Hello, everybody. And welcome back to vet chat On today's episode, I'm delighted to be joined by a brand new guest doctor Bronwyn Orr. And this is gonna be a great conversation as she shares her thoughts around the evolution of veterinary teams and shaping the future of the profession.
So really excited to get into this podcast. But before we get started, let me tell you a little bit about our guests today. Bronwyn is an Australian veterinarian passionate about animal welfare, veterinary workforce matters and advocacy.
She was the youngest ever president of the Australian Veterinary Association. She was awarded a Churchill fellowship in 2023 to investigate overseas workforce programmes that get vets where they need to be. She runs Australia's first urgent care veterinary clinic and more recently took over the running of Cassel held in Cambridge.
Every year, I hope I said that right wrongly. She currently works with the A VA in the newly created role of senior manager of government relations. She is the chief medical officer at Vet Novo and is working with Southern Cross University to establish a new veterinary degree in Australia.
So welcome, Browny. Thank you. So much for being here today.
Thank you for having me. It's my pleasure. So to get started.
Should we discuss the role of veterinary teams And how you think it's evolved? Over recent years, please. Yeah, absolutely.
Just a little, you know, small, miniscule topic to get us started. Yeah. Look, I think, I think veterinary teams have I mean, for starters, veterinarians have never been, you know, loan ships in the night.
There's always been people helping veterinarians. And, you know, perhaps the name for them has changed, you know, assistance and and that sort of thing. But veterinarians have always had, people helping them.
And while, you know, we know plenty of vets who, particularly in mixed practise, farm animal practise, will go off on their own, you know, to do house calls and that sort of thing on their own. Same with small animal practise. I think we can all agree that we work best when we work in a team.
And that's for a lot of different reasons. But, YY you can't be all things to all people. And you can't do all things at the same time, and and you need to have that complimentary approach.
So, in terms of where we're going, I think it's really interesting space because, firstly, I should just get out of the way that I'm from Australia. As you can probably tell before my accent, and we have a very different system. We do have We have veterinary nurses, and they're absolutely core and crucial to our teams.
But unlike the UK and the US, they're not a legally recognised profession. So they're not registered. Except for the state of Western Australia.
So, it does mean that we have veterinary nurses that have a really wide scope of education and experience. You know, a sort of a tafe certificate, which is, sort of, not university, but more trade school. That's kind of considered the standard qualification.
Although we have people with, you know, bachelor of, veterinary technology degrees, all the way through to people who don't have credentials. But have you know, extensive experience and on the job experience. So, for us, it's, we're all talking about the same thing.
We're all talking about, You know, veterinary nurses, paraprofessionals, veterinary technicians and assistants. But it is just important to know that each country kind of classifies them slightly differently. And then, obviously, you know, talking about the UK in the US, it is also different there.
They have much more stratified positions. And they are also, you know, register so their their veterinary technicians are registered, and then they have veterinary assistants and and that sort of thing. So But either way, you know, we we have these teams in veterinary medicine because we know that, we deliver the best care for patients.
We get the best outcomes when we work together as a team. And that's purely because, I mean, you just have to look at the human healthcare system. I mean, can you imagine if we had our hospitals just run by doctors?
I mean, it would be ridiculous. It would be an absolute circus. I can say that because my husband is a doctor, but, you know, they they absolutely rely on allied health professionals, occupational therapists, physiotherapists and nurses to run it.
I mean, if you get admitted to a human hospital or say, a broken arm or something like that. You might see a doctor for less than 3% of your total time there, everyone else is gonna be allied health professionals, paraprofessionals nurses, that sort of thing. And I think in vet medicine, we're actually, we're a little bit, perhaps, behind the times, I think, and particularly in Australia.
But I know a lot of clinics run like this where the vets still largely do a huge amount of the work, including stuff that should probably be done by the nurses and techs. So in Australia, for example, it's not un common that the vets will, you know, do a consult. Then they'll take the patient out the back.
They will draw the blood themselves. They will run the blood. You know, then they might do a urinalysis, and and so they're doing all these things which, don't get me wrong.
It's fun to do technical skills to practise your technical skills, But, we have people around us who are very qualified and who can do those things. And I think we really need to lean on them and something I wanted to talk about is that, it's not just an efficiency thing. It's also career satisfaction.
