Reforming Equine Dental Care and the Role of Legal Expertise in Veterinary Regulation

Julie South [00:00:06]:
Sometimes some legislation just seems out and out crazy, where you think to yourself, what were they thinking? For example, how on earth can it not be okay for trained qualified veterinary professionals to perform some significant procedures, yet there's legislation in place to allow unqualified lay people to do that work. That's one of the things that we are talking about today in the third and final chat that I'm having with registered veterinarian Dr. Helen Beattie. Welcome to Veterinary Voices. This is episode 217 and I'm your show host, Julie South. Depending on what time of the year you're listening to this, Merry Christmas. Episode 217 goes to air in the week of Christmas, Christmas Eve. So Merry Christmas.

Julie South [00:01:08]:
Veterinary Voices celebrates all that's great about working in New Zealand's veterinary industry. I'd love to hear in which One of the 1400 cities Veterinary voices is listened to around the world that you're tuning into. So. So please feel free to let me know at VeterinaryVoices NZ. And it's also at VeterinaryVoices NZ where you can find back copies as well. Veterinary Voices is brought to you by Vet Clinic Jobs, the job board that helps vet clinics do more than just post a job vacancy. Vet Clinic Jobs is all about helping employers find their dream team members. No recruitment agency involved by letting job seekers find out more about a job vacancy than your regular boring old job advert.

Julie South [00:02:03]:
So check it out@vetclinicjobs.com hopefully by now you've listened to the previous two episodes with Dr. Helen about VAWA Helen's current work and passion and vocation, her call to you regarding live exports, and then last week, her call to you regarding keeping cats safe. Today, Dr. Helen tackles another hot topic, this time in the world of equine care the recent changes to dental regulations in New Zealand. If you've ever wondered about the implications of allowing non veterinarians to perform significant dental procedures on horses, this conversation is a must. Listen, Dr. Helen doesn't hold back as she shares her concerns about equine welfare and the potential risks involved when untrained individuals take on complex dental work. I'm sure you'll share her concerns and the critical questions that need answers.

Julie South [00:03:10]:
For example, the adequacy of pain relief during equine dental procedures. And then her challenging the decisions made by mpi, the Ministry for Primary Industries, that seem to overlook expert veterinary advice. On a personal note, Dr. Helen also shares her very inspiring journey of returning to university, driven by her commitment to animal welfare. We'll talk about pink slips and my surprise that such process happens inside universities. I will put all links that Dr. Helen mentions today in the show notes at VeterinaryVoices NZ so you'll be able to refer to them later.

Julie South [00:03:58]:
Helen. Equine dental regulations. What's happening there?

Dr. Helen Beattie [00:04:06]:
Disappointing stuff, actually. People will remember the three tranches of animal welfare regulations that came in, started with the bobby calf regulations were followed by care and procedure regulations which were a bunch of things around care of animals. So not leaving dogs and hot cars and tying them on the backs of vehicles and that type of thing. And then the third tranche was the significant surgical procedure suite of regulations that came in. The criteria for what an SSP is sit within the Animal Welfare act and you can go and read it and it has a bunch of like five different criteria, things like sensitive tissue or under the gum and then loss of significant tissue or significant loss of tissue. So if it meet those criteria, it then became a veterinary only procedure. When that provision in the act came into force, which I think was. No, it might have been 2021, I forget the dates now.

Dr. Helen Beattie [00:05:05]:
Covid interrupted it and we ended up getting an extension on how it all rolled out. All the days of COVID So if, if a procedure met those criteria, there needed to be a regulation made to allow a non veterinarian to do a procedure. And for reasons of just common sense, they were not meant to be particularly complicated, technical or risky procedures because we're talking about people who potentially have no skills or no training whatsoever in doing a procedure. So an example would be tailing a lamb. That's significant loss of tissue and arguably loss of significant tissue with the ability to cause serious pain and distress. So that is a significant surgical procedure. So a regulation was written to say up to, at the age of six months, people can tail lambs. There was no pain relief requirement with that.

