20 minute read
Meet Queen’s Birthday Honours recipient Vince Peterson
by VetScript
ASTONISHED but proud
Queen’s Birthday Honours recipient Vince Peterson talks to Matt Philp about a veterinary career that began in the 1960s, and of the important work being done for veterinarians facing potentially career-ending legal action.
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A MONTH AFTER Vince Peterson took on his first job, the two other veterinarians servicing the West Coast of the South Island left for greener pastures. With the ink on his degree barely dry, the then 23-year-old was suddenly responsible for a 500-kilometre beat, from Paringa in the south to Seddonville north of Westport. It was 1964, the roads were mostly unsealed, and for the next three years his only reinforcement was an occasional locum during the spring months.
“During the first spring I drove 11,800 miles [roughly 19,000 kilometres] in two months, and had a week off with the measles,” says Vince, whose learning curve during that first of his 13 years on the West Coast was as steep as the Denniston Incline. “You either learned quickly, or you gave up.”
Clearly, he didn’t quit. In June this year, Vince was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to the veterinary profession, recognising a career that included 38 years of clinical practice and an 18- year stint as chair of the Veterinary Professional Insurance Society (VPIS). His response? “I was astonished,” says the 79-year-old, who lives in Timaru with his wife, Robin. “My first reaction was ‘Why me?’”
Vince supposes that the honour relates to his work with VPIS, a nonprofit body that provides professional indemnity insurance to 80% of New Zealand’s veterinary practices. Vince was chair from 1998 to 2016, a period when VPIS came of age, and he remains a board member.
On his watch the organisation deepened its expertise, with veterinarians from diverse fields bringing their knowledge and experience to the board. “Whenever a claim comes in, somebody who knows that specialty area handles it. That’s a powerful tool to have in your locker box.”
It’s becoming increasingly in demand, too, as society grows more litigious. “There’s a greater emphasis
now on people wanting recognition for alleged grievances. A lot of it is driven by external things – Google is a big influence.”
Vince has been there himself. In 1990 a dog owner sued him after their animal’s jaw broke during a dental procedure. While the claim was ultimately dismissed, it was a difficult experience.
“The first thing that happens when things go wrong for a veterinarian is they think, ‘Oh, hell, I’m going to get struck off’. When that happens to a graduate who’s been out less than three years, they envisage their whole world collapsing,” says Vince, who stresses the pastoral nature of VPIS’s role. “Our job is to get hold of them and say, ‘Listen, you may have made a mistake, but it’s not the end of the world. You have to trust me to help you get through.’”
Vince’s own veterinary career was by no means preordained. In fact, it wasn’t until the end of high school that he began seriously contemplating doing veterinary studies, prompted by his experience growing up on a South Canterbury dairy farm. In the early 1960s that meant training in Australia – in Vince’s case at the University of Sydney, from which he officially graduated in the same month he started practising in Hokitika.
Dairying was the main focus on the West Coast. “Herds were on average 80 to 100 cows, and every farmer milked them. Compare that to today, when you have herds of 800 to 2,000, and probably a lot of veterinarians never see the farmers. So it was a totally different game. Back then you’d meet the farmers and you’d know them all on a first-name basis.”
Vince says he “grew up” on the West Coast, as a clinician and a person. “One thing you develop is experience dealing with people. Most people think veterinary science is about animals; in fact, it’s about people.”
The insight served him well when he eventually left the West Coast to open Aorangi Veterinary Services in Geraldine, with colleague Dave Walker. That was a different world in every sense.
“The practice was half small animals and half everything else, a merry mix of horses, sheep, cattle, a little bit of dairy, and pigs,” he says. As for the human animals, “On the West Coast people appreciate you for what you can do and whether you can do it well. In Canterbury there was still the remnant of the old British class system.”
He adapted. “You have to learn to talk to people. If you can’t get on with people, you’ll never make a veterinarian.”
Notwithstanding that cornerstone principle, much else has changed in his time. The feminisation of the profession has been a welcome development. The trend of increasing specialisation – or aspects of it, at least – strikes him as more problematic. He cites young veterinarians referring procedures that they really ought to tackle themselves. “How are they going to get experience? When I graduated I knew there was a lot I knew nothing about. You do it yourself, and you learn.”
