Episodes

If you’re anything like us you might have some preconceptions about surgery and surgeons. Our guest for this episode, Dr Bronwyn Fullagar, will flip those ideas of yours on their heads. Bronwyn is a board certified specialist surgeon who has a different take on what it means, and what it takes, to be a surgeon. When there is not a global viral pandemic she travels the world as a locum surgeon, and in between work stints she shares her skills at several charity organisations in some pretty awesom...

In part 2 we cover secondary coagulopathy, including the coagulation cascade. Bruce gives us the most simple and memorable explanation of that Y-shaped beast that you’ll ever hear, and we learn how and when to use the tests of secondary coagulation: Activated clotting time, APTT and APT. We get deep into the weeds of the most commonly seen causes that will disrupt the coagulation cascade, and Bruce also clarifies some of the ‘unusual suspects’ - the congenital factor abnormalities. This episode...

In our two-part series on coagulation, we talk to Prof. Bruce Parry, a former clinical pathologist from the University of Melbourne. In part 1 we cover primary coagulation. We talk everything platelets: how to accurately pick cases of thrombocytopaenia, pro-tips to make sure you get to the right answers, and common pitfalls. We also look at the buccal mucosal bleeding time test: how to do it, and what information it will provide. We’re also excited to introduce you to our first-ever sponsor: ou...

Paul Ainsworth is the founding director of the Lincoln Institute, which is a leadership and development organisation for veterinarians and veterinary teams. He is a highly sought after executive coach, facilitator and key note presenter. Paul is a graduate of the Australian Defence Force Academy, University of New South Wales, the Royal Military College Duntroon and was awarded the prestigious Sasakawa Leadership Scholarship by the Australian Graduate School of Management’s Executive MBA program...

What do you do when you are facing something overwhelming? That surgical procedure, that difficult conversation, that business idea... are you spurred into action, or do you feel paralysed? In this quickie Dr Rob shares his thoughts on facing up to the scary and sometimes seemingly insurmountable obstacles on the road to success.

Our guest for this episode is a true veterinary virtuoso, so much so that’s it’s hard to pick just one single job title for him. Dr. Adam Christman is a practicing small animal veterinarian in the same practice where he started his veterinary career as a 14 year old kennel hand, as well as at a local animal shelter, but his veterinary journey has taken him on many interesting paths. These include completing an MBA, regular public speaking, a career in media, social media influencer, published au...

If you did a little victory dance - and let’s face it, we all did - when it was announced that vets are an essential service during the early days of the covid outbreak, then perhaps we should talk about how you value yourself and the services you offer? Dr. Shibly joins us again to talk about value: how most vets shoot themselves in the foot on a daily basis when it comes to demonstrating value to our clients, and strategies to fix this. Listen carefully for the two words you should never use i...

Dr. Alex Hynes is a force of nature: whether she’s on the floor in the emergency hospital, leading her team as a company director, showcasing our profession to the world on the Bondi Vet television show, mentoring the thousands of young vets who look up to her, or taking care of her daughter, you can’t help but be inspired by her passion and energy when she crosses your path. In our long awaited episode with Alex we talk to her about where she finds her motivation and whether she ever has bad d...

Dr. Brooke gives some fantastic advice on finding confidence, even when you don’t necessarily feel it, and how to deal with ‘looking too young to be a vet.’

Dr. Dan Phillips earned his veterinary degree from North Carolina State University in 2011 and then completed an internship focused on small animal emergency and internal medicine at Tufts Cummings College of Veterinary Medicine. Since then he’s been working as a small animal practitioner near Chicago, and for the last 4 years has served as the primary extern and preceptor director for his group of practices. I had to look up what a preceptor is, and google summarises it as someone who teaches, ...

We talk COVID government bail-outs, financial strategies and HR do’s and don’ts in another business and leadership episode, with Paolo Lencioni - vet turned accountant and veterinary financial management guru. Paolo’s company - APL accountants, helps veterinarians manage every aspect of their business through through careful financial monitoring and tailor-made advice, so he has his finger on the pulse of veterinary business and has a wealth of knowledge to share. He gives us his insights into h...

Welcome to the Vet Vault business and leadership series with veterinary practice owner and business coach Dr Shibly Mustapha. In this series we’ll explore ways to make veterinary practice sustainable and profitable. Shibly is an owner of a multi-practice group in Australia. He is actively growing his business, and shares with us the same up-to-date lessons and a no-excuses approach that inspires his own coaching clients. In our first episode of this new series we start with the elephant in the...

