years – the vicious cycle is thus complete.

Teaching tussles

On a vet school level, irrespective of Brexit, this announcement is too not welcomed. At Glasgow, I have met clinicians that have chopped and changed between vet schools because there aren’t enough experts willing to teach, resulting in a bidding war between the universities.

We now have nine vet schools across the UK and Ireland. The Aberwysth-RVC programme (for which updates on their plans were announced earlier this week) and the Keele-Harper Adams course are only going to add fuel to that fire. Where are we going to suddenly magic up so many more diplomats and EU specialists to teach? Or, for that matter, clinical skills and first opinion teachers?

Couple-of-years-qualified graduates aren’t going to have the same breadth of experience to prepare students for a variety of surgical or clinical scenarios – they are not an adequate substitute.

Reasoning questioned

Is it simply a case of money, as Jordan claims?

The plans for new vet schools is not about saving the profession, nor is it about Brexit. It is down to academic institutions seeking high-achieving school leavers to attract more undergraduates and gain more funding.

It is ludicrous a university can just decide to open a vet school off its own back and threaten the resources of current vet schools, which include teaching staff and the availability of EMS placements, especially since many of the new course models (Nottingham, Surrey and the two proposed courses above) do not have their own teaching hospitals and, instead, use external practices.

It is true the new courses will be monitored and analysed once they have an intake of students to assess whether the graduates will be allowed to practice as veterinary surgeons, but by then, it’s too late.

There needs to be regulation to prevent it getting to that point, for the sake of the profession and the disillusioned school leavers applying en masse to these new courses.

July 30, 2017
Stitches

Legality within the veterinary profession can be a bit of a minefield, especially when it comes to things like drug licensing. This leaves many new graduates in fear of doing something against the law without even realising.

However, while some veterinary legal principles are complicated but clear, others are genuinely vague, leaving us unsure on where we would stand in a court of law.

A stab in the dark

It was recently reported that stab victims, scared of the inevitable police involvement if they were to present at A&E, were turning to vets to have their wounds sutured, albeit at a handsome price of about £200. While the morality of doing a procedure such as suturing on people may be questionable, the legality certainly is.

The RCVS clearly states vets are not legally allowed to prescribe pharmaceutical products for people, but they have no specific guidelines on wound treatment.

It could be argued that, ethically, suturing should involve the use of some form of local anaesthetic (either by a local block or a transcutaneous patch) and, therefore, cannot be allowed as this would involve drug administration.

However, that’s not to say a person can’t consent to old fashioned gritting their teeth and bearing temporary pain for the sake of saving a four-hour wait in A&E.

Friend or foe?

For those who could be potentially incriminated if they sought medical help at a hospital, you can sort of understand why they’d ask someone else, like a vet, for stitches. But they aren’t alone…

A number of vets who become injured either on the job, or elsewhere, will seek the help of their colleagues, rather than take the majority of a day off to wait for the NHS to achieve a vastly similar result. After all, vets are pretty damn good at suturing and would arguably do a better job than the junior doctor on an emergency ward.

You could discuss the ethics of whether a vet should help someone who needs medical attention in varying situations and whether they are legally allowed to do so. However, charging for the service is an altogether different matter – stitching up a fellow vet, or even a family member, wouldn’t raise the question of fees, but a stranger who walks in off the street?

Cash in hand

A BBC article from 3 March (Stab victims ‘paying vets to stitch up their wounds’) reported the “going rate” to be around £200 – does this not infer the image of an underground medical procedure market, whereby vets can earn a bit of extra cash to extend their services to animals of the two-legged kind?

You have to admit, when you consider the rough cost of a bitch spay at around £150 (weight and complication-dependent), that figure has quite an impressive profit margin. Once a vet charges for the privilege, it becomes a business venture, not just an act of goodwill.

Stab victims are reportedly turning to vets to have their wounds sutured, in an attempt to avoid police involvement. IMAGE: vzmaze / fotolia.

And yet the NHS is screaming for help in A&E departments. With average waiting times at an extreme high, it’s begging prospective patients to consider whether their ailments are worthy of the emergency room or whether they could be seen elsewhere – the GP, minor injuries, pharmacy… and now the vet?

