Contemplating my rich career

I've been a vet for 23 years. I honestly don't feel that old but thinking upon my career tonight I realise how much growth and change I've had in my career - none of which I would have dreamed for myself in vet school. My younger self would have no concept of what I do now - and quite likely would have laughed. And I feel like I'm on the precipice of further change which feels like the most important yet.... but who knows.... there is likely to be more. I shall expand upon this change later.

Starting out at vet school I just wanted to be a damn good vet. I got the grades and graduated with honors. I worked as a vet nurse during vet school to build my experience. Then I graduated and gosh was that a stressful year. The learning really started then - it wasn't just learning to do anaesthetics and surgery, interpret blood tests etc. I did everything by the book - 'gold standard vet care'. At the same time being early 20s there all the socialising and falling in love. It was busy, full, wonderful and stressful!. I was lucky and worked in a fantastic clinic with great support. And I got really good at the standard vet stuff. So I starting mixing it up - I worked overseas, left clinical practice briefly to be a consultant (I'm a much better vet), worked in industry.

Over the years I ended up wanting to work for myself and transitioned to housecalls. With the housecalls came a lot of palliative care, and also a greater connection with my clients (my patients owners). Acupuncture became a natural progression to supporting my aging patients at home. Around the time I started as an acupuncturist my health started to fall away and I become unwell. Everything was falling apart. Sleep, digestion, energy, hormones - quite a mess really. My GP didn't help - hey my blood tests were 'normal'! And when the doctor couldn't help I searched under every rock to find a way out. To my surprise there was a lot of treasure hidden under those rocks I searched. It is this journey that has really shaped me to provide real healthcare for my patients. It is also a journey that has found so many wonders of the universe that I wouldn't change a bit of it.

I'm actually a skeptic at heart. I'm skeptical about anything I hear - both holistic and science based. I need to see evidence that it works for myself. Even when starting patients on new drugs or herbs with peer reviewed papers to back their efficacy, I need to test and see for myself how these medications are working with my patients, what side effects they are having and if the improvements are worth the side effects. But I'm also a scientist - I like to trial new things and see what effect they have. Mostly I like to trial on myself first so I have an inside understanding of the mechanics of things - I'm grateful for having host of symptoms that I could trial different treatment on. I searched under a lot of rocks and found a lot of things that helped a little.

One big treasure I found was meditation. I started vedic meditation twice a day to help me sleep. It didn't. Though something else extraordinary happened - I gained energy. I sharpened my perception for the very subtle. And I gained vitality. For my busy brain to slow down to meditate actually was a painful experience. As the stress leaves the body more thoughts come - if anyone thinks I sat there is perfect empty stillness this was far from the truth. It was busy and brutal and a hassle. But the evidence came that life outside of meditation was simply better. (I'm pleased to report now that meditation has become a pleasure and I continue to discover the depths of it, as well as sleeping better!).

So as I healed I wound my head around what nutrition looks like for myself, and my pets and patients diets also followed the upgrade. I studied nutrition, herbs and supplements for my patients and also incorporated them into my own life. At a time I took a few weeks out to heal myself I chanced upon the Biomechanics course which completely changed things yet again. Not only did I need good nutrition for my patients, then good digestion and microbiome to absorb the nutrients, but I also needed the biomechanical anatomy of the body to be working optimally to get these nutrients to the tissues and also efficiently remove the wastes. I really needed to brush up on my anatomy to be the best biomechanics vet I could be - so I started casual teaching of anatomy at the university. Every session I teach I come away with new understandings of how I can improve the treatments for my patients. I'm in awe of the body - it is a wonderful thing of beauty.

Soon after the biomechanics course finished I started fostering kids. A sudden change needed to happen at this time - I gave up all my veterinary medications for the difficulties of having both kids and drugs in the house. I fully embraced being an integrative vet and life keeps getting richer with more things to study.

Around this time started the lockdowns. Melbourne - the city with the most days in lockdown in the whole world. I saw an interesting online job advertised with CIVT (Centre for integrative veterinary therapies). I applied, I didn't get the job. I moved on, lockdowns stopped and life kept rolling. However a couple of years later I was approached by CIVT to do a few hours a week doing admin for their memberships and webinar programs. I was being offered to be paid to watch webinars on integrative animal health - yes please! I have given up trying to remember everything I learn but I usually take away at least one thing from each webinar I watch to aid my patients. Another little perk is attending and also teaching at their acupuncture seminars and workshops. Teaching definitely refines your skills and makes you a better practitioner.

Another hidden treasure introduced by my mum was Network Chiropractic. After nutrition and meditation this was a big needle mover. I don't know what kind of hand waving these practitioners were doing but the results proved themselves. They used energy to rewire my nervous system somehow. And it worked. And yes I thought about how I could learn this too - but I needed to go become a human chiropractor first and this actually sounded like too much effort this time.

Last year I had one of my Osteo friends invite me to Bribie Island for a kinesiology course. This is something that had interested me for a while. Why trial medications and diets when you can test to see what is going to work and cut to the chase? I love efficiency. To my surprise the course I had enrolled in was a Kinergetic course - Kinesiology and Energy healing for humans. Hmm. Here comes the skeptic - and I've definitely been guilty of poo-hooing others that are loud in this space. However, the Kinergetic course was wonderful and it was great being able to experience what the treatment feels like. But spending a day treating animals with the teacher after the course was truly eye opening for what it could achieve for my patients that I would never be able to touch with all my drugs, herbs, nutrition, chiropractic and acupuncture. It was revolutionary and also terrifying. Why terrifying you ask? Because to embrace this treatment means that I open myself up to extreme criticism from my colleagues - or is that just in my head? Either way, its outside the box, but if it was going to help my patients I was going to try it along with all my other tools. I wasn't sure how my clients would react either and I am always surprised to see how well my clients embrace this. My dog and cat patients generally love it - its hard to ignore the results in-front of you.

So here I arrive at my current 3 pillars of holistic veterinary medicine:

1. Biomechanics - we need good blood flow, lymphatic drainage and neurological input to all organs and tissues for optimal performance.

2. Nutrition - the blood arriving in the organs and tissues need the optimal nutrition for maintenance, growth, detoxification and repair. Part of this is also the ability digest and absorb the nutrition so also includes the microbiome.

3. Energetics - I'm forming and hypothesis there needs to be an underlying energetic for good health. For patients where points 1 and 2 above are working well but we have recurrent or non healing issues its worth looking at energetics - not just the pet but also the owners.

Why current 3 pillars you ask? Because like my career my thoughts evolve - maybe I will have something else exciting to add to this in the future.