Hello, it's Anthony Chadwick for the Webinar vet, and welcome to another episode of Vet Chat, the UK's number one veterinary podcast. I'm really pleased today to have Sandra Dawson and Jasmine Chan on the line, who both work for Nationwide Laboratories who've also sponsored this podcast. We're gonna be talking a little bit about Pathology, it's such an important discipline within the veterinary profession and also why it's something that's at least worth considering as a career option as well.
But I think before we start that, Sandra, it'd be lovely, for you to introduce yourself to, to the audience and then also Jasmine after, after you, Sandra. Yes, hello everybody, my name is Sandra Dawson. And I am an anatomic veterinary pathologist for nationwide laboratories.
I have been there for about 18 years. I, look at biopsies from mostly dogs and cats, but, we get all sorts of different species in, including equines and zoo animals. And I.
Tend to look at the biopsies and, and the cytology, side of things. I trained as a vet at Glasgow University, and I did a residency in veterinary pathology at the Dick vet in Edinburgh, so I have a foot in both camps. I was in mixed practise for a time, and, then I wanted to specialise in something.
I wasn't quite sure what. But I, I wanted really to be available to, to look at more species. I didn't have a particular bent for, for being an equine vet or a small animal vet.
And, this residency was advertised, in the vet record for a resident in vein pathology in Edinburgh, and I went for it and I have not looked back since. I've really enjoyed being in this career. You also, I think you're a STEM STEM ambassador as well, so maybe just explain what that is, Sandra.
Yes, yes. So STEM stands for science, technology, engineering and maths. And it's all about promoting those subjects, particularly in schools, but with the wider public as well, and looking at all of those as career options, all of those.
Subjects as potential career options and trying to encourage people to take up a career in science, technology, engineering or maths. And my job is to go around schools. I go to community events, youth groups, that kind of thing.
And, and just talk about my career and what I do, and try and inspire people to, to go into one of those subjects as a career choice. And Sandra, you've you've collected degrees as well because of course you did an animal science degree first at Aberdeen, didn't you? Yes, that's right.
So I, I was one of those school children who was inspired by James Harriet and always wanted to be a vet. I didn't quite get the grades from school and I finished up doing an animal science degree at Aberdeen University, which was a really great place to study. I made lots of friends there.
I had a really good time, really enjoyed it and I got my honours degree in animal science. When I finished that, it was, we were in a bit of a a recession. And I wasn't quite sure where to go next, whether to do a PhD or take up a job or a master's or something.
And at that time, Glasgow vet school were taking on a small number of mature students into the veinary degrees, and I applied and got in, and that's that's how I got that route. So with that agricultural background and my veinary degree. I really thought that I would maybe finish up working for Scottish agricultural College or something that was, that was where I was planning to go.
And so it's quite a surprise to find myself here at Nationwide Laboratories. And now I think presumably living close to nationwide, so in in Lancashire or yes. No, no, nationwide Laboratories was one of the very first laboratories in 2006 to offer a job working from home, which just seemed bizarre at that time.
But I had, I had a family and my husband had just got another job and, and they offered me this job working from home. And so I was working from, I've been working from home since 2006. And, actually, no, my husband's job's taken us around the country.
We are now based in Lancaster, and I am able to work as a hybrid worker now, so I do actually go on site a couple of days a week, and spend some more time working from home. Yeah. And it is actually nice to get into the office, isn't it, because I think we've had 4 years, you know, since the pandemic broke and actually.
People I think are slowly slowly moving back. Into sort of a hybrid type situation or like. I, I think it is important to establish those network connections, definitely.
As a pathologist, you can do a lot of work from home and be very effective. But I think it's good if you possibly can. To be able to go in and meet with the guys in the lab who are processing all your samples, and it's so much easier to do that in person than to just communicate via Teams or or email or whatever.
So it's really nice to be able to go in and see them and also nice to go in and see our our trainees and and to be able to come in and spend some time with Jasmine a couple of days a week as well, which is one of the other things. Be able to look at slides and Have a conversation around them rather than it just be one person, I think it's powerful, isn't it? It's, it's really powerful.