Dr. Helen Beattie [00:05:57]:
That's been encouraged by different organisations saying, actually from a welfare perspective, we need to be now providing pain relief, which FAWA strongly supports. But in addition to those types of quite. I don't want to use the word mundane because losing your tail is definitely not a mundane thing, but a very straightforward procedure where it is literally about chopping off a tail. They also regulated to allow laypeople to remove the wolf teeth of horses. And the New Zealand Veterinary association and the Equine Veterinary Association, I was at the NCVA at the time, provided extensive feedback to MPI saying this is a bad idea. These are highly technical procedures. There is no way that you should be letting a lay person take out a horse's. Tooth without having a thorough understanding of anatomy, physiology and, you know, everything else that's required and doing that sort of invasive dental work.

Dr. Helen Beattie [00:06:47]:
MPI disregarded that advice and regulators let lay people take out teeth. And it's always been something on my agenda since that happened, to challenge that and say, actually, that's not what this. These regulations were never really. They weren't meant to set up to allow people to do really technical, highly risky procedures. And it essentially sits outside the purpose of. Of the regulation and the act itself. And so I've been beavering away for a period of time dealing with, you know, talking to equine veterinarians with special skills in equine dentistry, with the view to going back and having a conversation with the Regulations review select committee about that to try and get that regulation revoked. It's a lofty goal, but you'll never know if you don't try.

Julie South [00:07:35]:
That's right. If you don't aim high, then you're always going to come in low.

Dr. Helen Beattie [00:07:40]:
Yeah, I should add to that. So the regulation for horses teeth does have provisions around requiring pain relief to be used in order to take the teeth out. But one of the reasons why we want to challenge it is because we know that that's not always happening and that people are using pain relief provided for other things. So musculoskeletal disease in horses or injury in horses, and applying that as pain relief, and then the equine dental technicians coming around and taking out teeth, which doesn't. Which is illegal, it doesn't meet the requirements of the regulation. But we know that's happening and we also know that then the vets with special skills are coming in and having to fix problems afterwards. So, yeah, there are reasons why. It's not just me being perverse and anti about the whole thing, but there are actually.

Dr. Helen Beattie [00:08:23]:
There is welfare compromise going on which is leading to this bit of work.

Julie South [00:08:27]:
What can we have two former vet nurses working for us who both own multiple horses? So I have a couple of crazy equine women working for me and I love them both.

Julie South [00:08:47]:
What can they do?

Julie South [00:08:48]:
What can we do? What can somebody who's listening to this show right now do?

Dr. Helen Beattie [00:08:55]:
The most important thing is to get as much evidence as possible. So if people know that there's bad practice going on and that there's equine equine dental work happening that isn't meeting the regulation requirement, you know, the pain relief has to be authorised for the specific use of extracting teeth. You can't use something that you had for another reason to do dental work. The more evidence we have on those, those breaches of the regulation, the beta. So they can email me and I just, you know, for safety for them. Like I deal with whistleblowers all the time and I'm happy to keep people's names confidential, but the more evidence we have around this, then the stronger our case is. In order to be able to go back to the select committee and say, look this, first of all, it shouldn't have been regulated and second of all, there are things happening that mean that we should now change it. So yeah, if they can email me that stuff and any pictures or other evidence they've got, that would be great.

Dr. Helen Beattie [00:09:47]:
But also making sure that when they're getting their equine dental work done, I strongly encourage them to engage with a veterinarian, with the correct term is a veterinarian with post nominals and equine dentistry, which means I know who remembers that the non equine dentist is the point, because a dentist is a fellow of the college. That's like being a consultant orthopaedic surgeon. What we have is a bunch of vets in this country who have done their memberships, so they have a post nominal, have letters after their name that give them special skills and expertise in equine dental work and they are really the go to, they are the best people to be doing your equine work. Having actual training and skills and expertise in the area seems sensible, doesn't it?

Julie South [00:10:30]:
Do we have enough of them?

Dr. Helen Beattie [00:10:32]:
Yeah, we do. And I mean, you know, I mean, do we have enough vets? That's another whole question, right, like, because that came up during the MPI consultation saying how would the veterinary profession manage that? As far as, you know, do we have enough people across the board? And yeah, the answer, the people involved in that area of work said yes, we can manage that. Like it's, it would take a little bit of a shuffling and juggling potentially, but yep, definitely can be done. And you know, like equine dental technicians also go out and just do, do mouth checks and, and that type of thing and do some filing. And I'm not an equine dental, I'm not a veterinarian with post normal, so I know very little about the details. But, and, and some of that. But again, you know, really I learned such a lot going through the process about the damage that can be done even just from, you know, from filing horses teeth and doing it incorrectly and unbalancing the mouth and you know, Creating quite significant concern, exposing sensitive tissue that. Or using practices that were thought to be okay 20 or 30 years ago that are, that are no longer the case.

