Lovely. Thank you very much, Sean, and thanks everybody for joining us this evening. So we're gonna have a talk about where can your RVN qualification take you, and just looking a bit deeper into actually what we can do once we are qualified.

And of course, this is sponsored by Tails, as Sean said. So thank you very much to those guys. So starting off then.

Who's going to do this job? Who's gonna be, you know, cuddling puppies and kittens all day because that's what we do, right? You, you do need to be, a special kind of person, and a few of these things, we, we're just gonna run through what it really helps to be on a personality scale.

So you've got to be passionate, and that can be not just for animals and, and their welfare, but also about your fellow humans and passionate about your job, and, and whatever aspect it is. That really kind of ignites your fire and wants you to get going and you keep that throughout your entire career. The focus may change, so you may diversify down 11 area.

There's always going to be that one thing that, that really kind of excites you. And that's really important to hold on to as you go through. You do need to be quite organised.

Obviously, we're running to schedules, we have SOPs, so operating procedures, we have rooms and drawers full of stuff. There is just equipment everywhere in our clinics and we have, vets that can't find that stuff quite often. So us nurses are often in the eyes and ears of the practise.

So to know where things are and be able to be organised both in what you're doing. But also have that kind of organised logical thinking and thought process can be really helpful as well. It goes without saying we need to be compassionate, but of course, with that comes compassion fatigue as well, so we need to be aware of our limitations and do some self-guard self, you know, self- mindfulness and, and safeguarding to make sure that we don't get too burnt out with things.

We are a team and it's very important we, we follow the, the BVA. Recommendations of the vet led team. So rather than one big captain that's steering the ship and, and, you know, he has a say in everything that's done, we will work to our own individual strengths and we know others weaknesses.

So the receptionist and the cleaner and the ANA and the nurse and the vet and the practise owner are all as important as the other one because we cannot do our job without these other people. So it's all about having a good communication. And a good team player.

We need to be proactive and forward thinking. We can't just be a push button robot. We need to actually look for these problems and think outside the box and really be thinking three steps ahead.

And it takes a lot of dedication. Those of you in practise or students will know already the long hours, the hard work, the physical and mental strain that it puts on you. So you need to have that dedication.

And of course, you've got to love cleaning. But another way to look at cleaning is infection control. And as much as we hate mopping the floor, doing a deep cleaning theatre, we need to remember that actually that's infection control, and that is vital to keep our patients happy and healthy and make sure there's no kind of nasty diseases and bugs running around.

Lunch breaks and wee breaks are kind of, can be quite optional, so a large bladder can be helpful. And of course, the inexplicable love for those, those odd and, and, not well and deformed animals that come in with three legs and, and one eye. They're the ones that tend to really pull on our heartstrings and we end up taking home for ourselves.

If we start at the beginning then, how to train as an RVN, there's a few different routes, so you can do the diploma route, you can do the degree route, you can, so I, when I trained, I trained vocationally, so I had a practise placement and I was one day a week went into college. So that gives you a lot of hands-on training, whereas if you You go the degree route, you have a lot of, your focus is theory because you're kind of a full-time student, and then you have released placements going off to, to the universities and to the to the practises. There are a set amount of hours that need to be worked and that is stipulated by the RCVS, so the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, who obviously our regulator, and they will tell you exactly how many hours that you need to do, of training, both clinical and theory, over the, the 2 to 4-year period, depending on what options you take.

Of course, you've got to have minimum GCSEs or A levels depending on what you're going for. And there's always a final exam, and that's usually a multiple choice questionnaire and the dreaded Oys. So there's practical tasks where you have the magical 6 minutes to prove that you know what you're doing with regards to bandaging or X-ray settings or placing feeding tubes and the such.

Throughout, you've got modules and assignments and you do need to be registered with the RCVS as a student, veterinary nurse. And then as soon as you have qualified, it takes a little bit of time, but then you'll, you'll cross over and you'll come on to the registered veterinary nurse, register there with the RCVS. And this is a really important point actually, because you want to be proud of your qualification.

