Veterinary Voices
Veterinary Voices celebrates all that's great about working in the veterinary industry via clinics that put their people first.
Julie South (Veterinary Recruitment Marketing Strategist) catches up with industry professionals who join her in celebrating life as a veterinary professional because they work in great clinics that put their people first.
Together with her guests, Julie South is on a mission to celebrate positive, dynamic and healthy workplaces where everyone loves going to work on Monday mornings.
Veterinary Voices
Employer of Choice Spotlight: A Chat with Head Veterinarian - Dr Dave Rankin - Wanganui Vet Services and Vets on Carlton
Discover the heart and soul of rural veterinary practice through Dr Dave Rankin's eyes as he celebrates 30 years with Wanganui Vet Services - sister clinic to Vets on Carlton.
Dr Dave's journey shows what makes a veterinary workplace truly special – the deep bonds formed with farming families across generations, the satisfaction of mentoring young professionals, and the joy of practicing diverse medicine from pregnancy testing cattle to performing emergency small animal surgeries.
What stands out in this conversation is Dr Dave's people-first approach to veterinary medicine. "My team's always stronger than the individual," he explains, describing how everyone from receptionists to nurses plays a vital role in clinic success.
This philosophy extends to professional development, where staff members are encouraged to pursue their passions – even when it means sending a primarily large animal vet like Dr Dave, to a small animal dental course!
The clinic's thoughtful approach to after-hours work demonstrates their commitment to staff wellbeing. New veterinarians receive approximately six months lead-in before joining the on-call roster, and when they do, a tiered support system ensures they're never alone. This structure, combined with extra annual leave, helps address one of the profession's most challenging aspects.
Beyond the clinic, Whanganui itself offers an enviable lifestyle. "Everyone forgets we're a seaside city," Dr Dave shares, describing how he can be fishing, skiing, or hiking within minutes of home. With good schools, a pleasant climate, and a central location, it's the perfect setting for veterinary professionals seeking work-life balance.
Want to join a veterinary team where you're truly valued? Visit vetclinicjobs.com/vets-on-carlton to learn more about opportunities at this Veterinary Clinic Employer of Choice, where you can apply directly with no recruitment agency involved. As Dr Dave puts it, "Our clinics allow people to be themselves and to grow in an environment that is fully supported."
Struggling to get results from your job advertisements?
If so, then shining online as a good employer is essential to attracting the types of veterinary professionals who're a perfect cultural fit for your clinic.
The VetClinicJobs job board is the place to post your next job vacancy - to find out more get in touch with Lizzie at VetClinicJobs
Julie South [00:00:04]:
This is Veterinary Voices, episode 222. 222 and I'm Julie South. Veterinary Voices is all about showcasing veterinary clinic employers of choice, those clinics that are great to work at. Veterinary Voices is brought to you by vetclinicjobs.com the job board direct hiring reimagined no agency to find out about the clinics we provide profile, visit vetclinic jobs.com Today's episode is the third in the series showcasing Whanganui Vet Clinic, employer of choice vets on Carlton and Wanganui Vet Services, two sister clinics in the Manawatu small city of Whanganui. Manawatu is in the north island of New Zealand. If you're a veterinary professional who's qualified to work in New Zealand and you're looking to make your next move, then stay tuned because Vets on Carlton in Whanganui could be just the job you've been waiting for. Today I'm catching up with head veterinarian Dr. Dave Rankin, a Massey University graduate.
Julie South [00:01:24]:
He talks about why he likes working where he does, doing what he does. As you'll hear, Dr. Dave's ostensibly a large animal vet with a penchant for beef and cattle. So why would a beef and cattle large animal vet be interested in doing small animal dental work for some cpd? Stay tuned to find out. If this is the first time you've listened to Veterinary Voices and you are considering your next couple career move, you owe it to yourself to listen to the last two episodes as well because they give other perspectives on what it's like working with this team. Now let's join the chat I had with Dr. Dave so you can hear what he thinks of life in Whanganui and these two clinics.
