Week 12 and counting….

I had a late night on Sunday trying to submit my application to the RCVS for Advanced Practitioner Status, http://www.rcvs.org.uk/education/advanced-practitioner-status/, before the closing date of, err…Sunday night.  Nothing like a deadline to focus the mind – bit like exams really!  I struggled with the technology but just dipped in under the bar.  I believe I wasn’t the only one with the middle name, “Justin”: in the final week leading up to the deadline the number of applicants rose from about 250 to 700, (approximately 40% of which were equine) - good to hear I was in good company.

The rest of the week until Wednesday night was in the practice culminating in our annual dinner for our referring vets at The Corse Lawn Hotel http://corselawn.com/.  The evening ended sampling malt whisky at 2am with our houseguest, Henry Tremaine.  This was followed by a 7am departure to catch a flight to the 60^th AAEP Convention in Salt Lake City http://www.aaep.org/info/annual-convention-318.”I was buckin’ and squealin’” as Liam Kearns, one of my partners would say.  We dropped Henry back at the hotel to collect his car and wended our way to Heathrow, finding an “early starter” en route.

On our way to Salt Lake City we stopped off at Toronto to spend a couple of nights with Luise’s uncle, University Professor-Emeritus Geoffrey Sumner-Smith DVSc (Liv), MSc, BVSc FRCVS – that number of letters after a name was never going to be from my side of the family!  Geoff qualified from Liverpool in 1951 and after spending a few years in large animal practice in Malpas, Cheshire, followed by some Small Animal practice in Bristol, moved to Ontario Veterinary College (OVC) at the University of Guelph in 1967 for a 2 year post – and in his words, “…I’ve been here ever since”.  Geoff was one of the pioneers of internal fixation (AOVET) in small animals and has published widely on the subject of small animal orthopaedics.  Obviously we had to visit the OVC, where Luise also spent 12 months as an intern from 1987 to 1988.

Another early start on Saturday, which didn’t matter, jetlag had already kicked in, for our flight to Salt Lake City via Chicago.  I’m an early riser most days but 3am is even a shock to my system!

So, to the US to experience The Great American Dream….