As we know, under Schedule 3 and the Veterinary Surgeons Act, that, that actually a layperson can carry out anaesthesia, for example, other Schedule 3, procedures if under the direct supervision of a vet, because the, the term veterinary nurse is not, protected. And it's really important. We want to be looking towards protecting this title because we've worked really hard to get this qualification.

It's a profession in its own right, and, you know, that's something that, that's certainly the BVNA are are very passionate about, utilising RVNs to, to their maximum potential. Now, with regards to working as a nurse in the UK, you have to be registered with the RCVS. However, the UK qualification can take you all around the world.

It really is the qualification of choice for all of the other countries. It, it seemed to be a very high standard training. And you can really kind of transferable skills going across there as well.

The different states in the US will have different requirements and quite often you may need to be able to prove your competencies or take a top-up module or something like that in a different country to, to make sure you are competent, but in general, it's the UK one that really opens the doors. So, in the UK there are some corporates that are now doing some bits and pieces that IVC for example, are setting up a nurse academy in Denmark, and they're helping to develop our overseas nurses. So this, being an RVA can work both ways.

We can get people in from abroad who can come and train here and then we can also help train them in their home country as well. So, I do have a look at the IVC plan and, and what they're, they're working out and different bits and pieces that are going on. So obviously, I'm the, the junior vice president for the BVNA at the moment.

I will take over as president in October. The BVA was founded in 1965, so we've had 58 years that we've been running, and there are currently, about 16.5 1000 nurses on the RCVS register.

So there's quite a lot of us out there and an awful lot of those. I think we've got, just under 7000, about 6.5, 7000.

Of these nurses are actually registered as members of the BDNA. And the important thing about the association, obviously, I, I have a commercial interest there. I'm biassed, but we are the voice of veterinary nursing.

So by having the council, made up of 15, volunteers, basically, and they're all nurses, to a student nurses, we can, we cover a whole wide range remit of what nurses can do. And we look into the future and we try and see actually where is nursing going. How can we make it better and just strive for that professional excellence on an ongoing basis.

But it does mean we need you guys to engage with us as well, because we know there's a lot of disillusionment with with the practise and the profession as it is. And we, we realise that retention is a big problem. So nurses are qualifying, that's great.

But then they're dropping off and moving to other sectors within 2 to kind of 4 years, something like that. We need to get this better, but part of that is we, we, you know, get you guys to talk to us, either via email or give us a call. So that actually you're letting us know what's going on and what things are important to you and the way in which you would like your profession to be shaped, because if we don't do it, if nurses don't speak up for ourselves, then other people are going to speak for us.

They think about the RCVS, they're our awarding body, they're our governing body. They've been established since 1844 by Royal Charter, so obviously, they've been around for a very long time. And they're monitoring the educational, ethical, and clinical standards of the veterinary profession, and that includes us nurses as well with things like our code of conduct, and Schedule 3.

We've come a long way in our, in our time as nurses. So you can see here on the left, a lovely Rana. She's not wearing her, her white puffy sleeve caps that can be had.

You had to wear a dress. There was no option. And when you qualified, it was all about the silver belt buckle.

That was your special gift that, that your family or your loved ones would go out and buy you, or you'd buy your own, as, as your treat. So it wasn't about a badge or anything like that. It's about the belt buckle.

Thankfully, we've moved on from those days, very much. Some people think they used to do a lot of nursing, for example, cat castrates come up quite often. But in actual fact, it was a lot of being an extra pair of hands.

And, we've really moved on from, from that now. So you can see the new picture on the right there. We've got a qualified nurse who's undertaking a full dental examination, including, periodontal assessments, that she's doing scaling, and, and really doing, taking control of that procedure, whilst another nurse is being the anaesthetist, and keeping an eye on that anaesthetic with the vet in the room at the same time.

So we have developed our own profession, and we've got a bit of a timeline to have a look at. So the first runners and the ANAs came out in '61, and then the actual title veterinary nurse was only first used in 1984. So you can see it's quite a big jump there until we actually started using that title.

