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Tag: wildlife

  • Don’t limit yourself

    Don’t limit yourself

    Fourth year at vet school seems to finish before it’s even begun – and that’s not a romanticism.

    It’s only six months (running from September to February), so even if you factor in time spent on exams, it sort of feels like cramming a whole year into just half the space of time. Like too much butter over too little bread.

    Short year

    There are many maladies of fourth year that nobody quite prepares you for.

    For starters, exams come before Easter (so you don’t even get a chocolate fix while revising), there’s no real summer holiday (unless you count an overseas EMS placement) and – the scary part – it’s the stepping stone between being a plain ol’ student and basically being an actual vet.

    Despite these curveballs to the regular programming of the vet course, I believe fourth year has been my favourite so far. However, I’m not sure if it’s the nostalgia after intercalating for a year, the delicious lack of biochemistry and 9am dissections, or the slow and almost intangible sensation of everything coming together.

    Mixing bowl

    It’s most certainly a scary jolt when you realise that, academically speaking, the university staff have essentially taught you everything there is to teach you. There are no more ingredients to becoming a veterinary professional – all that’s left is to mix them all together and hope you come out fully baked.

    It’s also a familiar type of “scary” – like holding your unopened A-level results envelope, or moving out of home and into halls. It’s a precipice of the unknown, but there’s also a lot of potential there. Staring into the jaws of final year is a humbling experience and it feels like the beginning of the end of a very long journey.

    Looking back, the past five years seem like a blur and despite the fact most of the friends I started university with are now working 9 to 5 and getting on the property ladder, I can’t quite believe I’m already here. Is it really that time already?

    Limitless

    Academics aside (you know, the actual important bit), I’d say my takeaway from my time so far probably boils down to just one point: don’t limit yourself.

    This applies to every aspect of life at vet school – from trying different clubs and sports in your first year, to keeping your options open when it comes to what type of vet you actually want to be. For example, when I first started writing for Vet Times as a wee 19 year old, I knew down to my bones that I wanted to be a farm vet… until I didn’t.

    That’s not to say that cows aren’t still the cutest things that fill me with absolute joy, because they do. It’s even become a sort of car game among my vet friends to point out fields of them on long journeys. The fact of the matter is, I don’t know what I want to be any more, unless there’s an option for everything?

    Growing confusion

    I never really considered myself an exotics enthusiast, or a conservationist, or a wildlife welfare advocate until halfway through my veterinary degree, and with each passing EMS placement I become more and more torn as to which area I’d like to branch into.

    “Don’t limit yourself” is also applicable to your life and interests outside of the course, to giving yourself a much-needed break during the revision period, and not being scared to ask questions of that vet who knows everything now, but was once just like you.

    Don’t miss out

    It makes for a very cheesy motto, but if you get too caught up in where you think you should be going when you first start vet school, you might miss out on some really incredible opportunities along the way.

    It’s natural for you to end up being a very different person at the end of the course than you were when you first applied (a culmination of all of those years and experiences) – I know I certainly am.

  • ‘Perfect Pals’ calendar competition

    ‘Perfect Pals’ calendar competition

    COMPETITION CLOSED FOR ENTRIES

     

    Many thanks to those who entered our 2022 calendar competition and sent photos of their “Perfect Pals”.

    The competition is now closed, and our judges are working their way through hundreds of wonderful pictures to create a shortlist of entries, which will be published in the October issue of VN Times, with readers voting online for their favourite image.

    VOTING STARTS SOON!

     

     

  • In the pink

    In the pink

    I can probably count the number of blood samples I’ve taken to date on a single hand.

    That does sound pitiful, I know, but please hold off on any judgement as I was unfortunate enough this year to have a total of 10 weeks’ work experience cancelled due to the recent pandemic.

    Like everyone else, I suppose, I saw 2020 panning out a lot differently as I began it… but from dark clouds come silver linings, and I am now proud to say that one of my startlingly few blood samples was drawn earlier this month from a flamingo.

    Going to the zoo, zoo, zoo

    My cohort is probably luckier than most, as the large majority of our learning is conducted online, with the exception of the occasional in-person presentation, practical or day’s work at Bristol Zoo Gardens.

    flamingo
    Eleanor takes bloods from a flamingo, under the close supervision of a zoo vet / Bristol lecturer.

    However, I’ll be candid and say the involvement of the local zoo in the running of my masters was the thing that really drew me in the most, the money and time being a small consequence if I had the chance to work alongside those who were living my dream – a dream I’d harboured for more than a decade and a half.