You know, we know we have high rates of attrition for both veterinary nurses, veterinary technicians as well as veterinarians. And I think particularly for our paraprofessional staff, you know, a big part of that is probably not being able to practise to the, within their clinical scope, being able to practise to the limits of their, qualifications and experience. I think that gives you satisfaction.
And if you're not able to do that, that can be very frustrating. But I'd love to hear your thoughts on that as well. Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, I think, it's interesting in the UK. I think it sounds like we do lean on the wider team much more than what you're describing, but yeah, I mean, I think Do you do you think in Australia it's changed a lot over recent years. Like, have you noticed a change of the teams and how they're all kind of working?
Yeah, absolutely. And I think I think it's a cultural thing more than anything. It's not like our nurses have suddenly developed skills that they didn't have before.
It's more about this cultural acceptance of, Well, what is it that a vet only a vet can do, right? And it's, diagnosing. It's prescribing.
And it's surgery, you know that. That's kind of it. Everything else can be done by, you know, qualified and trained staff.
You know that that are sort of assisting. And so I think, culturally, that's changing. Certainly with the rise of Corporates.
They, you know, obviously, maximum efficiencies is their sort of flavour. And so they certainly are relying more on the teams. But I do think in Australia we have a situation where, you know, our our nurses don't have a divine scope of practise.
And I think that's that's definitely the next step. So we're we're kind of at the point where, we're not too far off mandatory registration at the moment. It's voluntary.
But mandatory registration is gonna come in, and with registration comes scope of practise, and I think that's that's really important defining it because there is that nervousness, I think from some vets about, delegating responsibility. And, you know, it's a It's a trust thing as well, I suppose. Certainly in Australia.
If you're the veterinarian who's on you're legally responsible for all the advice. And, you know, acts that are performed, in the clinic by the sort of support staff. So the receptionist who answers the phone and gives you know, advice over the phone, the the nurse who's, perhaps you know, doing induction of anaesthesia?
That's all on you. And obviously there's there's differences in in terms of, people's comfort with that and, comfort in each other's skills. But But I think that's that's just an evolution that will that will come to be.
I think I think everyone having their own registration is such an important step. Because that really does build a lot of trust and and and kind of, I guess, alleviate some of that, concern that some vets might have. It's not your licence on the line.
It's other people's licence on the line. And yeah, I think I think it's a really positive thing. I like to think that the veterinary, nursing and veterinary technician professions are kind of like where human registered nurses used to be, maybe 5060 years ago.
You know, like they you look at human nurses now and, you know, widely respected profession, and they have their own scope of practise, and they can go on and become nurse practitioners and stuff. You know, there there's now mid-level professionals, and there's all these things, that's there for them. But that's that's an evolution of a time that didn't just suddenly happen.
If you look back 5070 years ago, nurses were trained up on the wards, and they didn't have university experience, and there was like an apprenticeship model. So yeah, it's it's different. But I think it's a positive thing.
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Actually, it's really interesting. Delegation and trust. And you know how the key things that can, you know, make a huge difference.
In terms of veterinary teams, are there any other, points you'd like to mention around teamwork. And how important you think you know that is to shape the future of veterinary practise. Yeah, I think, I, I think like what I was saying before is just, I guess, recognising everyone's role in the team.
And respecting that. I mean, I think good teams can't function without mutual respect. Everyone needs to, appreciate what everyone else does.
I am a big believer in, in positivity. And I don't mean that from, like, a let's pretend everything's great and ignore all the bad things, but try to approach, you know, situations with, with grace and and with positivity. So, you know, assume the best not assume the worst.
And this is particularly important, I think, with teamwork, because it's really easy. Particularly when you have, say, for example, really busy hospitals or multiple shifts in a hospital that you can have teams that don't work together all the time. And without having that really close affiliation, you can get miscommunications and and all sorts of things, which really erodes that that trust and respect.
And so I certainly for my own clinic, I I definitely encourage people to, yeah, try try to approach things. Give everyone the benefit of the doubt. You know, and you know, if there are genuine mistakes, that's fine.
We all make mistakes. Trying to kind of I, I guess, establish that culture. But everyone, everyone approaches it differently.