Sadly, we have tried to protect this title, and it's been through government once, but it was not agreed by government that we needed to protect it, which is a real shame in my opinion, because as I said, and I mentioned earlier, you've got lay people undertaking roles of, of the veterinary nurse, who have not had the training. To do so. And it's not just as simple as with an anaesthetic, putting an animal on 2 and 2, as we all know.

So we are going to try and get that protected again in the future, but obviously, there's a whole lot of, malarkey going on in government at the moment. So we can't get a lot of time with the MPs to get these things motioned. So the Schedule 3 came into force in 1991, which is a really big legal amendment to that Veterinary Surgeons Act of 1966.

If we think that we are governed by that BSA, and that's from 1966, it's a very long time ago, but trying to make any changes that can be quite difficult and can take quite a long time, hence why we have working parties with the BDNA and our CVS and other interested stakeholders, with regards to looking at what can and can't be done within Schedule 3. We have equine nurses come through from 2000, and then in 2002, we had a veterinary nurses council established, which then obviously moved on through to 2010, which we had the first veterinary nurse sit on the full RCVS council. Now this is a huge step forward and it's really nurses stepping up, and, and, you know, bringing nursing to the table, so that it's not just all focused on the veterinary surgeons, so that we can actually bring our skill sets and our expertise, which are often have a very different focus than the veterinary side of things.

So they may be a bit more patient-based, holistic based rather than treatment and diagnostic and illness based, and both obviously need to work together. The disciplinary system was brought out and our code of professional conduct. And one thing I do want to say about the COC, that code of conduct is, it's a bit dry reading, but you really do need to read it.

And certainly with regards to your social media use, just be really aware that you are, you need to abide by the COC at All times, even when you're not at work. So it does follow through your whole life, your whole journey. You don't want to, all the time that you're on the register, certainly, you don't want to be seen to bring your profession into disrepute.

And so it's something to just be aware of with, with social media use, because there have been some nurses that have been caught out with this and, and lost their jobs and things. So just, just be aware that if we're walking around in our uniforms or we've got an embroidered fleece on or we've just left our, our badges on, or even our name badges where we work, you know, we're still being seen as a professional and so therefore, we are still under that code of conduct. So what's veterinary nursing like today then?

Well, as I say, we've been established for 58 years, and, and you can see that from November 2018, 16,664 registered veterinary nurses. So we have got these coming through, and they're coming through quite, quite nicely. I was speaking to, to some third year students today.

And it's good to see them and how excited and ready they are. And there's a lot for us to do in practise. We're gonna come on to that in a, in a bit.

One very exciting thing is Vet Nurse Futures projects, and it's a joint project between the RCVS and the BVNA. Now, if you haven't heard of this, do go and have a look on the internet to, to look it up because basically it's a load of working groups, and we're looking at finding out, what's going on with our profession. So we're 2.5 years into a 5-year plan.

One of the groups has delivered a, a very big thing, which is the advanced practitioner status that you may or may not have heard about. The RCVS released a, statement about it kind of 23 weeks ago. And it's looking at the postgraduate, qualifications, basically.

And they've they've brought out these new level 7 requirements. So that actually once colleges come on board, you can go on and instead of doing your dip AVN, for example, you can do these new ones and the, the, the, the nice bit is they've got a clinical side where you can pick your topic. So if you're interested in anaesthesia or dental or behaviour or nutrition, you can then spend a good chunk of time really tailoring this qualification to your specific niche interest.

And this is with a view to a longer rollout to hopefully, we've been in discussions about it, working towards a specialist status. So if you go ahead and you have this advanced practitioner, status, then you can potentially apply to be a specialist if you take the specialist, later on down the line. As I say, keep an eye out for that one because at the moment, as nurses, we're not allowed to call ourselves specialists, but we can say we specialise in.

So for me, I specialise in rabbits, but I can't say I'm a rabbit specialist. But hopefully in the future this will come. It goes beyond VN Futures, it goes beyond clinical work.

We're also looking at one health. So those interplays between our clients and their compliance with what we're asking them to do, and also how mental health with the Mind Matters scheme is very important with our cohesiveness of our team. Looking at to find career paths.

