The Adventure that is life: or where a Veterinary Degree can take you

People often ask us “When did you decide to become a vet?”

I am sure there are many answers to that question but I suspect I fall into the commonest category – I decided to become a vet when, at about 8 years old, I first found out that such vocations existed.

It happened because I watched with interest when our local vet, the redoubtable Rowan Hickson, calmly pulled a syringe of green liquid from a bottle he held upside down. He then to my great fascination proceeded to inject it into the front leg of our old pet dingo, Danny. Danny had managed to get himself run over yet again – from his addiction to chasing cars – and was paralysed. It was a calm event, we were sad for the dog but he had it coming to him we thought at the time.

How interesting I said to myself, there are doctors for animals. Rowan had come before that day and had treated Danny with some medicine but it was only then for some reason that my primitive brain put two and two together about this.

Having devoted the previous years to learning how to spell “archaeologist” as that was my first chosen vocation I had now to learn how to spell “veterinarian”.

The track to becoming a Veterinarian was not smooth, not that the undergrad part wasn’t great fun – it was the best years of my life. Sadly school before university merely got in the way and wasted my time.

In Australia:

My first years working as a postgrad were spent in Bathurst, NSW, mostly working as a cattle vet and getting to drive helter skelter around the region, lurching often wildly from one calving to another. With retained foetal membrane removals and Strain 19 (Brucellosis) vaccinations in between. They were tough but formative years. The countryside from which I came and where I first worked was nice.

OConnell road NSW

OConnell road NSW

Being interested in “Everything” and eternally hungry for knowledge about natural history has undoubtedly shaped my personal life voyage. Curiously I think, despite often feeling rather limited in how I could learn about, monitor and possibly influence the direction in which this planet is heading, I suspect being a veterinarian has provided me with some powerful tools. At this side of what has been now a post graduate career spanning 40 years I still ask myself how life could have been had I not done this. Not as diverse and adventurous I suspect. So where to from there?

Cheap Energy – is it really?

An Energetic Debate.

Hello colleagues, welcome to my first post in what I hope we will see as a good place for discussion and the sharing of knowledge about how we can add value to our already amazing qualifications.

Its about looking further afield than normal medicine and surgery, but at the same time hanging onto those central philosophies because that is what makes us all veterinarians.

For many years I have looked sideways at my own degrees and been constantly relating what I’ve learned to the world around me.

While the cost of living comfortably has decreased a lot and comfortable living has been made possible to so many more in the world it has not been without further costs to the environment.

My years working as a vet in some of the most under resourced areas imaginable have demonstrated to me the importance of not only improvising but also seeking ways to provide a healthier environment for everybody and every living thing.

Facebook has been a great way to keep informed, as have other social media platforms. I was intrigued to see this one this morning, it might be worth looking at a personal wind turbine idea.

Along with solar panels this might become the norm for new buildings in the future. There are issues with the big windfarm turbines that centre around their effect on local wildlife. Especially bats where in Europe and North America at least there is more data on these issues.

I know that bats are hard to see or even think about but their importance as pollinators and insect pest controllers cannot be underestimated. We are usually unaware of the night time appearance of bats but they are out there in their thousands, sometimes we are lucky enough to see them up close when they come into our houses, like the little fellow I caught in our kitchen one night:

Little Oberon bat 11 (Copy)

The effects of wind turbines on birds are slightly less clear – it is probable that they are not a major cause of bird deaths but this too shouldn’t be discounted:

Its all very well to go to Google where you will find the above links and a plethora of other blogs and publications relating to this subject, I found just 638,000 in my first attempt. How much of this is now published in peer reviewed journals one should ask. If you go to Google Scholar just for a start you will find quite a few, one click on Google Scholar and I found 17,500, with 6,300 publications cited since 2011.

As veterinarians we have a responsibility and a very clear capacity to weigh into these environmental issues. How we find the time to do it is the question, but with better access to social media, support from each other and continuing education that is provided by so many institutions these days we have no real excuse.

At least that’s in my humble opinion!