Page 4 - ACV Journal DECEMBER 2015

President’s Report
ACV PRESIDENT’S REPORT
December 2015
Hello Cattle Vets Family,
Yet another quarter has rushed by, the Rabbit was pulled out of
the hat, a new Bull has been given a Turn, unborn calves have
switched trimesters, we have all gotten older, and most of our
fantastic army of veterinary students will have just officially joined Immediately prior to the preg testing prac, whilst attempting to
us as new peers. Very exciting indeed!
We were lucky enough to be given the opportunity to assist
Murdoch in providing a group of their final year veterinary
students an opportunity to hone their preg testing skills again this
year. The prac is designed to help the nearly newly young vets to
refine the connection between their hand and their imaginiscope
residing in their visual cortex. This has been our fourth year and
it continues to be one of my favourite, but most stressful times of
year. This year was no exception.
Whilst we were preg testing in a hot northerly, we had heard of
several large fires across the district throughout the day. When
a 90 degree wind shift suddenly occurred and wind speeds
cranked up to 100 kms an hour we all felt that something was
going horribly wrong. Long story short, the students performed
admirably over the next two days helping me to help farmers to
muster, triage, and treat affected sheep. The students individually
treated close to 1,000 sheep.
Tyman Yeo is heading to York WA, Jordan Zec to Nanango QLD,
and Craig Jackson to Collie WA. Kirra-Lee Proctor and Kerry
Jurgens, like many new grads are still looking for a future in rural
Australia. These kids represent exactly the sort of people I am
proud to call colleagues, if anyone is chasing a great new grad,
please drop me a line.
Our organization, the events we run, the scholarships we bestow,
and an enormous amount of what we do behind the scenes
is driven by industry support. We cleaned out our supply of
NSAID’s and used up an enormous volume of antibiotics on the
first day. With a quick call to Provet the next morning we were
restocked and back into it volunteering our time and utilizing
donated product. We fielded an enormous number of calls from
ACV OFFICE
CHRISTMAS SHUTDOWN
THE ACV OFFICE WILL CLOSE
AT NOON ON CHRISTMAS EVE AND REOPEN AT 8:30
AM ON MONDAY 4 JANUARY
4 The Australian Cattle Veterinarian | volume 77 | December 2015
our veterinary friends, pharmaceutical companies, and industry
bodies from across Australia offering support. Thank you so
much to Bayer, Bohringer Ingelheim, Elanco, Norbrook, Troy-Ilium
and Provet for helping our farmers with donated product!
preg test a feedlot heifer hip caught in a pneumatic head bail,
as she slipped through, the head bail slammed shut crushing
my preg testing wrist badly. I imagined that I would soon be
redefining my career as an anal gland expressor, or I would need
to learn to preg test right handed. As a result, I switched to my
right hand for a bit… with somewhere close to half a million pregs
looked after by lefty, I assumed it would be pretty easy to swap
over. It is remarkable the mapping that must occur to connect
one’s hand to one’s ability to “visualize” bovine plumbing. This
small experience has changed the way I view teaching students.
I now have an incredible amount of empathy for the neuvo preg
tester.
Being on the executive is challenging. Being on the executive
is rewarding. Everyone on the board wants to help all of our
members. We try, we sweat, we toil, we argue, we worry, and
ultimately sometimes we do great things and sometimes we miss
the mark. I hand over the Charlois scepter to Craig Dwyer at
Uluru in April and I hope to see you there, but in the mean time,
please think about the great team of people trying to help all of us,
and think about joining them! All you have to do is be nominated
before February 8th and you will stand for election. We have
three positions becoming available, please contact Anne for more
info. We are no different to you, we are also incredibly time poor
and dedicated to this profession that we love! If you can’t find
someone to nominate you, or are embarrassed to ask, just email
me at enoch@swansvet.com and I will nominate you!
Have a great holiday season my friends! If you have earned time
off, enjoy it, you deserve it! And if you haven’t earned time off, my
advice is to keep on enjoying it, for we are the luckiest people in
the world, we are Australian Cattle Vets!
Enoch Bergman
www.ava.com.au/cattle