Tag Archives: Duty Vet

Different

Blog, Vet, Scotland, The Vet Who Came In from the Cold, , , , ,

I’m not going to miss duty vet. It’s no coincidence that I applied to the poultry practice shortly after receiving the 2026 rota and putting all the dates in my diary. Entries in spring were relatively far apart, but the summer months were going to be intense. The thought of it set my teeth on edge.

And then bird flu hit and all my work days were filled with notifiable disease work. Real vet work: the kind I signed up for all those years ago. I’ve massively enjoyed the last few months at work and for a good while, I didn’t follow up on my application. I was meant to meet one of the partners on 14th January – the day I was sent to West Linton to investigate the latest outbreak. I sent a message to say I couldn’t and received one in return, which I skim read. Then in a whirl of printing forms, rearranging evening engagements and finding care for Triar, I headed off.

In truth, I was so busy and engaged, I probably wouldn’t have checked back in at all, if it hadn’t been for Liz, my sports massage therapist. I started going to Liz last year, to ease shoulder tension, which was one of my better life choices. Before she begins, she catches up with how things are going. She asked about my application and it was only then I actually looked back to review what my contact had written. To my surprise, his message didn’t say we could arrange a different time for an interview. It said he wanted to inform me about the job, and terms and conditions to see if it would help with my final decision. I told Liz I would reply later. She said, in essence, “Why wait? Do it now!” I sent a message there and then.

I met him in a cafe in mid-February. We got on well, but I still wasn’t sure. The job itself might be better, but weighing up the differences between public sector and private practice is difficult. I was working out how to say I was going to turn the position down when the more senior partner in the practice messaged to ask if we could chat. He asked me, in essence, how they could make this job the perfect fit for me. What would I enjoy? What problems could I foresee? I don’t think anyone has ever asked me that before.

I am probably beginning to sound like I never make decisions by myself, but having discussed the pros and cons with Donna the night before, she had suggested that maybe a few days at Inchcolm would resolve my doubts one way or another. So I suggested to E that I would book some time off and spend a couple of days with them, seeing what they do.

Those two days were honestly great. They genuinely were listening to my concerns. One of them was the age of my car. The more senior partner called yesterday, in the middle of a nightmare day of duty vet, to tell me they’re getting a pool car I can use sometimes. Not sure how it will work, but even before I’ve arrived, he’s finding ways to make my life easier.

But yesterday was a good reminder of why duty vet is so tough. I know what I am doing a lot better now, so juggling the questions and problems that come in isn’t quite so difficult. The biggest challenge is when the cases come in so fast that there isn’t time to deal with them. You resolve one and find two more waiting. Each situation is a unique puzzle, needing research and consideration. By yesterday afternoon, my brain was frazzled. And then I called an estate owner to tell him that we’d had a report of sheep scab on his farm.

The procedures and laws around sheep scab are inflexible. If we receive a credible report, we are obliged to put the animals under a movement ban until the owner shows the sheep have been treated or their vet has certified the animals as clear of parasites. This leaves farmers at risk of malicious reporting. I check records to see the history, such as frequent reports or recorded objections from farmers of over-reporting, but there was nothing on this account to suggest anything of the sort.

I’m usually good at handling people, but this time it didn’t work. I was roundly shouted at when I explained I couldn’t say who had made the report. Even if I’d wanted to, I couldn’t as the report was anonymous. I was abused for the system being bad. The system is awful, but I was only the messenger. It was after three on a long day, with two more cases waiting for me and it was just too much.

I made myself a coffee and pulled myself together and carried on, but it was a stark reminder of how awful duty vet is. I got home from work late and wished I could have a glass of wine, or that there was someone there to hug, but I was on call. I’m on call all weekend, which is fine. I can cope with whatever is thrown at me. I’ve said before that one of my aims is to help farmers through incredibly stressful events. I’m good at it. But being shouted at when there is no need, for something that’s not my fault, leaves me drained and empty. I won’t miss duty vet.

I’m going to leave you with a few pictures of my garden. The camellia has too many buds to count. I’m happy with the pots beside the door, though what comes next is a good question. I’m working on the flower bed that was overrun with ground elder. I’ve dug out masses of roots and planted competing geraniums, compost and seeds, but there’s still lots more to dig out and I’m not sure whether me or the ground elder will win this year. It will probably outmanoeuvre me, as a novice gardener. The good thing is that, even if I mess it up, there’s always next year!

Thank you for reading. I hope you have a good week.

