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

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?