When I first qualified, you were looking at being a nurse, and then if you were lucky, you'd become a head nurse, and that meant you didn't actually do any clinical work anymore, you just did paperwork. And then potentially you might end up as a practise manager with all the roles that, that, that that ensues, but often not a lot of clinical work. And that was kind of your only options, quite a few years ago.

Now we've got nurses who are owning their own clinics, as in the whole practise, they bought it, they bought into it, and they are the, the boss, they're in charge. And all these loads of diversifications as well. And I've mentioned that maximising nurses potential and engagement of nursing profession.

So if you're interested to learn more about the VN Futures project, please get in touch, have a look on the website. We are potentially going to be looking for some new members, on some of the groups in the near future. So definitely have, have a look at that and see what's going on there.

But within clinic then, obviously, what we do need is we need a lot of nurses who are good GP nurses and there's so many things that we do within clinic on a day to day basis. Everything you can see here, dental, inpatient bandaging, IV, sample collection, radiography, the list goes on. However, there's nothing wrong with having your bits that you like and the bits that you don't like.

And it's really important to understand your, not just your competency, but your confidence in these areas as well, because you may have been taught how to, to place a feeding tube. Let's stick with that one. But you may not have done it very much.

And so, therefore, you're not confident in doing so. And it's important that you do speak to your team and your vets and your other nurses to just be open and honest and say, actually, do you know what, I'd like more training before I'm doing this. So don't be afraid to say no to, to doing certain tasks if you think that you're not either skilled enough or confident enough to do them.

On the flip side, then, you know, you can be super skilled and super confident in doing these things. Therefore, you're going to be running nursing clinics and you can be really delving into the subject of your choice. So if you're, if diabetes is your thing, then really run with that and push to engage with your clients, have these clinics so that you can Really support them, and their pa and their pets, your patients, and make that your own thing.

And this can be a chargeable service. We are professionals, we can charge for our time. We just need to make that shift in how we work, to help with that client perspective.

You can go on and work in referral, for example, in specialist nursing. So if you have a penchant for oncology, then you can go and work somewhere that, that, that specialises in that. You can decide.

Do orthopaedics or even dental work, you know, we now have clinics that are just dental specialist referral clinics for cats and dogs. So again, as a nurse, you can follow that path through. The BVA do an oral healthcare certificate, a dental certificate, which is a really good, CPD programme.

So again, you can get extra qualifications and then make that your focus of choice for your career, and that can take you quite, quite some ways through your career in different bits and pieces. A little quote at the bottom there, you have to trust your nurses. They are your eyes and ears with your inpatients and your anaesthetics.

And that again just reiterates the fact that this is a team effort, and the vets need to trust the nurses and the nurses need to trust the vets. But what else can we do? This talk, you know, is, is fundamentally about life as a veterinary nurse when you qualified, and beyond that three step of nurse, head nurse, practise owner, you leave.

There's actually quite a lot that you can diversify through and have a look at. So for example, equine is one thing that you may be interested in or large animal work. Now, Large animal nurses are, they, they are there, they do exist.

There's not many of them because farmers tend to, to use, or the vets tend to use the farmers or farmers tend to do a lot of their own nursing, rather than vets take out large animal nurses with them. However, this is an area where I think it's really underdeveloped and we could play an absolutely vital role with communication with the, with the farmers and the bonding with the farmers, and certainly the welfare and the general biosecurity and bits and pieces like that, we could, we could really make a big difference by going along and helping out. If you're interested in exotics or zoo work, then again, you can, you can do this.

Lots of zoos in the UK now employ full-time veterinary nurses, and others have nurses from practises that come and visit. Now you can also work at individual collections, so it could be, pet shops or it could be, you know, Large private collections of different exotics. There's an association called the Association of Zoo and Exotic Veterinary Nurses, the AZEVN but I do recommend you, you look up, if you have interest in those sorts of things.

And then we've also got the BVZS of the British Veterinary Zoological Society that you can also have a look at for more information in those areas. We've mentioned referral that you can go into. Some of the referral systems can be quite difficult when you first join as a nurse because you are qualified, you're experienced, you've done all these things, and you moved to a referral hospital.

