“I have learnt that you can take on a major career change for the first time later in life and make a success of it”
Chief Medical Officer at Linnaeus
Please summarise your career journey so far
I grew up loving animals, especially cats, and decided I wanted to be a vet aged eight. During my teens I persuaded my parents to get our first pet, a cat called JC. No-one in my family was medical nor had anyone gone to university, but I was fully supported throughout. I studied at Bristol Vet School and then worked for the PDSA before undertaking a residency in Feline Medicine in Edinburgh, gaining my RCVS Diploma in Small Animal Medicine in 1999. I then returned to Bristol, where I completed a PhD and became a Diplomate of the European College of Veterinary Internal Medicine.
I stayed at Bristol and was a lecturer, then senior lecturer, then reader and became Professor of Feline Medicine in 2016. During my time at Bristol, I was involved in clinical work in the Feline Centre, molecular diagnostics, teaching of vet and vet nursing students, postgraduate training (both PhD students and residents) and driving clinical research in the fields of infectious diseases and haematological disorders. Bristol Vet School is a special place very dear to my heart.
In 2018, I proudly became Chief Medical Officer for Linnaeus; this was as a part-time role to remain engaged with clinical research and teaching at the University of Bristol, as well as enabling school runs and gym classes! Linnaeus is part of Mars Veterinary Health and I oversee veterinary leadership, education, quality improvement and clinical research. I continue my clinical interests through work with our clinics and talented clinicians, working on our purpose to make a better world for pets.
I sit on the Companion Animal Vector Borne Disease World Forum and the European Advisory Board on Cat Diseases. It has been an honour to receive the BSAVA Woodrow Award for outstanding contributions in small animal veterinary medicine in 2008, and the Petplan Charitable Trust Research Award for outstanding contributions in research in 2013. In 2019, I became a fellow of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons.
Describe your typical day from waking to sleeping
Coffee first, then maybe an early morning gym or sorting out school things before work. Every day starts with an Exec team huddle – this started due to COVID-19 but has remained as a valued touchpoint for the Exec team.
I usually have multiple virtual meetings during the day with my direct reports, our practice associates, other Linnaeus departments or external stakeholders – plus my cats often take part!
Fortunately, I am now able to start revisiting practices and talking to associates in person. Seeing the dedication our associates have to our profession is an important and humbling part of my role. I try to maintain time developing strategies that enable our associates to have fulfilling and rewarding careers within Linnaeus, while delivering the best possible and appropriate care to animals and their owners.
The evenings may involve Mars Veterinary Health meetings (due to time differences for our global group), a gym class or a school or swimming event. I usually read in the evening, catching up on the day’s events or reading around subjects that I am working on, often whilst listening to loud dance music – I don’t enjoy watching TV. I try to clear emails before the next day as my email tends to be my ‘to-do’ list. Finding out about my children’s school day and my husband’s day in practice is also important.
How would you describe yourself in a sentence?
Caring, loyal, hard-working and active – with a deep desire to do the right thing.
How would others describe you in a sentence?
I asked my family and was told, “hard-working and loves cats but doesn’t get any jokes” by my son and, “caring, nice, animal loving, hard-working, determined, kind, helpful, clever, happy” by my daughter.
My husband added, “hard-working, fiercely loyal, ethically driven, hard as nails, supremely caring, very funny (at times, and usually whilst not aware) devoted mum and wife”.
So that exercise was humbling and in fact I am a bit shocked… Veterinary Woman – you should get everyone to do this!
What has been your top success and what have you learned from this?
I am very proud of the success of the BSAVA Manual of Feline Practice that I co-created and edited. This was the first foundation manual in the series and we worked very hard to make it a text that gave a holistic approach to feline practice, considering cat-friendly methods throughout. Learning how useful the text has been to vets, vet nurses and their feline patients around the world has been humbling – especially when they approach you at conferences to say thank you for writing it!
But jumping into my current role is a success worth reflecting on, as it was very daunting to leave a successful academic career to work in the private sector. My drive was to make a difference for a greater number of vets and pets. I have learnt that you can take on a major career change for the first time later in life and make a success of it – and that any knowledge gaps in your new challenge offer you the most rewarding of learnings.
It’s important to continually ask for feedback, embrace what you don’t know and enjoy learning new things, approaches and ways of working. Our profession is truly wonderful and we are privileged to have such multi-faceted opportunities available to us.