Dr. Dave Rankin [00:02:18]:
David Rankin I'm the head vet at Whanganui Vet Services. My job is a mixed animal veterinarian, primarily large animal, but I still do everything. And one of my passions is training and getting young people or new veterinarians to basically get the best out of what they can and what they've got. So really trying to inspire young people to be better veterinarians.
Julie South [00:02:47]:
Are you a massy grad, Dr. Dave?
Dr. Dave Rankin [00:02:50]:
I graduated from Massey in 1989, so I'm a bit long on the tooth.
Julie South [00:02:55]:
Experienced. You're experienced. What does a typical day look like for you?
Dr. Dave Rankin [00:03:00]:
My days, probably from a veterinary perspective, I find it very, very interesting. So I allow my staff to run me. I try to empower them to be able to run. Basically the head vet most of my days will have pre bookings in them. But because we do a lot of emergency work at times and because our small animal clinic gets busy, I can be out in the field pregnancy testing cows, gelding, colts and then I may be called into spay a bitch, do a few consults. My day's run by somebody else, so it can be quite exciting and you're not really sure what's going to come around the next corner, which can be a little bit stressful, but I also find it very, very rewarding and it keeps me interested.
Julie South [00:03:41]:
How long have you been on that team?
Dr. Dave Rankin [00:03:44]:
I've been here on the 1st of May this year, 30 years and I've been a vet for 35.
Julie South [00:03:49]:
Wow. That's next week as we're recording this. Congratulations. Happy anniversary.
Dr. Dave Rankin [00:03:54]:
Yeah, I haven't got a present yet.
Julie South [00:03:55]:
Oh, yeah, well, you know, maybe it's coming.
Dr. Dave Rankin [00:03:58]:
I got a good one for 25.
Julie South [00:04:01]:
Nice. No, no pressure or anything. How would you describe your clients?
Dr. Dave Rankin [00:04:06]:
Whanganui Clients are farmers, they're like family. And once you've been here for 30 years, it is like working for family. You know them, you know their kids, you know, you know where they are at school and the opportunities that come from that. The cups of tea, the lunches. I mean, I do a bit of hunting. I used to a bit of motorbiking. It's really just a phone call to go and you know, if I want to take someone for a tramp on a station, it's just a phone call. If I want to go hunting on a station, it's a phone call.
Dr. Dave Rankin [00:04:36]:
Yeah. Really family, you know them, you get new managers in. I always find that a little bit stressful, but obviously I've been doing this a long time and getting those new managers to follow the clinic and to continue the jobs we've been doing is very rewarding. You know, I'm now working for dads still in the background, some of them, it's granddads in the background. And now the farm owners, children are now starting to work back on the farm. So I've got farms with three generations that I've worked with, which is cool. You know, I get comments from farmers. Why don't you buy your product from a rural supplier? And they go, there's this little guy in Wanganui that when we're in trouble, we ring him up and he fixes it for us.
Dr. Dave Rankin [00:05:17]:
And that's the relationship I have with those people, which is really cool.
Julie South [00:05:21]:
I was going to ask whether. And you've, I think You've kind of answered it, but I'll ask it anyway. What did the majority of your farming clients be? Owner farmers or are they big corporates?
Dr. Dave Rankin [00:05:35]:
It's a mix. So, because I still do dairy, my passion, sheep and beef, but I still do dairy. So we're dealing with a lot of managers and even on the sheep and beef places, we're dealing with a lot of managers. And again, I can give an example of a young manager. He's a very, very nice guy. We discuss buying houses, how to make money, and just trying to give them feedback on questions they asked. So he now uses my accountant, which wasn't taking on any new clients, but because they mentioned my name, he got into that accountant. So it's.
Dr. Dave Rankin [00:06:08]:
Yeah, it's not just veterinary based. It's often mentoring people. There's the mental health stuff that we do as well. And you don't think you're doing it, but you're a shoulder to lean on. And when you get people through those issues, it's really, really rewarding.
Julie South [00:06:24]:
What, I'm gonna put you on the spot here. If you had to identify one, one case, one incident that lights you up and it has this man, I'm proud of that, what would that be?
