Vetscrip August editor's choice

VetScript THE OFFICIAL MAGAZINE OF THE NEW ZEALAND VETERINARY ASSOCIATION

FUTURE SHOCK: Veterinarians’ key role

Through

ANIMALS’ EYES Temple Grandin speaks her mind

AU G U ST 2 0 16

GOOD BUSINESS: How Kaizen can help

SAYING SORRY: Can you do it?

WORLDS INFUSION 2016

A broader way of

THINKING Jo Holter, President of the Society of Sheep and Beef Cattle Veterinarians, had a hard time getting her head around the concept of the veterinary profession working where animals, humans and the environment intersect.

But as she explained in the stream’s opening address at Worlds inFusion, it’s beginning to make sense.

AS A SIX-YEAR-OLD girl, I was very sure of my future career: I was going to be a veterinarian. If you had asked me why, it was because I loved animals and wanted to care for them. Although my mother tried to steer me in the possibly more lucrative direction of human medicine, I was resolute – being a doctor meant dealing with people and I didn’t like them! My view of the profession was very animal-centric, with not a person in sight and certainly no thought given to the wider environment.

In the intervening years the veterinary profession has changed massively, as

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animals have come to play a bigger role in the world of humans and our environment. Now it’s about not just what the animal requires, but also what the client and society need.

For a very science-based profession it can be hard to accept that sometimes facts aren’t everything, and that what people believe in and value is just as important.

As veterinarians we may need to broaden our thinking.

The veterinary profession is frequently ranked as one of the most trusted, but unfortunately this doesn’t always equate

to value. In order to have a sustainable, relevant and valued profession we need to ensure that we use the potential of our trusted place in the community and capitalise on the opportunities this offers.

How can our profession have a greater positive impact on society?

We need to present our profession as an important part of a better New Zealand, and raise our profile with ideas and activities that may not always sit solely in the box marked ‘animal’. Obviously, for the NZVA this requires having a stronger voice in and influence on top-table decisionmaking. We are unlikely to completely agree always, but we need to take a stance on significant issues. Position statements on AMR and rodeo are prime examples.

Recently we’ve done a lot of work drafting submissions on the proposed new animal welfare regulations. I was horrified when I heard that a major stakeholder had suggested we had a degree of self-interest because of the potential for veterinary business to be generated as a result of new regulations.

I’m sure many veterinarians would take exception – I certainly did. This is an excellent example of the need to present a strong and united front on important matters. If veterinarians aren’t in the best position to advocate for the welfare of animals, then who is?

At the grass-roots level it might be more difficult for a practitioner to see what this means, but in most cases you are probably doing a lot of this already and may have been for years.

It’s about being more aware of your role in your community and being open to all opportunities that this broader thinking creates. Initiatives such as the national cat management strategy help widen the profession’s community involvement.

So I lay down a challenge: look out from the back end of that beefie, look up from that pair of ram’s nuts, and scan for ways to demonstrate our profession’s role in helping to solve some of society’s big issues. That’s how we will ensure a sustainable, relevant and valued rural veterinary profession for the future.

WORLDS INFUSION 2016

Future

SHOCK There’s an agricultural revolution coming and KPMG’s Ian Proudfoot argues that veterinarians will play a key role in ensuring that New Zealand doesn’t get left behind.

Bette Flagler reports.

IF THERE WAS one take-home message from Worlds inFusion, it was this: things are changing, and they’re changing fast.

The way we think about things – whether that’s business, clinical medicine, the environment or animal welfare – has got to change too. That was the conference message from Ian Proudfoot, KPMG’s Head of Global Agribusiness.

Proudfoot spends a lot of time thinking about how the world is evolving. How are people growing food? How are they eating it? How are farms changing? He says we’re on the powderkeg of an agricultural revolution and we’re already seeing meat protein coming from plants, crops being

PHOTO: AMANDA TRAYES

grown in 22-storey office buildings, farmers using a swarm of drones to muster and city dwellers buying their meat while it’s still growing.

“We’ve been very successful as a country; we’ve grown successfully, we’ve achieved great productivity,” he says. “The reality is that what has got us to where we are today is not going to be enough to get us to where we need to be tomorrow.”

This fourth industrial revolution, he says, includes biological and physical technologies merging and digital technologies disrupting the status quo.

Proudfoot suggests that veterinarians think very seriously about how companies like Advanced Animal Diagnostics (AAD) will disrupt their businesses. AAD creates and markets easy-to-use, on-farm diagnostics that can keep the veterinarian right out of the diagnostic value chain.

Maybe it won’t matter. After all, food is going to be different. Take Silicon Valley-based Impossible Foods. Not only has it produced a 100% plantbased cheeseburger, but it turned down Google’s offer of US$500 million because it wasn't enough.

These changes are being driven by animal welfare concerns, according to Proudfoot. “We got caught in animal welfare last year, in a big way. Another issue is coming up around male layer chicks. We need to address these issues and ensure we are doing what’s right because it’s the right thing to do.”

People don’t like the way animals are being maintained and looked after by

farmers, he says. They’re looking for ways to remove animals from the process. But will changing consumer demands spell the end of animal agriculture?

Not necessarily, and veterinarians have important roles to play in keeping that from happening. Think about Lewis Road Creamery, he suggests. It caused riots in Remuera over chocolate milk. But it wasn’t just the milk; it was the story behind the milk that consumers wanted, a story about how the animal that is producing the milk is looked after.

“You’re an important part of that story because you’re in that value chain. You help the farmer to create the story that creates the value for the product.”