Every team is different, and I think that's important, too. It's hugely dependent on the individuals within the team as to the dynamics. You can't just, you know, take a corporate philosophy or or something that you learned in business school about how an ideal team should be and then just impose that on a group of people.
It it genuinely doesn't work. Yeah, totally agree. And do you think, Do you think, with that in mind that there are some like, key characteristics that you need for a successful team?
Yeah, I think, I think all teams do need good leadership. And not from a, you know, a a top level or managerial level or anything like that. I mean, like, leading from the front, as in, you know, you're you're scrubbed in, you're in the trenches as well, but you do need leadership.
I, And and that's again just about setting tone and and checking tone and making sure that, everyone's on the same page and addressing problems early and that sort of thing. And then I do. Also, I do believe that people need to approach things the right way.
You've got to have the right attitude. Because, I'm sure we've all worked in teams Where, there's been one or two people who haven't had the best attitude, and a lot of the time they've got stuff going on in their lives or whatever, which spills over into work. But it's really hard to maintain positivity and respect.
And, Grace, when there is that constant, I guess rough edge and and, push back, and and I think in those situations again, that's where that leadership comes in. You need someone to kind of pull that person aside and be like, OK, what's going on? Let's let's try and fix it.
Address problems early, that sort of thing. It's just, yeah, I, I guess, there are universal rules, I think with with teamwork. But, I am a big believer that every team is different, so you do kind of need to, a adapt a little bit.
Yeah. Brilliant. Thanks for that.
Sounds good. Yeah. I think being adaptable is key, isn't it?
Absolutely. And do you have any, any advice for our listeners around culture and anything that you can do to kind of foster a positive culture in practise? Yeah.
Well, I was trolling LinkedIn the other day, and I saw a really good quote, which I'm sure many people have heard before, but, you know, essentially, you have culture whether you foster it or not, whether you cultivate it or not like, it's not culture is not something that you decide. OK, I'm gonna I'm going to institute a good, team culture. I'm going to institute a positive culture, and then you go about doing it.
It it's there. It's there. Regardless, if you do anything or not, all you can do is try to, mould it and and and push it in the direction that you want it to go into.
And I think again that comes down to, modelling the behaviours that you want. I guess this applies to parenthood as well. But, you know, you can't be telling people to do one thing and then and then do the opposite or or to not believe in it in yourself.
I. I also think that, I like, for example, with my team, it's a small team, and they have to be agile, and they often work with a different person. Almost every shift, like it's a very large team of casual staff.
And so, I try to encourage everyone to, muck in. So, you know, if you see that someone is struggling, they've got a lot on their plate. But you're a bit quiet.
While from an efficiency point of view, it probably doesn't make sense to have, you know, the vets changing the bins if we were, like, purely in business, corporate world, looking at things on paper. If the vet's standing around drinking some water, and the nurses and receptionists are running around trying to scrub the clinic before close. That that's just I think that's really poor culture.
Like I want everyone to, muck in to help out, help each other. And I think that, like that approach, really does mean that, like when problems arise because they always do. You know, you can approach it in a really sort of collaborative way.
And I think that's probably one of the things that I would definitely recommend for people for culture. I'm not an expert on it, though, So I do think that, I take a very intuitive approach. And and so, you know, I.
I do get feedback from my staff all the time, and I encourage feedback on things that we can improve and and also just a general vibe check. And, you know, it it has been really positive, which is which is great. But, I do think if people out there are struggling with the culture and the teams, it is worth reaching out to, you know, there's a bunch of people who work in the space both in our industry and outside the industry.
Because if you don't get the culture that you need, for your practise, that's gonna be one of the biggest drags on on, a healthy workplace. You know, there's you can you can say that you're, you know, equal opportunity and no discrimination And, no bullying and all this other stuff. But then, if you aren't sure that that is your culture, if you aren't complete, you know, doing everything you can to model the right behaviour and stamp out the stuff that you don't like.
It doesn't really matter what you say. And if anything, it makes it worse because, you know, staff are our staff are smart. They can totally pick up.
I don't know if I can swear, but, I'm Australian. So, they can detect bullshit when they when they hear it. So, yeah, I think I think you just have to be really true and honest and, and transparent.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. OK. And then if we have a little, look just further ahead.
