The Vet Vault: Veterinary Career, Clinical Skills & Wellbeing

Dr Kathy Anderson has been a practice owner for almost 5 years, and under her guidance, the practice has grown from a 2 man business to a bustling 6 vet practice and has seen a remarkable increase in revenue. Which is impressive in itself, but if I told you that she chose to enter ownership when she had two very young kids, one of them a 2-year-old who wasn’t even sleeping through the night, you’d probably think she’s crazy, right? But here’s the thing - she’s loved her journey and still loves practice ownership and veterinary work. You’d have to look long and hard to meet someone with her level of positivity and enthusiasm for work. 

Our conversation with Kathy covers all aspects of pursuing balance, like how to ensure time off for yourself, Kathy’s tips for happy teams and profitable business, the practicalities of mixing young kids and owning a business, and guilt... something that most parents/ business owners would be all too familiar with. We chat about self-care and our responsibilities in caring for others, about the role of telemedicine in Kathy’s practice, and much much more. 

Go to https://thevetvault.com/podcasts/ to get your hands on the answers to ‘the one question’ from our first 20 guests, and to check out our guests’ favourite books, podcasts and everything else we talk about in the show. 

We love to hear from you. If you have a question for us or you’d like to give us some feedback please leave us a voice message by going to our episode page on the anchor app (https://anchor.fm) and hitting the record button, via email at [email protected], or just catch up with us on Instagram. (https://www.instagram.com/thevetvault/) If you like what you heard please share the love by clicking on the share button wherever you’re listening to this and sending it to someone who you know will enjoy listening to this.

Here’s another sneak preview of our upcoming clinical podcasts with this episode on the diagnosis of immune-mediated haemolytic anaemia. IMHA is one of those diseases where timely recognition and treatment can mean the difference between a patient that lives and one that does not, but it can be a challenge to diagnose. We’ve roped in Dr Dave Collins, a medicine specialist from North Side Vet Specialists in Sydney, to help you to create a solid plan for diagnosing and saving these patients. This episode is the first of a three-part series on IMHA. The other two will be available on the Vet Vault clinical medicine podcast soon. 

Head to https://thevetvault.com/podcasts/ to subscribe to our email list and we’ll send you the summarised notes for this episode and let you know when the clinical podcasts go live. 

We’ve also partnered again with our friends at Heska Australia. Heska is the best thing that’s happened to the in-house lab industry in Australia in a very long time. Check out they’re full range of diagnostic toys at heska.com.au, and make sure you look into their Reset Programme to see how you can get all of their top of the range in house lab equipment - for free! 

Click on this link: https://www.heska.com.au/vet-vault-podcast-imha/ to get access to the most recent consensus statement on the diagnosis of IMHA. This is a document that includes all the details of pretty much everything anyone knows about how to diagnose these cases. 

We love to hear from you. If you have a question for us or you’d like to give us some feedback please leave us a voice message by going to our episode page on the anchor app (https://anchor.fm) and hitting the record button, via email at [email protected], or just catch up with us on Instagram. (https://www.instagram.com/thevetvault/) If you like what you heard then please share the love by clicking on the share button wherever you’re listening to this and sending it to someone you know who will enjoy listening to this.

Hazell Mullins is young and energetic and a little bit glamorous, but she’s also a very hardworking hardcore cow vet in her home country of Ireland. She shatters the stereotype of the tweed-hat-wearing bearded farm vet and is one of the fore-runners of what is the next generation of leaders in the large animal veterinary field. We chat to her about how things have changed for female farm vets over the last few years. Hazell tells us about the day to day life of an Irish farm vet, why spring is scary when you’re a cow vet on the British Isles and gives us her tips for preparing for periods of high stress. We discuss surviving on call, the merits of post-grad studying, using social media as a tool, and she tells us about her podcast, Vet Space Ireland, plus much much more. 

Go to https://thevetvault.com/podcasts/ to subscribe to our mailing list to check out our guests’ favourite books, podcasts and everything else we talk about in the show. 

We love to hear from you. If you have a question for us or you’d like to give us some feedback please leave us a voice message by going to our episode page on the anchor app (https://anchor.fm) and hitting the record button, via email at [email protected], or just catch up with us on Instagram. (https://www.instagram.com/thevetvault/) 

If you like what you heard please share the love by clicking on the share button wherever you’re listening to this and sending it to someone who you know will enjoy listening to this.

It’s not every day you get to interrogate one of your friends, but in this episode, that’s exactly what Hugh gets to do. Dr Ruan Bester has chosen a career journey that is a bit different to that of most of his classmates: instead of opting for a career at home or in one of the ‘normal’ choices like the UK, Aus or the US, Ruan was drawn to working in Asia, where he eventually started his own practice in Macao. (If you’ve never heard of Macao before you’re probably not alone: Macao is a small island off the coast of China about an hour away from Hong Kong by ferry, and is the gambling capital of Asia.) Outside of work, Ruan loves fast things: aeroplanes, race cars and motorbikes. But mostly he LOVES just being a vet. 

We catch up with Ruan to talk about changes that he perceives in the profession, about sustaining your passion for the job, what life is like for a vet in Macao, and all sorts of weird animals, including flying turtles! Join us for a highly entertaining, slightly alternative look at our incredible profession, with Dr Ruan Bester. 

