It’s May and that means it’s Veterinary Nursing Awareness Month. Having worked in the veterinary profession for more years that I care to remember, I have worked with many, many veterinary nurses. As a schoolgirl seeing practice, it was the vet nurses who told me what to do, kept me occupied, and gave me my first lessons in how a vet practice works. The practice where I spent summer holidays, ran like clockwork, due to the vet nurses. It was them who looked after the patients, the practice, stock, infection control, owners and made sure that the vets knew where they were supposed to be and what they had to do each day.
Veterinary nurse training was through day release to a local college, and work-based assessment was completed through the ‘Green Book,’ signing off clinical skills and cases dealt with.
Times have changed in the world of veterinary nurse education, with the introduction of degrees, and postgraduate qualifications, corporate practices enabling veterinary nurses to progress in both a clinical setting and management, and a recognition that veterinary nursing is a profession. Whilst the title still needs to be protected, the role of the veterinary nurse in 2024, is nothing like that of the 1990s.
The role of the veterinary nurse in animal welfare was something we discussed in some depth on the podcast.
In practice, the vet nurse is vital for the care of patients, and that of owners. We’re all familiar with owners who are more comfortable talking to the vet nurse than the vet, and communication skills are essential to the role of the vet nurse. Vet nurses can gather information about the animal and any problems the owners are having at home which can influence case management.
In the podcasts we have focussed a lot on the importance of education to improve animal welfare, both when working with clients, but also the wider population. It’s hard to measure this impact on all of the animals in the world, but on a one-to-one basis, it’s easier to see the difference that you’ve made to that animal and owner.
There does however still seem to be a void between the work of vets and that of veterinary nurses. The nurses know exactly what the vets do, but I doubt the same could be said about veterinary knowledge of nursing. BVA promote the vet led team, and the benefits of multi-disciplinary working, and WHO have discussed the need for interprofessional education and collaborative practice, but it’s still some way off.
There is also a lack of awareness amongst the public about what veterinary nurses do. Whilst an owner will have an awareness of the care provided to their pet, it’s probably fair to assume that they don’t really know exactly what happened when their pet was in the practice. Veterinary nurses have a much broader scope of care than human nursing counterparts, undertaking anaesthetic monitoring and Schedule III tasks (for example surgery that doesn’t enter a body cavity).
Veterinary nurses are advocates for animal welfare. They see first hand the problems of poor welfare and contribute to the solution. There are more opportunities now for clinical research in veterinary practice, but the numbers of publications directly from practice, and specifically from veterinary nursing are still small.
There is so much that veterinary nursing can contribute to animal welfare and the veterinary profession, and I’m optimistic that the next 20 years will see the creation of opportunities for all, across the entire veterinary profession.