There are great opportunities in this for rural veterinarians, but those who work with companion animals will need new ways of looking at things, too. What people feed themselves is going to change and consumers are going to expect veterinarians to think differently when it comes to giving advice about feeding their pets. Those urban dwellers will be living in smaller homes and will have different expectations about the animals they live with. These are huge advantages for the forward-thinking veterinarian.

There’s a lot of opportunity for veterinarians all along the value chain, including in the area of food safety and in growing high-quality food for niche markets. For example, Proudfoot says that by 2050 we’ll have 3.8 billion people around the world following religious dietary rules – think about the opportunities that creates for certifying niche foods.

“We need to think about niche communities,” he says. “For so long we served the average. The average doesn’t exist. We can produce beautiful food for the world to eat. The challenge for us is to get the positioning right. We need a paradigm shift … and you are an important part of this. We’re a world of food producers, and people are going to celebrate beautiful, naturally grown food and pay us a premium for it. The opportunity is massive – we just have to capture it.”

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AT THE INTERSECTION

Animal sanctuary A bespoke Auckland veterinary practice moves to bigger and better premises, but remains “the little clinic with a big heart”. Andy Allison reports.

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IMAGINE FOR A moment a clinic that advises up to 60,000 pet owners each week, yet is all about customer intimacy.

A clinic that offers various services at no charge, including free puppy and kitten checks, six-month checks and free mouthhealth, parasite and joint checks.

Envisage a practice that is not only equipped with the latest technology, but where the physical environment is as animals might have designed it, with carefully considered colour, lighting, texture and smell, plus a ‘Dog Den’ and a ‘Kittykat Lounge’. This clinic also acts as a hub for a growing network of professionals, community and special interest groups, and is home to the annual ‘Christmas in the Bark’ party.

Each week The Strand Veterinarian’s founder Megan Alderson or her business partner Justine Alley, who joined the practice in 2015, talks with an audience of 60,000 animal lovers across New Zealand via Radio Live talkback. They also share their experiences and support others through initiatives such as Women in Veterinary|Essential Solutions (WIVES) and network with other businesses and professions. In the clinic, veterinary nurses offer a range of wellness services for free as part of a whole-of-life care ethos.

Alderson, who founded the practice in 2009, says necessity has been the mother of her invention.

“Setting up a new clinic I needed to think hard about a business model that might help change people’s attitudes to animal care. I wanted to break the mould of the traditional vet clinic environment with a sterile hospital feel to create a warm, healing, nourishing clinical environment for our animal companions.

“And I wanted a place I could enjoy, where my support staff were proud to work, where my clients enjoyed walking through the door, and where their companion animals felt okay too – a place of mutual trust and respect.”

The Strand’s website (www.thestrandvet.co.nz) features the words “The little clinic with a big heart”, and Alderson sees it as a venture she can put her soul into. Her principle is this: if

AT THE INTERSECTION

you’ve got an abiding passion for animals why not reflect this in all you do?

Six months ago the practice moved from a 50-square-metre space to a more expansive site in Parnell, Auckland, with an in-house laboratory, special cat and dog play areas, digital radiology, ultrasound and laser therapy. (The hospital floor plan was designed with the help of Megan’s husband, specialist surgeon Alex Walker of the Veterinary Specialist Group.)

Alderson believes that if you get the service model right, the money should follow. “I have my accountant in my ear from time to time, but what we’re doing certainly feels right for our staff and our clients, both animal and human.”

She’s been encouraged by average annual growth of 20-30% and an expansion of staff numbers from three to 10. However, she’s also aware that growth is expensive.

“We like to think we’re succeeding from an operational perspective. The objective now is to see it profitable, for the investment to really pay off.”

Cynics may point to the Parnell location as explaining how The Strand has been able to break the rule that says to succeed a veterinary practice needs to minimise costs. But Alderson points out that their customers are as likely to be solo mums, students and “tradies who spend all day with their best friends” as merchant bankers, and come from as far away as Rodney and Clevedon.

The common ingredient is not financial wealth, but a wealth of commitment to

“WE ARE MAKING MISTAKES AS WE GO ALONG, BUT WE KNOW THAT IF WE DON’T CUT CORNERS ON OUR VALUES THEN WE’RE ON THE RIGHT TRACK.”

animals, she says. “We’ve got an eclectic customer base. The thing they share is that they’re all high-involvement pet owners.”

In any case, high disposable income isn’t necessarily any guarantee of willingness to invest in an animal’s wellbeing. “There are people in this world who drive a Lamborghini and would rather have an animal euthanised than pay the cost of an operation.”

Alderson has been involved in varying styles of veterinary practice in her 25 years in the profession, from mixed practice in Timaru and the UK to companion animal practice in Christchurch, to time as a practitioner in residence at Massey.

After moving to Auckland in 2004 she looked to buy a practice for five years before starting her own.

“It’s very easy to get stuck in a rut as a veterinary practice owner, building a business on a formula of how many animals you can treat multiplied by how

much you can charge for a consultation.

While that’s obviously important, our approach is a little different. For us, the first measure of success is having people think differently about how they might care for their animals.”

One example: veterinary nurses have full responsibility for handling gratis consultations. “This helps in their personal growth and in finding where their particular passions lie, as well as being a valuable service to our community and a point of difference for customers.”

In addition, careful consideration is given to the effects of urbanisation on animals and their owners, and the stress levels of modern city life. This includes teaming up with an animal behaviourist as a proactive way of addressing dog attacks.

Alderson is quick to point out that theirs certainly isn’t the only blueprint for the future of companion animal care, but they’re keen to share what they’re learning. “We are making mistakes as we go along, but we know that if we don’t cut corners on our values then we’re on the right track.”

CHECK OUT WIVES ON FACEBOOK: www.facebook.com/ groups/454395724713971 or search NZ Women In Veterinary|Essential Solutions.

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