Three take home messages from WellVet Weekend

It’s taken me nearly three weeks to reflect and arrive at three take home messages from WellVet Weekend. What a phenomenal event! Over 125 people took part over the two days, taking in sessions on personal development, coaching, time management and resilience building. That’s without mentioning the physical activity sessions ranging from yoga to HIIT sessions and inspirational story telling from world class ultra-running athlete Jasmin Paris

So, after some reflections, here are my three take home messages from WellVet Weekend.

Community

Being a well vet is about community. Right now, the veterinary community as a multitude of contributors popping up with cool projects, whether it’s coaching at Emerge with me, yoga with Chloe at VetYogi or getting your running fix from Nat at @thisvetruns. If you’re struggling with your work life balance, the community is ready and listening in rapidly growing numbers. VDS training are helping drive this and the Vets: Stay, Go or Diversify community is pushing over 12,500 members now. 

What’s holding you back from reaching out? We’re here and ready to talk

Becoming family friendly

Secondly, our profession is undergoing a paradigm shift in how jobs are structured, how people want to work and indeed, how an increasingly female demographic needs to integrate work and family life. With a multitude of littles ones in attendance, I can confirm that it is possible to deliver high quality CPD events with babies and toddlers knocking about. I hope to see a marked improvement in the family friendliness of events and businesses to meet the needs of these veterinary parents. Well done to the WellVet team for pushing the boundaries.

Ask the question, ‘what can I do to balance being a parent and professional at the same time and how can I influence employers and CPD providers to meet these needs’?

The future is bright – if employers listen

The future for the profession is bright. I fielded some questions about how to diversify a veterinary career like I’ve done over the years, but the vast majority of the attendees were deeply invested in a clinical career. The main challenges don’t arise with motivation or ability to be a clinical vet, rather ways to improve how the profession operates, such as employment practices, flexible working and business development. 

Employers should take note, there’s a huge untapped resource out there; highly motivated employees, just begging to be given the opportunity to develop and build their careers yet struggling to find responsive managers and employers.