Dr. Dave Rankin [00:06:39]:
There's thousands of them, and that's the hard bit. But I mean, last year I've been. Farming's a little bit like an accounting program, except you're dealing in grass and you're dealing in harvesters, which are sheep and cattle. And I've managed to talk. I went on a farm tour looking for opportunity, and I talked one of my clients into putting a winter crop in and just seeing the performance improve. I've had properties. Years ago, I got called up to a 20,000 acre property, HF, 25,000 acres, to look for opportunity. We improved the lambing percentage by 20%, which on 25,000 ewes is 5,000 lambs.
Dr. Dave Rankin [00:07:18]:
And at that point in time, you're talking half a million dollars. So little improvements in advice, that's just really, really rewarding. But it can be down to one farmer rang me. I've had some cows dying. There was something I couldn't fix, but I found the problem, which was an old yew tree in a paddock. So he knew what the issue was, which meant, mentally, he could deal with it. And we had a plan going forward. So cases like that.
Dr. Dave Rankin [00:07:44]:
At the moment I'm dealing with an MPI case. So the Ministry of Primary Industries involved with one of my farmers, and I'm there as the advocate for that farmer, you're not just a vet. And I mean vets. It's just a massive role of the opportunity. It's there to be taken, as I say, to large animals. But I mean, one of the cases I did many years ago, so it was over 30 years ago, we had a horse with a broken foot and in the field we went out with a hand drill because we didn't have drills, and we put screws through that bone and the horse was sound afterwards. So it's just. Yeah, if you want to give it a go, it's a profession, you can.
Julie South [00:08:23]:
This almost sounds like it needs to go into secondary schools and get young men and women lining up to go into Massey. There's not enough men doing this. Dave.
Dr. Dave Rankin [00:08:42]:
Oh, it's a huge role change and I think the hardest bit is the selection of guys. People don't want males don't want to be veterinarian. And if you aren't brought up on a farm, the actual handling of animals is hard. So people that see veterinarians when they're younger, and this probably sounds a little bit sexist, but if you're taking Fluffy the cat in or the horse to the veterinarian, it tends to be a female. So when I. Some of the role models, Trevor Cook was one of them. When I was a kid, I remember coming out and bursting an abscess on a steer and this pus went everywhere and it was just cool. That sounds terrible, but that's one of my enduring memories of growing up.
Dr. Dave Rankin [00:09:31]:
But if you are on a farm, you don't see that. So people tend to want to do small animals, whereas there's a whole nother field and I mean, there's a massive field in small animals. And as I say, I still do surgery, I still do clinics and I still really enjoy doing small animals. I've got a classic case. I just remembered that now we had the Wanganui Bark up at the racecourse where we were protesting over some of the rules the government was doing. And the farmer beside me had a dog that had had a rotten foot and I had it in the clinic for two weeks treating that foot. One toe eventually fell off. We managed to get it to heal up and it's working again.
Dr. Dave Rankin [00:10:12]:
So it was at the backup. The second one had a torsion of its spleen. So when it came and I put a needle in its side, blood came out straight into surgery, removed the spleen. And both of those dogs were standing beside me at the bar up. So. And he's a CL had for 35 years. Because he's got farms in Tamarinui, where I originally started. Yeah.
Dr. Dave Rankin [00:10:30]:
Having clients that have more faith in you than you have in yourself is, yeah, massively rewarding.
Julie South [00:10:37]:
Narrowing it down. Please describe in just three words, how would you describe the team?
Dr. Dave Rankin [00:10:45]:
Family orientated, passionate and friendly.
Julie South [00:10:48]:
What's important to you at work and how has this importantness played out?
Dr. Dave Rankin [00:10:57]:
By being at work, probably my team, I really focus on the team and it doesn't matter whether I'm working on a farm because I have a different team on farm. I have shepherds and I have managers and I have myself and whoever else is working with us. But if I'm in the clinic, my team's always stronger than the individual. And if I can empower everybody from. Got a cleaner that works here and she's been here, I think 12 months longer than me. And while she does, like, we've taught her to do our fecal egg counting. And she's not just a cleaner, she's one of my team. We can ask her to do, you know, whole veins up, do all sorts of things.