Dr. Helen Beattie [00:11:36]:
So I like. It's like anything, Julie, the more you know, the more you realize you don't know and suddenly go, well, it seems, yeah, we really need to be from a horse welfare perspective and making sure they're getting the best out of their life, engaging the people with the knowledge and the skills to do the job. I mean, you wouldn't let any lay person go in and start whacking, filing your teeth off.

Julie South [00:11:56]:
I know when you're talking about that, I'm thinking, yeah, yeah, one set.

Dr. Helen Beattie [00:12:01]:
Right. And horses don't do false teeth. So once they're up, then, yeah, we're really in a tricky spot.

Julie South [00:12:08]:
Yeah.

Dr. Helen Beattie [00:12:11]:
Just a comment around the completely nonsensical position that MPI took, which is another reason why I think it's time to go back and have this conversation. There was meant to be a review of the regulations and that hasn't happened. But many people also know, particularly in the companion animal field, that the regulations came out and they didn't have a regulation in there to allow veterinary nurses to do subject for work on companion animals teeth. And so like, literally about two days before I left the ncba, I was scurrying and putting a, putting a paper together to send to the Regulations Review Select Committee to say, this is ridiculous. Like, vet nurses get trained in this procedure. They are insured for this work, they are doing it under general anesthesia, they are supervised by a veterinarian. And yet you have, despite the fact that we lobbied hard, there was an email trail that I'd sent through, you know, five or six emails saying, this is, this is a disaster. You have to give us a regulation.

Dr. Helen Beattie [00:13:06]:
There was a really huge impact from a veterinary shortage perspective at the time that these came out. And then Covid and they didn't regulate it. So it meant that suddenly vet nurses couldn't do any of that work and vets were required to do something that vet nurses had been doing for 20 years or more. So that was enormously frustrating. So wrote a complaint to the Regs Review Select Committee to say, actually we need a regulation. So that still hasn't come. It's in the pipeline. I understand that it's been through Cabinet and it's waiting for drafting to come into regulation, but that's been an enormously frustrating process.

Dr. Helen Beattie [00:13:40]:
And the reason I raise that now is two reasons. One is to say it's coming, like, we will get it at some point, but how long is a piece of string? But secondly, just to think about that again, under anesthesia, trained veterinary nurses who go and do courses with people like Craig Hunger, who's a specialist under veterinary supervision all of the time. And they failed to regulate that for us, despite us asking for it over and over again. And yet they letting other people with no skills, with no, you know, with no oversight necessarily from anyone who has expertise, take out horses, teeth. I'm like, this just makes no sense to me whatsoever. It's completely incongruent. So having done the first one, I'm like, we, we surely have a good argument to say, you know, like this, this is nonsensical. And like the law, fundamentally the law should make sense.

Dr. Helen Beattie [00:14:33]:
Right. And it should be, it should be fair and it should speak to what we're trying to achieve under the primary act, which is welfare protection. And you know, neither of those things do. So, yeah, I feel like I've spent a lot of time on teeth over the, over the last few years for the right reasons. Hopefully we haven't won either of those yet, but I'll keep chewing on the bone with my very healthy teeth.

Julie South [00:14:54]:
No pun intended.

Julie South [00:14:55]:
Yeah.

Julie South [00:14:56]:
Is all of this regulatory stuff, is.

Julie South [00:15:01]:
That why you picked up the books again? Or was it something completely different.

Dr. Helen Beattie [00:15:09]:
Because I'm an idiot?

Julie South [00:15:12]:
People like, because you want to be a poor student.

Dr. Helen Beattie [00:15:16]:
Yeah. Yes. So for many of your listeners won't know, but yes, I've gone back to university and I'm doing a law degree, so I've just finished my first year and I did half of second year as well. So I've got it, I'm going to finish that in 2025 and then worry about the next two years. I think a number of reasons. One is because, like, to your point, going back to university and being a poor student, if I was working in a, in a corporate job on a corporate salary, and the idea of going from that to being a poor student and trying to cobble things together, I just don't think I would have been brave enough to take that step. And you know, given I'm doing this, I'm my own boss, I can kind of work much more flexibly around things. And yeah, I guess there's less of a gigantic gap going back to university from where I am at the moment.

