How it all started…
I graduated from Bristol vet school in 2007, and soon after I started my first job in a mixed practice in Somerset before moving to do a masters degree in Wild Animal Health at the Zoological Society of London. During the masters course I worked as a locum to earn some money while studying and I realised I enjoyed the flexibility that Locum work provided.
Fast-forward five years and I was busy working full time as a locum all over London in different clinics. I was able to appreciate how varied the clinics were both in terms of the quality of care offered to their clients and also how well they looked after their full time staff (or didn’t in some cases!). Chatting with disillusioned colleagues in stressful jobs, working long hours led me to think that there must be a better more sustainable way of working as a vet. Many of the colleagues I had graduated with were thinking of or had in fact left the profession altogether and the veterinary press was full of stories of compassion fatigue and the retention crisis facing the profession.
About this time I had my first experience as a locum in Norway (through a friend’s contact there). So after doing much research and many weeks arranging my licence to practice as a vet in Norway I duly packed my bag, throwing in my Fossum “surgical bible” along with a few BSAVA manuals, the BSAVA Small Animal Formulary and the BSAVA Guide to Procedures in Small Animal Practice, which proved surprisingly useful! Keep reading here.
Arriving for my first day of work, I walked to the clinic to find a huge custom built hospital. There were eight consulting rooms off the main waiting room and all the staff were in matching uniform (Scandinavia prides itself on a very flat hierarchy so all the vets and the nurses wear the same uniform, which initially was quite confusing). The clinic had all the latest imaging equipment including MRI and CT, specialist orthopaedic and soft tissue surgeons and was very much like a referral centre in the UK, but also doing 1st opinion care. It was quite overwhelming!
After settling in and having been shown the computer system which was in Norwegian - of which I didn’t speak a word! I started my first consults.
Needless to say the weeks flew by. A Norwegian dog and cat is very similar to a UK dog and cat but with the added benefit of no fleas in Norway as it is too cold in the winter. The drugs are all similar too and there is also a very strict Anti-microbial resistance policy which means penicillin are the go to antibiotic and only reaching for the potentiated amoxicillins in specific cases, not like the UK where we hand out Synulox like smarties!
The other eye opener was how they treated their staff. A strict eight hour working days with one hour break for lunch. Lunch was provided by the clinic –a huge smörgåsbord of hams and cheeses and hard bread (Knäckebröd) every day. If it was 6:05pm and your shift had technically ended at 6:00pm, everyone started looking at you very strangely and questioning why you were still at work! “Hand your cases to someone else and go home” they would say, swiftly followed by “What are you doing later?” “Later? Probably going home, cooking and watching Netflix” was my usual reply. At which point they would laugh and say “why don’t you come whale watching!!” Whale watching? This is how I found myself kayaking out of a Fjord at 9pm at night into the open sea with my work colleagues, looking for whales. What if I fall in I said looking in trepidation at the far receding shoreline… “Don’t” was the reply “as it’s a long swim back to the shore….” The Norwegians are a crazy and fun bunch.
By the time the experience had ended I was totally convinced that the Scandinavian attitude was the right one. They looked after their staff, there was a great work/life balance and the clinics were fabulous places to work. The feedback from the clinic was very positive and the clients were equally happy to have a UK vet looking after their pets. Many even requesting to have the “English speaking” vet, next time they came!
Following my time in Norway I was then approached to do the same in Sweden, an opportunity I jumped at. Again there was the rigmarole of getting licenced and understanding the tax and immigration rules. Again the clinic I worked in was a huge custom build hospital with all the latest gadgetry and again the work/life balance was fabulous. This is the life I thought to myself!
At this point the clinics were all asking if I could I help supply more UK or English speaking vets to their clinics and the friends and colleagues I talked to back in the UK about my experience were all eager to try it for themselves. Having done all the research to get licenced and work legally in Scandinavia, I was in a unique position to help.
Thereafter “NORDIC LOCUMS” was born, a company that aims to ‘lead by the hand’ interested vets to get them licenced and matched with lovely clinics in Scandinavia ether for temporary (3-6months) or permanent positions. Initially it was a “side-hustle” to my regular locum job in the UK but as it got busier and busier helping more and more vets experience the opportunities of Scandinavia it suddenly became a full time job!
I really believe that getting vets (and the bosses of vet clinics) to experience the Scandinavian culture and the hugely improved work/life balance that they can offer and ideally bringing that attitude back to their own working environment whether that is the UK or other European countries, would go a long way to helping improve the welfare of our veterinary colleagues, improve their way of life and be one step in the right direction to start to fix the huge retention issues facing our profession.
So if you are feeling burnt out /suffering from compassion fatigue / fed up with your current lot in life or even just looking for a bit of a change and some fun, I implore you to try Scandinavia for a few months or even years!
Finally whenever I talk to vets about the placements we arrange especially if they are feeling a little bit of trepidation about moving countries to work, I always finish with a warning- “be prepared to love it!” And almost without exception they all do.
Perhaps you will too…