Opinion

Nearly two decades into the new millennium and my kids have dragged me into the 21st century by buying me an iPhone for Christmas and helping me set up an Instagram account. (Follow me, if you feel th…

We are living in a prolonged period of political uncertainty, the scale of which many of us have never experienced before. Within our industry, the potential wide-reaching implications include effects…

A long-standing follower of mine on Twitter sent me a direct message a few days after Crufts. A friend of his had announced that having watched the show, she had decided to get either a miniature Dach…

“Daddy… Daddy! Can we ask you a question?” asked my three sons 15 years ago, when they were seven, five and three years old. “What would you like us to be when we grow up?” Well, that was easy. “Happy…

To keep the public happy all the time is an impossible task. We all know that, but still get affected by complaints, grumbles and social media diatribes. People are now more likely to publicise their …

It is important that you minimise the gaps between expectations and experience to boost customer satisfaction

What is seen, heard and felt are the most important factors driving clients’ opinions of a practice

The world of veterinary practice is in a state of flux. The delicate balance of providing veterinary care to animals 24 hours a day, seven days a week, is one of the factors that can, for all its diff…

"Folklore husbandry” is an emerging term describing the phenomenon of unevidenced, pseudoscientific, convenience-led habit and opinion handed down from one ill-informed animal keeper to the next. Kev…

There is a lot to be said for keeping things simple in a complex world. In our work as veterinary surgeons we are often bombarded by the need to make decisions, many of which will be based on incomple…

Christmas comes but once a year and when it does, it brings the Christmas rota. At the last RCVS survey, about 60 percent of practitioners said that they still do their own on call, and for those of y…

David Williams congratulates vet students coming to the end of the first term of their six-year course

It had to come to an end sometime, I guess. Janice and I had been together for years – she had accompanied me wherever I went. But eventually I’m afraid to say she ended up just getting on my nerves. …

Standards are useful things, but can also be difficult to live up to. A standard can mean that everything is the same, as in standardised. One of the most useful inventions in modern trade was the sta…

It’s October and that means the excitement of a new term and new students. I sit them down on their first day and tell them several things. Everyone will be telling them to aim for a first-class degre…

The readers of this magazine are mainly vets. But we are also a mixed group of, for example, employees of small companies, employees of large companies, business owners, farmers, UK and non-UK nationa…

Well, I guess you could call it a holiday of sorts. It was hot, for sure. But this resort, if you could give it that epithet, was not just thermally hot. The boots and overalls I took with me had to b…

Twenty years is a long time to be a vet. My cohort of graduates has just reached that anniversary. It is approaching half a lifetime for us. If you take the number of years it took you to learn to pot…

The term “exotic” can mean several things. Setting aside “unusual” or “strange”, exotic might be interpreted as something that isn’t where it should be. For most, if not all, exotic pets (ie pet wildl…

Writing this month’s column, I am not my usual upbeat veterinary self. A succession of client issues and generally being over-stretched at work has, for the first time I can remember, made me start to…