Living and Working as a Veterinary Profession at CareVets Gisborne with Emma - Head Vet Nurse - ep 1018

1018 - EMMA - HEAD VN - CAREVETS GISBORNE REAL+STORY EMPLOYER OF CHOICE SERIES

Julie South [00:00:00]:

Welcome to Veterinary Voices. I'm Julie South and this is episode 1018.

This is the second episode in our CareVets Gisborne REAL+STORY series, where you hear directly from the team about what it's actually like to work there.

Today we're talking with Emma, the head veterinary nurse at CareVets Gisborne, who's been with the clinic for four years and one month.

Emma moved from Auckland and you'll hear from her what the transition was like from big city life to a provincial community, what it's really like working in a clinic where the nurses are trusted to work at their full potential, and why having a reliable vehicle matters when you're three hours from the nearest city.

You'll also hear about the equipment that makes complex cases possible, from their Stryker sagittal saw for orthopaedic work to their in-house ultrasound, and what the after-hours roster actually looks like when you're sharing emergency coverage with just one other clinic.

Let's join the conversation with Emma.

Emma [00:00:00]:

My name is Emma. I'm the head nurse at CareVets Gisborne and I've been here for four years and one month.

Julie South [00:00:06]:

Four years and one month. Fantastic. Emma, before you joined CareVets Gisborne, were you a Gisborne local? Are you a Gisborne local?

Emma [00:00:18]:

No, I'm from Auckland, so obviously the big city. I moved down here for my partner and had another job down here first and then started work for CareVets and I've been here ever since.

Julie South [00:00:31]:

As a big city girl, how easy did you find it to actually relocate to Gisborne?

Emma [00:00:40]:

Pretty easy, to be honest with you. I think it's what you make of it and if you can embrace the outdoors and get involved in community stuff like anywhere from surfing or diving or hunting or walking, it's a pretty easy transition.

You just have to make sure that you're out there trying to do the things.

Julie South [00:01:02]:

Did you do much research on Gisborne before you actually moved?

Emma [00:01:06]:

Not really, because I had been down here visiting my partner, doing long distance, so I didn't need to do much research.

But I think anything that you need to know about Gizzy is pretty easily found on Google.

Julie South [00:01:20]:

Now that you are living in Gisborne, is there anything that you have found, perhaps as a surprise or wish that you had known before you moved? The reason I'm asking that is because the next person starting at your clinic is likely to be from outside the region.

Emma [00:01:42]:

The only thing I would say would be to have a reliable vehicle. It is obviously quite a way to travel. It's not like an hour away from anything. You're talking three hours, which is fine. It's good being away and being in a private part of country.

But yeah, just making sure you have your own means of transport to get out of the district.

Julie South [00:02:02]:

I mean, that goes for pretty much most of New Zealand, because our public transport isn't like the rest of the world's public transport system. And talking about transport, how long is your commute? Do you live rurally?

Emma [00:02:19]:

I live on the outskirts of town and I'm still only a three-minute commute.

Julie South [00:02:23]:

Are there any traffic lights?

Emma [00:02:26]:

There's one in the whole city and I'd never have to go through it.

Julie South [00:02:30]:

How would you describe your team at CareVets Gisborne?

Emma [00:02:36]:

We're really—I think we're very good at what we do. We're really efficient, we're all very close and our main driver is literally the animals. That's why we're here.

I mean, I'm probably biased but I think we're a great team to work with and all we've ever had from locums and vets that have come in lately has been really positive feedback. So that's great.

Our nursing team is extremely competent and confident and I think we all kind of do well to support each other too.

Julie South [00:03:05]:

Do the vets allow the nurses to work at their potential?

Emma [00:03:11]:

Yeah, totally. We can do anything from intubation, catheterisation, any type of meds we work out.

And I think for vets coming in, just having an open mind to what we can do and kind of figuring out our skill set is really important.

Once the vets realise what we can do, they're usually super stoked to let us do our thing and we're here to support the vets at the job.

Julie South [00:03:33]:

How would you describe your clients?

Emma [00:03:35]:

Really loving people in Gisborne, just so about their animals. Obviously, like I said before, it's a really outdoorsy sort of place, so having your dog with you is quite an important part of the lifestyle.

Everyone's really lovely for the most part. I mean you always get your outliers but people just love the animals here.

Julie South [00:03:54]:

When I was talking with Sarah yesterday and it's pretty much the same for most regional clinics in New Zealand, provincial clinics, you know, referral second opinion is a long drive away. Which means that for you as clinicians, the cases that you're treating will be interesting.

Emma [00:04:16]:

Yeah.

Julie South [00:04:16]:

What's a memorable case of yours?

Emma [00:04:18]:

We had a dog that came in, a Dalmatian, about 10-year-old Dalmatian. His owner had gone overseas to the UK and he got super stressed out and he would just eat everything in sight.

And he came in presenting with lethargy, vomiting, diarrhoea and we X-rayed him and we found a nail about so long in his stomach.

So obviously we went in for an exploratory laparotomy, went in to get that out and we found an entire black rubbish sack also in his stomach. So we spent hours removing all these tiny bits of rubbish sack from the whole gastrointestinal system.

That was really something. And he's still going now.

Julie South [00:05:01]:

And as a Dalmatian that would have been a pet, not a working dog.

Emma [00:05:05]:

A pet. Yeah.

Julie South [00:05:07]:

So was he a puppy?

Emma [00:05:09]:

No, he was 11.

Julie South [00:05:11]:

Let's talk about the equipment that you've got. What would you describe as or identify as your favourite piece of kit or equipment?

Emma [00:05:23]:

We've got a Stryker sagittal saw drill. So if we've got a vet that has any ability to do orthopaedic stuff, we've got that available, which is great.