Dr. Helen Beattie [00:16:05]:
So that, that was part of it and I'd sort of been toying with it for a number of years, actually. I mean, people who know me know that I'm a bit of a Law and policy geek. And if this is, you know, I, I find it quite interesting, which I again never saw coming when I left veterinary school, to think this is where I'd be at. But additionally I'd kind of gone down the route of going, having set up VAWA and you know, finding, as we talked about earlier, that we've, we're still here and we have a place that I felt like I either needed to consider doing my animal welfare memberships or something else that was going to bring value and add sort of a different clip on, if you like, to what my veterinary degree does. And I decided that the animal welfare side of it still learn a lot going through that process and my veterinary colleagues would understand that I'm a member of the college and then a fellow of the college, but the vast majority of other people don't even know that we have that within our profession and that the law thing opened up a completely different avenue where there's only other. One other vet lawyer in the country. And so I kind of went. Actually, on balance I think this.

Dr. Helen Beattie [00:17:04]:
I'm not sure that it holds more interest because I'm obviously animal welfare is of, of high, high interest to me, but I just felt like it kind of added something a little more than going down the route of doing my animal welfare membership.

Julie South [00:17:15]:
So I was. Here I am, I was going to say. Adds a few more teeth to you.

Dr. Helen Beattie [00:17:20]:
Yeah, nice and gray hairs. Can I just say. So I have absolutely loved the learning and not that your listeners can see, but you'll see today I have a, a fabulous T shirt on that says Kill the Bill. And one of the things that I've learned a lot about this this year is our legal history and how we came together as a. How New Zealand was colonised and then our journey post colonisation through being a realm and then a dominion and then a realm which we are today. And listening to everything that's going on with the treaty principles Bill at the moment and then having all of this additional knowledge in my mind around the injustices and things that have happened, it really does add another whole layer. So I feel very fortunate that I've gone through law school at a time where this is so topical. And can I just say that the Otago Law School and I'm sure that all the other law schools in the country have the most contemporary material to be talking about te at the moment, because it's all literally falling out as we speak in court cases and Waitangi Tribunal findings and you know, around the 7 repeal like the material that we're learning.

Dr. Helen Beattie [00:18:25]:
It could not be more contemporary because it is literally, you know, happened the week before and then they're teaching us the next week sort of thing. So it's. Yeah, that side of it has been absolutely, you know, fascinating for me and I feel very privileged. I've done a certificate in to Masao Mori a number of years ago and learned sort of a little bit of stuff around Te Tiriti in our, in our colonial history. This has been a much deeper dive and I feel very fortunate to have, you know, to be, to be doing this and I think every New Zealander should have to do the same sort of thing that I've learned because it is, it is the history of our country that the vast majority of us don't, don't know. And we should.

Julie South [00:19:04]:
A few weeks ago, a few episodes ago, I had a chat with Dr. Jane Jones. I don't know whether, you know, Jane, she's doing research right now and I haven't got the full, the full name of her research in front of me. It's qualitative around Mori in veterinary nurses and veterinarians.

Julie South [00:19:28]:
Getting back to law.

Julie South [00:19:31]:
What's been your biggest surprise so far with your studies?

Dr. Helen Beattie [00:19:36]:
How stressful exams are, which sounds so stupid but like I've done a degree.

Julie South [00:19:42]:
You've done a pretty serious heavy duty degree.

Julie South [00:19:44]:
Excuse me.

Dr. Helen Beattie [00:19:45]:
Yeah, you know, like, well, so, so the, the thing that's most unsurprising is that I am the quintessential older students sitting in the front of the class asking the questions. That piece and, and the lectures are very tolerant. You know, I do, I do try to add some humor and value, but it's been really interesting as an older student. And so I rocked up on my first day in my first year course and I saw these kids walking in. I was like, oh look, they look like the same age as Harris, my son, who's in first year. I'm like, oh wait, they are. I'm actually old enough to be their mother. And then my second year class, obviously there's a, you know, the one year older.

Dr. Helen Beattie [00:20:25]:
They seem much wiser than the first years. And there's a few, few older students like me as well. Although I am very much definitely the oldest in the class. So that, yeah, that, that piece is. Anyone who knows me will not that that piece is not a surprise. The thing that I have been surprised about, apart from the exam stress, but I'll come back to that is I just, I realize as an older learner.

Julie South [00:20:47]:
Mature, mature learner, mature that's right.