    And while I’m sure the thrill of my day’s work with those lucky individuals will fade (though it hasn’t yet), I think that short window spent working with the most amazing creatures and talented professionals almost makes up for all the time lost this summer.

    A very different experience

    It’s safe to say that working with wildlife versus small domestic animals is an entirely different ball game. For example, I have a friend who had a week’s EMS in a practice specialising in wildlife and spent most of the first day chasing a deer around a local park.

    Even if you are lucky enough to have the wild animal behind closed doors and easily accessible, or even if it’s already restrained or half-tranquilised, it’s astonishing how difficult a simple routine check-up and x-ray can become.

    It can take time to safely capture and restrain an animal, especially one as long and ungainly as a flamingo (don’t let the croquet scene in Alice in Wonderland fool you). Add this to the time taken to anaesthetise it, draw bloods, run checks, top up its fluids, take several x-rays from an array of angles – all while maintaining COVID-19 regulations on top of pre-existing health and safety considerations. It was no wonder my friend and I had about five minutes to wolf down our lunch before running off to the afternoon’s activities.

    Meal for none

    As a person who loves their food, it is with great surprise that I say I have never been so happy to skip a meal in all my life. I think I would have quite happily gone on working through until midnight, had government COVID-19 policy not mandated we leave the zoo by 5pm. I honestly didn’t want to leave, but I walked away with a strong respect for all of the staff working there on a daily basis.

    Working as a vet requires a sack full of patience at the best of times, but working with wild animals brings the job to another level. Not only do you strike the balance every day between interfering too much or too little, no other medical professional has to work with patients every day who are so unwanting of your help and will stop at nothing to get away.

    I do think that if doctors and nurses had to use bait to draw their patients in, bar the practice doors, and then try to grab them one by one with a very large net, medicine courses might not be quite so over-subscribed.

  • Research the change you want to see in the world

    Research the change you want to see in the world

    As a good 60% of my masters is research based, there will come a time, all too soon, when I must decide definitively what avenue of research I want to explore.

    We don’t have much time to touch upon research or develop our skills in the area on the vet course due to the huge level of content we need to consume throughout the five years, but those skills are both highly transferable and infinitely invaluable in the field of exotics and conservation.

    Choices, choices…

    I’ve been looking forward to the research aspect of this course for the best part of the last six months but it’s shocking just how difficult it is to pick a single topic to dedicate yourself to.

    Topics include:

    • one health
    • immunology
    • genetics
    • behaviour
    • marine biology
    • climate change
    • wildlife
    • domestic animal studies

    …the list is quite something.

    Making your mark

    What it all boils down to though, is what really sparks an interest in you? What questions do you want the answers to? What species hold a special place in your heart, and what field do you want to expand your knowledge in?

    For me, the question I’ve begun to ask myself is: what is the change I want to help bring about?

    As a veterinary professional you can’t always let yourself be swayed by issues of the heart, yet there are many aspects of animal welfare, captivity and treatment that make this far easier said than done.

    The trouble is that we live in a world of law and legislation and attempting to enact change driven purely by an emotional standpoint will get you nowhere. You cannot simply request for laws to be changed or regulations to be put in place because it’s “the right thing to do”. You must scientifically enforce your argument, and that means peer reviewed, tried and tested research.

    Agent for change

    It wasn’t until 2012 that battery farmed eggs were outlawed in the UK, and only in 2016 did SeaWorld – a multi-million dollar entertainment enterprise – pledge to end their removal of Orcas from the wild and their captive breeding programme.

    Some might argue that these changes are on completely different levels and have different value, but neither would have been brought about without the tireless work of countless dedicated professionals who took the time to bring facts together into a case that changed laws that had been around for decades.

    It’s a long old process, the documentary Blackfish (which inarguably had a hand in the decline in SeaWorld’s popularity) took months to produce, and it took an additional three years after it’s release for it’s impacts to come to fruition. With this in mind, I wonder just how much change I’m really capable of with my three-month research project – which, due to COVID-19, is almost certainly set to be entirely desk-based.

    Little by little

    I believe even the small changes are important; even those made by collecting data and typing up hypotheses and conclusions from home – even if you don’t actually get to spend any time working with the animal whose quality of life you’re trying to improve.

    I have a particular interest in stereotypies – which, for those not in the know, are repetitive movements, sounds or behaviours displayed by captive animals due to frustration or a lack of mental or social stimulation. They are the direct consequence of human intervention in their natural behaviours, and ever since learning about them in the first year of the vet course the topic has stayed with me.

    If I’m lucky enough to explore this field at the start of next year I’ll be grateful for any minor contribution I can make to the far too-small pool of research that is thankfully starting to grow.