Unexpected Discoveries and a Missing Seal

Blog, Scotland, The Vet Who Came In from the Cold, Travel, Vet, , , , , , , , , ,

I made a happy discovery yesterday evening, when I was travelling to Yorkshire. I like to break my journey at Tebay, but when it’s hot and I have Triar in the car, I tend to push on. Last night though, I was tired enough to stop. On entering the car park, instead of going straight ahead, I turned left up the hill, hoping to find some shade behind the trees. What I didn’t expect to find was a lovely shady dog walk, set among the trees. So as well as crunchy cheese and mango flavoured fizzy water, I got in 1,000 steps and a very pleasant woodland wander.

It’s been an unexpected type of week really. The only visits I had planned were to a farm where I was to TB test eight cattle. They had tested before as inconclusive, following a move up to Scotland from a higher risk area, so they were being retested. That was booked in for Tuesday/Friday (inject and read) so when my line manager sent out a message asking for volunteers to do night duty on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights, I quickly offered.

Usually, being on call is not too onerous. Sometimes there are phone calls in the evening, but it’s fairly rare, so I was quite unprepared when the phone rang at 2am on Wednesday morning. Quickly gathering pen and paper, I spoke to a vet about an owner whose dog had been in contact with a bat. The dog was now unwell and she wanted some advice. As both bat and dog were in central Scotland, the chances of rabies infection were small, but having been phoned, I had to make sure. Most of the form filling was left for the morning, but I was still up for a couple of hours recording the situation, so the vets taking over in the morning knew I was dealing with it.

So Wednesday morning was mostly taken up with the aftermath. The afternoon was quiet, but I was glad when home time came. However, I had only just sat down when the phone rang again. This time it was my veterinary advisor. Did I want to go on a report case the following morning. I’ve been waiting to do a report case, which is an investigation into a potential notifiable disease outbreak, so I said yes first, then braced myself for whatever she was going to say next. Whatever had run through my head, I wasn’t expecting what came next.

I was being asked to go to a beach where there had apparently been a number of dead birds found, as well as a seal (or maybe a porpoise). I was to test the seal for avian influenza and to do so would involve taking brain and lung samples, while fully dressed in all my protective gear, including my space-age hood, which circulates air through filters and blows it on my face.

I did double check about the hood. After all, I have tested dead birds in Norway for avian influenza and nobody even reminded me to wear a mask. But the answer was yes, I had to wear the hood. To be fair, brain sampling required a hammer, so spray was quite possible, but what struck me as particularly amusing was that this wasn’t a beach in the middle of nowhere. It was near a relatively popular west-coast holiday resort. I understand there were background discussions going on about whether we should let the police know. I was half imagining television cameras turning up, creating mass panic over people donning virtual space suits to approach dead animals that, half an hour earlier, someone’s dog might well have been sniffing.

Having spent two hours on Wednesday evening, learning about techniques for sampling marine wildlife and refreshing myself on donning and doffing PPE safely, and another hour on Thursday morning, ensuring I had everything in the car I might need, I drove an hour and a half and met my colleague , an experienced animal health officer, at the beach.

Partly because it was already warm, and partly to avoid causing alarm, I had decided that we should plot the position of the animals first, then get our final permission and instructions to test from VENDU (the Veterinary Exotic Notifiable Disease Unit). My plan was to photograph the animal or bird (necessary so that an expert can make sure what species it is) and get OS coordinates for each. All those details have to be recorded, so it made sense to do that before getting all the kit on.

In the event, what actually happened was that we walked onto the beach, made our way to the mark on the satellite image where the seal carcase had been recorded, and found… only tyre tracks. There were a number of dog walkers on the beach, so my colleague began to ask whether any of them had seen anything. None of them had. We walked on down the beach. No dead seal. No bird carcasses either.

I called my veterinary advisor. Was it possible the local authority, or someone, had already been and removed the seal? In the background, she started to make enquires to all the possible agencies and groups that might possibly have done so. In the meantime, my colleague and I walked on, scouring the beach with our eyes. After all, the worst possible scenario I could imagine was that we failed to find it after all the prep and travel, only for it to be reported again the next day.

The tyre tracks were explained – the local council had been out, but hadn’t found anything apparently. Nor did we. Despite walking for half an hour along the beach, the only things we found were a number of dead jelly fish and one, single, very rotten bird carcase, where there was nothing much left except bones and a wing. Eventually, we had to admit defeat and turn back. All that remained was to call VENDU and call off the hunt.