By applying skills used on animals every day, would vets not be easing some of the burden on our struggling NHS?

Risky business

But what if something went wrong? An infection of a wound, of which the bearer couldn’t explain who sutured it, should surely raise some eyebrows – and, after all, with vets being legally unable to prescribe drugs to people, the injured party could not return to the surgeon responsible and ask for antibiotics.

This is where the legal grey area becomes pertinent. Where would a vet stand if sued for wound breakdown? Members of the Veterinary Defence Society are supported for claims against their actions involving animals… but humans?

There are a lot of unanswered questions that, for me, make conducting procedures such as suturing on members of the public too risky.

Final decision?

It may be different if it were a colleague or close family member who understands the trust he or she is putting in you to do a “simple” procedure works both ways. However, even then, it’s not without elements of risk.

On a wider scale, should we, as a profession, be seen to advocate such practice? Or should our representing bodies be defining the limits of our medical interventions and reprimanding those who see the injured public as a business opportunity?

But then, would we live in even more fear of being prosecuted just for helping a fellow vet who knows full well what he or she is agreeing to?

March 20, 2017
The blind leading the blind
As part of one of our small animal rotations, I spent a couple of days with the ophthalmology service at the University of Glasgow Small Animal Hospital.

Recognising common eye conditions and being able to localise lesions was uncharted territory for Jordan before her time with the ophthalmology service. Image: thenineworld / fotolia.

Not exactly the most clued-up on eyes, I was going in almost blind. I had an idea of common eye conditions and how to manage them, but recognising them and being able to localise a lesion in an eye was uncharted territory.

After a mind-boggling tutorial in which we tried to drag physics from the depths of our brains (A-levels were five years ago), consults began – and with them, ocular examination after examination after examination.

By the end of day one, despite my brain feeling fairly frazzled, I felt I could locate roughly where in the eye a problem was and begin to deduce differentials, or at least know which chapter of the book to look in.

We discussed the differences between referral and first opinion practice. One of the main reasons eye conditions are misdiagnosed or missed is simply lack of time in the consult room.

For example, if you have a five-minute consult and want to do a Schirmer’s tear test, half the time is already taken.

Several components exist to a thorough ocular examination, with some better than others at identifying certain conditions or highlighting certain anatomical regions of the eye.

One important thing I took away was you can still achieve a good examination with limited equipment – in our case, we found a broken otoscope the ideal instrument for distant direct ophthalmoscopy.

Guide Dogs patient

So it came to one of the final patients on our final day – a bubbly golden retriever about to begin formal training to become a guide dog. By this point, we thought we could accurately identify basic conditions, but didn’t want to believe what we found on his lenses. When asked for the diagnosis, I hesitantly answered “cataracts” for two reasons:
1. The cataracts themselves looked different to others we’d seen – they had a triangular shape with a clear area in the centre, making them not entirely opaque.
2. This young dog’s career as a guide dog would come to an abrupt end with this diagnosis.
However, a breed predilection exists for hereditary cataracts in retrievers and the Guide Dogs staff member who was accompanying the puppy walker – the person who fosters a puppy before they enter formal training – was not shocked by the news, having experienced the condition several times previously.

While the dog still had fairly good vision at the minute, it would have to be withdrawn from training.

Several options exist for guide dogs withdrawn for health or behavioural reasons – they can be put into another work sector, such as the police or other assistance dog programmes like buddies for disabled children. Otherwise, they are rehomed as pets – hopefully our golden friend will find a new family shortly.

Having looked into the Guide Dogs scheme a bit more, it’s astonishing how much work and money goes into the training and upkeep of a guide dog.

They are a fantastic aid to people with impaired or no vision and, while it was disheartening to see a dog that wouldn’t tick the health boxes for continued training, I could appreciate the vet’s role in the process.

Eyes may always be a tricky area of veterinary medicine, but I don’t think I’ll miss a triangular cataract from now on.
December 6, 2016
Musings on a month in Morocco

Obviously I’m biased, but I think the University of Glasgow offers the best selective rotation options of the vet schools in the UK. Numerous opportunities exist to go abroad, with a variety of options based on species or type of practice.