Dr. Dave Rankin [00:11:40]:
And it's enabling people to get their skills out and, I don't know, just feel good in themselves by empowering them. And that's probably. Yes, I do veterinary work, but when I'm working with a team, if I have my team with surgery and my nurses are getting cases to me, so I'll walk out of a surgery and I'll walk to my anesthetic table and my next patient is there ready to go, anesthetize them into surgery. And we get a huge efficiency and a huge roll on, which is number one, good for the business. But you can see the team, the nurses are doing their job. I'm not telling them how to do their job. They're running me. And I find that once I have an empowered team, everything goes better.
Dr. Dave Rankin [00:12:31]:
And it doesn't always work with all of my team. Vets are interesting characters. I love my team. And reception, as I said earlier, organizes me and organizes the team. You don't have to be the person at the top to organizing how a business runs. My nurses should be organizing their side of the business. My receptionist should be organizing that. And if I get a day where it flows, everyone's happy, we make jokes, we laugh.
Dr. Dave Rankin [00:13:00]:
A day like that is just awesome. And some days don't flow, but most days with the team we have do you know, there's stressful times, but there's also people like me that support our young people that are struggling and I'd like to comment that the last five people I've employed, because we take a lot of students on, have all asked to work for us. Take that as a massive reflection on how well we do look after and how well we do mentor people after.
Julie South [00:13:27]:
Hours, the bane of all veterinary professionals. What's the after hours roster like as a veterinarian?
Dr. Dave Rankin [00:13:39]:
Well, first thing I'd like to say is a problem shared is a problem halved. So you know, I've been doing this a long time. So all of us are on the after hours roster. When we employ a new person, it's not always a new graduate. Depends on their ability. We normally give them around a six month stand down from after hours. It depends when they start and it's based on most of our graduates coming out around Christmas time and in mid July. We have three vets on call.
Dr. Dave Rankin [00:14:09]:
So we have a first call, second call and third call. So when a new person comes in, if they're on first call taking the majority of the calls, there is a second call vet always available to back them up. And then on a Saturday morning, which is where third call comes in, if we do get too busy, third call comes in and covers that. So that roster goes from the middle of July until about the middle of October. So that's how we start people, that's how we mentor them into being supported through after hours. The rest of the roster for the rest of the year is one vet on with a second call. The second call vet only has to be available for the Saturday morning. And it's hugely variable.
Dr. Dave Rankin [00:14:50]:
When we're up to speed, we have 10 vets in the team, so it's one in 10 weekends you're on full call and then one in 10 weekends you're on second call. Some weekends are hard and mentally I don't, I mean I've been doing this for over 35 years. You still, the lack of sleep, people waking you up in the middle of night, having to turn your brain on is stressful and you are dealing with someone's pet. But there is support. The other thing we do have, which I implemented about eight years ago, was we now have a nurse on with us all the time. So when I originally started, you'd be cleaning kennels, checking drips, medicating animals as well as doing the after hours. Now we have a nurse does that, which takes an enormous amount of pressure off you. We also used to have, you would be anesthetizing animals with the owner present and no nurse.
Dr. Dave Rankin [00:15:44]:
And we did that for A long time. Now we have a nurse and the owners don't hang around, so it means your cleanup's easier, your time in clinic, you're just in doing the surgery, your nurse is then waking up the animal. It means you can get home and go to sleep. There is the dealing with the unknown, which is I'm having dinner and the phone goes. And mentally it's just part of the job. It's often you do some really rewarding things after hours and I think the hardest bit is getting your head around the fact that after hours is there, you don't know when and what's coming in. And that's probably what gets in our heads and the little bit of lack of sleep. In our clinic, we actually do give veterinarians a week extra holiday so they can use that if they need it after some.