Dr. Helen Beattie [00:20:52]:
I realize as a more mature learner, I don't think my mind is as sharp as it was when I was a kid. Like, I, you know, I mean, I'm, I'm not a stupid person, but. And I'm also perimenopausal, so I'm not, I'm pretty sure that doesn't help the scenario some days, Julie. But yeah, so, but I have, I bring a different, different whole perspective to things and I really like not to pat myself on the back, but I think there's a huge amount of value in having those older or those more mature learners in the class because of those other things that they bring just a bit of life experience and all of that. And that not just me, but some, you know, the other more mature students too. And the second thing is just realizing how differently you engage when you're a mature student. Like, I mean, I was a pretty diligent student, but I would go along and not listen and write notes and, you know, just, just be a kid. Right.

Dr. Helen Beattie [00:21:42]:
Whereas I go and I listen. You know, I'm absolutely engaged in going right the most of this. And I'm not afraid to ask questions, whereas when I was a younger learner, I would have been too scared to put my hand up often, you know, for fear of asking a stupid question. And, and this is how it plays out. And I think isn't that interesting because now I just don't care. Like, I, I ask regularly ask questions and I'm like, well, if I don't understand it, someone else probably doesn't. And if it's a stupid question, then so be it. Like, I didn't understand.

Dr. Helen Beattie [00:22:05]:
So I'm going to ask. And we were doing a pre test or a pre exam Q and A thing, and that's. The lecturers are so aware of it that they put little pieces of pink paper up and down the side of the aisles to say, if you don't want to put your hand, write it down and put it in the box and then I'll read them out. I was like, oh, you know, like, I just, I found that really interesting. Like, it's a pretty safe environment. The lectures are there to answer your questions. And yet still recognizing that some of these young people find that really challenging. And I think that's.

Dr. Helen Beattie [00:22:33]:
I don't have an answer for that. I was just, I was obviously arrested with me because I'm telling you that that, that kind of intrigued me. And coming back to the exam stress, like I, Yep, been there, done that before. I think it's like childbirth. I had completely parked it in it. They'll shalt forget about this because it was so terrible. And then I exams, I'm like, oh, this is really bad. So I had some of my first year buddies going, I don't think I can cope, I'm going to drop out.

Dr. Helen Beattie [00:22:57]:
I'm like, trust me, of all of the stress in my life, you know, and I've had, I've had some pretty big ups and downs. This is right up there with being really, really stressful and I had just completely forgotten that. So that, that and people keep thinking I'm joking when I say that, but it was genuinely terrible and I have three more years to go and I feel really sorry for everybody around me because it was terrible for them too.

Julie South [00:23:20]:
I, I got a couple. One is.

Julie South [00:23:24]:
And I don't expect you to answer if your answer is contrary to mine. This pink paper. Bit too scared to ask a question.

Julie South [00:23:33]:
I'm thinking here, oh, for crying out.

Julie South [00:23:35]:
Loud, really, how is that supporting somebody in the real world?

Dr. Helen Beattie [00:23:43]:
I was also quite challenged by it because I think, you know, you have to be able to go into the world and do those things. Right. And then I think, well, actually. Oh, I don't know, Julie like it. It is. It's a different old world out there. Right. Yeah, I, I don't have an answer for that.

Dr. Helen Beattie [00:23:59]:
I completely, I agree with you. It is really challenging to think if you can't answer, if you can't ask a question and that re that pretty safe environment. And with this particular lecturer, she's lovely and is very supportive and, and you know, wouldn't even if it was a dumb question would be really kind about it and you know, I know that that's not, not always the case and some lecturers can be a little bit less tolerant. Yeah. And then I think, well, maybe it's just a little bit about. They're only second year, they're 19. Right. A lot of them pretty young and it is just about finding your feet and then in the next couple of years becoming a bit more confident about those things.

Dr. Helen Beattie [00:24:32]:
Don't. I had a friend whose daughter.

Julie South [00:24:35]:
Some people are parents at 19.

Dr. Helen Beattie [00:24:37]:
This is true. Yeah, I know. And then some people at 50 or 60 still couldn't ask a question. So you know. But then are probably not required to, I don't know, go to court or whatever. So. Yeah, but I agree with you, it is, it is challenging. Right.

