Vets no longer working in outlying area

Gulli

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Somerset
sold a bunch of calves, 2 hrs ago, rung our local vets, Shepton, 10 mins ago, they will be out monday, bank holiday, to inject them, pre movement test.
always very polite to the girls that answer the phone, chat and banter, never get anything other than brilliant service.
Have no issue with the vets, they do a great job. Just the out of hours service doesn't always work very well, but it's down to the setup and not the vets.

Good mates with one of the shepton guys and they are a decent vet practice 👍
 

JP1

Member
Livestock Farmer
It's a young people issue, it's not limited by gender. Plenty of young people train in chosen careers to a high level and then change their mind when life/family/marriage comes along. Small vet work has the Noel Supervet factor to attract new entrants. It's less onerous and you can earn some very good money, plus it's not so anti-social: you're in a practice and work in a team.

Farm animal practice, explain to me the positives? Farmer moaning every visit about the cost of X, arriving on farm to find yet another beast that should have been shot 2 days ago or seen a vet 5 days earlier. Then you have the out of hours and the old favourite, TB testing- must be every young vets dream that job, jabbing hundreds of beasts whilst avoiding a kick in the head/broken arm or leg?

The medical world and other professions, nursing in particular are seeing the exact same issues really. People qualify, do a 5 years and decide it's not worth it. It is like many things, you either 'live' for that kind of work or you don't. I'm sat here now and have to be in work early, yet I genuinely can't sleep yet because of the excitement of going to work. It's like when I was 22 and knowing I'd be given a go on the combine tomorrow.

I don't blame young people for changing their minds. The trouble is, they are pursuing these careers but often don't have any real metric or previous experience of work to compare their eventual jobs with. I've spoken with more than one consultant who has basically told me they are only in the job whilst their children are in private school, after that, they will retire or massively drop their hours as they won't need the money or the grief.

The trouble the vet world will have is that unless people become partners in their practice, their salaries reach a ceiling. And with more and more practices being bought up by corporates, there will be fewer and fewer privately owned practices. The medical world already has an acute shortage of virtually all specialties at all levels so this does not really apply.
It's a vocation . Same as farming IMO.
 

JP1

Member
Livestock Farmer
I was visiting Uni. Bristol vet school and apparently most abattoir vets will be foreign as the UK ones see it as being somehow "beneath them".

A few vet students keen on ag, a few even turned up at my "careers day" event because they preferred it to the one their dept was putting on.
Spoke with a few of our practice junior vets , many of whom are thinking about doing a day at least on the abattoirs. £60k pro rata is not to be sniffed
 

Fellstoflats

Member
Livestock Farmer
You always make a big point of saying how terrible farmers are to work for and how unpleasant it is working on farms etc. Every single opportunity 😂 our vet has become a very good friend, so we can’t all be such ars*holes as you insist we are 😂

Our vet came to our wedding- he's a part of the farm. We backed him when he went off on his own, and he's backed us ever since. A good vet, and a good relationship with that vet, is worth it's weight in good IMHO.

We're on 6 monthly TB testing, which is tedious enough for us, let alone the vets. Can't imagine it's a high of the job..
 

Dry Rot

Member
Livestock Farmer
I was at vet college for the first year but quickly discovered it was not for me. Too much death and sickness and I could never cope with the clients! I was particularly disgusted with the aged cow and decrepit horse produced to demonstrate rope casting techniques onto a concrete floor which I suspect are probably illegal now. Not particularly impressed with some of my fellow students either and I've always taken a critical view when signing on with a new vet. Some are just in it for the money and are clueless, but not all thank goodness.
 

crofteress

Member
Livestock Farmer
Our vet came to our wedding- he's a part of the farm. We backed him when he went off on his own, and he's backed us ever since. A good vet, and a good relationship with that vet, is worth it's weight in good IMHO.

We're on 6 monthly TB testing, which is tedious enough for us, let alone the vets. Can't imagine it's a high of the job..
I had the best of vets and I had a very good relationship with him
 
You hit the nail on the head here. It's nothing to do with women - women have careers nowadays.

It's more that the old "partnership" model is being replaced by aggressive corporate takeovers, putting staff on as low a salary as they can get away with, who now never have a chance to part own their practice.

The same thing happened in care homes.
This is why a couple of years ago, despite extensive coverage of UK vet shortage, the Vet Record reported that the average veterinary salary had dropped by £1000!
 
