A day in the life of....

Charles Bagnall

Veterinary Surgeon

My day starts at about 6.30am. I get up and sort out Billy my aging diabetic cat with his insulin injection and Spud when he can be bothered to get up put of his bed has his breakfast. I then get breakfast ready for myself and our 3 boys. As they get older it has become very apparent that they suffer with extreme lethargy on schooldays and yet at the weekend can bounce out of bed with incredible speed and noisy eagerness! My wife and I try to get them all fed showered dressed and ready to a bit of homework before I have to leave for work at 8am. This seems to work best for us as the afterschool activities and my late return from work mean helping with homework in the evening is impossible to achieve.

I like to get to work before I start consulting at 8.30am. It gives me a chance to liaise with Estelle the practice manager, duty nurses and reception team about the day ahead, before starting morning consults at 8.30am. I generally spend my mornings consulting. I enjoy the variety of the work, meeting our clients and their pets. Almost 20 years into my career as a vet I am still seeing and learning new things every day. I still get a real enjoyment out of helping our patients get better and still get upset when we sadly have to say goodbye to them. The job, as any other, has its moments where things do not go so well or as planned but that is the nature of any medical science….not all our patients read the text books!

I operate one morning a week and often have to fit in all my surgical cases into the one day. My brother James has taken on much more of the specialist surgical work to leave me free to do more of the consulting. After the morning consults I may be needed to help with any outstanding operations. It is then straight up into the office. I try to grab a sandwich and eat it at my desk while replying to emails and catching up on office work.The practice has grown enormously over the years, now employing nearly 30 staff across 4 surgeries. Managing the business takes up an ever increasing amount of time but is another very interesting and challenging part of my job. This has been particularly the case over the last 2 years as we, like any other business, grapple with the recession and the pressures it puts on small businesses.

I consult again at 2pm for an hour or two, a short break for phone calls and reporting lab results to clients before evening surgery starts again at 4.30pm through to 6.30pm. Invariably this will overrun and I am not usually home much before 7.30pm.

Once back home I will help with getting the boys to bed and reading stories. Having completed the works of J K Rowling, twice! I am now onto more familiar territory and reading the boys the James Herriot books….great fun and some very amusing and touching stories!

After a long day, most of it on my feet, I am then ready to collapse in front of the TV with a beer and some supper and usually I have fallen asleep about 10 minutes into the Ten O’Clock news.

One night in six I do my share of being ‘On-call’. We share the out of hours rota between the 6 vets. This is a massive commitment by the vets and nursing staff but we are committed to continue to provide out of hours care for our patients. Many practices are choosing to hand their Out Of Hours work to night clinics, we feel this would be a detrimental step for us and our patients.

Even after 20 years Out Of Hours work is still stressful and impacts on the vet’s own and family life significantly, unable to go out or travel far from the practice in case we have to rush to see an emergency from a road traffic accident to a snake bite.

Alison

Qualified veterinary nurse

at Orwell Vet Group

I have worked at Orwell Vet Group for nearly 15 years as a Veterinary Nurse. I became Head nurse approximately 10 years ago and having returned to work part-time after having a baby in 2008, I now have the job title of Clinical Governance Manager. This means that along with normal nursing duties I also oversee the clinical standards provided by the Veterinary Surgeons and Nurses here.

My working day starts quite early, I’m up by 6am so I can get ready before I wake-up my son. I feed my dog Wren and check on my chickens and collect their eggs. I leave the house at 7.30 to drop my son off at nursery before starting my shift at 8am. Most days I work in the theatre, so one of the first jobs is to admit the patients that are coming in for surgery that day. Another nurse will be looking after the cases that have been hospitalised overnight and updating the veterinary surgeons on their progress. We have a nurse on-site 24 hours so animals can be closely monitored while they are with us, the nurse from last night will hand-over to another nurse this morning.

Once today’s patients are admitted, I will take blood samples from those requiring it which our kennel nurse will process in the on-site laboratory. The patients receive a health check from the Vet before they are given their pre-med. The theatre nurse will decide the running order for today’s operations and organise which Vets are dealing with each case.

All this organisation will often have to go on hold however as we often have to deal with emergencies. Today for instance, an 11 month-old dog was rushed in after he collapsed at home. Here we had to give him oxygen via a face mask, IV fluids, treat for hypothermia and obtain a blood sample so we could determine exactly why he had collapsed. Along with caring for these desperately sick patients we have to keep their understandably worried owners informed of what’s going-on. It can be a challenge dealing with these types of cases but they are part of the wide variety of incidents that keep us all on our toes and make the job so interesting.

Once the days operations are completed and the patients are being monitored throughout their recovery, the nurses continue with cleaning the operating theatres, restocking the drugs and consumables, telephoning owners and arranging discharge appointments for later in the day. All being well, we’ll try to take a break for coffee at some point!

When not working in theatre the qualified nurses also run clinics. These happen throughout the day and I can see a variety of cases, anything from a puppy for its post-vaccination check, to a bandage change or rabbit dental check! When I work on the nurse clinics I also support the receptionists with any queries or give advice to clients over the phone when needed.

The afternoons can be quite busy; sometimes we have to continue operating through the day if the workload demands it. Some afternoons are taken up with training sessions, for instance today I have an in-house training session booked with some of the other nurses on developing our anaesthesia techniques. Anaesthesia is an area of veterinary medicine that particularly interests me and today’s session will focus on getting the best use from our capnography, pulse-oximetry and blood pressure monitors. We are also looking at how to deal with complicated anaesthetics and cases that need intensive support.

We can often have meetings scheduled for the afternoon. I attend nurse, management and Vet meetings. In the Vet meetings it is my job to report the current clinical governance findings and give details of any post-operative complications that have arisen since the previous meeting.
I also help the other nurses to discharge the patients from today’s operations in the afternoon. We always schedule appropriate appointment times for these to give us long enough to chat to the owner. We explain how to give post-operative medication and explain the importance of the dreaded buster collar for those who have been given them.

Once my shift finishes at about 4pm, I hand over to the late shift nurse so she knows about any further discharge appointments. The nurse who has been looking after the longer term in-patients will also hand-over to the late shift nurse so she can continue with their nursing until the night nurse takes over at 10pm.

Once I’ve finished at work I collect my son from nursery and admire whatever painting or pasta collage he’s made for me today! Then it’s off home to prepare dinner, walk Wren, feed and bathe my son before bed and then hopefully put my feet up for a bit. I’ve just finished knitting a jumper for my son, so in the evenings I’ll sometimes knit in front of the TV if there’s anything good on (like Shameless or Wonders of the Solar System). Other evenings when I’m not relaxing at home I go out to a local Aiki Jutsu club which I love – although tiring it’s really good fun, except when I come home with bruises! My husband often cooks so I always enjoy eating dinner when he’s prepared it. Once dinner is finished we’ve had a chance to catch-up about our day, it’s time for bed. I can’t usually stay awake much later than 11pm, I must be getting old!

Although it’s a bit hectic fitting in family life with working, I still enjoy it. My job is one when two days are never the same, each day presents a fresh challenge and I’m always learning new things. It can be very busy, it can sometimes be incredibly sad or frustrating but most of all it is a fun, vibrant environment and the very best part of my job is the wonderful team I work with.