Jordan spent a month working with American Fondouk.

The traveller in me was never going to pass up an opportunity to take to the skies, so halfway through my final year (eek) I found myself with five classmates on a plane to Morocco.

Language barrier

American Fondouk is a charity clinic for the working equids of Fes. Every morning the gates open at 8am and a stream of mules, donkeys and horses wander in with various ailments.

My French is minimal and Arabic non-existent, so history taking usually involved the owner pointing at the affected body part and translation with the help of a multilingual staff member. Even so, the histories were usually little more than “he fell over” or “it’s been like this for a week”.

Clinical exams were also not without challenges. For a start, it’s important to note donkey “normals” are different to those of horses (at first, we thought everything was hypothermic), and mules kick – in every direction.

Normal’s not normal

“It’s been like this for a week…”

Treatment of outpatients could vary from ivermectin and a dental to admission and intensive care for critical cases. It was just a case of dealing with whatever walked through that door.

Certain normal parameters for horses are different in Morocco than in the UK and for a while I couldn’t understand why so much fuss existed about PCVs of 40% – it turns out the Moroccan normal range for PCV is much lower than I was used to.

A full hospital with multiple high-maintenance inpatients certainly kept us on our toes for the month. However, after a couple of weeks, we’d gotten used to a lack of sleep, the protocols for treating certain conditions and the general craziness our daily lives had become.

I felt competent with a number of practical skills I’d never tried before I came to the clinic and could diagnose a tetanus case before it was even off the box. Wound care and bandaging were daily requirements – it was astonishing to see how well some seemingly horrific wounds would heal and the animals recover.

Ethical dilemmas

Acting in the interests of the animal without its owner’s permission is not allowed in Morocco.

The hardest thing I found about working at the clinic were the ethics surrounding euthanasia.

To the owners, these animals are often their only source of income – their livelihood – and the economics of replacing a mule are heartbreaking. Emotions run high when a seriously sick mule with a heart rate through the roof, suspected of a surgical colic, desperately in need of the pink juice would leave the owner with nothing.

The other logistical obstacle is the legal status of these animals. In Morocco, these animals are considered property of the owner and as such, permission must be gained before euthanising an animal.

Acting in the interests of the animal without permission is not allowed, so if an owner is not contactable, some unavoidable suffering may occur. This is limited as much as possible through pain relief, despite knowing what ultimately needs to happen in the interests of the animal.

Outside the box

On the whole, we were able to do our best for our patients and provide the optimum care.

I had a great, albeit exhausting, month. Working in a busy environment with somewhat limited resources pushes you to think outside the box and embrace different approaches to problems.

I learned a lot, gained confidence and even managed to discharge a patient in stilted Arabic by the end.

November 17, 2016
The consequences of making a mistake
Beef farms in Scotland can be quite picturesque.

Fertility work makes up a large proportion of cattle veterinary work in the UK and, after spending a month on the farm rotation at university, I can appreciate the importance of getting it right – and how hard it can be.

Experienced large animal vets make it look easy – they scan the uterus and ovaries, and decide what drug to give to aid getting the cow in calf, all in a minute or two.

In the meantime, I’m still fumbling about trying to palpate what, I think, may be the uterus or ovaries while the cow squeezes and gradually cuts off the circulation in my arm until I can barely feel my fingers.

Meanwhile, the vet has zipped through several cows already.

When things go wrong

What happens if you misdiagnose a pregnant cow as negative and administer prostaglandin, or give a cow steroids without realising she’s in calf?

On one fertility visit this week, we discussed when things go wrong. For example, what if:
- you misdiagnose a pregnant cow as negative and administer prostaglandin (PGF_2α)?
- a vet gives a cow steroids for any number of reasons without realising she’s in calf?
The outcomes of both of these scenarios are almost inevitably abortion, which can have a number of repercussions on the farm – and, potentially, the vet.

Negligence or misconduct?