Regrets? It would have been good to have a little more freedom at veterinary school to take the odd academic side trail, to study classics, say, or some other interest. “There was a whole university you didn’t get to touch.” But otherwise he’s happy with his career, if still flummoxed at being singled out for honours. “All the people who’ve been involved in VPIS contributed to it,” he says.
As for achievements, if he’s proud of anything it’s the pastoral work with VPIS, getting alongside veterinarians who’ve made mistakes.
“I’ve helped a lot of people to rescue their careers who otherwise would have been lost.”
EMBRACING CHANGE IN THE NAME OF CARE
Mirjam Guesgen talks with Practice Manager Kirsten Beaumont, at East Coast Bays Vets in Auckland’s Browns Bay, and hears about the practice’s culture and commitment.
Tell us about your background and the clinic. East Coast Bays Vets was one of the first three veterinary clinics to open on the North Shore. Now I think there are about 20. It’s the only place I’ve ever worked! I started as a student veterinary nurse, then worked as a veterinary nurse parttime and eventually full-time. When the previous practice manager left I took over her role but kept my role as a veterinary nurse as well. I’ve made the practice manager role more official. By that I mean implementing things like performance reviews with the staff, preparing material for our BESTPRACTICE accreditation and taking over the human resources side of the practice.
You do all that on top of your veterinary nursing role? That’s right! I manage by delegating particular tasks. Every veterinary nurse has a section of the clinic to maintain. For example, we have three consultation rooms and it’s one veterinary nurse’s job to deep-clean those regularly and ensure that the drugs are stocked and not expired.
I also try to build morale in the team and make sure people’s hard work is acknowledged. I promoted two of our staff to head surgical nurse and head reception nurse respectively. They were already doing a lot of the tasks that I expect from head roles, but I wanted to give them that recognition and also
They’re out there in the provinces and the cities, veterinarians doing the everyday work in neighbourhood and country clinics. In this series, VetScript visits a different clinic every month.
Left: Practice owner Steve Gordon and Practice Manager Kirsten Beaumont.
Above (left to right): Veterinary nurses Lauren Yeaman, Teri Weeks and Kylie Buchler, with Kirsten Beaumont.
Below (left to right): Head Surgical Nurse Sophie Pettit, veterinarian Abi Swan, veterinary nurses Kathryn Stirling, Teri Weeks, Kirsten Beaumont (cuddling clinic cat Mr Crymble), Tayla Pavis and Georgia Ovington. show that I expect them to keep to that standard! Who else works at the practice? We have five veterinarians, including Steve Gordon, who’s the Managing Director. Of the veterinarians, one is a locum and one is a new graduate. The new graduate has been with us for about a year now. We also have 10 veterinary nurses. How do you manage who’s on when? The veterinarians have specific hours and days of work; they are pretty much the same every week. Only two of them work full-time. Steve works three days a week and covers when other veterinarians are away. Each veterinarian also has a dedicated surgery day each week.
In the mornings there are usually two veterinarians consulting before 10am and one working surgeries. At 10am one veterinarian will help out with either surgeries or consultations. In the afternoon three veterinarians consult until around 5pm.
The veterinary nurses usually work set hours. I organise a roster about a month in advance, using a three-week rotation where veterinary nurses work early, late
or relieving shifts. For the early shift they work from 8am to 4.30pm. In the late shift two veterinary nurses work from 12pm until everything is cleaned up after closing, usually around 7.30pm. Then a veterinary nurse starts at 10am each day to relieve people for tea breaks and help out as needed. A veterinary nurse on the early shift is in the role for the whole week, and apart from myself everyone rotates weekly.
We’re really busy; that’s why we have so many veterinary nurses. When we get a quiet day it’s nice.
Do you roster after-hours? No, we have two after-hours clinics on the North Shore and we give clients the option of either one.
Why did you choose to become BESTPRACTICE accredited? Steve and I are very similar in that we want this practice to be the best it can be. Whatever needs doing, we want to achieve it. When BESTPRACTICE accreditation first came out – and there was discussion on making it compulsory – we thought, “Why don’t we just go get it as soon as we can
then?” It just seemed natural to both of us as a way of providing the best work environment.
