Companion collection - Interviews

 David Yates pioneered the practice of early neutering of companion animals while working at the RSPCA hospital in Manchester. As the surgeon responsible for one of the busiest charity clinics in the country, he accumulated vast experience in performing these procedures and he is regularly asked to speak on surgical and anaesthetic issues at veterinary meetings and in webinars.

 Helen Whittle is an award-winning Australian photographer specializing in child portraiture, based in the small country town of Orange, about 160 miles west of Sydney. But she is also a Royal Veterinary College graduate whose fellow students from the Class of 2002 will remember her as Helen Bradwell. She told Companion how she developed her twin career in the studio and consult room.

  Matthew Jones took up his post in August as founding head of the UK’s newest veterinary school Harper and Keele. He will lead the staff who are preparing the way for the first intake of students in September 2020.

 Carolyne Crowe is a familiar face at professional conferences in her role as a member of the Veterinary Defence Society communications and training team. She and her colleagues criss-cross the country speaking to VDS members and helping to ensure that they are mentally prepared for the challenges of practice life. Away from work, she keeps her own head in order running marathons – once completing 10 in 10 days.

The Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS) Council has elected Mandisa Greene to be Junior Vice-President of the College for 2019–20, making her the first person from a minority ethnic background to be elected to the College’s Officer Team in its 175-year history. Mandisa took time out to talk with John Bonner about her aspirations for the coming year.

Distinguished dermatologist Sue Paterson was elected president of the BSAVA at its annual Congress in Birmingham. Although she was (ahem) itching to get started in the new job, she found time to talk to us about her life and career.

Applications for the BSAVA Ophthalmology Postgraduate Certificate are now open. Andy Rae reports on how this CPD opportunity provided recent alumna, Anna Rix, with a much-needed boost that rejuvenated her career.

Grace Dickinson is the founder of Reptiles etc, a company that trains animals for film and television work. As the company name suggests, her work doesn–t just focus on the more familiar species of four-legged thespians like dogs or horses, but a wide range of other taxa, including invertebrates. She told John Bonner about her job and how the methods that she uses could make life easier for veterinary staff.

Edinburgh graduate Cal Major stroked her way into the record books this summer as the first person to travel from Land’s End to John O’Groats on a stand-up paddleboard. Along the way she raised thousands of pounds to support mental health services for the veterinary profession and others, as well as raising awareness of the threat posed by plastic pollution to our inland and coastal waterways. She told John Bonner about the highlights of her trip.

Frances Barr stepped down as BSAVA’s Academic Director on 30 June 2018 after 8 years in the role. She told Companion about her achievements in that time, her career before arriving at Woodrow House and her goals for the future.

“Don't train to be a veterinary nurse – you'll spend all your working life cleaning”, teenager Hayley Walters was told by one of her lecturers at college in the early 1990s. Not the smartest piece of career advice ever offered, Hayley might think, as she steps forward to receive an MBE for services to veterinary education at Buckingham Palace in June. John Bonner talks to Hayley about her work, travels and achievements.

Anyone who has experience of being a patient undergoing minimally invasive surgery will have seen the advantages of such methods over conventional surgical techniques. But the benefits have not always been obvious to many UK small animal practitioners. Philip Lhermette, the incoming BSAVA President, has done more than anyone to change their minds.

Lots of schoolkids dream of being a vet or a top class sportsman, few have the talent or application to fulfil even one of those ambitions – let alone both. Tom Tully is a rare exception…

Lizzie Lockett, the newly appointed Chief Executive of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, has worked within the profession for 25 years. She was born in Huddersfield but soon after, her family moved to Richmond in North Yorkshire where her father works as a farm manager. Her mother is a nurse and her brother Christopher is an equine vet in Halifax.

James Greenwood qualified from the University of Bristol in 2007 and has worked in the West Country since 2010. Outside of work, James is a keen ceramicist and slipped effortlessly into a new role as a contestant on the BBC television programme – the Great Pottery Throw Down. He told John Bonner about his career, how he developed his interest in ceramics and how he coped with the resulting public attention.

Kate Sparksman is the first RVN to undertake a research-based masters degree in veterinary science at the University of Bristol.

Heike Dorn runs the most isolated veterinary practice in England, providing care for the companion animals, livestock and wildlife of the Isles of Scilly. She received the Ray Butcher award at BSAVA Congress 2017 in recognition of her valuable contribution to animal welfare in the community. John Bonner talks to Heike in her Isles of Scilly paradise.

Stephanie Writer-Davies was born in the Wirral and lived there until the age of 10, when she went off to a boarding school in North Wales. Her parents were both anaesthetists in the NHS before they emigrated to Canada when she was 13. She stayed on at school in the UK, travelling back and forth to Nova Scotia in the holidays, and qualified from Bristol Vet School in 1984.

Lee Clayton-Harvey studied Business at Mander College, graduating in 1992, and has enjoyed a varied career, including working in customer services and as a trainer with Granada TV, SKY and NTL telecommunications.

Professor Susan Rhind is deputy head of school at the Royal (Dick) College of Veterinary Studies, Edinburgh. She was educated at Lockerbie Academy before being admitted to the Glasgow veterinary school, from which she graduated in 1990.

Janey Lowes was named Vet of the Year 2016 in the Animal Heroes awards competition run by the RSPCA and the Daily Mirror newspaper.

Julian Earl was forced to retire from practice after a cycle-race accident left him with horrific head injuries. While he may no longer wield a scalpel, he can still spin a yarn, as Cows in Trees, his book of veterinary anecdotes, confirms.

Paul Mahoney is a veterinary surgeon employed with Idexx Laboratories as part of their Teleradiology team.

Vernon Hill is the ebullient US entrepreneur who has upset the balance of the UK’s retail banking sector. But as well as launching the first new name on the High Street for more than a century, he is an advocate for the Kennel Club’s veterinary science awards and is a generous supporter of veterinary interests on both sides of the Atlantic.

Megan Knowles-Bacon has a talent for making things disappear – handkerchiefs, playing cards, administrative problems facing veterinary practice – by day she works at the RCVS headquarters at Horseferry Road and in her spare time she is a keen magician and the first woman to hold a senior role in The Magic Circle.