Veterinary Ramblings

This week we are joined by the fantastic Karen Hiestand! Karen shares her experiences training as a vet in New Zealand and practicing veterinary medicine in both NZ and the UK while also volunteering in many more countries.  We discuss how problems with clients affect your self-worth and how the industry can improve working environments to deal with traumatic situations through ethics and reflecti...

In this episode, we're chatting to Dr Sean McCormack: Conservationist, Vet, and Presenter! Graduating from Dublin vet school in 2010, Sean spent the first six years of his veterinary career in domestic, exotic pet, and zoo animal practice. In 2016, Sean left clinics to work in pet nutrition and have more time for media and wildlife conservation work. Sean tells us about his role at tails.com and h...

Our guest this week is Nathalie Dowgray, the Head of ISFM at International Cat Care!    Nathalie graduated from Massey University, New Zealand in 2002, is a Member of the Australian New Zealand College of Veterinary Scientists in Feline Medicine and holds a post-graduate diploma in international animal welfare ethics and law and a PhD in feline ageing.  We discuss the difficulties of differentiati...

This week our guest is Jamil Dowling! Joining us from Armenia, Jamil talks us through his unique childhood growing up in the jungles of South America, fighting crocodiles and befriending baby animals,  before living on a nature reserve with his mother in Spain.  A student of life, we discuss his unusual education, from taking his GCSEs and A-levels in an extraordinarily short space of time, to bal...

Laura is a Companion Animal Veterinary Surgeon who is taking a sabbatical for 6 months to ride around the world with her husband on a tandem bicycle in an attempt to break the Guinness World record, covering 18,000miles in 180days. On their way, they are raising money for VetLife, Mind and Sustrans! You can follow them online from their website at stelatandem.com. We ask why she wants to attempt s...

This week Veterinary Ramblings is joined by Dr Sean Wensley, author of Through A Vet's Eyes: How we can all choose a better life for animals! Sean Wensley is a Senior Vet at the UK veterinary charity, the People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals (PDSA). He chairs the Animal Welfare Working Group of the Federation of Veterinarians of Europe and was President of the British Veterinary Association from 2...

Matt Rendle (RVN) is back on Veterinary Ramblings! We discuss his ongoing projects with Wildlife Vets International & WAPCA (West African Primate Conservation Action) in Ghana, working with Mangabeys with a view to putting them back in the wild whilst also helping with a challenge facing sea turtles. Matt tells us about preventing Malaria and the best way to make sure you stay rested when work...

Dr Mark Hedberg is known as The Expat Vet and has spent a lot of his working life travelling from country to country. In this episode,  we discuss Mark's time in Saudi Arabia,  where he worked with a host of unusual animals including a crocodile who never forgot him - but has inadvertently got him a free drink! As someone who is fluent in both English and Hungarian, we are treated to a rendition o...

This week, we're interviewing our very own Dr Julian Hoad! Julian began his life, as most Hoads do, in Kent. As a child, he was an army brat and lived in many different places (although mostly in and around London). Like most vets, he knew from a very young age that he wanted to be a vet. He eventually arrived at Plymouth Polytechnic where he studied Biological Sciences, Microbiology and Biochemis...

This week we have a very special episode exploring the life of our co-host Mike Brampton! (We've spent so much time interviewing others that we thought it was about time you got to know our hosts on the same level - tune in next week for Julian's episode!) Mike had planned to be a few different things before finally landing where he is today: A fighter pilot, a brewer, a rugby player, a competitiv...

This week we're chatting to Chris Wilson! Originally from Aberdeen, Chris graduated from Glasgow Uni in 2012. We discuss how he nearly didn't go to vet school and considered a career in competitive swimming instead!   Chris shares the difficulties he's faced with imposter syndrome, particularly when it came to his sexuality,  and some of the microaggressions he has faced at work. As a mentor for r...

This week we are joined by the fantastic Emily Holmes AKA EmPowering RVN Media! Emily shares her journey from wanting to be a teacher to becoming a vet nurse and her full-on university experience as she worked whilst studying, all whilst sharing words of wisdom for any potential students out there.  We discuss what a vet nurse is, how they are a crucial part of the veterinary team and their except...

This week Veterinary Ramblings is joined by the fantastic Janika Patel. Janika is a British-Indian Vet born and raised in South London. After graduating from Nottingham Vet School, she worked in independent practice and Vets4Pets. During her career, she has developed a keen interest in ECC, internal medicine and hospital practice after working at a clinic with its own Out Of Hours service. She is...