The accreditation gives our staff pride in working here and it also helps to differentiate us from other practices. There are so many small animal practices on the North Shore now, we need to stand out.
What other accreditations does the practice have? We’re also a Cat Friendly Clinic. That’s an accreditation run by International Cat Care. Similarly to BESTPRACTICE, you have to meet certain standards to achieve gold, silver or bronze accreditation.
We are gold accredited, which means our cat kennels are a certain size and
This page: Practice owner and veterinarian Steve Gordon (pictured top and bottom left) says he is really just a small part of an awesome team. Opposite page: Once word got out on the clinic’s Facebook page that veterinary nurse Lauren Yeaman was skilled with rabbits, owners came rushing in.
everyone working in the practice has some form of training in cat-friendly handling. Our waiting room has a ‘cat corner’, where cats can stay hidden from the dogs and there’s shelving owners can put their cat carrier on so the cats are off the floor. In each consultation room we have non-slip mats and we also put down a towel that’s been sprayed with a cat pheromone spray. We put boxes in the kennels for the cats to hide in or sit on top of, and we have a never-ending supply of Temptations! It’s all about low stress, low handling.
Right now, we’re working towards Fear Free accreditation. It’s not available in New Zealand yet but is very popular in the US and Canada. It’s similar to the Cat Friendly Clinic but it applies to all animals. Again, everything is low stress, low handling. So many animals come in terrified to be here; we want to make it less scary for them.
You also have the MyVet app. What is it and what does it do? Clients can use it to see their pets’ files, make appointments, renew prescriptions
and buy food. When a client makes an appointment it links with our VetLinkSQL software. Clients can’t access all their pets’ histories but they can see what they’ve spent money on. It frees up some time for me and the other veterinary nurses.
We’ve also just adopted a veterinary nurse chatbot. We’re trialling it for Ambit [the artificial intelligence company that created it]. I have a feeling that in the future the chatbot and our website will take over from the app.
You seem very open to new technologies. We’re really lucky that Steve likes anything new. He likes technology and he likes to be at the forefront.
Tell us about your veterinary nurse, Lauren. Lauren came here as a student and we hired her from there. She’s very hard working and is constantly coming up with ideas to improve the practice. For example, she knows a lot about rabbits and does a lot of reading about them. She wants to introduce a rabbit veterinary nurse clinic to give them health checks and provide advice to owners.
I didn’t know that Lauren had multiple sclerosis until last year. She kept it private because she wanted to prove that she could do the job. She wants to travel to Moscow for treatment, where they will basically reset her entire immune system. All going well she should have a better prognosis. We want to get her there but it requires a lot of fundraising. Everyone at the practice has donated to her Givealittle page or donated items for raffles. At the end of the year, all the veterinary nurses will do the Tough Guy & Gal Challenge. The money they get from fundraising will go to Lauren.
How do you build resilience in your practice? Our staff all get on really well. We’re like a little family, which helps boost morale and maintain the passion we all came into the industry with. Even on bad days, we support each other. We understand that we’re all human.
We encourage openness and honesty and that helps us address problems and learn from our mistakes. We also support special interests and continuing education, and this means we’re lucky to have a range of skills in the clinic and are always learning from each other.
You can contribute to Lauren’s Givealittle page by visiting https://givealittle. co.nz/cause/laurensms-treatmentreprogram-her-life.
Celebrating success, no matter how small, is also a big part of our practice. We have staff meetings where we congratulate staff members for achievements inside and outside work. We also have a compliments box where staff can put notes acknowledging things that team members have done that are awesome.
What are your thoughts on the future of the veterinary profession? I think it has a bright future. If lockdown has shown us anything, it’s that we’re seen as essential from clients’ perspectives. People are placing more value on having pets in their lives. They’re also becoming a lot more educated about their pets’ care.
One example is that we provide laparoscopic desexing. We have people ringing us from all around New Zealand saying they’ve been researching the best ways to get their dogs desexed and that they’re trying to find a clinic that does it laparoscopically. The fact that owners are going to that much effort for a routine procedure is huge.