I mean, the digital pathology that we have now has has brought that on leaps and bounds. But again, even just to be in the same room with someone and sit and chat around cases and things, just like you would in practise if you had a difficult case, and you would come and sit down with another member, another colleague and chat about it and that's what we do when we're on site. Obviously, Jasmine, lovely to meet you as well, fellow veterinarian.
Tell us a little bit about yourself. Yeah, so I'm Jasmine Chan. Hello everyone.
So I originally come from Hong Kong, so came to the UK to study veterinary medicine. I graduated in 2019 from Royal Veterinary College. During my university, I did do an intercalation pathology here.
So I spent an extra year, to learn more about pathology. So in, in that year, I really got myself into, pathology and, kind of, that's where my interest, of pathology started. Then I spent, after graduation, I spent 4 years in practise, mainly as a small animal vet.
So, similar to Sandra, I felt like, I would, I wanted to be specialised in something and get really good at one subjects rather than trying to do a lot of things, but not really, good at, what we do, like, you know, for everything. So, and then I also would really like to find out more about how I can help animals in terms of like, getting. The diagnosis, and then, to, help with treatment planning and all of that.
So I think it's just the ego of finding out an answer really makes me want to train, get trained to be a, a pathologist. And then, yeah, so I was, I, I didn't really like plan to go directly, into, a commercial lab because I was also Looking at other options, such as studying at university as a resident, but then, I, I felt like the benefits of being in a commercial lab here is I get to, work in a commercial diagnostic environment, which of, you know, if I study at university, it, it is a different environment more for academics. So, this is actually would Benefits more, when, when it comes to, working in the real kind of like done commercial, yeah, workplace.
So I feel like this is going to be an amazing opportunity for me to get trained to a reasonable standard and level. And so, apart from Sandra, I also have really great supervisors and other pathologists that I constantly kind of bother them. Yeah, yeah, because, it, it is really cool to have a team that not like they won't judge you and they won't really think you are, kind of like wasting their time, they're always very patient and, yeah, and very helpful.
And yeah, so, I think it's a really good to, it's really good thing to have such a great team that basically a stress-free learning environment for me. I think you've set up the room very well. It's always good to see a pathologist with a microscope as well.
Yeah, yeah, it's great on my desk. And you're also, I think with that, as you both are with general practise experience, so things like cytology. I must admit I, I don't really .
Practise anymore now, but I have got a, a colleague dog or a friend's dog who's got a bad ear and I did dermatology, so I'm going to my local practise today to see this dog and do a bit of cytology, so it'll take me back in time for malahesia and whatever else I'll find. I mean, how does the day work out for for both of you, obviously working at home and, you know, within the, the laboratory. Do you have anything that we could call a typical day and how does that sort of pan out?
Yeah, I think it's very different, going into the lab. So I, I arranged to go into the lab two days a week, Monday and Friday. And the reason behind that is because, as you probably remember, the weekend's always a busy time.
Our people are always worried about. Urgent cases over weekends coming up either on a Friday or coming off the weekend on a Monday. So I think it's nice to be there if anything comes through urgently, I'm, I'm on site to help deal with it.
That said, I don't get too many cases done in those days because once you're in and you, you spend that really valuable time speaking to people and helping to train Jasmine, a lot of it is face to face. So I regard those two days as my sort of networking days, meetings, days, organising days. The rest of the week, I try and get a focused time to really get through cases and look at cases.
So I will probably log on quite early in the morning because that's a nice time to get a lot of cases done before the sort of all the requests and things of the days come through that that you then have to deal with. So that that tends to be how how my days work. Yeah.
And how are you finding Jasmine, are you what what's a sort of normal standard day for you? Yeah, so currently I am fully on site. So, yeah, I have been shadowing technicians and learning how they run the different sample, prepare the different samples, because they are really important to learn as a resident.
Yeah, try to learn different methods of running the samples. Myself is a little bit different to Sandra because I am actually training to be a clinical pathologist and Sandra is a Qualified anatomical pathologist. So my daily kind of task is, would mainly be focusing on clinical pathology, such as, you know, haematology, biochemistry, and, yeah, which, you know, Assandra now is, spending more time with me on cytology.
So I'm working on that. Yes, so, other urine analysis, microbiology also lies, under. So, It is a little bit different.
