VN October 2020

Vetnuus |Oktober 2020 4 Green. One cannot help to see green during the early part of spring. What is more beautiful than the bright green of the fresh leaves on the shoots of a budding willow tree? Or the green of grass sprouting from the back of a burnt field? The green intermingled with the yellow of the flowers of a thorn tree (sadly, no longer Acacias , but now Vachellias and Senegalias – am still struggling to get used to the changes). Mixed in are the greens of the many other indigenous and exotic trees. Later, ploughed fields will see a shading of green when crops start to grow. No artist’s colour palette contains nearly as many shades of green as the palette so lavishly used by our Creator when he painted the environment around us. We say that a person is “green” when she/he enters a new life- stage. You are green when you go to school for the first time, or when you start your first year at university. Also, when you start your first job, or a new job. We all expect new graduates to be full of knowledge, but low on experience (although I do think that some of our colleagues forget that they, too, had a lot to learn when they entered practice). What we forget is that there are as many shades of green amongst our new colleagues as there are in nature around us. Some new colleagues are a very tender green, like fresh leaves on a willow tree and need lots of support to build confidence. Others represent the same willow leaves, but well into spring, now a darker shade of green, still in need of guidance, but quicker to settle in. Then there is the very small group who compare to the dark green of an evergreen tree, with more confidence and capabilities than most and ready to do it all. In between you will find all the many other shades of green. New graduates, our new colleagues, need to be nurtured. The tender green ones need more soft attention and nourishment. Some, on the other end of the scale of green, might need some talking too (like shaping a fast but wildly growing shrub) to prevent them from being too bold. But they all need guidance and direction. Allowing students to see practice with you has the same challenges. Even more so, as some students will not have had much opportunity to practice their skills, especially when a new class starts clinical rotations. At this stage, some of them will represent a green so light that it is almost transparent. No two people are the same. Do not fall into that trap of comparing those who are more competent on day one to those who are more insecure. All we need to realise and consider each time we see another student or another new graduate, is that they are green – lacking experience – and that the green comes in many different hues. v Regards, From the Editor Reflections from a DamWall Paul van Dam