Are there any kind of trends that you see that could, you know, come in in the future, that could impact our teams. Yeah. Look, that's a a really good question.
I yeah, big question. I'm I'm certainly not a futurist, but I do very closely pay attention to regulatory trends as well as obviously innovative trends. Generally, for you know, everything, not just our industry.
Innovation comes first, and then regulation comes second. So, regulations sort of playing catch up. I think in a lot of spaces, probably the most obvious one is like telemedicine.
And there's been quite a few changes in the US about, very, very recently about establishing, you know, veterinary patient client relationships. Virtually, which has always been, I guess. One of the big hurdles with telemedicine.
Is, you know, certainly in Australia, for example, you can't, like, prescribe medications or anything like that. Unless you've seen the pet, yourself, and so that really does limit the scope of telemedicine. But, you know, if the if the move is to, having that foregone, for lack of a better word.
Where, you know in certain jurisdictions around the world. Telemedicine will be able to prescribe and and see new patients and stuff virtually. I think that'll be an interesting space, because I know certainly, for example, in Australia.
And I'm sure I'm sure it's the same in the UK. Quite a lot of veterinary nurses get involved with telemedicine. Tele triage.
So they'll, you know, triage the cases, and then, if need be, they'll escalate them either to an on-call veterinarian, like a physical veterinarian or to a telemedicine veterinarian. So seeing how that works that sort of team dynamic is interesting as well. You know, the virtual and the physical like, you know, it's it's gonna be interesting.
I think it it's already happening. Really? Where, especially big Corporates.
They've got a virtual team who are doing their work, and then they'll refer to, like, an in-person physical team and and kind of making that all work smoothly and synergistically. I guess you know things like telemedicine absolutely have the potential to decrease in person collaboration and teamwork, and and almost siloing roles like where it does go almost like a passing of the baton. So perhaps you'll have the nurse do tele triage, and then they pass it to the vet who do telemedicine or something like that.
And there's less of that collaborative work that you probably get in practise where you know often, I'll have a sick patient in and I'll have my nurse in there with me and we'll be, you know, doing a TPR taking notes, and then we'll go take blood. And the whole time you're working very collaboratively, you're discussing the case. You're talking about what you're gonna do next.
And I, I really enjoy that. And I'm sure others do, too, because it's really enriching for for everyone to kind of work up cases like that. I from what I've seen with telemedicine, I think it is a lot more siloed and a lot more sort of, staggered where you do pass the button from one to the other.
And but, you know, who knows, like it's just one of those really open spaces. We could go in so many different directions. I do think, Australia's very conservative.
So I can't imagine we're going to adopt anything like that anytime soon. In terms of establishing a virtual, patient client relationship. And I'm sure probably the UK.
Is fairly similar. Like, there's no really recent moves to do that. The US is definitely the, I guess front line for this, because they have, Well, a lot of reasons.
And hopefully I don't upset anyone by saying this, but they probably have more, corporate interests and, pushing. I mean, it's a much larger population, and yeah. So I definitely think they're the front line with a lot of these technological changes, because I guess the other big one is a I, and we've already seen, like, an explosion in the last like year or two of, medical record, writing apps, using a I.
So, essentially, we're they, use, you know. Oh, my gosh. I'm gonna show how much of a techno file I am here, but, you know, Google, like ability to, capture your voice record record you, And then it will automatically transcribe it into notes.
There's quite a few of those. And I can really see huge advantages there like I mean, we all know that writing up your notes is a huge time waste. You have to do it.
Obviously, it's an important part of the process. But, it's, you know, if if you could change something that often takes 10 minutes or five minutes into, you know, one minute where you're just quickly checking it, that can be a huge help. I mean, and some people take even longer than that to write up, right?
So I think that's potentially a really big benefit. But I think the thing the elephant in the room, which is always a bit scary, is, is a I going to replace part of what we do as vets. So, if you think about it, vets are kind of walking diagnostic trees.
We're trained to, take in a whole bunch of information and, analyse it in our head, which is a computer, and then, sort of come up with a plan, right? So then we're going to Sometimes we're lucky, and we're like, it's 100% this and you can pick the diagnosis because of the, you know, collection of information you have. But a lot of the time we are.
