Dr Chris Brown - Bondi Vet

Dr Chris Brown - Bondi Vet Dr Chris Brown An Interview With The Bondi VetPosted October 1, 2013, by Marni Williams Growing up with Dad as the local vet meant we didnt have your usual pets. Our suburban backyard played home and hospital ward to chickens, cows, koalas, sheep, pelicans and even a penguin that used our swimming pool as his exercise area. The classic 1930s actor and comedian WC Fields famously said that you should never work with children or animals. We ask the famous Bondi Vet Dr Chris Brown if there might have been any truth to the old jokers words. Ive read that you grew up on a farm with a veterinarian father, so was being a vet something you always wanted to do? And have you ever wondered whether you made the right decision? Growing up with Dad as the local vet meant we didnt have your usual pets. Our suburban backyard played home and hospital ward to chickens, cows, koalas, sheep, pelicans and even a penguin that used our swimming pool as his exercise area. So there were always a lot of animals around and I remember being quite obsessed with them at a young age. But if anything, the determination to be original with my career and notlage just follow in Dads footsteps meant I was in a fair bit of denial over the fact I was probably always going to be a vet. I imagine the stakes are quite high when youre making life-and-death decisions and dealing with a familys most precious loved ones while trying to avoid claws, teeth and stingers. Whos harder to work with the owners or the animals? Ive always thought that as a vet you end up treating people as much as pets. Thankfully, there are numerous laws that ensure thats not in the physical sense, just the emotional one. But quite seriously, I think the difference between a great vet and an average one is how well you communicate with the owners of that animal. After all, for those people, you could be guiding them through what might be the toughest day of their life. And if you can make that awful da y just a little more bearable then youve achieved your goal. There are also times where the people provide the greatest challenge too. Like the day I operated on a lovely couples Labrador to find a G-string in his stomach. The only problem being that the wife didnt own any G-strings Network TEN Publicity Australians love their pets and we have one of the highest incidences of pet ownership in the world pets outnumber humans 32. But we also have 30% more vets per capita than the US and UK, and there has been a significant increase in the number of veterinary graduates over the past 10 years. Its a competitive and notoriously demanding area of study. How did you find the course and do you have any advice for anyone thinking about a career in animal care? Theres no doubt the study involved in becoming a vet is intense. But given how hard the course is to get into, thats probably no great surprise. In fact, you could say the course is the perfect rehearsal for how working life is goi ng to be. Long hours, a lack of sleepand animals throwing lots of surprises your way and not just those that require a good relationship with your local dry cleaner. The best advice I can give is to just keep up. The biggest challenge isnt so much the concepts you have to learn but rather the number of them. Oysters can change their gender, snails can re-grow lost eyes and fleas can jump 200 times their own height what useful super-animal trait/s do you think human workers could use in order to survive? While there have been times where a geckos ability to cling upside down to the ceiling as a psychotic chihuahua attempted to chow down on me would have been useful, Id have to say a horses ability to sleep standing up. This collection of tendons called the stay apparatus that locks all their legs in place could have been really handy for those long days in the clinic. Into animals? 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