BUILDING the bond
Nikki Kells, Senior Lecturer in Animal Welfare Science at Massey University, delves into the past, present and future of the concept of animal welfare.
THE PEOPLE ON our planet have a long, rich and diverse history of interaction with animals, and that history has included a concern for their wellbeing, particularly those under our direct care. However, the emergence of animal welfare as a scientific discipline has its roots in the more recent past.
HISTORY
The science of animal welfare arose out of ethical concerns for animals’ quality of life. During the mid-20th century, rapid human population expansion and concurrent advances in technology led to the emergence of intensive farming systems that are commonplace in developed countries today. Increasing urbanisation also meant people were no longer in touch with how their food was produced.
This changed with the publication of the landmark Animal Machines in 1964, in which British author Ruth Harrison detailed the intensive poultry and livestock production systems operating in England at the time. The book, along with the ensuing public concern, was the catalyst for a UK Governmentcommissioned inquiry into the ‘welfare of animals kept under intensive husbandry systems’. The resultant report (Brambell Committee, 1965) provided not only recommendations for ensuring the welfare of intensively farmed animals, but the underpinnings for our current scientific understanding of animal welfare.
WHERE WE ARE NOW
Broadly speaking, the term ‘animal welfare’ refers to the quality of an animal’s life. More specifically, it can be described as a subjective state within an animal that reflects how it is experiencing the world (Beausoleil et al., 2016) – that is, how it is feeling.
For those closely involved with animals, it is a given that the animals experience feelings such as pain, fear, boredom and pleasure. However, the acceptance of animal emotions is a work in progress for some. This is due partly to a carryover of a belief that subjective experiences were outside the realm of scientific study, because they could not be directly observed.
Today, advances in technology (such as in brain-imaging techniques) and scientific understanding (particularly in the field of affective neuroscience) mean there is a significant body of evidence supporting the generation and experience of a range of negative and positive subjective states in non-human vertebrate and cephalopod animals (see the review by Kremer et al., 2020).
Indeed, the evolutionary advantages of negative experiences such as pain and fear, and positive experiences such as pleasure associated with play and maternal bonding, are readily apparent in terms of survival. So it is unsurprising that such experiences are conserved across complex species. Animal feelings are not a vague, fluffy, unscientific idea; they are evidence based and quantifiable.
It is useful at this point to distinguish briefly between ‘animal rights’ and ‘animal welfare science’: » Animal rights proponents typically oppose people’s use of animals in
any context, be it food, research, entertainment or companionship. » Animal welfare science seeks first to understand what a ‘good life’ means for a given animal, then to apply this knowledge to improving the lives of animals under human management. Advances in our understanding of animals and their subjective states have allowed us to confidently assign subjective experiences to animals, and provided us with evidence-based frameworks for making judgements about animals’ welfare.
Although an animal’s welfare is ultimately characterised by the sum of its experiences, it is important to note that these are influenced by a multitude of internal factors (eg, health and physiological status) and external factors (eg, the physical and social environment). Welfare assessment frameworks must consider these factors when determining welfare status.
The Five Domains Model is a prominent example of such a framework. Developed by David Mellor and Cam Reid in 1994, it has been revised and extended significantly in the intervening years (Mellor and Reid, 1994; Mellor and Beausoleil, 2015). The model focuses on the different areas, or ‘domains’, in which welfare may be influenced. In brief, it consists of four physical/functional domains: nutrition, environment, health and behaviour. Within these domains, species-specific indicators of welfare compromise or enhancement are evaluated to infer the overall welfare state of the animal in the fifth, or mental state, domain (Mellor, 2017).
Using such models allows us to gauge animals’ current welfare status, identify areas for welfare improvement and evaluate the success of any improvements we make. The assessment also provides the basis for animal welfare accreditation schemes, such as SPCA’s Blue Tick, and farm animal qualityassurance protocols.
So what does the knowledge and understanding of animal feelings mean for our everyday interactions with animals? To me, it means that we have to acknowledge that the way we manage animals affects their experiences. Most importantly, it means we have a duty to ensure that animals under our direct influence have the best experiences possible.
