Living and Working at Energy Vets Taranaki with Mixed Animal Veterinarian - Dr Sam Armstrong - pt 1/2 - 1027

Episode 1027 Buzzsprout Transcript - Dr Sam Armstrong - pt 1/2 - ENERGY VETS

Julie South [00:00:00]: Welcome to Veterinary Voices, culture storytelling conversations that help veterinary clinics hire great people. I'm Julie South, and this is episode 1027.

Today we're continuing our real story series with Energy Vets in Taranaki on the west coast of New Zealand's North Island.

Veterinary Voices is brought to you by VetClinicJobs, helping vet clinics tell their culture stories, not just post job ads.

Energy Vets is currently recruiting for an experienced small animal veterinarian. Someone ready to step up and co-lead, mentor, and coach the small animal team.

Julie South [00:00:51]: For more information on that position, visit vetclinicjobs.com/energyvets.

Today we have the first part of a chat I had with Dr Sam Armstrong. Sam came to New Zealand for his first job straight out of university, not knowing anyone.

And in this part of our chat, this first part of our chat, he takes us right back to those early months. Arriving, finding his feet clinically, and working out how the team around him actually operates day to day.

As you listen, pay attention to the small, the ordinary moments that Sam's describing, because those are often the clearest signals of the kind of environment a clinic really is.

Let's join that chat.

Dr Sam Armstrong [00:01:48]: Hi, I'm Sam Armstrong, mixed animal vet working here at Energy Vets in Taranaki in New Zealand.

Grew up in Northern Ireland, went to university in Cambridge in England, and came straight out here. And this is my first job.

Julie South [00:02:00]: Sam, why New Zealand? Why Taranaki? Why Energy Vets?

Dr Sam Armstrong [00:02:06]: Yeah, I always had a bit of an idea that I wanted to go away from home and travel after university, and I thought straight away was probably the best time to do it if I was going to go anywhere.

Instead of moving home or getting stuck in England, I thought, okay, I'll take a trip. New Zealand was always somewhere on the cards.

I think being Irish, there's always a lot of Irish people coming to New Zealand and back and forth. It was always one of those ones that was in the back of my head.

And it helped that my degree transferred straight over, so I didn't have to do any extra study or any extra exams.

And so over Covid, we all went home for a couple of months, studied at home. I decided, right, I'm gonna go to New Zealand. Came back, and my two housemates had also decided that they wanted to come out.

Dr Sam Armstrong [00:02:50]: Three of us just decided, yeah, sure thing, we'll just go for it.

In terms of why Taranaki, why Energy Vets, I had no idea where was a good place to work or what New Zealand was like. Other than you hear good things about the people and the culture and the environment.

But actually, in terms of where I wanted to work, I had nowhere fixed. I just wanted a mixed job. Bit of farm, bit of small animal, and a bit of equine work if it was around.

Dr Sam Armstrong [00:03:18]: And so I found this one on a bulletin board. Had a quick Google of Taranaki, thought, oh, that looked kind of interesting on the map. Big circle in the middle with the mountain.

Sent them an email, had a response within a day, had an interview within the week, and had the job at the end of the interview.

So it was all... soon as we started looking, and that job just sounded right to me, and Taranaki seemed like a nice place, so I went for it. And here we are.

Julie South [00:03:42]: What did you know about Taranaki other than it was a big circle with a mountain in the middle?

Dr Sam Armstrong [00:03:49]: I'd never heard of Taranaki before looking it up, but I knew it was sort of around... you know, having a lot of sort of dairy mixed with a bit of beef and a bit of... you sort of get to see all sorts of the farm side of practise.

It was quite nice knowing there was sort of a fairly major town there too. I think when you're coming by yourself to Taranaki or coming away, it's nice to know there's a reasonable town where you can meet people or get stuck into things.

And I guess I quite like being outdoors, whether that's going for a bit of a hike or going for runs and bike rides and that sort of thing. And Taranaki seemed to tick all the boxes.

Julie South [00:04:27]: Have you climbed the mountain?