And they are very, very particular with how things are done. So a very good friend of mine, she, she went to work for one of the big referral places and, you know, the introduction was 12 weeks of just relearning how to do things. For example, they use something like 7 or 10 swabs just to take a blood sample, and you just think, wow, we're, we're just, you know, having to adjust.

But it really is the top kind of gold standard levels of care. So if that sort of thing interests you, then, then that's an option. There's a research angle that you can go to.

There are nurses who make careers after doing research and and publishing papers, and looking into different bits and pieces, and that can be a very interesting angle for the very academic people. There's laboratory work that once you're qualified, you could decide that actually you'd like to go and work for one of the UK laboratories or one of the ones abroad. And really zone in on that microbiology, and, and having a look at the bloods and the urines and, and all the bits and pieces that that go along with working in a lab.

You can go into academia, the education side, you can be a full-time or part-time lecturer at a college or university, or you can even just think about doing lecturing at congresses and at providing CPD, for example. Even that comes down to education, but it's your qualification as a nurse that has opened that door. People are always needing good articles.

For example, the VNJ, is, is always in desperate need of articles written by veterinary nurses, and to have to be a nurse and be published in a peer-reviewed journal is actually a really strong thing to have on your CV and that can open doors for more writing in the future. And of course, you can get paid for some of these gigs as well. So there's lots of different magazines, journals, online forums and practises and platforms that that need good clinical writing skills, and that's something you could choose to have a look at.

Another diversification is working in the, in the veterinary course you could work with the army and the assorted animals that come under that tends to be kind of dogs or equine are the main things, but there are other animals in there as well, and they can be quite a lot of travel both in the UK and worldwide attached to those posts. You can decide to move into, into the kind of the, the food manufacturer or the pharmaceutical rep, which is a very different kind of life. But again, you, you're underpinning knowledge is very important there, and it can be quite good for those that again want to travel a bit more and are looking at a higher salary than maybe is paid in most GP practises.

So often the reps can be paid quite well. For going around and, and doing kind of lunch and learns and territory managers and sales and it's a whole different suite of skills that you can add on top of your qualification. You can move into the charity sector.

Now this could either be working for something like PDSA or Blue Cross, who have, who have hospitals and low-cost clinics, or it could be working for smaller charities like, street vet or something like that or maybe a mental health one. That life or any of the charities you can think of, working directly with the animals or helping with the admin and the support and, and the running of the charity, and the outreach side of things can be, can be really good. If you're trying to do fundraising for anybody, then again, being a qualified nurse, there's lots of things that you can do for that, and lots of networks that you can, you can highlight.

And animal welfare is always a really big thing, and that's kind of my hot potato. That's my favourite thing is animal welfare. So having that qualification has doors for me to be able to go and speak to MPs up at parliament and say, right, I want to talk to you about sentience and sentencing and, and these sorts of things.

And the fact that I am an educated professional, under a rule charter as well, means that you can get those doors open and you can have these 1 to 1 conversations with people. You could choose to move into insurance, and this is often something that a lot of people move to, after, say, some ill health, certainly if you've got some back problems or skeletal knee problems, something like that, and your mobility isn't quite so good, then insurance may be a good move for you. You're using all that wealth of knowledge that you've got about the body systems and about diseases, and you can apply that to, to the claims process.

And of course, there's always voluntary roles, for example, the BVNA council, the RCVS Council, and the BVNA have a range of regional representatives and what they are, they're normal nurses like you and I working in practise, and they are the representation or the representative for that area. So for example, they will hold Local CBDs, journal clubs, even just a cake and bake sale or something that gets the nursing community together so that they can build the networks, find those friendships, and also get some CBD in at the same time. It's quite a lot that you can cover, with, with this, this qualification.

So what do vets think of their nurses? And we asked some, vets about 22 questions. What do you wish you'd known about nurses before coming into practise and what couldn't you do without your RVN?

And you've got a couple of examples there. I'm gonna go through a few of them. And one that I particularly like is by Katherine here.

