Chris Butler was once advised to find another career path and told he’d never fulfil his dream of becoming a veterinary nurse.
After qualifying as an RVN, he became a specialist out-of-hours veterinary nurse and is now Hospital Director at Valley Veterinary Hospital in South Wales.
Three nursing certificates underline his commitment to lifelong learning, and he was one of the first colleagues to complete the VetPartners Senior Leadership course.
So, who better than Chris to discuss why progression is the perfect theme for this year’s Veterinary Nurse Awareness Month?
A DETERMINATION to overcome life’s obstacles and an ability to think outside of the box have enabled Chris Butler to enjoy a satisfying and fulfilling career.
He left school with no GCSEs due to Dyslexia which had gone undiagnosed when he was a teenager struggling in the classroom. In his first practice role, he was told to find another career path as veterinary nurse was more suited to “housewives wanting a part-time job.”
Chris didn’t allow his early struggles – or misguided advice – to hold him back and instead used the setbacks as a springboard to achieve his career goals.
“I saw a career in nursing for myself and focused on what I wanted to do,” he said.
“I loved the job so much that it came naturally to me, and I was able to qualify as an RVN.”
Chris is now Hospital Director at Valley Veterinary Hospital in Gwaelod y Garth, a 24-hour hospital with out-of-hours emergency care, which serves pet owners across Cardiff, the Vale of Glamorgan, the South Wales Valleys and Newport. The state-of-the-art, high-tech facility allows Chris and a team of 100 people to provide exceptional care for patients.
During Veterinary Nurse Awareness Month, Chris is reminded of the progress he has made in his career as this year’s theme focuses on the advancement and growth of the veterinary nursing profession, including its diverse range of skills, abilities, and career pathways.
Chris began his working life looking after the animals at an agricultural college in South Wales. As soon as he started working there, he realised that he had found his true vocation of working with animals and went on to get a job as a student veterinary nurse at a veterinary practice.
His fellow nurses weren’t qualified, and Chris revealed: “I was told to find another career because nursing was the sort of job for housewives who wanted a part-time job. It was very female orientated, I was told. It’s hard to believe how much the profession has changed since then.”
After leaving and moving to Valley Vets, he qualified as an RVN 20 years ago, and since then has completed Nursing Certificates in Emergency and Critical Care, Anaesthesia and Feline Nursing.
Chris sums up the progress of veterinary nursing into a rewarding, fulfilling and varied career.
“I wanted to be an emergency nurse and moving to Valley Vets gave me that experience and I was able to use my nursing skill set to the maximum,” he said.
“I thrived in that fast-paced environment and, even to this day, I enjoy triaging and the interaction with clients and getting pets stabilised. Emergency care is the sharp end of the veterinary profession.
“I think it does take a certain type of personality to work in that role, but I really enjoy thinking on my feet so you can get the best out of a bad situation.”
He added: “Veterinary nursing has so many career development opportunities and it has come on leaps and bounds from when I first started. Veterinary nurses are so adaptable, and their skill set is so transferrable so they can keep on evolving in their career. Veterinary nurses play a huge role in practice, and it is important that their skills are fully utilised.”
It was while studying for his Nursing Certificate in Emergency and Critical Care that he finally began to understand more about himself as he was diagnosed with Dyslexia, a common learning difficulty that mainly causes problems with reading, writing and spelling. It’s estimated up to one in every 10 people in the UK has some degree of dyslexia.
While it can present challenges on a daily basis, rather than allow it to hold him back, Chris says he has developed certain strengths due to the condition.
“Once you learn that your brain processes things differently, you learn to navigate around Dyslexia, and it has made me able to think outside of the box which is very useful in my job,” he said.
“I realised it is nothing to be ashamed of and I just think differently to other people. It has given me good skills in other areas, such as creative thinking and problem solving.”
Those problem-solving skills were never needed more than in 2019 when, just nine months after Valley Veterinary Hospital opened its new state-of-the-art facility, it was flooded when a river burst its banks during Storm Dennis.
A raging torrent of water caused by a month’s worth of rain falling in less than 48 hours flooded the new hospital, destroying equipment like a CT scanner, digital x-ray machines and ultrasound machines and leaving the ground floor under a thick layer of mud and silt.
Chris said: “I had just gone into a leadership role, so it was very challenging dealing with a situation like that. While I was learning the ropes, I was dealing with the disaster of a practice being under water.
“We are a 24-hour emergency care provider for South Wales, so we had to find a way to keep going. We returned to the building within six week which was incredible.”
Chris was one of the first cohorts on the VetPartners Senior Leadership course which helped to equip him for his promotion to Hospital Director in 2021.
“The Senior Leadership course is such a valuable course, and it was very helpful to me after becoming Hospital Director,” he said.
“Learning about the financial side and the business side was all new to me and enabled me to gain a greater understanding. I think the most valuable part of the course was being able to meet other people in similar roles to myself. You’re able to share experiences and ideas and find that they face the same challenges as you do.”
As Chris prepares to celebrate his 30th career anniversary, he is living proof of the progress made by the profession.
- For media enquiries, please contact Amanda Little, VetPartners PR and Communications Director, at [email protected] or 07970 198492