Dr. Helen Beattie [00:24:50]:
And I, I get it on the one hand and then I think would that have been. Was that different to my experience back in the, in the 90s when I went through vet school, there were definitely people that asked questions. There were definitely people that didn't. So, you know, maybe, maybe it's not any different. I don't know.

Julie South [00:25:06]:
And when those kids who are pink slipping have come to their, their mock trials, that's all part of being a lawyer, how's that going to work for them? Okay, I want to get off that because it's, it's contentious. Another contentious one. As a veterinarian who is in a profession where perfectionism is pretty high.

Julie South [00:25:36]:
How was that at exam time?

Dr. Helen Beattie [00:25:40]:
Terrible.

Julie South [00:25:41]:
Could you feel that playing out?

Dr. Helen Beattie [00:25:44]:
Oh, 100. And, you know, like, coming, coming into to law school and doing an arts degree just made me realize how much of a quantitative scientist I am. You know, like, I had to, I had to write essays. It's like, I can't remember the last time I wrote an essay. And I went into our first test and I remember saying to, oh, it's probably 30 years since I've done this, like six form English probably. So that's been quite challenging for me. And I was talking to a friend of mine who, her partner did an arts degree, then did a veterinary degree, and he was like, I just don't get this, like, where's my critical thinking? Where do I get to put down my thoughts and feelings about things? And I'm on the other side of the coin going, why are you asking me about my thoughts and feelings? I just want to give you the facts. So that's been a really interesting process for me.

Dr. Helen Beattie [00:26:32]:
And I feel like I'm way stronger as a quantitative person than I am as a scientist, than I am as an art student. But I have really enjoyed it, and I did. Okay, so that's good. But that has been really challenging for me, getting my head into thinking like an art student and that side of things. I mean, I do a lot of writing for my job and writing review papers and position and policy, but it's not the same as writing an arts essay. And it, you know, it's a, it is a really different. Different skill set. Yeah.

Dr. Helen Beattie [00:27:05]:
So the type A thing is terrible. I, I mean, you know, every, you know, most of the vets in the country are going to say the same thing, like, well, there's a vast, huge number of us that are type A. So that absolutely adds to the, the exam stress piece going in. And yeah, and I keep telling myself, C's get degrees. And I'm like, oh, but the ego, it's Kind of. Even if I get a degree, the ego is going to take a beating, isn't it? Oh, yeah, just that. Yeah, type A, you know, all that. So anyway, one of my friends, Lauren, she said, it's really good for you, Helen.

Dr. Helen Beattie [00:27:39]:
I was like, I don't know that it is.

Julie South [00:27:44]:
It's growth that you won't appreciate until later.

Dr. Helen Beattie [00:27:48]:
Yeah, it's growth that I'm frankly not sure that I need right now, Julie. But no, I'm being facetious. But yeah, it has, it has been, it has been super interesting. And it's also, like I say it's an older student too, like a mature student. It's really interesting because I have a bit of a slightly different relationship, I guess, with the lecturers. Like I've gone up and talked to them about stuff or actually gone on to advocate for a couple of the young people who got treated really badly. And I said, look, I just don't think they would have spoken to me like that as a nearly 50 year old. I think they were getting the blunt edge of the sword because they're young people and they sort of didn't advocate for themselves.

Dr. Helen Beattie [00:28:24]:
And that sort of stuff annoys me. I think that that shouldn't be your experience. We shouldn't have different experiences because I'm an older person and they're not, you know, they should be treated with respect and yada, yada, yada too. So there's been a few of those things where I sort of can't walk past that stuff. I'm like, I can't. I choose not to because it just conflicts with my values as far as going this, this is not fair. It's not just. And actually that's not the way the world should work.

Dr. Helen Beattie [00:28:48]:
Some of the stress I bring on myself.

Julie South [00:28:50]:
Julie, one of the comments you made, which I liked, I just want to expand on that if we can, was you said that as a mature student, maybe this is me paraphrasing. Well, it is me paraphrasing you. This is what I thought I heard. As a mature student, you bring balance into the classroom, you bring wisdom, you bring experience that the straight out of school kids don't have. And for that I believe that your class is a better place to be because there's more viewpoints coming into play. What that led me to think about was I wish more clinics, workplaces, generally clinics, specifically, because that's what I'm involved in, could also have that respect, that consideration for mature veterinarians and mature nurses, even though they came through vet school at A time that was significantly different. Learning about meds, that and treatment styles that were significantly different to the kids that are coming through now. There's still balance.