  • Good intentions

    Good intentions

    Less than a month into my master’s degree in wildlife health and rehabilitation, and it’s already become apparent that a vast array of misconceptions are held by the public concerning local wildlife.

    I’m already armed with far more wildlife facts than I ever thought my brain had room for. For example, did you know that a group of hedgehogs is called a prickle? Or that bees have five eyes?

    The vet course is a lengthy and arduous endurance, and even so a whole wealth of animal knowledge gets left out because, for the average vet, there’s little need to know that a kangaroo has three vaginas. Unless, of course, you’re a vet working in Australia – in which case, g’day!

    The unfortunate facts

    In my lectures, alongside these charming facts came the statistic that in the majority of wildlife rescue centres, more than 50% of “abandoned orphan” admissions are a mistake on the well-meaning public’s part and are, in fact, just young fledglings still getting used to their wings.

    That’s in excess of 50% of “avian orphan” admissions that have to be assessed, put through the system, housed and then released back into the wild – more than 50% of resources wasted.

    It’s also true that feeding hedgehogs milk and birds bread can make them ill, and that setting out food or bird feeders can provide a breeding ground for disease transmission and propagation.

    And it’s a truth that is kept somewhat from the public that, for a large proportion of wildlife casualties, there is little to be done but palliative care and euthanasia.

    Small acts of kindness

    This topic really gets me down, because with all of the ecological, environmental and diversity destruction ongoing around the world, small acts of kindness and sympathetic good deeds seem few and far between – and as someone passionate about wildlife and conservation, the last thing I want to do is discourage them.

    A lot of problems exist in this world, and humans cause 99% of them, so when someone goes out of his or her way to try to do the right thing and it ends up causing more harm than good – whether he or she knows it or not – it seems like such a waste of good intentions.

    swallow
    Image © raquel / Adobe Stock

    Can’t do right for doing right

    The real crux of the matter is the paradox of education. It’s understandable that the public make mistakes regarding wildlife when so much is still unknown to the professional community.

    That being said, if the wide range of new data at our fingertips could be available for the layman, such mistakes might be mitigated. However, there’s only so much unrequested education people can tolerate before they just give up.

    Similarly, if you let every member of the public who brings in an injured animal know the percentage of animals that have had to be euthanised that day, they might just take it on themselves not to bring it in at all, or (an even worse possibility) attempt to care for it themselves.

    Sad, but true

    Stories of people attempting to hand-rear everything from birds to large cats are, while superficially admirable, most often doomed to failure.

    Research is constantly being conducted into nutritional requirements, behavioural norms and habitat necessities on all the species we’re still not 100% on… and that’s pretty much all of them.

    If the leading minds in the field are still messing it up, there’s not much hope for the average Joe – even with all the good intentions in the world.

  • Chasing waterfalls

    Chasing waterfalls

    Sticking to what you’re used to is both safe and comfortable; getting to where I am now was neither of those things. All through secondary school, people told me trying to become a vet was too much effort – that if I was having to try as hard as I was, then maybe it wasn’t worth it.

    Now, as I prepare to intercalate between the third and fourth years of my vet course, I have people balking at the idea of taking on an additional hurdle.

    The truth is I’ve been hurtling along these tracks I’ve laid for myself for an awfully long time – back before I knew superhero wasn’t a viable backup career or that, sadly, you have to be born a princess.

    A different path

    It’s a scary concept to hop on to a new path for a while – one that isn’t so black and white – and steer in the direction of what I think is north. But it’s also very exciting.

    From September, I’ll be undertaking an MSc Global Wildlife Health and Conservation course – and recently receiving an update email on what my intercalation course will look like post-outbreak made me almost giddy with anticipation.

    Government guidelines and international pandemics permitting, I’m looking forward to a lot of hands-on, skill-based learning, working on interpreting data and building my own research project (more on that to come).

    Less of the same

    All vet courses taught up and down the country are very similar (because they have to be) and, therefore, reward you with a certain skill set and career outlook. By intercalating I am hoping to expand each of these to narrow in my sights on the areas of animal-centred fields that strike the strongest chords within me.

    From the first day of vet school my eyes began opening to the impacts of our lives on the populations of the species with whom we share this planet; issues I wasn’t happy to tolerate and didn’t even know I had been.

    Big, jaw-dropping horrors like dolphin hunting, stereotypes of captive animals and chicks on conveyor belts hurtling towards a meat grinder, down to the more subtle disasters such as quickly evaporating insect populations, awoke in me the drive I’d had as an infant to do this job in the first place.