Dr. Dave Rankin [00:16:37]:
Some clinics will give you half a day off that you actually take. Some of our vets use the extra week holiday to do that and others choose not to and extend their holidays. So I tend to not do it because I'd rather take, you know, if I've had a hard weekend, I'm just going to lay in bed and do nothing. And I tend to be quite an active person, so I'd rather save that holiday up and have an extended holiday somewhere else. So we let our vets choose how they want to use that extra time and again, if someone is tired, struggling on a Monday morning and they ring us, we just cover it. We've just got to look after our team. So we're very flexible and in that. But I'm not going to say I enjoy being on call after hours.
Dr. Dave Rankin [00:17:26]:
Some days I do, but most of the time it is, it is part of the job. It can be really, really rewarding and we try and put in as many tools in there that they can use as in the nurses. We have all the equipment here, we have a lab on site, we have X rays on site, we've got good surgeries. So it's trying to make it the best of a bad thing. And it is probably one of the hardest things we're facing in the veterinary that we're now getting these emergency clinics which are up to two hours away from where the client is and we've chosen not to do our oppositions after hours. So some of our clinics around us, or just about every clinic around us, is now using an after hours clinic, but we have chosen if they aren't a bona fide client, we are not doing their after hours because I do not want to overload the team.
Julie South [00:18:20]:
What's it like living in Whanganui?
Dr. Dave Rankin [00:18:22]:
Yeah, I'm born and bred in Fielding, which is about 50 minutes from Whanganui. When I left vet school, jobs weren't that easy to come by. I decided that the first job that I got offered I was going to take as long as it was in a sheep and beef area. So I got offered a job in Tamranui, which I really, really enjoyed. I tell people, Whanganui's, you buy your beer at the supermarket and you buy your bottle of milk at the supermarket because it's just as quick as going to the dairy. It's just a lovely. The environment is. It's just a lovely place to live.
Dr. Dave Rankin [00:18:57]:
It's not too hot, it's not too cold. Everyone forgets we're a seaside city. There is a really nice beaches to either drive up, walk up, ride horses up, which I used to do. Fishing, hunting, skiing. It has everything you need. And if you want something else that isn't here, which is generally, you don't need to go anywhere. Palmerston's not very far away, Wellington's not very far away, New Plymouth isn't very far away. So very central.
Dr. Dave Rankin [00:19:27]:
The river's gorgeous. I live up the river, my house overlooks the river and I've been here a long time and it's a very, very safe city with lots of things to do. As I say, you can be fishing and I can have skis on in an hour and a half to go snow skiing. I can be water skiing in five minutes, I can be fishing in five or ten minutes, I can be hunting out my back door.
Julie South [00:19:48]:
Dr. Dave, what sort of vet do you think would fit in best?
Dr. Dave Rankin [00:19:55]:
I tend to employ people that I think will fit into my team, so someone that does respect a team and respect the people they work with, veterinary wise, the job at Fetsol Carlton is primarily a small animal job, but the small animal job is such a vast opportunity. There's surgery, there's lots of different clinical things. We allow our veterinarians to choose their path. Obviously, you've got the day to day stuff that needs to be done, the vaccinations, the cat abscesses, the things like that. But one of our vets that's been with us, I think, 10 years this year, has become our orthopedic vet. He had worked in a Dutch practice under orthopaedic surgeons, but he'd never actually done the surgery. So he's been to lots of courses to teach himself how to do the procedures and that's his passion and we've allowed that to grow. Number one, it's good for him and number two, it's good for the clinic, though, if people have a passion.
Dr. Dave Rankin [00:21:00]:
We've got two equine vets that have done dental courses. We really don't have enough dentals for two vets to have gone to a very expensive dental course in a Australia. But we did that for their own personal growth, as well as being a little bit useful to the clinic. So it's not just about what is going to necessarily grow us, it's about growing people and then hopefully their growth helps grow the clinic. And from what I'm seeing, that is working exceptionally well. I mean, I'm 58 years old and last year I did a dental course, so they're with myself and another older veterinarian, I think he was a year younger than me, and they were going to use us as the poster boys and it was a fantastic course. And we've now got a dental machine, a dental X ray machine. We've always had the dental gear.