Dr Sam Armstrong [00:04:29]: Yeah, I was lucky enough. I got to do it in the first couple of months here. Found some friends, and he... I think he'd been up at 30 times beforehand, and he said, oh, yeah, we'll take you up just before, soon as we can.

So, yeah, got a chance to do it, and I haven't got back since, but I'd really like to. Been up the mountain lots, on all the trails and all that sort of thing.

Julie South [00:04:47]: Did you have a clear day?

Dr Sam Armstrong [00:04:49]: Yeah, it was actually perfect. It was a lovely... well, it was kind of cloudy on the way up and we got a little bit nervous, but it actually meant it was kind of cool. You didn't have the sun on your back.

And then we kind of got up to the top and the clouds kind of parted, and it was this sort of movie, movie moment. But it was really good. Yeah, it was perfect.

Julie South [00:05:05]: And what other of the great outdoors do you experience?

Dr Sam Armstrong [00:05:10]: Fortunately, we've got quite a few friends who are into that sort of outdoor hiking and running and so on. In terms of living in New Plymouth, it's quite good. And there's lots of trails around town that you sort of go on.

And, you know, you're turning left off one street and you're running through the middle of town, but you sort of have no idea. So sort of living in New Plymouth, you get a chance to see all sorts.

And then we're not too far away in terms of going to the centre of the island if you're into skiing or anything like that.

And we've done some of the Tongariro Crossing, and there's a trail race called the Goat up and around there too, which is really good. Done that and had some friends.

Dr Sam Armstrong [00:05:47]: We've taken a trip down and done the Abel Tasman, and one of the great walks. I've been down to Queenstown and done lots of hikes around there too, and some running races and things have got me seeing around the place.

Julie South [00:05:59]: How does the job at Energy Vets match the dreams that you had when you were at university?

Dr Sam Armstrong [00:06:07]: Yeah, I think it matches pretty close. I think moving from the UK, where farming systems are a bit different, moving out to New Zealand, it takes a bit of time to get used to it.

But I think when you come out as a new graduate, you sort of have the theory, but not as much of the practical as... I don't think anyone has the practical that they need or would like when you actually get started.

But it was really good here. We had quite a big team. They're all sort of looking out for you. You always get a chance to go and sit in with someone, or you're all looking at the diary and someone might tap you on the shoulder and think, hey, I'm doing this thing. Do you want to come and give me a hand? Or any of...

Dr Sam Armstrong [00:06:42]: Any of the sort of new grad sort of procedures that you need to sort of get under your belt, they'll try and help you find them or they'll ask you to come with on it. Or if you're putting your hand up and saying, hey, I really want to get better at this or I really want to try this, we can help you sort of arrange that or organise that.

So it was really, really good, really supportive from sort of a learning perspective.

And then I think the actual work... it's hard to get a sense of what you're actually going to be doing. I've never been on a New Zealand dairy farm before. Didn't really know what one looked like or how they functioned or what was involved or what was around.

So there was a lot of learning to be done, but I always felt like, yeah, there's always someone to tap on the shoulder or get advice from, or they're always asking and checking in. Or we had a WhatsApp group and you, you'd be able to sort of be going around to three or four different farms and all of a sudden you have a question and you just pop up on the WhatsApp group and within 10 minutes, someone replies back.

Dr Sam Armstrong [00:07:35]: It's sort of, yeah, you never, you never felt like you were on an island by yourself out there. Yeah. So I think it matched it really well. We got to see a lot. We, you know, the small animal side, everything, everything came through the door. We had a good bit of kit to, to be able to do bits and bobs. Yeah, if it needed more specialist care, we'd send it off. But, but, you know, we got to, we got to try the orthopaedics side of it, the dentistry, the more sort of routine, your routine spays, neuters, castrates, all that sort of stuff. Everything that you need to be competent in.

Dr Sam Armstrong [00:08:07]: We weren't huge on the cat side. We had a good bit of dogs and some rabbits. And we did see some working dogs. Having some working dogs is another interesting aspect. The occasional pig hunter brings their dog in. And so you get a bit of that culture as well, which is sort of interesting to see.

Julie South [00:08:24]: What did you really notice when you first started?