    Making animals better

    As a six-year-old girl, my idea of what it meant to be a vet was simply “a person who made animals feel better”. At that age, I don’t think the concept was any more nuanced than that. But looking back, 15 years on, I don’t think it has to be.

    I know I’m not alone in wanting to leave this world a little better than I found it, and if this next year I’m embarking on brings me a little closer to my goal then I wouldn’t want to lose a single second.

    Complicated

    The big problems the veterinary community faces – along with the world as a whole – aren’t going to be changed overnight. My own lifestyle is an embodiment of just how complicated they are:

    • I agree all animals are entitled to freedom from pain and suffering, and although I try to reduce my consumption of meat, I am not vegetarian or vegan.
    • I do not believe in the captivity of large aquatic mammals, but as a child I enjoyed my visits to SeaWorld and wildlife parks to watch the dolphin shows.

    I don’t expect to solve the big issues or answer the big questions, but I want to contribute in any way I can.

    Unfortunately, conservation and exotics are not currently primary areas of study on the veterinary course, and yet I cannot help but pursue them. I hope to bring the worlds together in the coming years, and fight for change with a double-edged sword.

  • No strings on me

    No strings on me

    No one likes change – it’s a scary thing. And there’s perhaps nothing scarier than spending five long years on the course of your childhood dreams, graduating and emerging into general practice, only to find that this might not be for you after all.

    Obviously, I’m not speaking from personal experience, but, according to a two-hour seminar my year received from people who really have experienced this, it’s a lot more common than people might think.

    But it doesn’t have to be scary at all…

    No fear

    I think it’s fair to say no one really knows what to expect from vet school until they’re there, and I imagine it’s much the same in the transition from degree to profession.

    So far, I have loved every bit of my journey towards becoming a vet, and I’m still really looking forward to everything that’s yet to come. I hope, when I find myself in the real world, I’ll love it every bit as much as I think I will – but if that’s not the case, it’s nice to know so many other options are out there.

    After hearing from speakers from large veterinary conglomerates, pharmaceutical representatives and civil service workers, it became apparent that our degree can steer us in so many different directions.

    Different strokes

    Just because you don’t go in that same direction as most of your cohort, it doesn’t mean those five years of hard work were in vain; veterinarians make very strong candidates in a variety of job markets, and your experience will immediately help you stand out from the sea of other applicants.

    No one was lying to you when they said the vet course would teach you transferable skills. Vets are trained to work under pressure, both independently and as a unit, to problem solve and go the extra mile, as well as having a firm knowledge of biology, pharmacology, cytology… the list is nearly endless. Not to mention the extensive interpersonal communication skills that are drilled into us from day one.

    The take-home message from the seminar was this: do what makes you happy. Don’t let yourself be bullied by the majority or be swayed by the views of family, friends or cohorts.

    (im)Perfect fit

    Only you know if something is a perfect fit or if it’s just not working, and the latter is not a failure; it takes a lot of courage to go against the flow and make such a big life-changing decision, but it turns out the rewards can certainly be worth the risks.

    There are obviously benefits of having what some of our guest speakers referred to as a “real job”: regular hours, a more predictable work day and a more manageable work-life balance – although they all admitted they did miss working so closely with animals.

    I’m still not sure exactly which line of work I’ll settle into in the end. When I was first applying to vet school, I always saw myself as a farm vet, but over the past few years I’ve developed a large interest in exotic species and wildlife. But as long as I find myself in a job I can come home from at the end of the day feeling both happy and fulfilled, there’s nothing else I could really ask for.

  • The third year slump

    The third year slump

    I never really worried about signing up for a five-year course; friends would gasp at the prospect, but I’d always laugh it off for a multitude of reasons.

    If I’m being honest, the part of me worried about leaving the security of secondary school was quite happy to have a set plan for the next half a decade, with most of the major decisions already made for me. It also helps that I’m a bit of a nerd and I’ve always enjoyed learning – not tests, though sadly they seem to come hand in hand – and anyway is it really “work” if you’re doing what you love?

    Food for thought

    Almost three years on and nothing’s really changed. I still love my course and where I’m heading, and no number of exams could ever diminish the joy of learning something new. But at the same time, as I approach the halfway mark of my course, it’s hard to watch friends I’ve made along the way begin to plan life after their own courses.

    When everyone around you is getting ready to begin their next chapter – discussing dissertations and job markets and other truly terrifying adult-sounding-topics – it can be easy to fall into a slump.