As a new grad, nurses are invaluable. And this is really important because When you first come into a practise as a new grad, everything's scary, whether you're a nurse or whether you're a vet, it's all new. You've kind of got your colours on, whether it be green or pink or blue or white.

And with that, and your, your magic badge that says you're now qualified, you should have all the knowledge and be able to do everything. But actually, do you, are you, as a nurse, are you going to want to go and do a lump removal on day one, even though you technically can under Schedule 3? Is that something you are competent and confident enough to do on day one?

And for new grad vets, this is where the nurses are really great. So if you think back, if you've ever worked with any new grad vets, and they are, you know, doing a bit spay and they're pulling on the broad ligament, and they're just kind of picking at the edges, and you know, it needs to have a, a much, much more force applied, and you can just help guide them through and give them the support and the confidence and, and, and you know where things are, you know how things run, and you can really support these guys and make a big difference. And You know, and again, it's that teamwork.

It's really important to know that vets do think that it's OK to utilise nurses' skill sets. OK. So this is something that we can kind of hide our light under a bushel and feel that we can't shine.

If you are the nutrition guru, if you know everything about nutrition, then speak up, stand up and really be counted. And use those skills because the orthopaedic surgeon, for example, may not have that skill set, but it's going to be very important for that patient when they're recovering. And the same with the cat whisperers and, and invisible veins, those people who can always get the vein no matter what.

Nurses help vets deal with emergency situations. We can't do this job on our own. OK?

You don't want to be doing, vets don't want to be doing C-sections on their own. Nurses don't want to be having to do, to do, you know, deal with their inpatients completely on their own with no other inputs. So again, it's that team effort and that whole thing of I can't do anything without an RVN because they're part of the team.

And some important rules to finish with, You know, if, as a vet, if you have tea or biscuits, then make sure your nurse does too. And, you know, load the washing machine. Just, just help out.

Just don't get in the way. No one wants to get in the way of anybody else. And of course, as you can see there, please remove your sharps because, because nurses really do appreciate it when vets remove their sharps.

So carrying on, we, we need to keep up with our, our profession. We need to keep up with our education and part of that is CPD and BVNA have a congress every year, and it's a really fabulous 3 day event that, that you have some great networking abilities and some really fabulous, streams of CBD as well. What I really love about Congress, I've been going for, for many, many years, even way before I was on council, is it's by nurses for nurses, and it really is.

It's great to have the lectures all pitched at nurses. And so for me, to be able to walk around an exhibition without being judged on what colour lanyard I'm wearing, because I've had that at other other congresses that you walk around and exhibitors, some exhibitors only want to speak. To you if you've got a speaker badge on or a vet badge on, or, you know, they, they don't want to speak to the nurses.

And it's just not like that at BVA Congress. Everyone knows it's just all about the nurses and as well as the great CBD, you've got some really fabulous evening fun as well. So this year, there is, a quiz night, a fancy dress quiz night on the Friday, and there is a night at the Oscars ball on the Saturday.

So we do hope to see you guys there. Hopefully you've all heard of, of VAM, so Veterinary Nurse Awareness Month. This is run again by the BVNA and it's May every year.

And what it is, it really is the chance to shout about what we do as nurses and how diverse, and interesting that our roles can be. The public often have the perception that actually, you know, what do we do? Well, we're cuddling puppies and kittens and we're way, you know, you get that question of, oh, so when are you going to, to, to graduate and be a vet then?

No, we're not many vets, we have our own profession within our own right. So this is the month that we can really bust these myths. You can contact BNA for a pack.

You can see on the screen there, the pack that was sent out this year. So there's some bunting, posters, leaflets. A lovely sticker for your practise window that, says that you're a proud employer of RVENs, registered veterinary nurses.

And again, it's opening that dialogue with clients. To, to, to so that they understand the importance of having a registered and qualified nurse working in practise, and all the different things that you do. So if you have a look on the BVNA Facebook page, the VA Facebook page, you can see every day for the month of May, we post something else that nurses can do, whether it be exotic work or volunteering abroad or, you know, Cleaning out kennels, just the whole variety of things that we get involved with as nurses, and it can give you some inspiration for things that you may be interested in doing.

