Here’s another sneak preview of our upcoming clinical podcasts with this episode on the diagnosis of immune-mediated haemolytic anaemia. IMHA is one of those diseases where timely recognition and treatment can mean the difference between a patient that lives and one that does not, but it can be a challenge to diagnose. We’ve roped in Dr Dave Collins, a medicine specialist from North Side Vet Specialists in Sydney, to help you to create a solid plan for diagnosing and saving these patients. This episode is the first of a three-part series on IMHA. The other two will be available on the Vet Vault clinical medicine podcast soon. 

Head to https://thevetvault.com/podcasts/ to subscribe to our email list and we’ll send you the summarised notes for this episode and let you know when the clinical podcasts go live. 

Hazell Mullins is young and energetic and a little bit glamorous, but she’s also a very hardworking hardcore cow vet in her home country of Ireland. She shatters the stereotype of the tweed-hat-wearing bearded farm vet and is one of the fore-runners of what is the next generation of leaders in the large animal veterinary field. We chat to her about how things have changed for female farm vets over the last few years. Hazell tells us about the day to day life of an Irish farm vet, why spring is scary when you’re a cow vet on the British Isles and gives us her tips for preparing for periods of high stress. We discuss surviving on call, the merits of post-grad studying, using social media as a tool, and she tells us about her podcast, Vet Space Ireland, plus much much more. 

It’s not every day you get to interrogate one of your friends, but in this episode, that’s exactly what Hugh gets to do. Dr Ruan Bester has chosen a career journey that is a bit different to that of most of his classmates: instead of opting for a career at home or in one of the ‘normal’ choices like the UK, Aus or the US, Ruan was drawn to working in Asia, where he eventually started his own practice in Macao. (If you’ve never heard of Macao before you’re probably not alone: Macao is a small island off the coast of China about an hour away from Hong Kong by ferry, and is the gambling capital of Asia.) Outside of work, Ruan loves fast things: aeroplanes, race cars and motorbikes. But mostly he LOVES just being a vet. 

In this bonus episode we answer some listener questions. One of our listeners brought it to our attention that, because of Covid, many people who are considering studying veterinary science are not allowed to see practice. How are they supposed to know what life as a vet is like?! They have some questions: What does the day to day life of a vet look like? What do you look for in a veterinary student that makes you think they will become great vets? What do you wish you’d known when you entered the profession? 

So we’ve teamed up with Dr Louisa Graham to answer some of those questions for our pre-vet listeners. We hope it helps! 

We love to hear from you. If you have a question that you’d like us to answer with the help of our guests, leave us a voice message by going to our episode page on the anchor app (https://anchor.fm/vet-vault) and hitting the record button, via email at thevetvaultpodcast@gmail.com, or just catch up with us on Instagram. (https://www.instagram.com/thevetvault/) 

If you like what you heard please share the love by telling your friends and colleagues to check us out.

ECC specialist Dr. Rob Webster gives a beautiful explanation of the key principles of fluid therapy for shock patients, with a focus on the ‘dry’ hypovolemic patient.