Many new graduates are terrified of being called up for “fitness to practice” for making a mistake such as those aforementioned. However, during a Veterinary Defence Society (VDS) workshop at the SPVS Lancaster weekend earlier this year, it was emphasised a difference exists between negligence and misconduct in the eyes of the RCVS.

What I took away from this session was, in simple terms, negligence involves making a mistake – such as missing a diagnosis, giving the wrong treatment accidentally, eliciting side effects from something due to missing something in the case history – whereas misconduct is actively doing something you know you shouldn’t – such as trying to cover up a mistake, lying or misleading a client.

Mistakenly giving PGF_2α to a pregnant cow would be classed as negligence and, on the whole, the VDS would have your back; the farmer may receive some compensation for his losses, but the incident wouldn’t tarnish your career. In the same situation, misconduct would be denying you had administered any treatment.

In short, you won’t get struck off for easily made, one-off mistakes, but you may if you lie about them.

In the news

Our conversation about accidentally aborting cows led us to discuss the case of Honey Rose, the optometrist convicted of gross negligence manslaughter. News reports vary, but, from what I can gather, she failed to diagnose papilloedema (swollen optic discs) in an eight-year-old boy, which would have been an indication of the hydrocephalus he died of five months later.

It is reported she claimed to have been unable to examine his eyes properly because he had photophobia – a claim considered false by the judge. However, she had also failed to look at retinal photos taken by a colleague, on which the papilloedema was evident.

Going by the RCVS’ rules, missing the diagnosis or not looking at the retinal photos would be negligent. However, denying she’d been able to carry out a thorough examination, despite written records suggesting otherwise, would be misconduct.

Rose was found guilty of gross negligence manslaughter and was handed a two-year prison sentence, suspended for two years, and a 24-month supervision order, and was ordered to complete 200 hours of unpaid work.

In your defence

As vets, we have the VDS to help us in these situations – and, while it would be truly awful to make a mistake resulting in an animal’s death, we would not be at risk of imprisonment.

Doctors and dentists also have defence societies that will fight their corner, but optometrists? To my knowledge, an equivalent does not exist – and this was the first case of an optometrist convicted of manslaughter in the UK, which added to the complexity of the legal battle.

The death of a little boy is devastating, but, as medical professionals know, death is a risk with many procedures, no matter how small the risk may be. It’s frightening to think jail could be a consequence for those in the medical profession.

So, while I gradually lost the sensation in my right arm as I tried to reach an ovary of the 10th cow in a row, I mulled this over and realised I was extremely thankful for the safety net the VDS provides and would not take working with animals for granted.

After all, if I’d decided to be a doctor instead, I could be rummaging around in another human’s back end rather than a cow’s!
- For further details of the Veterinary Defence Society and its services, visit www.thevds.co.uk
October 19, 2016
Communication is key

Recently, I have been engaged in a battle with my internet provider and – ignoring the fact I’ve been without the world wide web for a month – no one seems capable of doing anything about it.

If avoiding angry customers is the aim, communication is key, says Jordan.

Despite these grievances, it’s actually a) the communication factor and b) lack of desire to please the customer annoying me most.

Over the years I’ve worked in retail, and I have been a waitress, during which I was expected to bend over backwards for the customer for fear of garnering a complaint.

I even remember training sessions where we were shown graphs showing the number of complaints received versus words of praise, and how likely the customer would be to spread the word regarding bad service compared to good.

The gist of it all was to not anger anyone because bad news travels fast… and this is just as applicable in the veterinary profession.

The customer is always…

Contrary to the popular saying, the client is most definitely not always right, and as the point of a veterinary consultation is for us to impart our professional knowledge gained through – long and thorough – training, we are obliged to possess pretty fantastic communication skills.

Yes, having to tell a client their beloved pet died unexpectedly during routine surgery is a bit different to being put on hold for the umpteenth time because the advisor on the phone hasn’t read the account record properly, but the underlying principle is the same – so good communication is essential.

As vets, continuity isn’t always possible, but if you have an unknown client on the list you would be expected to brush up on the history and have a vague idea of why they’ve made an appointment. Anything less would be unprofessional – so why do other businesses think this is acceptable?

