Dear VBG Members,
It is truly exciting to be writing this month’s Members News, fresh from another wonderful VBG Summit in partnership with our colleagues at the ASAV, celebrating ‘The Joys of General Practice’.
During the conference, we were able to share the news that VBG membership has surged with the new AVA membership model, rising to over 1500 members! This makes VBG the second largest special interest group of the AVA – recognition of the critical role that business literacy and leadership have across our entire profession. So welcome to all of you new VBG members, and thank you for joining our special tribe.
We also officially launched a host a new resources that build on our Great Veterinary Workplaces policy and guidelines. These resources will help workplaces measure their employee engagement, diagnose opportunities to improve their employee’s experience, address knowledge gaps to take action on these opportunities, and gain recognition for excellence in employee engagement and wellbeing. This virtuous cycle of continuous improvement has the potential to dramatically improve wellbeing, retention and engagement at a workplace level and across our profession.
For more information, head to www.ava.com.au/gvw
Our conference also provided the opportunity for us to celebrate those achieving special things in our profession with the VBG Awards. We will share more information about this year’s award winners over coming editions of the VBG Member News, but I’d like to take this opportunity to congratulate the following award winners:
- Aspiring Business Leader – Dr Angus Blackwood, Western Plains Veterinary Service
- Business Professional of the Year – Dr Isaac Roebuck, Tamworth Veterinary Hospital
- Business Thought Leader of the Year – Dr Nicole Rous, Canterbury Veterinary Clinic
- Business of the Year – NQ Care, Townsville
Despite the variable Sunshine Coast weather, there was plenty of joy in our lecture rooms, with the business stream incredibly well attended. We heard some truly wonderful speakers, including Cat Walker talking through best practice complaints prevention and management, Dr Hugh Willoughby sharing some really actionable tactics to make team-based consulting work in general practice, and some thought-provoking insights on the use of AI in veterinary clinics from James Merchant at ClinicWise.
Our plenary speakers – Dr Olivia Oginska, Valentina Lwin Bailey, Noel Gallagher and Dr Alex Harrison – spoke with passion and challenged us to reconsider some of our assumptions around optimism, organisational culture, wealth creation, and inclusion. And despite missing an important female perspective, our closing panel stimulated some great discussion from the audience on the future of the veterinary profession and finding joy in Veterinary Science. As we all recognise, a joy shared is a joy doubled.
Until next month, go out and share the joy!
Jason Chuck
