Читать книгу Leadership in Veterinary Medicine - Clive Elwood - Страница 36

Veterinary professionals rarely work in isolation. In most arenas, they are working with colleagues, veterinary and non‐veterinary, without whom they could not exercise their obligations. These teams may have many different shapes and sizes, ranging from the small practice with two or three veterinary surgeons, some veterinary nurses and administration staff to the farm animal practitioner who is no longer the ‘cow doctor’ of old but is now a data scientist working in a team with farmers, animal health advisers and technicians. Or from the specialist surgeon in referral practice working in a multidisciplinary team with anaesthetists, specialist nurses, diagnostic imagers, medicine specialists, the client and the primary care veterinary surgeon, etc. to the technical adviser in a pharmaceutical company working with marketing, sales, vets in practice and research scientists. In all of these scenarios effective teamwork and leadership can make a difference to team members and the wider stakeholders and, within this, the veterinary professional has to take responsibility for, and negotiate, their professional obligations and the primacy of animal welfare, whether or not they are not the only person in a leadership role. Within the constraints of professional obligation and depending on the task in hand, it may be entirely appropriate that a someone other than a veterinary professional takes leadership responsibility.

The farmhouse kitchen was an unconventional space for a high‐stakes team meeting, but it was a rare opportunity to get together face to face and discuss the farm's productivity and how to best manage some of the challenging issues. Frank looked around the room and was pleased to see everyone was ready; Jane the farm manager, Peter the nutritional consultant, Jo the herdsman, Sue the AI technician (and Bess the obligatory border collie under the table). ‘Right’, he said, taking a last bite of cake and mouthful of tea (some parts of farm practice remain as good as ever), ‘Let's get started’.

The concept of veterinary teams has gained formal prominence in recent years as the profession adapts to rapid changes in the economic, social, and regulatory landscape. These include:

 An expansion in the range of allied professionals and members of the team operating within this environment

 A change in the expectations of pet owners, farmers, industry, government, and other clients

 Concerns about the capacity of the veterinary workforce (British Veterinary Association 2019)

 Increasing team size and leverage of veterinary professional skills in clinical practice, through use of suitably qualified, trained, and skilled non‐veterinary staff as a result of business remodelling

Within this context it is notable that, in the 2019 RCVS Survey of the professions, respondents did not have a high opinion of the profession's development of leadership skills, with over half (52%) disagreeing or strongly disagreeing that the profession pays sufficient attention to this area of professional practice (Robinson et al. 2019a).