I did that, back at my car. I was just driving off when VENDU called back and asked whether we could go back and sample the bird. I said no. Sampling is from the cloaca and the back of the throat. Neither of those would have been identifiable. Not only that, but it was a good half-hour walk back to where we had seen it and there was no guarantee we’d find it again as, by that time, I’d abandoned all thoughts of OS coordinates.

We’ve been told that in hot weather, we have been allocated a £2 cold drinks allowance, so when I stopped for lunch, I ordered an iced caramel mocha. £2 doesn’t come close to covering it, but it was delicious, as was the goats’ cheese salad I ordered along with it.

I had a pleasant drive back down the Galloway Trail. Really, it ended up being one of those rare days where I look back and want to laugh and feel highly pleased that someone actually paid for me to do that. There are truly awful moments in this line of work, but there are some great ones too. And next time I am asked to go on a report case, there will be things I learned this time that will be put to good use.

I rounded off the week reading the TB test. Sadly, there were some animals that tested positive. Another farm, now under restrictions, with thousands of animals that all need to be tested. If I were in charge, I would be looking at banning moving cattle from high risk zones and into Scotland. I know there’s a lot of negativity about red tape, but the eventual cost of allowing those movements is unreasonably high. Then again, after 15 years in Norway, I’d be on board for massive limitation on moving animals around.

Thanks for reading. I hope you have a good week.

Surviving Duty Vet

Blog, Scotland, The Vet Who Came In from the Cold, Vet, ,

I wrote, last week, about my frustrations around the non payment of relocation expenses. They haven’t yet been paid, but K, my line manager, has told me that the big boss I sent my complaint to is now trying to get it paid from the local budget, rather than continuing to fight with DEFRA HR. I will try to keep you updated. Another colleague has suggested I contact the union I joined when I arrived, so that’s another step to consider, though I am hoping it will all be resolved soon and I won’t need to.

For most of this week, including last weekend and the (Scottish) Monday bank holiday, I have been working as duty vet. During the weekend, that meant the APHA national phone line went through to my work phone, or at least any and all calls from the north of Scotland came through to me. In the north, a second vet was taking phone calls for the south. Not many people call the emergency line (thank goodness). I had only a few calls on the Monday, most of which were easily dealt with. The counter to that is that, if something does come in that actually requires me to go out, it is likely to be something serious. Possible reasons would include a suspected outbreak of a notifiable disease (think bird flu or foot and mouth) or a welfare case that’s so bad it can’t wait.

Anyway at least, with mobile phones, being on call no longer requires me to stay in the house, glued to a landline, so Andrew and I decided on Saturday that it was time to go and explore our local ice cream emporium. There are a couple locally. Farmers in the UK have been encouraged to diversify and so we took a short drive out to Drummuir Farm where they make their own ice cream. There were loads of choices of flavour, from biscotti to battenberg, and Andrew and I ended up ordering two glorious fruity sundaes.

We went for a drive afterwards, including through Dalton, where I stopped to take a photo of this lovely pastoral scene.

Andrew’s eye was caught at Drummuir by the full Scottish breakfast on the menu, so we returned on Sunday for an early lunch, which I can also recommend!

I don’t know if I’ve written much about being duty vet through the week before, but it’s not an enjoyable part of my job. Part of it is dealing with any queries that come in, either in emails or by phone. We don’t actually have to answer the phone during the day, but the calls are logged with a summary of the question, so then we have to look at what’s being asked and decide what action to take.

Some of these are quite straightforward. If a cow dies suddenly, the local private vet should go out and check whether it died of anthrax. An APHA vet has to okay that, then give them a reference number. This mostly involves form filling and it happens often enough that I already know the ropes.

But APHA covers a lot of ground on the animal front, so I might find myself with a query about an imported horse whose health certificate wasn’t filled in properly, or a farmer who failed to update his online records properly and has now found his farm is under TB restrictions as his test couldn’t be verified. These can take a lot of sorting out and require solid understanding of all the different computer systems we use. The main problem for me there, is that I don’t have a solid understanding of those systems yet.

Fortunately I have lovely colleagues, so I managed to get through, but ex policeman Tommy, who shares an office with me, saw that I was so stressed on Tuesday , Wednesday and Thursday that he arrived on Friday with a bottle of Malbec for me! Next week should be better, I think, My ongoing cases were mostly put on hold while I was on duty, so there’s a bit of catching up to do, but at least I have a better grasp of where I’m going with those.

In the meantime, I’ll finish with some pictures from my daily walks down Blackbird Lane. We’re into summertime now and my little green lane is full of colour and birdsong: a daily oasis to sooth my soul.