Vet Times

Tag: Clients

  • ’Tis the season to (not) be shopping…

    ’Tis the season to (not) be shopping…

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    by

    Dan Amos

    There are many traditions with Christmas – some you like and some you don’t. The annual onslaught of impulse puppy and kitten purchases hits us all in one way or another: there’s the heart-stopping emergency consults with the sickliest ones, the vaccine consults where you question the validity of that rabies certificate, and the disappearance…

  • Soft skills seem to be the hardest learned

    Soft skills seem to be the hardest learned

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    by

    As clinicians, we’ve spent our whole lives learning, consolidating, revising and sitting exams so, one day, we would finally be practising. You would think after spending a couple of decades or more in full-time education we would be done with lusting after qualifications; that life would be about honing our newly acquired clinical skills, fixing…

  • Physician agency – striking the right balance

    Physician agency – striking the right balance

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    by

    I was terrified when I started my consulting career. As I walked out to call in my first client, I was full of doubt, just as everyone is. Could I do it? I wasn’t very good in most social situations – was this the right career for me? In the end, consulting actually came naturally…

  • The subtle power of saying no

    The subtle power of saying no

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    by

    Saying no is not something we’re really programmed to do. Vets are inherent caregivers, people-pleasers and largely pretty able. If you’re anything like me, saying no can leave you racked with guilt for not being more flexible or team oriented. It’s taken me a long time to rationalise with my eager, fizzy little brain that…

  • ICU later

    ICU later

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    In a few recent blogs, I have reminisced nostalgically about how things have changed in the profession since I qualified in the distant misty-swirled lands of the last millennium. However, there’s something I don’t miss: blearily sleepwalking my way through morning surgery in the numb haze only familiar to chronic insomniacs, those with young children,…

  • Knowing what you don’t know

    Knowing what you don’t know

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    One of the most exciting and yet terrifying things about being a veterinary student is the fact there is always more to know. You can be the best student and even the best vet in the world, but you can never know everything – it’s simply impossible. I’m in the second year of my course…

  • Remember, remember, the 5th of November… in June?

    Remember, remember, the 5th of November… in June?

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    by

    Kele Harris

    It’s that time of year – the daylight is getting shorter (though I somehow ended up with an extra hour on call when the clocks went back, for the second year running), the relentless summer heatwave burned itself out and, with bouts of snow at the weekend, winter seems to have appeared from nowhere. In…

  • Retention prevention: stop blaming students

    Retention prevention: stop blaming students

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    My interview at the University of Bristol was as terrifying as all my others, although it was my last chance. The interview at Edinburgh hadn’t gone well; I had been sent to the wrong room in the library and subsequently forgotten about, then hastily hurried in during lunch, with grumpy interviewers and a flustered interviewee.…

  • Asking for it…

    Asking for it…

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    by

    Dan Amos

    Original or primary vet nursing research is moving on in leaps and bounds. This is amazing, both for us and for our patients. Not surprisingly, there has been a rise in people sharing their surveys for assignments and dissertations on social media to gather information and data. However, working with data means complying with a…

  • “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there”

    “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there”

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    by

    Holly Kernot, VN Times editor, uses Lewis Carroll’s timeless tome to discuss the array of adventures RVNs embark on and ask readers, where do you want to go?