Veterinary nurse recognised for pioneering awareness-raising work

A veterinary nurse who pioneered awareness-raising for the profession has been announced as this year's recipient of our Veterinary Nursing Golden Jubilee Award.

Dot Creighton (pictured) is a former President of the British Veterinary Nursing Association, from 2003 to 2004, and during her presidential year she devised the concept of VN Awareness Day as a way of making animal owners and local communities more aware of veterinary nurses and what they do.

This subsequently developed into an awareness week and now National VN Awareness Month, which takes place every May. This legacy was one of the main reasons Dot, who was also a member of VN Council from 2004 to 2011, was chosen to win the Award.

Kathy Kissick, Chair of VN Council, said: “Dot has worked tirelessly to raise awareness of the veterinary nurse both within the profession and with the general public. She has always supported the student veterinary nurse in training and leads by example at all times inspiring nurses to stay in or return to practice even when life changes their circumstances.

“Dot is an inspiration to many, many nurses and always commits 100% to the welfare of the animals in her care and to her clients. I congratulate her on achieving this award.”

The VN Golden Jubilee Award was launched in 2011 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of our first veterinary nurse training scheme and nominees can be veterinary nurses, veterinary surgeons or lay people who have made an outstanding contribution to the profession.

Dot was nominated for the Award by fellow veterinary nurse Lindsey Raven-Emrich who praised her “enthusiasm and input” to the profession, adding that she really “couldn’t think of a better member of the nursing community to receive this award.”

Dot, who is currently working in practice in Essex, said she was delighted to win the Award at such a crucial time for the profession. She added: “It couldn’t be a more exciting time to train to be a veterinary nurse – we have a robust training scheme, we are pushing and advancing the boundaries of veterinary nursing practice, we are seeing veterinary nurses branch out into different fields of clinical practice and, most importantly, the new Royal Charter officially recognises veterinary nursing as a regulated profession.”

The Award will be given to Dot at this year’s RCVS Day – the College’s Annual General Meeting and Awards Day – which takes place on Friday 10 July at One Great George Street in Westminster.