For the show notes or to check out our guests’ favourite books, podcasts and everything else we talk about in the show, click on the webpage link on the episode page wherever you listen to us or visit the podcast website at https://thevetvault.com/. 

We love to hear from you: if you have a question that you’d like us to answer then leave us a voice message by going to our episode page on the anchor app (https://anchor.fm) and hitting the record button, via email at [email protected], or just catch up with us on Instagram. (https://www.instagram.com/thevetvault/) 

If you like what you heard please share the love by clicking on the share button wherever you’re listening to this and sending it to someone who you know would enjoy listening to this. 

In this bonus episode we answer some listener questions. One of our listeners brought it to our attention that, because of Covid, many people who are considering studying veterinary science are not allowed to see practice. How are they supposed to know what life as a vet is like?! They have some questions: What does the day to day life of a vet look like? What do you look for in a veterinary student that makes you think they will become great vets? What do you wish you'd known when you entered the profession? 

So we've teamed up with Dr Louisa Graham to answer some of those questions for our pre-vet listeners. We hope it helps! 

We love to hear from you. If you have a question that you’d like us to answer with the help of our guests, leave us a voice message by going to our episode page on the anchor app (https://anchor.fm) and hitting the record button, via email at [email protected], or just catch up with us on Instagram. (https://www.instagram.com/thevetvault/) 

If you like what you heard please share the love by telling your friends and colleagues to check us out.

Victoria Johnson is a specialist veterinary radiologist and the founder and director of VetCt, a global leader in teleradiology and telemedicine. We dig deep into diagnostic imaging as a career choice: the how’s, the why’s and the why not's, and everything else you wanted to know about it. Victoria tells us her secrets to maintaining a healthy relationship when your significant other is not only a vet, but also your business’s partner - a situation that is not at all rare in our profession. And of course, I can never resist asking a fellow parent,  especially a parent who is such an accomplished business owner, about how they balance parenting with caring for what Victoria calls ‘the other child’ - your business. We also get some pro tips from someone who’s been immersed in working remotely with teams over Zoom long before Covid forced the rest of onto video conferencing on how to successfully communicate remotely without losing the human touch. 

Find out more about Victoria’s work at https://www.vet-ct.com/au/small-animal/telemedicine-diagnostics/. 

For the show notes or to check out our guests’ favourite books, podcasts and everything else we talk about in the show, click on the webpage link on the episode page wherever you listen to us or visit the podcast website at https://thevetvault.com/. We love to hear from you. 

If you have a question that you’d like us to answer with the help of our guests, leave us a voice message by going to our episode page on the anchor app (https://anchor.fm) and hitting the record button, via email at [email protected], or just catch up with us on Instagram. (https://www.instagram.com/thevetvault/) If you like what you heard please share the love by telling your friends and colleagues to check us out.

Roz Lindsay’s career started as a veterinarian. After several years of working in clinical practice in both the UK and Australia, she transitioned into a career in human pharmaceuticals. This is where her interest in business, management and leadership was peaked, with a particular focus on the inner workings of teams within the healthcare professions. Fast forward to the present: these days Roz is an accomplished trainer and facilitator in her learning and development company for healthcare teams. (https://engagingpotential.com.au) She has a passion for people development with particular interests in leadership, team development and the neuroscience/psychology of human interaction. Her background in veterinary science with the subsequent years of experience in sales, customer service, operations and management in healthcare services outside of vet gives her a unique perspective into the challenges we face in our profession and is why we loved having her as a guest in the show and why we know you’ll love her content. 

Roz talks us through her decision to leave clinical veterinary practice and gives some fantastic advice on how to think through the decision for anyone considering leaving the profession. We talk about stress as a neurophysiological response rather than “ just” an emotion, and we explore the concept of 'good stress'. Roz gives us her views on the most common causes of dysfunctional teams in the healthcare sphere, where sayings like ‘all nurses eat their young’ are tragically commonplace, and we talk about the biggest killers of good teams. 

For the show notes or to check out our guests’ favourite books, podcasts and everything else we talk about in the show, click on the webpage link on the episode page wherever you listen to us or visit the podcast website at https://thevetvault.com/. 

We love to hear from you. If you have a question that you’d like us to answer with the help of our guests, leave us a voice message by going to our episode page on the anchor app (https://anchor.fm) and hitting the record button, via email at [email protected], or just catch up with us on instagram. (https://www.instagram.com/thevetvault/) 

If you like what you heard help us spread the love by telliing your friends and colleagues to check us out.

In this episode, Alice talks about imaging of the gi tract when you suspect gastrointestinal bleeding, and specifically the use of capsule endoscopy. This is not an entirely new technology, but for a long time, it’s been very limited in it’s usefulness to veterinarians. However, in recent years advances in tech in this field has significantly increased its utility. Alice talks us through when to use it, how to use it, what it’s not good for, and what it’ great for. 

Our guest for this episode is brought to you by ALICAM. ALICAM is the world’s first veterinary capsule endoscopy unit. It’s a revolutionary way to easily image the gastro-intestinal tract with unsurpassed detail and accuracy, and is achievable at any level of practice. 

Find out more at https://www.fourlimb.com.au/alicam.