This week we sit down with Emily Woodbridge AKA Nexus Vet Physio,  a degree-qualified Veterinary Physiotherapist based in the UK.  We discuss Emily's experience providing palliative care for her horse, the two sides to horse racing and her educational journey to become a Veterinary Physiotherapist. We also explore different forms of physiotherapy including massage and the more subtle signs of pet...

This week Veterinary Ramblings is joined by fellow podcaster, Francisco Gomez, the man behind More Than Just A Vet Podcast! Francisco made the decision to move to the UK to learn English.  He loved it here so much that he decided to stay! We discuss his career progression and what led him to the decision to make Britain his new home. We also talk about brexit and its impact on European freedom of...

This week, we are joined by the inspirational Sarah Cotton! Sarah was working as a firefighter when her life changed forever. While responding to a routine traffic incident, she fell 50 feet from a motorway overpass and broke every bone below the waist. She describes her life-changing accident and her journey of recovery, redeveloping her strength, and eventually swimming the English Channel! Afte...

This week we are joined by Wendy Nevins RVN who has been a qualified VN for nearly 30 years! We discuss her journey from an aspiring drama teacher to a veterinary nurse and remember the funny side of spot tests during our exams. She also shares her claim to fame with a celebrity client!  Wendy, ever determined to qualify in veterinary nursing,  explains how her life took her from a small animal pr...

We are joined by Georgia Woods-Lee (@thefatvetnurse) who is an RVN specialising in pet nutrition and obesity. We discuss how her personal experience with weight management got her into veterinary nutrition and she share her tips for losing weight as a person and for our pets. Georgia also explains how the family food environment can impact pet obesity and the issues overweight pets can suffer from...

Join us for our Christmas ramblings as we spread some festive cheer for the end of the year. We share our differing opinions on Christmas and Julian recalls a rather embarrassing experience of working on-call on Christmas Day.  Our special episode wouldn't be complete without a lot of festive dad jokes and a double whammy of 60-second CPD,  discussing the potential origins of Rudolf's red nose and...

This week we are joined by Fabian Rivers AKA Dready Vet! Fabian is the lead exotics vet at an independent practice in Birmingham and has written, featured and given talks to a variety of veterinary and non-veterinary publications, universities and initiatives.  He is also one of the vets on the Pets Factor, a children’s TV show on the CBBC, and was more recently the presenter on BBC One for Britai...

Join us this week as we sit down with Anna Mercer AKA Anna The Ferret Nurse!  In this episode, we talk about everything from ferrets to fine art - including bats, mustelids, skunks, abstract expressionism, bass guitar, qualifying during COVID, and hummus... Anna shares her experience as a recently qualified vet nurse, and what it was like to qualify during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Anna originally tr...

Join us as we sit down with Nikki McLeod AKA @felinefabulousvetnursing! Nikki has had a fascinating career going from vet nurse to professional photographer and back again! We discuss how the veterinary industry has changed since she first qualified, particularly within the fear-free movement. She also shares her experience working for Pet Blood Bank UK, explaining how it works and the benefits to...

Join us this week as we sit down with the inspiring Hannah Olliff-Lee AKA Physio. RVN! Hannah's veterinary nursing journey began in 2012 with a nursing placement in Clapham. She completed her diploma in veterinary nursing in 2015. In 2019, she began sharing her training journey to become an animal physiotherapist through her social media pages (Physio. RVN/@physio.rvn) and in 2021 she qualified as...

Join us this week as we speak with Petrina Firth AKA The Pet Coach! Petrina is a Pet Behaviourist and Dog Trainer with 15 years in the business. She is a Board Member and fully-assessed Member of The Association of Pet Dog Trainers (no 01238) and a Registered Animal Training Instructor with The Animal Behaviour and Training Council – a regulatory body that represents animal trainers and animal beh...

This week we're chatting to Jessica Joosse AKA nutritionrvn!  Jessica graduated with her Bachelor of Animal and Veterinary Biosciences from La Trobe University in 2016 and went on to complete her Certificate IV in Veterinary Nursing in 2018. She became one of the first few AVNAT Registered Veterinary Nurses in 2019 and obtained Accreditation in 2020.  We discuss her career progression in veterinar...