Companion collection - Interviews

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.