Dr Sam Armstrong [00:08:31]: I suppose. I suppose one thing that struck me that I hadn't really. I don't think I fully grasped was sort of seasonality of it all. I think when you come from a, you know, a, a UK dairy farm, they're sort of calving more or less all year round. Some farms will seasonal calve, but in general, it's more of a block. It's not the same as New Zealand. So sort of having to think about, oh, we're all calving at the same time. So all the, all the farms are gonna be doing these things at the same time. So, you know, you might have a really, really busy week with four or five calvings on the go and, and everything's absolutely mental and then, then, you know, that'll pass. And, and then you have that sort of quieter period before it comes around again.

Dr Sam Armstrong [00:09:13]: And then you're sort of getting, getting stuck into scanning season and those sort of things. Yeah, that probably stood out to me, I suppose.

Julie South [00:09:20]: What are you getting? Scanning season. Because if somebody's listening to this. Okay, fine, so if somebody's listening to this who has never worked rurally, they might not know what scanning season is. And then if you don't mind, please, I'll explain the difference between UK scanning and New Zealand scanning.

Dr Sam Armstrong [00:09:41]: Yeah. So the. The cows sort of calve over. You generally have a, you know, two to three months, two to three month period where sort of all your cows calve or or most of them would anyway. And then they'll sort of be mated and the farmer will decide when they want their sort of. Their mating to begin after the cows have calved. And it's usually, you know, another couple of months afterwards. And that's when you'll start getting you stuck into your sort of mating season. And then, you know, six weeks to sort of maybe eight weeks, you're, you're looking at sort of an average farm, calves all sort of around the same time. The mating period all sort of around the same time. So you'll have that sort of six to eight week where they're doing all the mating.

Dr Sam Armstrong [00:10:26]: And then four to six weeks later, you'll come in and you'll sort of pregnancy scan the cows and sort of looking for pregnancies and embryos and seeing which ones held, which ones not to see how well the farm's done from mating season perspective. And they're all very similar timeframe. Like I said, so it's all sort of fairly, fairly similar. It's great. Like you get really, you know, as you can imagine, you get really good at doing it when you're doing four or five farms a day and you're scanning 1200 cows a day. Sort of the. The UK isn't the same at all. I do think over there we did have sort of seasonal calvers in terms of beef cattle over there. They all have a similar system where you'd sort of scan cattle when they're over winter or sort of in spring or summer when they're still indoors. So you do get an element of that. But in dairy terms, you tend to scan more cows as they come through the dairy instead of herding them all together on the day. It's more you'll sort of grab a group of 20, 30, 40, whatever it may be, and just scan them as they come through. So it's not the, the sort of full mob that we sort of have here where you're doing hundreds in a day.

Julie South [00:11:38]: Talking just in your own words, how much has energy vets invested in your development?

Dr Sam Armstrong [00:11:48]: Yeah, quite a lot. When I first started, they sent me to the, the Massey VetFarm up in Palmerston north, which is great. Sort of really good chance to get your hands dirty, sort of being able to do it, practise some of your calvings or practise some of these things that on a dairy farm. When you come from a, from a new grad perspective, you're a bit nervous about doing or you haven't done very much of. And then every year we've been doing some courses in conjunction with Vet Education. So a couple of the vets have been doing sort of the advanced cattle courses. One of the vets has been doing the ophthalmology courses that they do.

Dr Sam Armstrong [00:12:24]: And so you sort of get to choose whatever you want to get into. So I've been doing the mixed animal sort of courses and taking a lot from that, learning a lot. And then I've also taken the dairy course. You know, they. You can sign up and they'll, you know, take you down there and you'll sit in a classroom and you'll see farms and you'll learn hands on. And yeah, they've. They've put a lot of time and, and effort into making sure you get the chance to do that and making sure you have the time to, to sort of take a day off and go into this stuff and yeah, have money to invest in your education. And then from a, from a sort of course structure, they do, you know, CPD evenings at the clinic where the reps will come by and we'll show off, show off some stuff or teach us something. And we have, you know, lots of, you know, weekly CPD through the colleges. And we'll sit down and have a, have a coffee and, and sort of journal club it up a little bit. Yeah. People are always willing to help you along with whatever you want to do or whatever you want to learn. I'm not sure there's ever a situation where you'd really feel like you couldn't take on the next thing.

