It’s Vet Nurse Awareness Month, and to celebrate the brilliant Vet Nurses in our VMG team, we put them in the spotlight to find out more.
Next we have Helen Farrant, RCVS PSS Assessor/ VMG Tutor/ OSCE examiner.
What inspired you to begin a career in nursing?
I read James Herriot books as a child and that started my interest in the veterinary industry. I was fortunate to obtain a work experience placement in a practice when I was 15 and decided that I wanted to be a veterinary nurse almost immediately. I was just so excited, I didn’t stop talking about it for weeks afterwards, and I kept on doing work experience there during school holidays.
From there, I carried on doing work experience in several practices whilst doing my GCSEs and A levels, went to Merrist Wood College in Guildford and did an NVQ in Animal Care and did work experience in more practices as part of the course and then found an SVN job when I finished that qualification.
I qualified in 1999 and I’ve been fortunate to work in mixed and companion animal practices, in small branches and large hospitals in my career. I moved in to vet nurse education and worked at an FE college as a lecturer/ Internal Verifier and then became Lead Internal Verifier at Goddard Vet Group, which was a role that grew in to Training Manager, setting up and running an employer provider college, sitting on the Senior Leadership Team as a nursing voice and having opportunities to shape quality improvement and clinical aspects of the practice as well as growing the training team. I then moved to Linnaeus as Lead Professional Development Manager and sat on the SLT with oversight of professional development for RVNs and Patient Care Assistants, which also gave me the opportunity to work internationally within Mars Veterinary Health on key projects, such as setting up the Training Centre in Italy.
What did you find most rewarding about being a veterinary nurse?
I feel so fortunate to have seen the changes within the industry in the last 30 years. It’s been such a joy to see the role of RVNs expand and the opportunities open to newly qualified nurses which I couldn’t have imagined when I started training. The standards of care we are achieving and the ability to make a difference to our patients is what motivate me. I always enjoyed seeing a very sick patient I’d been nursing get better and go home and knowing that I’d helped that process.
How did you first get into leadership?
Somewhat accidentally when I was promoted to Training Manager at Goddard Vet Group which came with line manager responsibilities. I was excited to take on the challenge and it was a steep learning curve.
What transferable skills have you found the most useful for progressing in your career?
I think nursing developed my communication skills and resilience. I went into veterinary nursing wanting to care for patients and underestimated how much that would involve caring for people and supporting them to care for their pets. Learning how to work with clients, colleagues and students to achieve a shared goal has supported my whole career.
How did you grow the additional skills that you needed?
I started with the RCVS Certificate in Veterinary Nursing, which was the only route to qualification when I started nursing and then as I started teaching and internal quality assurance roles. I completed the relevant teaching qualifications and NVQs in assessing and internal quality assurance, eventually achieving the Certificate in Education.
I then decided that I should do a top up degree, since the degree route was available and obtained a BSc (Hons) in Veterinary Nursing and Business Management.
I realised that I enjoyed the business development aspect of setting up a college and growing a business within a business and decided I’d like to do an MBA to develop my skill set further. I was fortunate to gain a place on the MBA in Clinical Leadership at Birmingham University and finished this last year, being the first veterinary professional to achieve this qualification. Whether you gain a qualification to demonstrate competence in a role you already have or to develop your skill set in an area you’d like to move in to, there’s always lots of learning opportunities along the way and just as valuable, is the ability to connect with people in a similar role and to share experiences. Building those connections and gaining qualifications, knowledge and experience allows you to build your leadership skill set, empathy and to understand yourself better in your professional environment.
How do you bring compassion and empathy to your role as a leader/in practice?
There are a few ways that I try to bring empathy and compassion to my roles. Remembering “seek first to understand, then to be understood”, is a helpful reminder to find the message behind someone’s behaviour and words, even when these can be challenging on a personal and professional level.
I also champion culture in practices as an important aspect of understanding how human factors can influence patient outcomes and how we can learn from these experiences.
As a reformed perfectionist (well, as someone who’s working on being a reformed perfectionist), I try to set an example and manage my own expectations by talking about what’s “good enough”, in the circumstances!
Why did you leave nursing to get into management?
As soon as I knew I wanted to be a veterinary nurse, I also knew I wanted to teach nursing at some point in my career. I left full time nursing to teach and that eventually led to becoming a manager, which was incidental, but welcome and I’m now passionate about all things leadership and management.
Thank you Helen. If you are looking to get into leadership or would like to develop your skills to help your team, have a look at our educational suite of CPD, the iVLM (introduction to leadership and management), and the CVLM/DVLM.
