“ I knew I wanted to be a vet from when I was a young boy, probably 10 or 11, the books I used to read all related to animals. I think my biggest influence to start with was Gerald Durrell who used to write about his life. He’s a naturalist, zoologist who ended up setting up his own zoo in the Channel Islands in England and I always thought, Wow! what an amazing life he led.
I used to read all the animal books, James Herriot of cause and I always thought I’d end up working as a zoo vet because of the influence but it never came to be.
I graduated 32 years ago from Murdoch Uni in WA. All my school years were spent in WA. I was born in Hong Kong and we came here when I was 6 and a half. I never thought I would leave WA but just how things worked out was well, we were a split family when I was young so we lived with Dad. Mum moved around, she lived in Melbourne and Sydney and my Dad died when I finished high school and so I went and stayed with mum during my Christmas holidays. It just so happened that she wanted a sea change to Lismore and ended up buying a tropical fruit farm in Rosebank. So every Xmas holidays I would come and do prac work with Jack Frogley who was my first boss.
Jack had his own practice at the time in Zadoc St. When I was putting everything together to make applications for work he said ‘when can you start?’ I had just wanted him to be my referee but I told him to give me a week after I finished uni. December 5th 1983 I started in Lismore and I said I‘d give him a year but I’m still here. This is my first job and will likely be my last job. I was very lucky, he was the best man, such a good mentor. He took me in like a Dad….he was like a father to me but he had a cerebral haemorrhage in 93 so I took on the business then and he passed away in 98 but he couldn’t work again after his cerebral haemorrhage so it was very sad. I was very lucky to work with him, to learn from him, learn that animals are very important and they’re your number one focus but the people are too. He had a wonderful way with people… Sorry, I get emotional…..
This practice is very family orientated so we care about the whole thing, the animals obviously but we get to know the people. After 32 years my original clients now have children that bring their animals in. It’s an incredibly fulfilling occupation, no days are the same. There are extremely sad days and unfortunately as a profession it’s a very stressful occupation. The suicide rate is one of the highest and for mental illness as well in this profession. It’s stressful because your hours are very long, you get emotionally involved with the animals and the people. It doesn’t all work out and sometimes things don’t go the way that you like and animals do die and it takes a while for every vet to get used to that. It’s not an easy thing to get used to and some just can’t cope.
Unfortunately, I guess when you deal with the public 99% of people are fantastic, you laugh with them, you get to know them so well but there’s always going to be some that you can’t make happy, as much as you try to please everyone you know that you can’t so its difficult. So it’s an extremely stressful occupation but its a wonderful occupation.
I class myself as one of the lucky people that can come to work, love your job and I’ve loved my job for 32 years. And as I said I never thought Id leave WA but again, see how lucky I am, I’ve come to the best part of Australia. People here are wonderful, very accepting, every thing’s beautiful about this. I often say to people its such a wonderful place to live but unfortunately all the parasites think its a wonderful place to live as well. You’ve got ticks, fleas, snakes, all those nasties like to live here too.The success that I’ve had is not down to me, Ive got a good team. Ive been so lucky, we often comment that some businesses get a huge change over of staff and we’ve been incredibly lucky that most of them just want to stay so as a boss I’ve been very very lucky”