Opinion

As many of you will be aware, there is a new series of All Creatures Great and Small on the television. For many vets, we will have memories of watching the original TV series in the late 1970s onwar…

“Could you please look at the dog in cage 43?” came the text message. And so I popped along to the kennel suite to give a quick ophthalmic examina­tion of the Chihuahua in the relevant enclosure. In f…

I recently read a post on a veterinary Facebook page that got me pretty wound up and caused me to rewrite this piece almost immediately. In summary, the post was raising issue with the fact that NHS w…

There are few things in life that make me really annoyed, but one that really riles me is the pet owner who you hear tearing strips off the receptionist because they’ve been waiting for 15 minutes whi…

Wildlife markets have never been more infamous. From live invertebrates to primates, and from animals’ dried heads to their privates, some “dead or alive” wildlife markets have become the anything goe…

Today I write from a classroom I am sharing with an 11 and a 13-year-old. This classroom closely resembles a domestic kitchen, the main difference being the abundance of old and dysfunctional laptops …

When I was seven, which truth be told was 50 years ago, I won the annual photography competition of the 12th Cambridge cub scout brigade with a series of photographs, all black and white of course and…

Regular readers will notice that, for the first time in years, my column was missing from the pages of this essential publication last month. To be frank, like many of you I imagine, I was just too dep…

The elderly Labrador owned by my equally elderly next-door neighbour is slowing down with arthritis, despite NSAIDs and glucosamine together with a wonderful mix (his words not mine) of devil’s claw t…

Inclusion, diversity and culture are buzzwords that have been widely discussed within the veterinary profession over the last couple of years. Every day I am truly thankful that the majority of the pr…

We do like to think we make a difference, don’t we? The animal comes in ill, we treat it and most of the time it gets better. And there’s the rub… I was going to say “we cure it” but in reality, how m…

People. That’s what they don’t tell you about when you decide you want to be a vet. Yes, you may love animals and be good at science, but pretty soon into the job and you realise there’s a whole world…

The saying goes “Primum non nocere”. First do no harm. Sounds very old, doesn’t it? Must go back to Hippocrates? Well, there are two problems with that. First, it’s not in anything that Hippocrates le…

The RCVS Disciplinary Committee (DC) is considering lowering the standard of proof needed to convict a vet of misconduct. It currently stands that the committee must have something proved to a crimina…

As an ophthalmologist, I rarely have to perform euthanasia for the animals that come to me – enucleations are the ocular equivalent! But on occasion we do encounter animals where saying goodbye, as we…

Although 2020 has just begun, as I write it is still pre-Christmas, that period which brings much joy and happiness to receivers of Christmas presents (mainly children and young people) and can be a c…

We should all be aware of the feminisation of the veterinary profession, the existing gender pay gap and the disproportionate gender representation in leadership roles. Aside from the fact that discri…

Teaching veterinary students, I’m always keen to ensure that what I’m saying gives them the next step towards reaching the RCVS's Day One Competences, “the ability”, as their website tells us, “to per…

There have been many changes in the veterinary profession over the last few years. One thing has been the onus moved from vets to owners for being responsible for their pets’ medical care and transpor…

A veterinarian should play no part in the wild capture, captive breeding, selling or keeping of exotic animals as pets