Strength in numbers

Is there anybody listening?

For these international corporations, the single customer is just a drop in the ocean – losing a few hundred quid a year when I cancel my contract is just pennies to them, and no matter how much of a fuss I kick up, realistically, it won’t touch their reputation.

For vets, however, it’s different – any complaint not only reflects badly on the individual involved, but on the practice and also the profession.

We cannot afford to lose the trust of our clients over silly things like calling a male dog “she” or not spending a few minutes reading through the patient’s notes before they walk into the consult room.

Poor communication is one of the most frequent reasons a complaint is made to the RCVS, and I suspect this is why the vet schools now have a much bigger focus on communication – to help us hit the ground running and (hopefully) avoid such negativity.

Practise makes perfect

Communication skills come with experience, and while they aren’t classically thought of as something that can be taught, we can be armed with certain tools to help us communicate more effectively.

The practical communication skills sessions we’ve had over the years involving actors have been an ideal way of letting us practise dealing with “difficult” clients before being in that situation for real. And now, in our final year, we’ve transitioned into taking our own consults, either with the clinician keeping an eye on us or confirming our findings afterwards and asking the client any questions we may have forgotten.

Being a vet encompasses so much more than clinical knowledge and surgical skills, and my recent phone arguments with various technical support advisors have made me appreciate just how highly trained we are in terms of communication – and that’s something we should aim to maintain to continue to be respected as professionals.

August 17, 2016
RCVS VN council election manifesto: Wendy Nevins RVN

WENDY NEVINS RVN

Operations manager, The Webinar Vet

T: 07809 702074

E: wendy@wendynevins.com

Wendy began her VN career in 1991 as a trainee at a small animal practice in Surrey. On qualifying, she moved to Yorkshire and started work in mixed practice, and after becoming head nurse, left to relocate to Germany with her forces husband.

Back in the UK in 2000, Wendy moved to Devon and spent two years at a two-branch, small animal practice as a nurse, VN assessor and eventually, practice manager.

Moving to the north-west in 2002, she worked as a nurse in a small animal practice before becoming the Veterinary Nursing Approved Centre coordinator at Myerscough College. After four years there, she returned to practice part-time, where she started working for Anthony Chadwick at his Skin Vet practice. During this time, Anthony launched The Webinar Vet, and, once established, sold up. Wendy stayed behind as operations manager and is often known as “Webinar Wendy”.

In her role, Wendy organises CPD for vets, nurses and SQPs. She also deals with dermatology referral clients and spends at least one day a month working in practice.

Why is she standing?

Wendy says she is “extremely proud” to be a veterinary nurse and wants to take an “active part” in ensuring the profession moves forward.

“I feel I have gained valuable experience throughout my different career roles, which will benefit the role requirements of an elected member and our cause as a whole,” she said. “I have a very good understanding of the varying levels of our profession and I am in a privileged position of having contact with members daily, ranging from students to the most experienced VNs.”

On education, Wendy says she feels “passionately”, and has a “wide exposure”, thanks to her time at Myerscough and The Webinar Vet.

“I believe I will also add value… establishing and reviewing schemes for post-qualification and CPD for VNs. This also includes recommending to the council amendments to the rules relating to the registration, conduct and discipline of veterinary nurses, if required. I am widely accessible to nurses due to my current role, so I can offer effective communication between VNs and the council. On future challenges and issues? You tell me. I aim to be an effective voice for the nurse in practice – an effective voice for you.”

Hustings highlights

Wendy tackled lack of VN engagement in the RCVS in her passionate video, citing poor voting turnout figures and calling the electorate to action. “I want to help increase engagement, hopefully by… carrying on communicating with nurses via social media and within my role at The Webinar Vet,” she said. “Voting in an election is important.

Can you get other VNs to vote? Do you know nurses who don’t vote? If everyone who votes gets one more VN voting, we can increase that [2015 turnout] 11 per cent to 20 per cent.

“It would be great if you voted for me to represent you on VN council, but more importantly though – please, please vote.”

March 24, 2016