Dr. Dave Rankin [00:21:50]:
And I now some of my vets, we had three vets go to a dental course. I get asked how to do stuff and I'm going, I'm primarily a large animal vet, but I really enjoyed the course, I learned lots from it and I enjoy training people. So all of those things added to, well, why shouldn't I go and do the course? And I learned heaps. And then I now have other veterinarians ask me how to do things and we sit there and we muddle our way through it and get better at things and they're able to provide a better service for our clients.
Julie South [00:22:21]:
You've answered my next question, which was how does CPD work and what's it look like for professional development? So thank you.
Dr. Dave Rankin [00:22:30]:
Yeah, we have a rough guide. It's six days a year to do cpd, which is we pay for the accommodation, we pay for the course, pay for you to get there if you want to go overseas, we partially fund the airfare, so we base it on the dearest airfare you can find in New Zealand. That's about what we pay. So it's around a thousand dollars. We'll pay towards an airfare. So if you want to go to the uk, if you want to go to America, we will pay towards the airfare. We won't fully fund the airfare. And then the course is covered in your accommodation.
Dr. Dave Rankin [00:23:04]:
Food, et cetera, is covered while you're at those courses, as Long as if it's an overseas course, it is relevant to what you do in the clinic and is going to bring some value back. So I've been to Vanuatu, I've been to Australia, we've had vets go to America and we've had lay staff go to America as well on pet shop tours. So as long as it's relevant to the clinic, we will look at it. The six days becomes. If you've used all your CPD days up and something important comes up, which we think is very valuable, it's asking the question. And then the team sits down and goes, yes, we think that's value and we will fund that as well. So obviously we don't want vets away for 12 months on courses, but taking a sabbatical.
Julie South [00:23:49]:
Yeah. Fully paid sabbatical. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. One last question is, is there anything that you would especially like a prospective new hire at your clinic to know about working at your clinic? Why should they apply?
Dr. Dave Rankin [00:24:10]:
I think our clinics allow people to be themselves and to grow in an environment that is fully supported. And again, we don't get everything right, but we try and get it right. And that's what I'd like to tell people. Our team is so important that, yeah, it's looking after everybody. And I think Whanganui is one of those towns that everything's here. Good schooling, good shops, great environment, and you're working for a team that wants to look after you.
Julie South [00:24:48]:
As you've just heard, this is a team spread across two sister locations that cares for for its people, where you get respected, supported and looked after in the good times and bad things that happen, especially when life gets in the way. Off air. Dr. Dave shared with me how they've been through the thick and thin when life does get in the way, in the way of health, in the way of relationships and other events that we just don't wish on anyone. If you'd like to know more about Whanganui as a potential place to live, then check out the video@vetclinicjobs.com vetsoncarleton. All links will be in the show notes for you. And that's Vets on Carlton. If you want to know more about the job, then please check out the video that Tania's recorded.
Julie South [00:25:40]:
Again, I'll put the links in the show notes for you. Those links will be wherever you are listening to this episode. And if you didn't know or realize at vet clinic jobs, you're applying directly with the clinic, there's no middleman recruitment agency involved. Now, changing the subject ever so slightly. If you're listening to this episode and you've been advertising for ages on a regular job board to find staff and you are still looking, then let's chat. Because advertising on vet clinic jobs will seriously get you the results that you're looking for. Because this isn't your regular static job board when nothing happens. We have clinics that have listed with other job board for months, absolutely ages, with no results, no job offers made and then they come to us and within just a couple of months they've found their next dream team member.
Julie South [00:26:36]:
These aren't flash in the pan once off events, they happen time and time again. But you have to be ready to do things a little differently because if you always do what you've always done, then as you know, you'll always get what you've always got. Thanks for listening. Remember to check out vetclinicjobs.com vets on Carlton for more info and tune back in again next week when I catch up with head Veterinary Nurse at Vetsonville Carlton. Bridget until then, this is Julie south signing off, inviting you to go out there and be the most fantabulous version of you you can be because you work with a great team of people who lift you up and want to see you shine bright. Kaketi Anno.
Dr. Dave Rankin [00:27:33]:
Sam.