Then we then start on a pathway, so we'll be like, OK, we're gonna maybe take some bloods, or, you know, we're gonna do an F, and on that lump or something, we're gonna get more information. But we make a plan. And you can quite easily see how a I could do that.
If you feed the right information and there's no reason that, you know, we can't have software programmes that, make that decision for us. And, you know, obviously initially, it's going to be a very blunt tool, but it will be refined over time and and get better. I mean, a I is essentially just replicating the knowledge that's already out there.
So how did we learn? We learned from lectures and textbooks and, online videos. And that's how a I learned.
So, I can definitely see that being something down the track. I don't think in the next year or two, but, you know, maybe 5, 10 years, who knows? And then the question is, so how how do we not only bring value, but how do we use that safely?
And I think, you know, it's like there's a lot of jobs now In Australia, for example, we have a lot of mines. Coal mines unfortunately, but you know, there's some people's roles engineers whose whole role is just to, assess panels of, you know, lights and instruments. And, just make sure everything's OK and and pick things up if if they're not.
And, you know, factories are the same. They're getting rid of people on the production lines, and they're replacing with people who just watch the machines and make sure that everything's OK and step in when need be. And, you know, while obviously you can't you can't ever replace the human side of things.
So the relationship that the vet has with the client and and with the patient and and that's sort of the the what we traditionally used to call, like the softer skills, the actual diagnostic stuff that we do, could absolutely be, augmented. Potentially replaced. I don't think anyone would feel entirely comfortable with replace, but definitely augmented, with with software and, you know, maybe we'll see it one day as being like, not too dissimilar from, you know, when we use formularies on our, apps on our phones and stuff or, you know, maybe like the a I writing.
But I, I do think it's it's scary for me anyway to think about because it's just such a a new thing. And it's also, I. I think of myself as a vet, and I'm like, one of the most valuable things is the my ability to, you know, make decisions and diagnosis.
And you know what? What would we be without that? So I just think, there's nothing that I know of that's really close on the horizon for that.
But I definitely think that's a space to watch, because, I it's it's something that could easily be, replicated given that we we ourselves learned right. We learned at one point in time, none of us were born vets. And so therefore, we can probably train computers to do that, too.
Sorry. Have a cat. Yeah, A I is this whole new beast, isn't it?
I think that we're actually, at the webinar That we're running an A I Summit and just Yeah, so we'll keep you posted on that. But yeah, yeah, there's there's just so much going on, and I think everybody kind of feels the same, you know, a little bit, but know that we're going to have to embrace it, you know, because it's coming. It's It's like any new thing, right?
You feel, a little bit scared and a little bit excited at the same time. And I think the main thing is with a I is that we just have to make sure we steward it properly. And And that's our role as as as the profession, is that we have to make sure that whatever tools are developed are developed safely appropriately, and and end up with a a better result at the end of the day, Not not a sort of cheapening or, a a worse result for for patients.
Yeah, absolutely. We are just close to running out of time. But I've I've really enjoyed listening to you today, Bronwyn.
Thank you so much. You shared so many, useful bits of information there. That lots for our listeners to take away, was there anything that you hadn't, covered yet That you'd just like to finish with?
The only thing I just wanted to mention is that, if anyone is interested, in sort of hearing more is that I have a weekly sort of newsletter bulletin called Vet Matters where I talk about, sort of issues that are affecting the profession, not just in Australia, but in the UK the US can, and also we'll be talking about the workforce stuff that I'm doing with the Churchill Fellowship. So, if anyone's a nerd for talking about the profession, it's not clinical at all. I must forewarn everyone.
It's talking about business and regulation and and, and policy and the issues that we face. Yeah. Please check it out.
It's called vet Mattis. Oh, brilliant. And I've seen that on your LinkedIn before.
So is that the best place for people to go if they want to subscribe? Yeah, they can go LinkedIn or they can just, Google it. It's on substack.
So yeah, they'll be able to find it. OK, fantastic. Oh, well, Bronwyn, thank you.
So much again for joining us today. I know you're incredibly busy, and you're doing all of these wonderful things. Plus having, you know, raising a small child at the same time.
So thank you so much. We really appreciate your time and for you giving up your fire tonight. No worries.
Thank you so much for having me. It was great to chat. Thanks a lot.
