Veterinary Surgeon

Job Description

An exciting opportunity has arisen for a Veterinary Surgeon to join a small animal practice. The practice is seeking someone to join them on a full or part-time basis. They are a practice that places emphasis on each team member feeling valued, supported, and being able to impact the way they work. Whether you’re looking for a culture based on good communication, to be able to progress in the clinical area you want and/or flexible working options, they have an opportunity for you.

They are a stand-alone practice just outside a town centre. They’re just a short distance from public transportation hubs, making commuting convenient. Their location also means that they enjoy all the benefits of being based in a town while you don’t have to travel far to find yourself in the beautiful countryside or at the coast.

About Their Practice:

They think the best thing about their practice is their people and their open and collaborative culture. They get great feedback from locums on how supportive they are of each other and how well integrated they are between disciplines. This is shown in the length of time their team have worked with them; they are a long-standing, established team and even when colleagues have left for various reasons they have come back. Whether you work on Reception, in the Nurse or Vet team everyone is valued and has a voice in impacting the way they do things.

They are committed to and place emphasis on creating a culture that works for all of them where well-being- both physical and emotional- are a priority. Last year they set up a full team meeting to give them the opportunity to discuss what their culture is and what this looks like on a day-to-day basis. This has been followed up by check-ins to see what is going right and what isn’t so good so they can continue to work on this. Ongoing practice communication is an important part of this, and they hold quarterly full practice meetings and regular departmental meetings and have a genuine open-door policy so that their whole team get the chance to input into different areas of how the practice operates. They have a whiteboard in their kitchen, so everyone knows who is in which day and specific goings-on. This is also used to co-ordinate any practice days out and currently they are planning a beach day for anyone in the team that wants to join.

Clinically their caseload is that of a general practice and they have one Veterinary Surgeon completing a certificate in surgery and 2 of their Veterinary Surgeons who have an interest in cardiology so they can keep cardiac scans in-house. They encourage development and offer an unlimited CPD budget as they know putting an allowance on this doesn’t allow for what everyone wants to do. If you have an interest that overlays with the business, they will fully support you in pursuing this, for example, they have just invested in a new ultrasound for their Veterinary Surgeons carrying out cardiac scans.

Their Nursing team are experienced and pick up any procedures and consults they can and work closely with the Veterinary Surgeons and Reception team to ensure their days run as smoothly as possible. Their other JVP and RVN, has a further qualification in behaviour, and the whole team use fear-free handling making sure each individual patient has the time needed so they can be handled with respect and in the least stressful way possible. They are accredited by both ISFM, RWAF and are about to begin working towards becoming a Dog’s Trust Dog Friendly practice.

As well as being in practice they do like to socialise together occasionally outside of work and have just started a team games night and have an annual pancake night at their vet. In practice their competitive streak is embraced in the form of a Grass Seed Championship with points given both for number successfully removed and obscurity of location. A recent event including a cake sale and some members of their team and clients cutting and donating their hair to the Little Princess Trust raised £875 for 3 local charities!

About the role:

While they have the opportunity for someone to take on a full-time role, they are more than happy to consider two part-time Veterinary Surgeons and they already have 3 part-time Veterinary Surgeons working different rotas so are happy to discuss how your ideal working pattern can work around this. They are looking for a Veterinary Surgeon with some experience happy with routine consults and surgeries to work alongside their more recent graduate and experienced Veterinary Surgeons.

Standard consults are 15 mins with certain presentations and blood tests given longer as they do have the flexibility in their diary if needed for this. They also have slots blocked out for admin and reporting results. All their Veterinary Surgeons do a mixture of surgery and consulting with specific surgery days allocated to them and they would consider Veterinary Surgeons looking to take on consult-only roles as well. Their weekend rota is 1 in 3 and you would work Saturday mornings only 8:30-2 pm.

What they can offer you:

• Salary of up to £65k (negotiable depending on experience)
• 5.6 weeks holiday increasing with length of service
• Your birthday off after

So, if you have an ambition to be part of the future, please apply.