Companion collection - Interviews

 Terry Ryan Kane is a genuine high flyer. She is a qualified pilot who has enjoyed a successful career in two different branches of veterinary practice and as a scientific advisor to the US Congress. Her current job involves teaching colleagues to care for the most important species in the human food chain – and one that has been neglected by the veterinary profession.

  “A modern gothic suspense novel done right” was the verdict of the influential US literary magazine Kirkus Reviews on the first book by a new author. Entitled ‘The Au Pair’, it was written by Cambridgeshire veterinary surgeon Emma Rous. John Bonner caught up with her as she dots the i’s and crosses the t’s on her second novel.

Lyndsey Uglow heads the Animal Assisted Intervention Group at Southampton Children’s Hospital, which won the Kennel Club’s Friends for Life competition at Cruft’s 2020. This annual award celebrates “the unique relationship people have with their dogs” and in this case recognized the tonic that Lyndsey and her team has provided to thousands of children with severe medical conditions.

  When Alasdair Hotston Moore graduated from Cambridge vet school in 1990, his plan was to study for a PhD in immunology. Nearly 3 decades later he still hasn’t found time for that doctorate but he has done lots of other things – lecturing in soft tissue surgery at Bristol, managing a private surgical service and now his biggest challenge – as the first westerner to run a referral hospital in China. (The interview with Alasdair Hotston Moore took place before the coronavirus pandemic)

 If you are one of the many among us who are keen to help avert a looming environmental catastrophe – but don’t really know where to start – then let Jen Gale be your guide. Jen is a 2004 RVC graduate who has now left clinical practice to explore ways to encourage everyone to adopt a more environmentally-friendly lifestyle. Founder of the web site Sustainable(ish) and author of the Sustainable(ish) Living Guide, she offers advice and encouragement to those wanting to take baby steps towards creating a world that will be able to support future generations.

 Johanna Forsyth became the first graduate of the BSAVA’s new Master’s Degree in Clinical Veterinary Research (MRes) at Congress 2019. Johanna talks to Companion about her career progression.

  Denis Novak has been elected the new president of FECAVA, the pan European small animal veterinary association, at its 25th EuroCongress in St Petersburg, Russia (4–7 September). The clinical skills that he employs in his Belgrade-based practice have been finely tuned through contact with professional colleagues throughout Europe, including the UK where he has been a regular visitor.

A degree certificate bearing the unfamiliar designation BVMSci was not the only thing that the first cohort of veterinary graduates from the University of Surrey took away with them in the summer of 2019. According to Professor Chris Proudman, the man who planned their route through the previous 5 years, they will have also emerged with the mental equipment necessary to tackle any challenge that presents itself in their professional career.

  Carla Finzel set up the first UK district veterinary nurse (DVN) service in Sussex in 2015 and hopes to develop the concept nationally. She sees her work as the embodiment of the One Welfare – One Health ideal in providing help for the pets of owners who may be too frail themselves to bring the animal in for clinic-based veterinary care. Carla was born in Madrid and grew up in Spain and Ireland. She is the adopted daughter of a musician father, and mother who is a nurse.

Brendan Godley is a marine biologist and self-confessed ‘turtle geek’. His research has taken him around the globe to many of those countries with breeding populations of this ancient reptile group. He has worked to help ensure the survival of turtles in Cyprus, Ascension Island, the West Indies, Brazil, Congo and Gabon… all places a very long way from the Glasgow veterinary school where he began his scientific career.