We hope you get involved and, and put a display up in your practise. If you're currently working in education or in a college or as a rep or anywhere you are, you're still a nurse, you will always be a nurse. So again, get involved and shout about it and help raise the value of our profession.

Hold some external events. I've done a beach clean for the past 2 years. Other people do open evenings at their practises, and some people climb mountains to raise money for, for charity as well.

So just, it is our, our month to celebrate and shout about everything that we get up to. So to finish up then, to round off, I'm going to go through my diversification to show you just how life can throw you a bit of a curveball, as a backstory as to how varied your life as a nurse may be. So I did have a life before nursing.

I, I, I trained later in life. I started in practise in 2007. And oh, I've done many jobs.

I've been a dental nurse. I've, I've run sales teams, and, and I've had a, a, a good marketing position job for many years. Primarily social media marketing.

Unfortunately, I then got sick with EE and I had to step away from work for 5 years, and I was bed bound for 1 of those years. And you kind of re-evaluate life. I always wanted to be a nurse, but I couldn't afford the minimum wage when I left college.

I needed a bit more to, to help support my family. And so, you know, at this time, I was married, I was settled, after the, the marketing career. And so my husband said, Right, time to retrain.

So I did. So I qualified and I became an RVN. And I had quite a tough time in some practises.

So I've seen the good, the bad, and the ugly. And I decided that rabbits were the thing for me. So they were my niche.

They, they will get, get me up in the morning. They were my passion. And I'd had rabbits all of my life, so I had an interest anyway.

But what really piqued it for me was the fact that all my colleagues in practise hated dealing with them. Oh, I don't want to do the rabbit, it's going to die. And I thought, that's the sort of challenge for me.

And that's when I really focused in, and that was my zone, and that's what I decided to do. And so I started learning as much as possible, researching as as possible, getting involved with different bits and pieces, writing articles, and doing that whilst, whilst working full time as a nurse. Sadly, I then had a workplace injury, lifting a 32 kg dog, Pop goes a disc, and I end up with a back injury, and I think, ah, I'm young, I'm fine.

Life's good. So I carry on through. 4 years after the initial injury, I then end up in full quadrainer.

I'm paralysed from the waist down in hospital needing two spinal surgeries. Obviously, going back to clinic is not really on the cards after that, and I've had 4 spinal surgeries and I've got 2 more to go. Then what, what on earth do you do then as a nurse that is broken and can't go back to clinic?

I thought, well, my niece is rabbits. So I'd started to get a bit of a name out there that, you know, if you want to know about rabbits, I'm the person to come and speak to. So I thought, right, I'm gonna have a go at lecturing.

So I started asking people, would they, you know, applying for, for these little, these little gigs to say, I'd like to speak about this, and you get a lot of no's back. And then you start to get one or two yeses, and then it rolls on and then you get the invitations come through to you. And so I began.

Being quite frequent on the lecture circuit in the UK, which worked well for my back, it meant that I was still keeping in touch with my nursing profession, but without having to be in clinic every single day. And also you get paid for giving these lectures, after you've kind of cut your teeth and done your first few. I ended up doing so well with this.

I started my own company. So as a nurse, I own and run Lego Learn along with my my business partner, Ivan, who is a vet. And what this company does is it literally just provides rabbit-specific CPD teaching.

So we travel and lecture internationally in Europe and in the USA and all around the world, teaching vets and nurses how to look after rabbits properly, both surgically and medically. So that's, that's my current life and how I took a turn. A bit of a curveball there.

On top of that, I volunteer for, for the Rabbit Welfare Association, so I've been a volunteer outreach officer for them for some years, which involves attending pet shows, other bits and pieces like that, attending their CPDs to help bridge the knowledge gap to, from, from, vets to owners with regards to what rabbits need. As you know, I'm on BVNA council, and again, that's my, my RVN status has got me into that. So I can, I'm now proud to be part of the force that is pushing forward our profession.