Julie South [00:30:06]:
And mature veterinarians, mature employees, bring a whole bunch of value that I think sadly gets disregarded or discounted.

Dr. Helen Beattie [00:30:20]:
Yeah, I, or even if not that, then the inverse, which is not valued for what it is, is maybe where it's at because. Yeah, I mean, so we had some older students in our class and that was super focused. And you know, some of the really high achievers, they totally knew what they wanted. They were there, they were engaged. Like, you know, hope my dad doesn't listen to this. I remember a couple of times, you know, sleeping in class, just, you know, it's very hard being a student. You know, like I say, I, I turn up and you can, you know, lectures are all recorded, you can do. You can watch them online later on.

Dr. Helen Beattie [00:30:56]:
But I find there's so much more value in going and sitting in class and, and being there. And, you know, then you're able to ask questions too. And I, I think like, when I look around the class, I'm always surprised that we have a test and suddenly the classic doubles in size because a whole bunch of students are actually learning by distance essentially because they're, you know, they're catching up on recordings afterwards. So it's a little bit that, you know, like that the, the old adage, you know, you get out what you put in, and I certainly feel like I'm getting my, my money's worth as far as going along and maximizing, maximizing my experience of, of learning. I think that the, the maturity, like the bringing the additional skills thing, it's, it's a really interesting part of the conversation because I don't feel like when I graduate I'm going to be competing for jobs in the same way that the other students are. Right? Like, you wouldn't employ me because I'm the, the, the A plus, straight A plus student in the class. You'd employ me because I'm who I am and I have, you know, five decades of experience and have done these other things like it, it. It is a, it is a really different, different skillset can of ways.

Dr. Helen Beattie [00:32:09]:
I've been caught out a couple of times doing, doing assessments which luckily weren't worth anything, but, you know, bringing my skills and knowledge and other learning to the assessments that I've put in. And they're like, what you've said is true, but we're not interested. I'm like, but hang on A minute. I put up a really good argument around some other aspect of the animal welfare law that I knew about. Search and seizure, actually with search and seizure and like. Yeah, no, no, but we just want you to focus just on the bit that we've taught you. I was like, oh, of course you do. You know, like, I, I genuinely, I didn't think, I wasn't doing it to be a smart ass.

Dr. Helen Beattie [00:32:41]:
I just did it because I was like, I know how this piece works and you can't do that because I've did it. And of course, you know, if you're 18 or 19, you have no idea about that. And, and I, I came away with a really bad, it was only, it wasn't worth anything but a bad grade. And I went, oh, okay. Note to self, must think more like an 18 year old, you know, like, I was like, it's really hard to do once you've, you've got a whole bunch of other information in there to go that you sort of feel like you're cutting yourself short, going, well, I can answer what you want me to answer, but that's only 75% of what you, you know, what, what, what you know and what I know. Yeah, so that, that's been, that's been an interesting thing. Think like an 18 year old. Just focus on the question.

Dr. Helen Beattie [00:33:21]:
Don't go beyond.

Julie South [00:33:22]:
Read the question.

Julie South [00:33:24]:
What do they want to know?

Dr. Helen Beattie [00:33:25]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Julie South [00:33:26]:
I've had a ball listening, catching up with you. Thank you. Is there anything else that you'd like to say before we wrap up?

Dr. Helen Beattie [00:33:34]:
I don't know who your listenership is then, Julie, so I will say, don't give cats and dogs for Christmas. They're not presents. If there's a parting shot, a companion animal is for life, not just for Christmas.

Julie South [00:33:46]:
That's right, yeah, yeah.

Dr. Helen Beattie [00:33:47]:
So the dots don't shop.

Julie South [00:33:49]:
It's like another child, isn't it?

Dr. Helen Beattie [00:33:51]:
It is.

Julie South [00:33:56]:
Thank you for listening. Thank you for supporting veterinary voices by listening. This show wouldn't still be going Strong with over 200 episodes if not for your ears. So from me to you, thank you. Wherever you are in the world. Merry Christmas. Whatever you're up to, please stay safe on the roads, in the skies and on the water. Here's to wishing you the absolute best for 2025.

Julie South [00:34:29]:
I look forward to spending time again with you next year. This is Julie south signing off for the very last time in 2024 and inviting you to go out there and be your most fantabulous self. Until next week. Until next year. Kaketi.