My everyday work now is doing a bit of reporting and starting to get better in writing some comments in some of the reports, but then, yeah, for something that I'm still currently establishing and working on, my reports will always get checked by a qualified pathologist just to make sure the quality is OK and my mistakes. And not just go out and be reported. So, that is just, important.
And yeah, as a resident, I, I think it's really good to always have a reassurance to say, oh, this is, what do you think, Sandra, what do you think, about my comments? And yeah, it's learning from the feedback and, in some cases, learning from the mistakes I make, is also, yeah, important and make me improve over time. Mistakes are never really failures, they're just different ways of learning, aren't they, because, you know, you learn that something doesn't work, then that makes you not do it in the future.
So I think it's it's really great. It sounds like the two of you have a good relationship supporting each other, obviously in slightly different roles. How do you think, Sandra, you know, that whole area of education has changed?
You obviously trained as a pathologist in the, in the 90s. Jasmine now doing it in the, in 2020s. What, what's, what do you see different from the way that training is being done now for Jasmine than perhaps you had when you were a pathologist training?
I, I think the route of training is really different. Anthony, when, when I started my residency, there was only sort of one route to get professional qualification in pathology, and that was the Royal College of pathologists. So you finish up as as a Royal College of pathologists fellow and and our CVS so you have those, those two things.
Now we have that plus the American board qualifications and the European board qualifications. So the first thing a resident needs to do or a trainee needs to do is to decide. Which and how many of those qualifications they want I think there's a lot more structure to how to train for those exams.
I think there's a lot more structure available. Obviously, in the 90s, I didn't have a lot of internet. So you know, there's a lot more digital and web-based things that you can do.
And for me, when I was training, I I was at the vet school in Edinburgh. I was on the pathology floor and just standing next to the person who was doing the job and gradually over 3 years taking over that job myself. I think now there's an awful lot more interactive web-based things you can do courses you can attend, and a bigger community as well.
And you can get to see and hear a lot of other trainees as well. And on top of that, I think there's a lot more detailed pressure as well. So the more knowledge that's out there, the more knowledge you feel you have to learn.
So I think that increases the pressure. So Jasmine not only does her days work with us, but those exams are looming as well, and she's doing a lot of extra studying as well. How do you both, you know, as different generations of veterinary surgeons, how do you sort of see The future, you know, developing for pathology because the, the digital images that you get now are amazing, aren't they?
And, and this ability to work remotely, you know, possibly we couldn't have done 2030 years ago in the sense of sharing, you know, the images, it, it makes life, it has made life so much easier, hasn't it? It's made my life massively easier. When I started working from home, the glass slides were posted out to me.
But it meant that if I wanted a second opinion, I had to either post that glass laid back to somebody or I had to telephone them and describe what I was seeing over the phone and discuss the case over the phone. Now we can jump on to Teams or Zoom or whatever, and we can in real time, talk about the case with anyone. All over the world.
And I think the future of that obviously is going to be moving on using that for artificial intelligence, using that for tools to, you know, adding more information, give the clients more value for their pathology specimen, try and get as much information out of that specimen as we possibly can for them so that they don't have to go back and take more samples or, you know, I think that's going to be the way forward. Jasmine might have another view. How do you see the future panning out?
Yeah, that is quite similar to, to Sandra, but going back to, how you said you used to get all the slides posted to you, yeah, I, I actually can't even imagine myself having to read the glass here and then don't know what I'm seeing, and then, have to really like when you don't know what you see and then you still need to describe it and then post it to a second person, and then it would have a massive. Delay. So now, obviously with the technology, everything like its processing speed can be massively reduced and then we get people at different time zones will also be able to help in different geo geographic location and also jump in to help, yeah, and it really adds on to the values, yeah, especially for people still training and actually constantly needing some advice and guidance on.
Reading cytology. So, I, I think this is definitely like, I, I, I can see, digital imaging would become more and more widely used. So, obviously for the artificial intelligence side, there are more and more papers and articles about it.
It would still be quite a long process until we get to a reasonable, reliable, standard, but, yeah, I, I. I probably quite positive to to see it might actually come into a place to be quite useful in the future, but currently, obviously more work will still need to be done and work on to establish a reliable way. I think we've saved Jasmine from the horror of The multi-header microscope as well.