One message that we hear time and time again from our guests here at the VetVault is that success, or happiness, or fulfilment or performance or whatever you want to call it, starts in your head. In this episode we explore what’s happening inside that head of yours, and how we can influence it for the better. Veterinarian, public speaker and coach Dr Katie Ford graduated from the University of Liverpool in the UK in 2012 and gained her certificate in medicine in 2016. Externally she was very suc...

We strive for that elusive 'work-life balance', but are you sure what exactly you're chasing? Nigel Marsh points us in the right direction in this week's quickie.

The first time you meet Dr. Charles El-Hage, you’ll think to yourself: “who the heck was that guy?! There’s something about him that makes me want to speak to him a some more.” And then, when you ask someone about him you’ll see their face light up with a smile, and they’ll say, “oh that’s Charlie, he’s great. Let me go introduce you.” So, let’s introduce you... When he’s being Dr. Charles El-Hage he is a Lecturer in Veterinary Clinical Medicine and Surgery at the University of Melbourne. After ...

Today we're digging deep into the Vault to bring you this slightly alternative view from Dr Oliver Liou. We can get very focused on being high achievers and all round awesomeness, but is that always good for us? In this Vet Vault quickie Oliver talks about the flip side of being exceptional, and how to deal with the fallout of becoming 'too good' at your job.

In this episode we tackle a subject that is not necessarily directly veterinary related, or is at least not limited to our profession, but still a critical topic to discuss because of the impact that it will have on all of us, and more importantly, because of the impact that veterinarians can have on it: climate change. If you’ve ever looked around your workplace and thought to yourself: “ This can’t be good for the environment. I really should do something about it.”, or if you are concerned ab...

We revisit our very first guest with a story from Louisa about the early days in her career that demonstrates a vital career lesson.

We were introduced to Dr. Dan Markwalder when we interviewed to Dr. Cody Creelman, who kept referring to him as one of the best mentors out there. Seeing as we’re all about mentoring here we knew that we had to have him on the show, and Dr. Dan certainly has the experience to make him an absolute mentoring guru: He founded his first hospital at age 28, and has grown that business into an eighteen practice success story with the help of good partnerships and through fantastic mentoring relatio...

For people who are feeling overwhelmed: that’s normal. One of the main messages I want to get out to the vets is to normalise the enormity and the depth of emotion that they’re going to experience. Because it’s new. And to not pathologise it. We live in a world where when we have an emotion we almost want to give it a Broadway musical: “Why am I feeling sad today? Let’s focus on that sadness.” But in actual fact - it’s not a healthy way to deal with day tot day emotions. So when people are go...

Welcome to our third and final episode talking about dealing with trauma, loss and grief in a crisis situation, and specifically as it relates to the bushfire catastrophe that we are currently experiencing in Australia, with our super-star social worker Liz Crowe. In this episode Liz speaks to us about the weeks and months after the firestorm has passed: what happens once the crisis has abated and the world has stopped talking about it, but the victims, and those who went to help them, are left ...

Welcome to the next installment of our bushfire special series with Liz Crowe. In part two Liz tells us how we can best support someone who is caught up in a challenging situation, like the fires that our Aussie vets and thousands of other workers are currently dealing with. Watching our friends an colleagues give so much of themselves is inspiring, but sometimes we feel powerless to help if we aren’t right there on the front lines. Liz gives us the best answer I’ve heard so far on how we can b...

This is a special episode that we’re rushing out as a resource to our colleagues who are caught in the apocalyptic bushfire crisis that Australia is currently experiencing, but also for anyone who wants to support those in the crisis but feel unequipped to do so. Beyond the current crisis - we also believe that the advice from this episode’s spectacular guest will be a valuable resource to anyone who ever finds themselves in a crisis situation, or regularly deals with traumatic situations that p...

Carolyne Crowe worked for 11 years as an equine vet both in the UK and in New Zealand before deciding to shift her energy from primarily helping animals to helping people by becoming an award winning personal performance coach, mentor, international speaker, researcher and lecturer.She has a Master's degree in Workplace Health and Wellbeing and continues to research this field. She is a master trainer in DISC behavioural profiling, a CPCAB trainer in Stress management and Wellbeing, a certified ...