LIFE OF A DAY IN THE
PETER HAWORTH VET, NEW ERA VETERINARY HOSPITAL
The madness starts just before 06.00 a.m. when I get up and head onto the North Coast for a 1/2 hour cliff hike with my three Springer spaniels; it’s lovely in the summer, but done by head torch in the winter which at least wakes me up. This is followed by breakfast with my three year old daughter, while the wife heads out to feed the twelve runner ducks, six hens and two rabbits. We then switch the child cover and I feed the parrot and ensure he has a T.V. to watch in the winter or put him out into his aviary in the summer.
I get to work just before 08.00 a.m. and see how the land lies. First I need to check what has stayed in over night in the hospital and call the owners to update them. Depending on the day, I will either be on Ops from 08.30 a.m., or starting just over 2 hours of consultations, 15 mins each. Ops days are my favourite and I plan what order to do them in. It can vary from a routine lump removal, to the more challenging open chest surgery, to broken bones and torn ligaments.
I hold a Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons certificate in Small Animal Surgery and I am recognised as an Advanced Practitioner (I believe the only person to hold this in the Channel Islands), this doesn't make me a specialist but it means there are some surgeries that I can do that general vets cannot. One of my favourite operations is a Tibial Plateau Levelling Osteotomy or TPLO; it involves repairing a broken cruciate ligament in a dog. It is a dynamic stabilisation and involves cutting the tibia and re-aligning it with a plate and six or eight screws. It demands a high level of expertise and is one of the surgeries that the famous ‘Supervet’ does.
The day can get turned upside down by the arrival of emergencies. While we have a vet designated to cover this throughout the day and night - they can get busy and sometimes I end up helping out. Sadly we see a lot of cancer in dogs and sometimes tumours can suddenly bleed necessitating immediate surgery. This will often play havoc with the rest of the day’s schedule, but we always ensure the animals’ needs come first.
Lunch is something that vets in general never get, or are taken during a spare five minute pee break, but if we do then fruit and a protein shake gets me through the day.
Late in the afternoon, I will often do a consulting session and each 15 minute appointment is always interesting and varies from a health check and vaccine, to a lame dog or vomiting cat. Even the apparently innocuous vaccine can
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