We had a vet that used it quite often and we welcome anyone else that can. I personally really like that. I think it makes—it can make anything from leg amputations, tail amputations so much quicker.

We can do lateral sutures on dogs or TPLOs if we needed to as well, which is something we'd love to offer in-house instead of referring it.

Emma [00:05:52]:

Yeah. So I really like—I really like that saw.

Julie South [00:05:56]:

So you would love to see a vet coming with an interest in ortho?

Emma [00:06:01]:

Yeah, I think it would be really beneficial for that area. We don't really have anyone that can do that stuff close to us. It's at least a four-hour drive away for clients.

So it would be good to kind of have that full continuation of care from start diagnosis to finish with physio after surgery. Yeah.

Julie South [00:06:19]:

Let's explore a little bit about special interests. You know, most people have their own passion in medicine. What special interests do you have in-house already?

Emma [00:06:31]:

Personally, I really like kind of emergency trauma. I love a pig rip. I know it sounds backwards, but anything that kind of is out of the ordinary and you can make a real difference by saving the animal. Yeah.

So kind of first aid, emergency after-hours stuff I really enjoy, which we get a lot of. Yeah.

Julie South [00:06:51]:

And how about the vets? What are their special interests?

Emma [00:06:55]:

I would say that the vets we've got currently mostly medicine cases, medicine workups. We've got a lot of hypothyroidism and we get a lot of random stuff like insulinomas.

Just kind of getting to the bottom of those funny cases that aren't a straightforward figure out. I think they take a lot of pride in that. I think that's the current vets we're working with. That's what we've got.

Julie South [00:07:19]:

What do you think is Gisborne's best-kept secret?

Emma [00:07:24]:

I don't think there's any secrets with Gisborne, to be honest with you. I think everyone knows what it's all about. People come a lot for the surfing.

I think probably the fact that everything is in such close proximity that you don't really realise until you come here. Basically everything is more than like a five-minute drive, to be honest with you.

Julie South [00:07:42]:

How about CareVets Gisborne's best-kept secret?

Emma [00:07:47]:

I would say probably our equipment and our facilities. Like it's quite a new clinic for a kind of semi-rural outskirt town sort of a thing.

I know when I came here, I was pleasantly surprised to see kind of how clean and new and organised everything is because you don't know what you're going to walk into.

But yeah, we've got a lot of equipment that's great as well, like an ultrasound, Mindray ultrasound, which not a lot of small clinics do.

Julie South [00:08:12]:

You've said just now that you enjoy emergencies. CareVets Gisborne currently shares after-hours with one other clinic. How onerous is the after-hours roster and what does that look like for the vets?

Emma [00:08:27]:

Right now it's probably not ideal because there's just two, but with an extra person coming on board, that would be, I think pretty fair. I think it would be working out as one every three weekends.

But in saying that we're only every second weekend because of sharing anyway, so that's like one every six weeks. I think that's, yeah, pretty good, really.

The on-call can vary a lot. Sometimes you don't get any call-outs at all. You could have a whole weekend where you've got nothing. We just have a couple of like a bee sting or something.

But then some weekends you can get a lot of interesting stuff and you can get foreign bodies or pig rips or exploratory laps, broken bones.

Emma [00:09:08]:

So there's the opportunity, I think, to also make quite a bit of money with after-hours, if that's an interest.

But yeah, you learn a lot and you see a lot of things and I think the roster, when it's working right is very fair.

Julie South [00:09:22]:

How about continued professional development? What does that look like when you are three, four hours away from a main centre?

Emma [00:09:30]:

CareVets has a policy where you get an allowance every year to continue CPD.

I did my bachelor's degree as CPD and I did it all long distance, so I did it all over the computer and I found that easy to do, to be honest with you.

Like most of the CPD in New Zealand for vets is only an hour by plane anyway for us. Or you can do it all online, which CareVets is happy to fund if it's within a certain amount as well for vets.

So it's not a difficult thing to do.

Julie South [00:10:01]:

Have you come up with any ideas as the head vet nurse that you have implemented in clinic and you've had the support of the powers that be?

Emma [00:10:16]:

Not ideas like subtle changes, definitely. And upskilling, that's been a big thing.

A lot of our nurses weren't as confident as they are now in stuff like intubation and catheterisation, jugular bloods, medicine cases, you know, supporting as nurses.

So I think my main driver is to make sure that everyone is confident enough and competent enough to do their job, especially because we're an after-hours clinic and that means that I don't have to get phoned every weekend as well. They're really good at their job.

So that's basically what I was concerned with. I'm a real big believer in advocating for my nurses as well.

Emma [00:10:54]:

So I just try and make sure that everything's fair for them and that, you know, we're all supporting each other in the right way.

Julie South [00:11:10]:

You've just heard Emma describe what it's like working as the head nurse at CareVets Gisborne, from upskilling the nursing team to work at their full potential to managing after-hours coverage and continuing professional development when you're hours from a main centre.

But there's more to the CareVets Gisborne story. In upcoming episodes in this CareVets Gisborne REAL+STORY series, you're going to hear from other team members about the clinical cases that keep the work interesting, the veterinary perspective on working in a practice where you see everything, and what the actual day-to-day looks like.

And remember, if you're considering your next career move, you owe it to yourself to find out the real story about this clinic, including the rostering structure, on-call arrangements, clinical equipment, and what your week actually will look like.

Head on over to vetclinicjobs.com/carevetsgisborne—I'll put the link in the show notes for you.

Until next time, this is Julie South signing off and inviting you to go out there and be your most fantabulous self. Because the clinics worth working for are the ones with teams that support each other in the right way.