The members of the Church Wilne Rotary Club were treated at their meeting on Monday 24th November, to an exceptional talk by Chris Parker, which was coupled with details and humour on the changing face of the Veterinary Practice.

Chris who is from the Scarsdale Vets, Derby graduated from Edinburgh University 33 years ago and spoke about his early days as a Vet when there was no health and safety and included some of his many humorous experiences when working at the Edinburgh Zoo. Then it was a 24 hours a day job and they worked with all species.

When Chris moved into the area there were 14 veterinary practices linked to farming and now there are just 4 and with just 340 remaining within the UK out of 17,000

The future will see many changes with the species treated with pet pigs, rare breeds, Llamas and Alpacas becoming more popular.

Chris spoke about some of the animal disasters, the changing breeds of cattle before moving onto the improvements and changes in equipment linked to calving and diagnostics. Now they have ultrasound scanners and top of the range x-ray equipment. Their CT scanner is 7th generation and the images are in 3D. Their laboratory is equipped to give results and opinions the same day.

The distance they travel to the farms used to be 9 miles but now they travel up to 42 miles. A lot of the work is to advise the farmers best practice plus of course emergency work with many farms under contact to receive a visit every 2 weeks.

Chris spoke further about the changing disease patterns, new diseases, TB, and Sheep Scab.

There are now some "Veterinary Deserts" in the UK with no animal cover including an area north of Sheffield and within Cornwall. One of the long term aims is to persuade future graduates this is their future.

Rotarian David Down gave the Club's vote of thanks to Chris for a humorous and informative talk and said some of the details were quite scary

Ray Terry
for the Rotary Club of Church Wilne

Photograph: President Geoff Smith (right) thanking Chris Parker following his talk