    The traditional “half-way meal” organised by the third years does help to soften the blow somewhat (food being the ultimate comfort), and also serves as a reminder that getting this far really is an achievement, one we’ve all made together. It helps to think of the next half of the course as the vet student’s version of “the next chapter”, because the shift to clinical years really is a different world – or so I’ve been told.

    WEBAdobeStock_185190634
    “…even my avid-clubbing friends are starting to wind down now. The older you get, the more being surrounded by bouncing, wide-eyed freshers are going to take its toll” – says Eleanor Goad.

    Mature student

    It probably doesn’t help that I’m an old soul, but as you near your fourth year you can start to feel like you’re becoming the pensioners of the campus.

    I’ve always been the kind of student who prefers an evening in with a takeaway than a night on the town, but even my avid-clubbing friends are starting to wind down now. The older you get, the more being surrounded by bouncing, wide-eyed freshers are going to take its toll.

    I think the hardest part for me about still having so far to go is the constant desire to just get stuck in. When the Australian bush fires crisis began, veterinary professionals around the world migrated in to help and I would have jumped at the chance to have been one of them.

    Preserve your virtue

    Patience is key in any profession, but I think veterinarians acquire it the hard way. Nevertheless, there’s a lot we can do while we wait for graduation to arrive. Volunteering is the obvious example. However, if you can’t afford a flight to Australia, there are always issues to be tackled closer to home – working to preserve your local wildlife, perhaps at a rescue centre, is as good a cause as any.

    Volunteering, work experience, blogging (ahem) or educating those around you on subjects of animal care and well-being are just a few ways you can spend your time in these pre-professional years.

    It’s okay if you feel stuck, or in a slump, it’s a pretty common thing. Just don’t wish it all away too quickly, because I bet we’ll miss these years when they’re done.

  • VN Times calendar competition

    VN Times calendar competition

    This competition is now closed for entries

    Public voting on shortlisted entries begins on 02 October, 2018

     

    Out-and-About-header-bigger

    Whether much-loved pets, grazing livestock or weird and wonderful wildlife, little gives many people more pleasure than seeing animals out and about in the great outdoors.

    So, we’ve decided on the theme of “Out and About” for the VN Times 2019 calendar, and can’t wait to see your photos of all creatures great and small at large in Mother Nature.

    Maybe a dog is having the time of its life on a sunny beach walk, or a cat is frolicking in your back garden? Perhaps you’ve encountered a deer in a country park, or spotted a lion striking an unusual pose while on a trip to the safari park? Or perhaps something in a field of cows and sheep has caught your eye? Whatever the scenario, we want entries for the next VN Times calendar competition, and if it’s a good enough photo it may be used to illustrate a month, or even the front cover.

     

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  • RCVS VN council election manifesto: Matthew Rendle RVN

    RCVS VN council election manifesto: Matthew Rendle RVN

    MATTHEW RENDLE RVN

    Matthew Rendle RVN.

    Senior clinical VN, London Zoo

    T: 07947 812630

    E: matthew.rendle@zsl.org

    Matthew’s VN career kicked off in 1989 at The Park Veterinary Centre in Watford, a busy mixed and exotics 13-vet practice. It was here he completed his training and here in 1994 where he became senior theatre nurse.

    Leaving in 2003, Matthew headed to the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) to pursue his interest in zoo and wildlife nursing, where he remains.

    Matthew is a regular lecturer to veterinary nursing and veterinary surgeon undergraduates at the RVC, and lectures on herpetology throughout Europe and America.

    Why is he standing?

    Matthew says he has “dedicated his life” to being a VN for 25 years, and has observed “many changes” that have taken place during this time.

    “Our role and the general understanding of it has improved significantly within my time in the profession and it continues to,” he said. “I am passionate about veterinary nursing and consider myself very lucky to work at ZSL. With my experience and background, I am in a fortunate position to help educate and support the next generation of VNs.”

    Matthew said it would be a “great honour” to be elected to council, as will be having the opportunity to represent UK VNs and “contribute to the advancement of our profession”.

    “I would relish the opportunity to promote the vital role of the RVN,” he said.

    Hustings highlights

    In Matthew’s video, he said he feels there needs to be a “greater understanding” of the roles of a modern VN and, while these roles are “misunderstood” by the public, VNs are “too keen to blame this on everybody else”.

    “I think a lot of it is our own fault,” he said. “We need to raise our profile and demonstrate professionalism wherever possible, and during my time on council I would really like to push forward on that.”

    As a male VN, he would also like to work on diversity within the profession. “I’ve been a VN for more than 25 years now,” he said. “I’ve always really enjoyed it, and haven’t felt at any point that being male has held me back in any way, but again I think this comes down to public perception of what VNs are.”