What has been your biggest challenge, setback or failure and how have you overcome it? How did you grow or change as a result?
This one happened a while ago! I didn’t get into vet school when I first applied. Getting the UCAS rejections one by one was heartbreaking and I remember opening the rejection slips in the little brown envelopes and sobbing for hours.
It was difficult to focus on A Levels, knowing that I didn’t have a place on the only career path I had considered, but I pushed through and managed to get the grades required for vet school. On results day, I remember spending the day ringing all of the vet schools pleading for a place – it was a different system then – but my persistence led to an interview at Bristol Vet School the next week for one remaining place for 1987 entry. I didn’t get the 1987 place, but they offered me a place for 1988 entry, so I had to take a gap year.
In the end, the gap year was the making of me and the best outcome. I was able to get more large animal experience, take on two jobs to save money for university (including a nanny job abroad and making friends for life with the family I cared for) and gain the independence I needed to hit my veterinary degree running when I started at Bristol in 1988.
What compromises have you had to make and what, if anything, could have helped?
It’s been really hard living a long way from my parents but my, and my husband’s, career choices have led us to living in North Somerset. I am an only child and my mum doesn’t drive so I’ve struggled with the guilt of not being able to help as much as I would like. This was especially hard when my father was ill as well; since he has passed away, my mum wants to remain in Yorkshire close to friends. But we try to maximise holiday time together as much as possible.
My hard-working nature has compromised family life and it is common for me to feel that I am neither a great mother nor a great vet. I use the mantra ‘Just because you feel it doesn’t mean it is true’ a lot to ensure my feelings don’t railroad my thinking.
What could have helped? Maybe asking for feedback to validate perceptions and feelings more. I do this now, but it has taken a while to build it into my day-to-day thinking as it takes courage to ask when you have self-doubt. I wish I had learnt to do this earlier in my career and embrace the advice of others, be it in my personal or professional life.
What advice would you have given to your younger self, that you would now give to others wanting to follow your path?
Ask for feedback and show humility! Use a growth mindset. Understand that every failing is an opportunity to learn and that failures are part of successes. Focus continually on doing the right thing.
I couldn’t have got where I am today without…
So many lovely people who have helped me with self-doubt: Pat Whiteman, my biology teacher at school; Margaret Goddard at my foster practice; Andrew Mackin and Jimmy Simpson at Edinburgh Vet School, who helped me believe I was a good clinician and could aim for an academic career.
Also, Tim Gruffydd-Jones, the ultimate feline medicine mentor; Michael Day, immunology guru; and Jo Price and Lynne Hill who pushed me to explore new opportunities in my career.
Rachel Hillier, who I was privileged to tutor at Vet School, taught me that it is ‘okay to not be okay’. And, of course, my family who have supported me throughout. Oh, and cats of course!
What are your three top likes?
- Cats
- Making a positive difference to others
- Les Mills gym workouts – I love BodyAttack & BodyCombat
What are your three top dislikes?
- Insensitive, judgemental behaviour
- Those who ignore the challenges we face in sustainability and the need to act boldly now
- Unattached, wet hair. My close friends know I have a real problem with this. It affects me walking around pools and using showers!
What is the most helpful book you’ve read and why?
5 Conversations by Nick Cowley and Nigel Purse. I have read this a couple of times and it is so useful in giving simple, practical advice on how to have meaningful conversations at work to help engage associates that you can develop to the maximum. It’s about trust, communication and honesty and includes the importance of showing meaningful appreciation, which is so important.
Are there any other resources you’d recommend?
- I use Twitter to keep up to date with a lot of scientific and veterinary subjects – although I never tweet! But I love the bite-sized quick updates you get via this route.
- Amy Edmondson’s TED talk on building a psychologically-safe workplace is fantastic and is such an important part of leadership.
- Civility Saves Lives is brilliant for understanding the impact of rudeness on people and patient care.
- I love Scott Weese’s work and read all of his Worms & Germs blogs.
- Lastly, Zero Suicide Alliance for its free suicide awareness training. This is a subject dear to my heart, having lost amazing friends and colleagues from our profession to suicide. Opening up conversations to enable people to seek help is really important.
Many thanks to Séverine for sharing her story to inspire veterinary women to aspire and grow into their full
career potential.
If you would like to share your story please get in touch at info@veterinarywoman.co.uk