Julie South [00:13:28]: You've just used the word invested. What are the differences between UK farming and New Zealand farming that you've noticed?

Dr Sam Armstrong [00:13:39]: Yeah, I think I touched on the seasonality of it quite a lot. I think that's. That would be the biggest difference. I think the, the differences when you're at university, you hear a lot about sort of New Zealand being really good efficient systems. And I think that shows itself in, in the seasonal, seasonal nature of it all. Like I said, calvings at a certain time, you do all your mating at a certain time. Whereas you've sort of got to do that all year round. Means more staff or more this. The cows here are. Are outside all year round. So you don't have to have the same sort of housing that we have in the UK. So you don't need the same amount of room or same amount of feed on hand or anything like that. So yeah, it's. It's different. I think in the UK you have the infrastructure set up for, for years and years and years. And this tends to be sort of big barns, you can house all your cattle.

Dr Sam Armstrong [00:14:33]: Whereas because here most everything's outdoors, most you find farmers that have sort of taken that outside or outdoors idea and, and really, really pushed it to its limits as to be as cost effective as they can be. I think over in the UK, if you tried to calve a cow in December, you know, she's going to have to be inside or she's not going to do very well because the conditions don't allow for her to be outside. Whereas in New Zealand, you don't really have that problem. And so you can sort of save that cost of housing the cattle, feeding the cattle from feed that you'd have to feed inside. Instead, they're just grazing grass all year round. So it does generally end up that you can have larger numbers of cattle, you can have more beef per hectare or more cows per hectare than you could in the UK for a similar acreage.

Dr Sam Armstrong [00:15:25]: I think a lot of farmers sort of value having that bit of time off in winter and sort of running a really efficient system around that. That would definitely be the biggest difference, the seasonality of it all.

And then the outdoor nature of basically having cows outdoors all year round. And they sort of look at you sideways when you say, oh, we put them inside all year round or put them in for six months of the year. It's very different.

But having said that, it's not... it's not tricky to get your head around, I don't think.

Julie South [00:15:09]: What did you think of Gypsy Day? When had you heard of Gypsy Day when you... do you know what I'm talking about with Gypsy Day?

Dr Sam Armstrong [00:15:16]: I do know what you're talking about, yeah. I hadn't heard of it beforehand. I think that's definitely a difference I've noticed is there is Gypsy Day being the day when... how do you describe Gypsy Day? I guess it being the day that farmers will move from one farm to the other if...

Julie South [00:15:31]: If they're on contract. Yeah, yeah.

Dr Sam Armstrong [00:15:33]: If you're on contract, or it might be that if you're 50-50 sharemilking and moving your cows to a different farm or something like that. Everyone moves on on the same day.

Yeah, I hadn't heard of it. I didn't know what it was. And all of a sudden someone said, oh, it's Gypsy Day today. That's why there's so many cars in the road.

Julie South [00:15:50]: You do not want to be on the road in provincial New Zealand on Gypsy Day.

Dr Sam Armstrong [00:15:56]: Yeah. It's got to be chaos if you're involved in the day. Everyone coming in and going on at the same time.

Julie South [00:16:02]: Sam, random question. What's your favourite piece of kit?

Dr Sam Armstrong [00:16:06]: My favourite piece of kit? Yeah. That's a hard question to answer because you sort of end up using everything all the time.

I'm not sure I have a favourite bit of kit, actually. You know, we use so much at all different... you know, each season has its own thing and every... I quite like...

Dr Sam Armstrong [00:16:25]: I guess maybe my answer would be my ute.

Julie South [00:16:29]: Your ute?

Dr Sam Armstrong [00:16:30]: Okay, yeah, maybe that's a bit of a cheat answer, I'm not sure. But it's set up the way I want it to be set up with these nice sort of open box sort of backs on our utes, and it gives you lots of space to move boxes around and put things where you want it to be.

