We are very pleased to introduce our two newest team members, both of whom you may have already met as they are not all that new to the clinic!
Sophie
Sophie is our newest vet and joined the practice in August. However, many of you may recognise her as she has been seeing practice with us for over seven years now, throughout both school and university! Having graduated from the University of Nottingham earlier this year we were delighted to be able to offer Sophie a position on our team as we already knew she was going to be a fantastic vet!
But what else is there to know about her? Well, she’s originally from the area and, having graduated from Nottingham, she was keen to move back and is now living in a village just outside Colchester. However, she has not moved back alone! During her time at university, she and her housemates adopted a cat called Tiggy. Tiggy very quickly formed a deep bond with Sophie (most likely because she was in charge of feeding her!) and now she never leaves her side when she’s home. Sophie also has a soft spot for rabbits and has had several as pets over the years.
Outside of the world of veterinary medicine and pets, Sophie really enjoys cooking and regularly creates new dishes for family and friends. Her best lockdown purchase has been a new pizza oven which she has been using as much as possible. She has always loved to bake and is working on perfecting her sourdough loaf. In addition to cooking, she also enjoys keeping fit and healthy by playing many sports, including netball, swimming and skiing and she has completed a couple of half marathons.
Rebecca A
So Rebecca A is now the third Rebecca we have in a clinic of 16 staff members! If in doubt, call for a Rebecca, someone will come!
Again, she is a not-that-new newbie. Rebecca first officially joined us back in 2017 when she started the 5-year long journey to become a Registered Veterinary Nurse (RVN). The first 2 years are spent gaining a level three advanced diploma in animal management with a one day per week placement at a veterinary practice. However, the next step is a three-year course as a Student Veterinary Nurse at the end of which you can apply to the RCVS to become a RVN. This involves a full-time placement at a veterinary practice with one day a week spent at the college. Unfortunately, as this training is much more intense, we are only able to offer one student nurse position at the clinic at any one time so Rebecca has been patiently waiting for a year for a position to become available. We are delighted to announce she has now been able to start her course and you can expect to see her smiling face around the clinic much more
As for pets, her first pet was a Golden Retriever called Benson, so she will always have a soft spot for Golden Retrievers! However, typically vets and nurses end up taking home the waifs and strays from the clinic and Rebecca is no exception. Her cat, Oscar was brought into the clinic having been rejected by its mother and hand reared by one of our nurses, Ricardo (see “Oscar turns One” for the full story!). When he was healthy enough to go home, Rebecca couldn’t resist him and so has now added “shy cats” to her list of animals she has a soft spot for. We suspect that list will only get longer with time!!
We couldn’t be happier to have Sophie and Rebecca join our team and we hope you will join us in welcoming them to our clinic.