Having a boy and a girl I’d say probably girls are harder working and as the main selection criteria for starting a veterinary degree at 18 is Alevel grades getting the required grades is really tough and at 16 I’d say a lot of boys would be more put off by the studying than the profession. In my wife’s case she left medical school because she didn’t want to deal with people however she reckons the worse bit of being a vet is dealing with people.
But it's not the case with plenty of other degrees, the UK average is around 60/40, but veterinary is extreme at around 80-85% female, just like engineering will be more like the opposite.
I don't think it's all down to girls being better students, I think it's more down to the nature of the job
 
How much student debt are these people going to end up with? could be a factor involved.
In the second half of the course particularly you have to see practice which is unpaid in the holidays so your chance to earn is cut back. I bore the kids telling them that I didn't have a holiday for the five years I was at vet school. Either at university, working or seeing practice. The week in Ibiza after graduation made up for that somewhat 😁
 

Pigken

Member
Location
Co. Durham
Being married to a Vet ( female ) I’d say one thing and when you get to a certain age messing around with large animals gets to be hard work. More females will get to be vets because girls study harder however just because you’re clever doesn’t mean you’re going to be a good vet there’s so many other factors involved . Choosing your career at 18 probably isn’t the best.


Female vet in this area 74 years old and still out daily on her rounds. Quite a character.
 

Lowland1

Member
Mixed Farmer
But it's not the case with plenty of other degrees, the UK average is around 60/40, but veterinary is extreme at around 80-85% female, just like engineering will be more like the opposite.
I don't think it's all down to girls being better students, I think it's more down to the nature of the job
I didn’t realize the ratio was that extreme. That really isn’t good.
 

Lowland1

Member
Mixed Farmer
I've said for a long time there needs to be a paramedic grade under the RCVS to enable the likes of blood testing and calving IMHO
My father in law was a general surgeon who dealt with things like injuries from accidents and whilst being incredibly well qualified and trained most of his work was stitching. I often meet people who on finding out who I am want to show me their scar because he was so good. My wife too is very good at stitching but I wonder whether you need seven years of training to do all of that obviously you need to know what bits do what but I often feel that there should be a shortcut for older people into these professions as at 28 I think you know much more than 18 at 18 you're just good at passing exams. Obviously being around doctors and Vets makes me a bit immune to the mysticism of medicine and I now think it's really easy apart from the blood and gore if I could get over that I'd be brilliant.
 

som farmer

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
somerset
both our kids knew exactly what they wanted to do, from about 5, one a reception teacher, and she is, the other, farming, which he is. Neither ever expressed an interest, in anything else.
And yet, we know of plenty youngsters, that have no idea of what they want to do, aged late teens, early twenties.
Gap years, are increasingly popular, and l don't see to much of a problem with them, but, by the time kids have done their 'A'levels, or whatever they are called now, taken a gap year, gone to uni, they are 23/24 yrs old, some stay at uni, and do a further qualification, 26/27 years old.
That is one hell of a hole in a 'working' career, and a hell of a shock to the system, to start work at that age, even worse, if they have no real type of career, chosen.
I feel to many kids are directed to uni, when, for them, an apprentice ship from 16, would be more beneficial to them, and the greater society. And to many degrees, are completely irrelevant to a working career.
But then, I'm just a miserable old git, so what do l know.
 

Ffermer Bach

Member
Livestock Farmer
both our kids knew exactly what they wanted to do, from about 5, one a reception teacher, and she is, the other, farming, which he is. Neither ever expressed an interest, in anything else.
And yet, we know of plenty youngsters, that have no idea of what they want to do, aged late teens, early twenties.
Gap years, are increasingly popular, and l don't see to much of a problem with them, but, by the time kids have done their 'A'levels, or whatever they are called now, taken a gap year, gone to uni, they are 23/24 yrs old, some stay at uni, and do a further qualification, 26/27 years old.
That is one hell of a hole in a 'working' career, and a hell of a shock to the system, to start work at that age, even worse, if they have no real type of career, chosen.
I feel to many kids are directed to uni, when, for them, an apprentice ship from 16, would be more beneficial to them, and the greater society. And to many degrees, are completely irrelevant to a working career.
But then, I'm just a miserable old git, so what do l know.
tend to agree, and our university system is based on the public school system of going off to boarding school, we should prioritise more degrees completed at local "tech" colleges completed on day release while working. All we are doing at present is extending childhood and prolonging adolescence.
 

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