I take a bit of pride in it and try and keep it clean and organised on the inside. And it's quite nice having everything where it needs to be or where...

Maybe you take a student out for the day and you need them to run back and grab something, and you tell them exactly where it is, and that's where it is, and that's where it goes.

So, yeah, maybe I'll say my ute. That feels a little bit of a maybe, maybe not.

Julie South [00:17:06]: I had all sorts of answers. There's no right answer, there's no wrong answer. It's just every answer is interesting, and I like hearing the interesting answers.

If you had to describe Energy Vets in three words, what would they be?

Dr Sam Armstrong [00:17:24]: Collaborative would probably be quite a good word, because I think that probably shows how we are sort of one team. Might be a bit of a stereotype, but I do think we are.

You know, you can talk to anyone in reception, they'll help you organise whatever needs to be done, coordinate with small animal. It doesn't matter whether you're vet, nurse, you're in the admin staff, you're large animal tech, large animal vet.

We all do hang out, have a chat, sit around, have lunch together. You know, have a bit of fun.

But if anyone can help anyone else, like, they do, they do do that. I think that's probably one of the strengths.

Yeah, maybe my second word would be friendly, because I think that's...

Dr Sam Armstrong [00:18:07]: Yeah, I don't know how they've managed to do it so well, but everyone seems to have the same sense of humour. Everyone seems to get on. Everyone seems to want to work.

That's a real sort of strength of what we've got here. I think it's the nature of work in a stressful environment. I think, you know, some people, you get in an environment where it's tense and people always don't respond the best to that.

But I think everyone here does. We all do look out for each other. We all try and get the best outcomes through it.

We're all sort of looking out, looking in the diary saying, oh, do you need a hand with that? Do you want us to move that?

Whether your reception's saying, oh, I will just drag you out, make sure you have lots of time for that. Oh yeah, we can... oh, you've got this. You need more time for your surgery. Your emergency has come in. We can try and reorganise things to make it work.

Or the nurses are always asking if they can be useful or be helpful, and they always are. Yeah, they seem to be able to do everything. Yeah.

Dr Sam Armstrong [00:19:05]: So I think friendly is probably a good one.

Not sure how would you sum up trying your best in one word? Because I do think everyone does try to do their best and everyone...

Yeah, I think that probably comes, brings it all together really, with everyone being friendly and working together. Is we all try and come to the best outcome, I think.

Whether that's with a patient and a client, or whether it's with making sure everyone has what they need to do the job and has a good time doing it, really.

I'm not sure what that one word to say trying your best is, but I think that's what I'm trying to get at anyway.

Julie South [00:19:47]: As you've just heard, Sam talked about what it was like starting his career in a new country, finding his feet, asking questions, and learning how support actually showed up around him in everyday situations.

What Sam's described gives a clear sense of the day-to-day environment at Energy Vets, how the people there interact, how questions are handled, and what makes it easier to keep learning rather than quietly second-guess yourself.

A quick note about what you've been hearing across this series. These aren't polished stories. They're everyday experiences told by different vets and nurses in their own words about what it's actually like to work at their clinic.

This is one of the reasons that recruitment often stalls when clinics rely solely on job ads. Not because the roles aren't good, but because vets and nurses can't actually work out whether a clinic is their kind of clinic before they apply.

Energy Vets isn't just advertising a job. They're letting people hear what working there is really like through real veterinary voices telling real veterinary stories.

If you're responsible for recruitment at your clinic and listening to this thinking, yes Julie, we have stories like this too, but you're not quite sure how to use them in a way that helps other vets and nurses work out whether you're their kind of people, then please get in touch with me. julie@vetclinicjobs.com. Because I'd love to help you tell your clinic stories as well.

Julie South [00:21:32]: And if you're an experienced small animal vet considering your next move, you'll find the full position details at vetclinicjobs.com/energyvets. So you could be on Sam's team.

This is Julie South signing off and inviting you to go out there and be your most fantabulous self.

Because when vets can hear what working somewhere is really like before they ever see a job ad, they know whether they'll be working with their kind of people in their kind of clinic.

And when that happens, you're not recruiting anymore. You're welcoming people who have already decided that they belong.