So sick on the multiheader, that's how I trained was was sitting at a seven seater multi-header. And if you weren't feeling the best that day, it was not, it wasn't a good place to be if someone was in charge. It's far, far easier sitting with someone on a digital screen.
Moving slides around and making you feel a bit dizzy. Yes. Depends on the driver, I would imagine.
If the driver is slow and steady. Jasmine, you obviously did your pathology intercalation degree. And then you went out into practise.
Was there a possibility that you would stay in practise or what made you come back into the lab and try to be a clinical pathologist? Yeah, so, yeah, I actually decided at some point I would want to get further training into clinical pathology. Actually, maybe I didn't specifically, decided on clinical side.
It is in general practise and I, I realised my interest lies. More on the clinical aspect of diagnostic. So I think the 4 years of being in general practise, I realised I often kind of pay more attention to the diagnostics side rather than finding the treatment planning.
Yeah, interesting. Yeah, and the clients, you know, communication or like the clinical examination, I kind of sci is just, I felt like I was just doing the job, but I didn't find it as satisfying as, able to, being able to find out an answer, for the, to make a, diagnosis. So that is why I Decided to pursue this route here to get trained as a clinical pathologist.
And I think it's, it's good, you know, both of you did some. Best opinion practise before you went into working in the lab, because early on in my career, I kind of saw pathologists as gods. And so I presumed everything they sent out would be solid and 100% and right.
But I, what I didn't realise was the pathologists weren't seeing the animal. So actually working as a team is, is so important, isn't it, that you know that if something doesn't add up with a pathology sample, that the vet is coming back and saying, but it was like this, that extra bit of information that you get may be really important to maybe change that diagnosis. I'm thinking about things like.
Lymphoma, you know, certainly looking at those under, you know, under the microscope, is that lymphoma or is that a reactive lymphocyte? These are the sort of grey areas that We often two heads is better than one, isn't it? It, it definitely is.
I think if you've been in practise, when you receive that slide or that image or that result on your desk, it's quite easy to imagine being there in the practise with all the business and all the stress that's going on. And you look at the submission form and if you've been in practise, you can kind of imagine the scenario behind it a little bit. So when you're reading that submission form and you're reading that slide or you're reading interpreting that result that's come through, you can do it with hindsight of of being in practise yourself and thinking.
What are the questions that I still need to ask if this diagnosis isn't definitive on this report or in this slide, what are the questions that I still need to ask the practitioner? In order to get heading at least down the correct road for them to provide the right treatment plan, and it's also accepting that not everything's straightforward, it's not all black and white, so, we, we greatly encourage practitioners to bring us up both before and after. They they're thinking about dealing with this case.
So before they're dealing, maybe before they're going to attempt to excise a mass, and they're not quite sure how to do it or what margins to take, it's absolutely fine to call us up and talk to us about that before they proceed with the surgery, so that that sample arrives at us in the best possible condition and with the best possible history and that we can give them. The correct advice. And then after the event, like you said yourself, if you get a report that doesn't quite add up, to feel free to call us up and say, actually things have progressed since we sent you the sample, you know, it's responded to treatment, but you're telling me it might be malignant, you know, that sort of thing.
It's really helpful to us, yeah. And I suppose again with technology . Trying to send a picture, 1020 years ago was really difficult.
It's much easier now to send pictures of lesions along with love to see digital images, yeah. Digital images, videos, CT images, scans, anything like that at all is really, really helpful. Yes, yeah.
And the technology has moved on with that as well. Yeah. You get all of this, all of this information coming in now, there's lots more information to work on them maybe when .
Then then in earlier days should we say? Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, I think it is good because the benefits of everything moving on to digital is I only need one electronic device and then I have got 30 books on it. Which versus, probably for Sandra, I, I, you probably used to have the entire room full of different editions, yeah, and all the different books, and then if you, if you're travelling somewhere, then you, yeah, you will have to pick your favourite book. Yeah, but now I don't because I just carry my reading device and I have got.
30 books I can read on anytime. Yeah. So, that, that is really different.
I guess going back on to taking pictures and, and things, we still see, sometimes that people would connection would draw a mass on the clinical history. Some of them are really useful, actually, but there's some of them are, are quite, you know, you have to imagine. That is a must.