LOOKING TO THE FUTURE
While animal welfare science is responsible for improving our knowledge of animal welfare, the role of disseminating this knowledge does not lie solely with the scientific community.
Veterinarians have always been the first port of call for animal owners and
This abbreviated version of the Five Domains Model summarises survival-related and situation-related factors and their associated physical/functional domains, and provides examples of negative or positive affects assigned to the mental domain. The overall affective experience in the mental domain equates to the welfare status of the animals. For full details Mellor DJ. Moving beyond the ‘Five Freedoms’ by updating the ‘Five Provisions’ and introducing aligned ‘Animal Welfare Aims’. Animals 6(10), 59; doi:10.3390/ani6100059, 2016.
1: Nutrition
Negative
Restricted water & food; poor food quality
Positive
Enough water & food; balanced and varied diet
Physical/Functional Domains
SURVIVAL-RELATED FACTORS
2: Environment
Negative
Uncomfortable or unpleasant physical features of environment
Positive
Physical environment comfortable or pleasant 3: Health
Negative
Disease, injury and/ or functional impairment
Positive
Healthy, fit and/or uninjured
SITUATIONRELATED FACTORS
4: Behaviour
Negative
Behavioural expression restricted
Positive
Able to express rewarding behaviours
Affective Experience Domain
Negative Experiences
5: MENTAL STATE
Positive Experiences
Thirst Breathlessness Anger, frustration Hunger Pain Boredom, helplessness Malnutrition malaise Debility, weakness Loneliness, depression Chilling/overheating Nausea, sickness Anxiety, fearfulness Hearing discomfort Dizziness Panic, exhaustion Drinking pleasures Taste pleasures Chewing pleasures Satiety Physical comforts Vigour of good health & fitness Reward Goal-directed engagement
Welfare Status
Calmness, in control Affectionate sociability Maternally rewarded Excited playfulness Sexually gratified
managers concerned about the health or productivity of animals in their care. Given their close relationships with animal owners and managers, it makes sense that veterinarians are also points of contact for animal welfare advice. And given this, it is important that all veterinary practitioners have a good understanding of animal welfare and how it might be enhanced in a given situation.
Public concerns about animal welfare continue to be important drivers of efforts to improve that welfare. Nowadays they extend beyond farm animals to include animals used in entertainment, research and work, and as companions. As a result, the industries and activities involving animals are likely to be held accountable for increasingly high standards of animal welfare if they wish to maintain their social licences to operate. Veterinarians, as animal care professionals, have a role in this.
REFERENCES: Beausoleil NJ, Stratton RB, Guesgen MJ,
Sutherland MA, Johnson CB. Scientific evaluation of animal emotions: Brief history and recent New Zealand contributions. The Journal of New Zealand Studies doi:10.26686/jnzs.v0i22.3946, 2016
Brambell Committee. Report of the Technical Committee to Enquire into the Welfare of Animals Kept under Intensive Livestock Husbandry Systems. Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, London, 1965
Harrison R. Animal Machines. Vincent Stuart Publishers Ltd, London, 1964
Kremer L, Klein Holkenborg SEJ, Reimert
I, Bolhuis JE, Webb LE. The nuts and bolts of animal emotion. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews 113, 273–86, doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j. neubiorev.2020.01.028, 2020
Mellor DJ. Operational details of the Five Domains Model and its key applications to the assessment and management of animal welfare. Animals (Basel) 7, doi:10.3390/ani7080060, 2017
Mellor DJ, Beausoleil NJ. Extending the ‘Five Domains’ model for animal welfare assessment to incorporate positive welfare states. Animal Welfare 24, 241–53, doi:10.7120/09627286.24.3.241, 2015
Mellor DJ, Reid C. Concepts of animal wellbeing and predicting the impact of procedures on experimental animals. In: Glen Osmond, SA, Australia. Baker R, Jenkin J, Mellor DJ (eds). Improving the Well-being of Animals in the Research Environment. Pp 3–18. Australian and New Zealand Council for the Care of Animals in Research and Teaching, 1994
