Tammy Miles RVN – “If I can help and empower just one person in the profession to keep pushing through the tough times and see how amazing they are then I have achieved so much already.”

“I have been in the veterinary industry for 23 years and qualified for almost 20 years. Whilst I have had many leadership roles from deputy head nurse, head nurse and practice manager, I have never really felt as rewarded in a role as I have done in the past six months.

“I currently work as a senior veterinary nurse at Vets4Pets Leeds Birstall in West Yorkshire. I still do clinical work on the weekends but my main role is student nurse coordinator and lead mental health first aider. I look after all the student nurses as their clinical coach/supervisor. I currently have eight student nurses of all different cohorts; some are doing the degree and some the diploma. I assist them with their portfolio and nursing progress log (NPL), provide training where needed, help them study and revise for their theory and practical exams, but most importantly, I also provide ongoing emotional, well-being and mental health support.

“Each student, as you can imagine, has individual needs when it comes to well-being and emotional support, therefore it is important for me to keep up to speed with as much information as possible.

“I provide well-being and mental health sessions at work as often as possible. Last summer, I attended a virtual and interactive four-day course to be become a mental health first aider and was so inspired that I approached my manager to discuss the possibility of providing my own in-house well-being and mental health awareness sessions for the team. My manager was more than happy for me to create and present these sessions, which I named ‘Solidarity Sessions’.

“Initially, I wanted to start by creating some mental health awareness to the entire team (currently 60 colleagues) and I did this by splitting the entire team into six groups, with a mixture of vets, nurses, students, VCAs, CCAs and managers. This was to allow colleagues to interact with different members of the team and therefore create a more diverse environment during the session.

“During the first session, I discussed why it was important to have mental health first aiders in practice, how mental health first aiders can support colleagues and then had a discussion about stress and coping strategies. The session was interactive and I allowed the team to speak at any point throughout. The feedback I received was wonderful.

“The most recent session I provided to the team was based on incivility in practice and ‘Why behaviour matters’. The discussion was focused around colleague and client incivility, how this affects us, coping strategies and how we can prevent this from happening. My plan for future sessions will include talks about anxiety, neurodiversity, depression and hopefully many more!

“My whole team have been so wonderfully supportive of my aspirations and they affectionately nicknamed me ‘Momma Tammy’.

“I will always enjoy working with clients and their beloved pets but I think being in the industry for so long and witnessing so many changes and challenges that have had such an impact on colleagues past and present, I decided to steer my career path more towards empowering nurses and making sure they continue to remember why they wanted to be a nurse in the first place. I have always been passionate about mental health and well-being in practice; this has inspired me to pursue my dream of becoming a life coach and I will be starting my diploma very soon… Watch this space!

“We can be own worst enemy at times and sadly I have known some wonderful people with different strengths and such potential leave the profession because they lose sight of why they wanted a career within the veterinary profession in the first place. I have seen many colleagues suffer with mental health issues, burnout and sadly leave the profession because they did not have the support they needed, and whilst I know I am not superwoman (sadly) if I can help and empower just one person in the profession to keep pushing through the tough times and see how amazing they are then I have achieved so much already.

“Whilst I still enjoy veterinary nursing from a clinical point of view, my passion has steered for good and I am really excited for what’s to come.”

Thank you, Tammy, for sharing what Empowerment means to you.

Inspired by Tammy’s story? You can find out more about how you can get involved in #VNAM2023 here.