Yeah, yeah, which I, because I really can't draw, but now with the technology, yeah, we, we can, everyone has a smartphone, so, that really makes it so much easier, because I can't really imagine myself having to draw a, a mask I'm seeing, yeah, on the, on the paper. Yeah, so. Just maybe to, to finish off, obviously, .
Jasmine, you're working at Nationwide now. How, how have they been at supporting you and helping you to develop, you know, within the profession? Yeah.
So, I am, constantly exposed to real, cases, which I can, learn from reports, yeah, and ask questions from a lot of different people, yeah, and when Sandra is here, we always talk about different cases and discuss about, you know, what could be done differently, you know, what question we want to, get from the, clinicians, etc. So, So that is all, very useful. And we also do, routine journal clubs and that, to, read about different journals and learn from each other.
I think learning from each other is a, a really good thing, you know, important thing for us to, to, to do. It might be a bit strange because I'm still a trainee, but, yeah, I, I also have, other fellow trainee as well. Yeah, one of them is on mortality, but, yeah, we constantly ask each other questions and see, you know, if, if I'm not sure about something, I will see less, yeah, whether she knows the answer.
If both of us don't know the answer, then definitely we need to ask an adult what that is. And I think peer learning is, is really powerful because as you say you can each . Ideas and things and.
Collaboration in in all forms of veterinary medicine, you know, that incredibly important partnership which we talked about between the vets and the pathologists, clinical or anatomical, I, I think it's really vital, and you know, just appreciating both of you for all the great work you do, you know, in the veterinary profession, it's, it's, we would be lost without our pathologists. We'd be lost without our clinicians. I don't think Sandra, it must be interesting for you to have residence because that keeps you on your toes as well, doesn't it?
11 of the great things about working for Nationwide is is having a particularly trainees because they will, they will ask the questions and sometimes it's quite embarrassing because they'll ask a question and you'll think, well, why didn't I ask that question? Why, why don't I know that, but we can find out together. And one of the great things about having experience now is being able to pass it on.
I, I don't think you can, you can work in the veterinary profession, learn and have all that experience and then keep it to yourself. It's not a good legacy. I don't think so.
I, I really enjoy passing, passing that on. And, and, and what I would really like to do now is, particularly with the competitions and marketing investigations is to try and work with clinicians to get as much information out of the samples that they take so that they can provide pet owners with as much information as they possibly can. And that's, you know, that our clients have already paid for their tests.
So let's give them. You know that's value from that's something that we can really do for vets that are really under pressure just now is to try and give our clients some, you know, the value for the the samples that they send in. I think one of our blessings, but it's a curse as well is that people don't realise how cheap veterinary medicine is compared with.
Human medicine, you know, sending samples off, we have the NHS, but the actual cost of that sample or if you go private, you begin to see how good value we are. I think, I mean, I love the NHS as much as anyone, but I think a curse for the veterinary profession has been the NHS and that that disconnect between receiving treatment, and, and not thinking that you're paying for it. Of course, you're paying for it.
We're all paying for it, but there's, it's just not seeing that down in black and white. And as soon as you do see it down in black and white in a veterinary consultation. It comes as a bit of a shock, yeah.
Well, similar to the webinar that, you know, I think if we want to encourage the veterinary profession to be lifelong learners, and I think most of us are, I think once you stop learning, you've kind of given up on your profession a little bit, haven't you? That's why we have to do the 35 hours. So it's great to see so much, good work happening at nationwide.
Great to see, Jasmine as a new member coming through in the pathology ranks as well. I look forward to, seeing how you progress, Jasmine, and, again, lovely to to chat to you, Sandra. So, thanks again, thanks everyone for listening.
If any of you are out there thinking about pathology as a potential career in veterinary medicine, then you would do no worse than to get in contact with Jasmine or Sandra, who I'm sure would be very happy to talk you through the different ways that you could get involved in that particular arm of the profession. So thanks again, thanks to nationwide for for sponsoring the podcast and it's been a lovely chat, it's always good to talk to. To you, so I hope you have a great rest of the day.
Thank you, Antony, thank you. And thanks everyone for listening and hopefully we will see you on a podcast or a webinar very soon. Take care and have a great day, bye bye.
