Vetnuus | November 2023 20 « BACK TO CONTENTS Sunny South Africa to The Grey UK About two years ago, the man in my life and I made the decision to make the move to the United Kingdom a move so many of my classmates made the day they received their degree. Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed we landed in the UK about six months after and started our life here. We have realised that life is so very different to what we’re used to back home and even more so than the picture we had in our heads of what it would be like. Being a vet here is a blessing but also one of the harder things I have done in my life. Not everyone may agree with my experience here but I thought I’d share some insights of life as a vet on Mud Island in the hope to inspire and provide some insight (in the lightest way possible) into this grand adventure that so many young vets take. To give you some background, I have not been a vet for very long (2018 graduate) and still have an enormous amount to learn. I do not pretend to know all I need to know to be the best vet I can be but I am grateful for the amazing education and knowledge that I gained during my years at Onderstepoort and realise daily that we received world-class training. After I started my career like all ‘modern’ new grads – a year of Compulsory Community Service, I settled in a small town small animal practice. Soon I was offered an opportunity through a family friend to come over to the UK and pursue a career here. Before, the work consisted of only small companion animal work and mostly in a small town setting with minimal to no support staff. We made do with who we had but the change in the UK was certainly an ‘upgrade’. To say that we do things differently from the English is an understatement. I would like to highlight a few differences and hopefully shed a little light for those who are considering taking the leap. I will also discuss some similarities and will aim to put a smile on your face in the coming paragraphs. Clients in the UK seem overall less educated or informed on all things medical. It is a massive challenge some days to explain simple medical concepts and even more so to get complex points across when ‘kidney’ is a foreign word. A basic understanding of biology is not so evident and explaining that brother and sister cats can make babies becomes a common conversation in our consult rooms. Now, I am not saying South Africans are all amazingly intelligent and every medical conversation is easy-going but I have noticed a definite difference in the general population (or maybe it is just where I find myself now). I have had difficult and jaw-dropping conversations with Saffas over a consult table as well but in general, I remember far fewer difficult conversations due to lack of vocabulary or information in our home country. UK clients tend to treat their pets more like children than they do their own kids. We have seen dog, cat and bunny strollers (with dangling mobiles included), backpacks with small windows for your cat to peer at the world, jerseys and raincoats to match each season and the list goes on and on. Consults are booked for reasons that could be solved by logic alone (a pet having worms is considered urgent) if people only realised that pets will be pets, taking away precious time for those truly in need. This also makes By: Dr Uldri van der Merwe A (temporary) emigrator’s take on all things great and small Being the adult in the room
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