And I've started a project called Learning Without Landfill, which is another one of my passions. Looking at how when we go to big conferences and when we're in practise, we tend to switch off our ecobrain and we just do things in One way, because that's the way we always have done. So you go to Congress, you pick up every freebie you possibly can, lay it all out on the bed at the end of the night, take a photo and put it on social media and try and get as much swag as you can without thinking about the impact this is having on the environment around us.

And finishing up then, I've recently launched a company, a charitable company with my husband called Tech for Pets. And what that does is that's looking at the online sales of animals and That is monitoring them and from that we can look at puppy parties, not puppy parties, we can look at puppy mills and kitten mills and the online sales and trying to make this a better process and really put welfare first and knock out those, those bad breeders. And of course, as Sean said in, in that lovely intro, I've won some awards for my welfare work as well as a nurse.

So hopefully you can see by this recap of my, career path so far, it's been very diverse. I haven't given up when I've been broken, and I've continued to push on through. There is always something you can do after you qualify as a nurse, and it's just often thinking naturally to see what's going on.

What the future holds, I have no idea. I'm quite enjoying the ride so far. And I hope you guys are enjoying the ride on your nursing journey as well.

And hopefully it's gonna take you everywhere that you want to go as well. So thank you all for listening. I'm happy to take questions if you have any.

Great, thanks so much, Joe. That's really, really interesting. I couldn't agree more with the, I think it was the vet that says nurses are invaluable.

Certainly my career and especially early career, couldn't have done it without, you know, great nursing colleagues as well. Definitely one team, one dream is the way forward, and I've worked in a couple of practises where that's not the case, and yeah, it's just not utilising nurses enough really. One question I had, if anyone has any questions, do just drop them in the chat, box.

If you just hover over your screen, and there's a chat bubble there. You can drop some questions in, and we've got a little bit of time. But I was gonna ask, what was, how was that transition out of clinical practise when it was kind of out of your hands?

How did you deal with that? It was actually really hard, mentally and physically, it was a really hard thing because I'd worked so hard to, to get my nursing qualification. That I'd wanted all my life.

I'd come to it later in life. And then I felt like I'd just kind of living the dream, and then it was, it was taken away from me quite rudely. Financially, it was very difficult.

And yeah, emotionally, it, it, it was really hard. And I was just too stubborn, basically, to, to walk away from something that I wanted so much. So I had to, I was desperate to find something I could still do.

Insurance isn't really Floating my boat, so I didn't want to go down that road. And certainly driving lots and being a rep was, was not achievable in my, in my current physical state. So lecturing, you know, writing articles and lecturing seemed like an easy way in.

And then, yeah, it's just absolutely taken off from there and I'm, I'm literally here, there and everywhere, week to week. I have to live by my diary to work out who I am on any one day, really. Yeah, yeah.

And what do you miss most about clinical practise? It's the client interaction and the patient interaction. I, I really loved my, my medical nursing, my hands on ward nursing was the thing for me.

And just spending that time with those patients and getting them better, giving them just such a great standard of care, working things out. And with the owners as well. So actually taking the time to share your skills with those owners, I think that's really important as well because we don't need to be Keepers of this information.

If we teach our owners how to body condition score, how to syringe feed, how to give insulin injections, if we really invest in our clients, then we're gonna improve patient welfare so much. And I think nurses are just absolutely critical to, to that part of the role, and really be that patient advocate to both the vets with the clinical side of things and also to the owner with the support of, of long term management of problems. Yeah, couldn't agree more.

It's great. There's no questions coming in, so I think with that, thank you, Joe, for a great webinar, as always, and I'd just like to say again, thanks everyone for joining. It is an honour to sponsor this vener series.

One thing I would say before we sign off is we talking about diversification and your careers. At tails.com, we do actually sometimes have openings for vet nurses to come on board.

And at the moment, we're looking for a vet nurse who is a French speaker. Because we've expanded into France. So there's a diversification opportunity if ever there was one.

You can just drop us a line on veterinary at tails.com or vet nurse at tails.com, and we'll get back to you if you're interested in that.

So thanks again, Joe, and thanks everyone for attending, over and out from us.