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 VMG Director Sam Anderson RVN/Cert Ed – Practice Manager – Glaven Vets.
What inspired you to begin a career in nursing?
I have been an RVN since 1991. The options were limited after school education; it was office work or university and I knew these were not for me! I was lucky because my school offered work experience during A levels, and for some reason, I chose the vets. From that moment, I was fixed, I loved it, and my journey began.
What did you find most rewarding about being a veterinary nurse?
Each day was something new, it was challenging not knowing what was going to happen and of course, it always comes back to supporting animals to get better. There is nothing more rewarding.
How did you first get into leadership?
Like most vet nurses my first leadership role was as Head Nurse in the practice I had trained in. I jumped at the opportunity when the current Head Nurse, who was my first connection with an inspirational role model, then left. It was hard moving from one of the team to leading the team and it was a huge learning curve. I very quickly had to appreciate any mistakes were valid learning opportunities, but I had a great supportive team who I am forever grateful for. One of the team members remains as practice manager, and I love to see how team members grow and develop their careers.
What transferable skills have you found the most useful for progressing in your career?
As a vet nurse I believe you develop so many transferable skills which in hindsight, definitely support development into leadership roles. For me, emotional intelligence is key. It’s all about the people and being treated as I would expect to be treated, whilst creating a safe, supportive environment to enable people to grow. As a leader, you do not necessarily need to have all the answers, but being supportive and listening to your team so they feel validated and heard can make a difference to their day.
You always need to be a good communicator, remain calm in all situations and be adaptable as you never know what will happen next, and that’s very much like leadership.
How did you grow the additional skills that you needed?
I started by getting experience in the areas that I wanted to develop and know more about. Initially, this was clinical CPD but as I moved into different roles, I started to upskill so that I gained an advantage as I sought leadership roles.
Completing my Certificate in Education and my Level 5 in leadership and management qualification, such as DVLM, have been invaluable.
I believe you never stop learning, and even at my age there are still opportunities to pick up nuggets of information. I particularly love communities such as ShareSPACE, it’s an invaluable space for leaders to create the agenda and share ideas because let’s face it, leadership can also be a lonely place at times and knowing someone else may have experienced the same situation is a genius idea to learn, share and grow.
How do you bring compassion and empathy to your role as a leader/in practice?
It’s the people, I am a natural empath, which can have a detrimental impact, but I have learnt to channel the positive aspects. In my current role I care very much about our clients, their pets, but my colleagues are my main concern, so it’s important to build trust, manage staff wellbeing, enhance team culture and ultimately create a supportive working environment, and I believe the rest will follow.
Why did you leave nursing to get into management?
I have never forgotten that I am an RVN, and it has never left me. It has formed the basis of every management role I have undertaken. I have and continue to be involved in supporting nurses and veterinary leaders, and feel extremely proud and lucky that my nursing qualification has enabled me to teach, mentor and lead future generations. My personal mantra is to ‘make a difference’ and it’s about ensuring that I am giving something back, so, in some small way, I hope I still do.
Thank you Sam. 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.
