Cathy Thompson who only recently retired from the Taranaki Veterinary Centre was a large animal vet for well over 30 years. A large proportion of her workload was on the region’s many dairy farms.
When she began her career only 20% of vets were female and it was a novelty for a farmer to have a female vet attend a call-out.
Now 80% of new vets are women.
“When I started working most farmers had never seen a female vet before let alone a female large animal vet,” Thompson says.
“I grew up on a sheep farm and enjoyed farm work and working with large animals and farmers. I’ve done a lot of small animal work over the years but feel that I was better at working with large animals. I also enjoyed working with them.”
Vet candidates must do high school physics, chemistry, biology and maths. Thompson feels it’s harder to get into vet school now than it once was and it’s also a very challenging course to complete.
The five-year veterinary course at Massey University’s School of Veterinary Science has a high level of international recognition and turns out vets who can work anywhere in the world including the United States.
The graduates have a reputation for being very versatile in a wide range of veterinary disciplines as well as being extremely practical and easy to get on with.
As students they must cover all aspects of veterinary science but can concentrate (track) on a particular species. In their fifth year the students concentrate mostly on practical and clinical work.
“Clever people have always entered the profession, however, some don’t enjoy or aren’t very good at practical tasks.
“You’ve got to be clever to get in and stay in the course but it’s not necessarily the cleverest that make the best vets.
“You need the academic side and practical ability or the ability to acquire the practical skills.”
Realising communication and social skills are important vet attributes Massey now interviews potential students to see if they have those skills.
Many people love animals but that’s not enough to become a good vet.
Some procedures aren’t pleasant for the animal and vets often have to put animals down. Prospective vet students must discover that before they even get to the school.
“Before applying to vet school a prospective student is required to complete 10 days of practical vet clinic work. They needed to be out there with us to eliminate any fuzzy idea that they will be cuddling baby animals all day,” Thompson says.
“One of a vet’s best attributes is the ability deal with a wide variety of people.
“You might be on a farm for two hours and have to chat with whoever is helping, whether it’s the owner, staff or one of the owner’s kids whereas most small animal consults are usually only 10 to 15 minutes.
“It’s no good being a super technically skilled vet if nobody wants you on their farm.”
A vet is usually called to a farm because something has gone wrong but Thompson has always found most farmers are good to get along with, even in stressful situations.
Vets also visit farms to provide farmers with analysis of tests and preventative procedures.
A vet must like people, like getting out in all types of weather, not mind getting dirty and enjoy getting stuck in.
“You’ve got to really enjoy pus. Do you like emptying abscesses and squeezing pus out of things?
“Even small animal vets often treat constipated or scouring animals and working with anal glands is not a clean job either. They could easily shortcut who gets into vet school just by asking that one question.
The most stressful and challenging but satisfying part of Thompson’s job was never knowing what type of job was coming next.
Whenever the phone rang it could have been for a simple procedure or a major problem.
Even the description of the problem could have been wildly inaccurate. She never went to a call thinking “Just another calving” because she never knew what she would encounter.
“You might go to a farm to do 500 vaccinations that take half an hour, which is a routine job, but you only needed one cow to decide it’s going to try to jump out of the race and you’d have something else to deal with,” she says.
“You’ve got to think on your feet and be ready for many different situations because you usually don’t have any back-up.
“You’ve got to be aware of your personal safety when you’re dealing with a 600kg plus cow.
“You have to know a few different rope knots, how to get people to hold things and safe ways of doing your job.”
Thompson enjoyed the hands-on work and feels the opportunity for instant satisfaction is a lot greater in large animal vet work.
Vets now do a lot of proactive, preventive work.
Farmers are so busy most veterinary practices aim to try to make their job easier by doing some of the farmer’s planning work. They now provide computer calendar programmes that remind farmers of preventive tasks.
“It used to be all fire-brigade work but large animal vets now undertake a great deal of preventive work.
“We used to be out all day and half the night during spring but it isn’t the busiest season any more due to those preventive measures.
“Cow pregnancy testing season is now the busiest time of the year,” Thompson says.
Large animal vets usually have their own farm regions and get to know their farmers, farms and animals very well.
It’s extremely helpful for the vets to know the individual farmers so they know whether they can give them advice over the phone or whether a visit is required.
Thompson has a good memory for cases and cows and found it very satisfying to see a previously treated cow back in the herd on return visits.
“If you’re considering becoming a vet then I’d advise you to visit your local vet and ask if you can go out with them to find out what the job entails. If you know a farmer; ask if you can help them out to learn what happens on a farm.
“In the future there will be a greater emphasis on prevention work and consulting for large animal vets because now there are fewer emergency situations to deal with.
“I’m sure that progression will continue because prevention is always better than having to treat animals.”
