International Member Spotlight: Susanna Taylor RVN

After a decade working in Hong Kong, Susanna Taylor RVN reflects on her unexpected transition into education and academia, the challenges of an unregulated veterinary nursing profession, and the joy of waking up to views of the South China Sea.

Tell us about your career journey to date

After qualifying, there were two areas I was really interested in: anaesthesia and exotics. I volunteered in the veterinary department at London Zoo, but it got to the point where I wanted a more permanent job in one of those two areas so that I could advance my career.

It was around that time the RVC decided to start specialising their nurses and advertised for anaesthesia nurses specifically. I was one of their first employed nurses to specialise in just one area, which was almost unheard of at the time. I had a wonderful time at the RVC - I learnt so much clinically and also completed my Veterinary Technician Specialist (VTS) qualification and European certificate while I was there.

Also during my time at the RVC I went into the management side of things. It was challenging, but I learnt a lot. It was at the RVC that I started to love teaching. Students keep you on your toes.

What’s the best thing about your role?

I get to know the vet students and see them develop and gain confidence. It’s the same with my nursing students. Sometimes I go into vet clinics in Hong Kong with my pets and it will be one of my nurses there. It’s so lovely to see them out there doing such great work.

Describe a typical working day

I use Hong Kong’s public transport as it’s nice to be able to sit and zone out on the way to work. After catching up with emails, my day is quite varied. Sometimes I’m at my desk the whole day, other times it’s meetings or I’m in the lab either teaching or making things for skills labs. There’s quite a bit of craft work, which I certainly never thought my career would lead me to!

Did you always want to work in the veterinary sector?

I wanted to be a vet when I was small, but as I got older I didn’t want to continue within the formal education system, despite doing quite well in GCSEs. I was actually quite impatient to get into the real world! I did a BTEC National Diploma, which drew me into nursing, and then I fell in love with it and have stayed in the industry ever since. I love the balance of science and care.

How does veterinary nurse regulation differ in Hong Kong?

Nurses here have a lot of the same technical skills as nurses in the UK, but they’re not actually covered by the law or regulated. It’s a bit like it was 20-25 years ago in the UK. It’s part of the reason why I’ve never worked clinically here; I liked how the profession was coming together in the UK, and I don’t want to feel like I’m going backwards.

As the veterinary profession develops here, I hope Hong Kong will realise that having an unregulated veterinary nursing profession is holding them back. I’m sure nursing will develop here, it’s just a matter of whether that will be in five or 50 years.

How does your role protect and uphold animal health and welfare?

When you leave clinical practice, whether you go into management, education or something else, it’s easy to feel like you’re not impacting animals anymore. However, by providing a good education to my students, and instilling my personal values of patient care in them, those learnings and beliefs get passed onto the animals who will directly benefit from them. Through my current role I’m able to help shape the next generation of vets and nurses, and that has a massive impact on animal health and welfare.

What do you get up to outside of work?

We love Hong Kong, but where we live isn’t what people typically think of when they think of Hong Kong. We live in a house in a small village looking out over the sea, with a mountain behind us.

My children are nine and 12 and we love exploring Hong Kong, and wider Asia is also very accessible. We’ve also rescued a lot of waifs and strays, so they take up a reasonable amount of time! We’ve got two dogs, a very large tortoise, two turtles, two lizards, three guinea pigs and quite a lot of fish.

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