Meet Jack Pye: Veterinary Nurse, Account Manager and Bowls Extraordinaire!
My name is Jack Pye and I’m extremely proud to be able to call myself a Veterinary Nurse! I’ve been a qualified veterinary nurse since 2018 and have had an absolute whirlwind career since then. It wasn’t until I came to write this blog post that I really had time to look back and reflect on what’s gotten me to where I am today, so here goes.
I’ve always had a passion for animals since an extremely young age, cliché I know… I’d forever be looking for various creatures in the back garden and plaguing my mum and dad for a pet of some sort and spending time near the pond looking at the frogs and tadpoles. From that moment I always knew I’d have a career of some sort with animals! Before that I wanted to be a fireman! But I never got the real life size fire truck for Christmas so here I am now!
Fast forward to 2013 and I was at college completing my animal nursing assistant qualification, this was to help me get a foot in the door to veterinary practice, the skills, knowledge and people I met in this stage of my career was invaluable! We come across inspirational people at all stages of our life and one person at this point sticks out – her name was April Caton RVN – she was my lecturer at college and was a registered veterinary nurse, not only was she a lecturer but she was a mentor and what turned out to be a friend also! April championed her students and also inspired me to go on and achieve my goal of a veterinary nurse! I was lucky enough to be given a work experience placement at a small animal practice in Norfolk – Taverham Veterinary Hospital, I did one day a week here for 2 years! The team was friendly and welcoming and really took me under their wing with showing me what life in veterinary practice was all about! I learnt a huge amount of theory knowledge and practical skills in this time and was quite sad when the time came to move on.
From there I started my formal training as a veterinary nurse in 2015, I enrolled as a student veterinary nurse with the RCVS and set out what I’d planned to do! I knew the journey ahead was going to be tough but little did I know how tough! I started off at a practice about 45 minutes from where I lived in a town called Fakenham! Early starts and late nights along with on call shifts were quite full on whilst also studying! But it was the career path I wanted and knew it wouldn’t come easy! 6 months I spent at this practice which again, came with an enormous amount of knowledge and skills that I learnt on the job!
I then came across a practice a bit more close to home so went onto working there, a wise move reducing my travel time so that this could help with study and finding a work/life balance. Although my student veterinary nurse journey was far from plain sailing, I failed my theory exam multiple times! To the point I was then having to consider other career pathways due to the limits on exam retakes! I was lucky to have another inspirational veterinary nurse as a mentor at this point, my college lecturer Emily who was patient and understanding throughout the entire journey and if it wasn’t for her wisdom, well, who knows if I’d have ever have qualified?!
I then passed the dreaded theory exam which was the biggest relief! From there it was much more straightforward with the rest of the exams and assignments and nursing progress log! All of which I managed to complete on time to take my practical OSCE examinations. 12 stations with 6 minutes to complete each task with many steps to complete! In July 2018 I got the call and to this day I will never forget it. Emily my college lecturer called, my heart was pounding at a ridiculous rate and I answered, “Hi is that Jack?”, “ Yes” I replied to which Emily said “ How are you?” The only thing I could say was “ I’ll let you know in a minute”, this was followed with, well I’m really pleased to tell you.. by which point I butted in in sheer joy and was overcome with emotion! I did it!
After qualifying I made the leap from first opinion practice to working in emergency & critical care doing night shifts for the next three and a half years, my skillsets as an RVN grew hugely and it was here that my passion for Diagnostic Imaging was born! I’d also gone full circle because that practice was wear I was doing my work experience all those years ago!
I attended a CPD course on ultrasonography and it was from that very moment that I was hooked! I took the knowledge and skills back into practice and found a whole new fire inside of me! I posted about this on my instagram page and well…the rest is history as they say!
The big turning point was my first in person lecture at the British Veterinary Nursing Association Congress, I’d done webinars behind a screen but never taught or lectured in person before, and I’m aware that some people think ultrasound is quite a dull topic so I suspected maybe 20-30 people may rock up. To my surprise over 120 people were in the lecture theatre! I feel incredibly lucky to have had the opportunity to speak to people and hopefully inspire them to start performing ultrasound in practice to benefit patient care and improve patient outcomes.
Since then I’ve gone on to lecture at various UK and international conferences on veterinary nurse’s utilizing ultrasound with a memorable career moment of going to Greece with Wildlife Vets International to scan sea turtles for a project! Something I’ll never forget! I was also recognised as an influential veterinary professional by receiving a 30underThirty award at the London vet show for being within the top 30 veterinary professionals under the age of thirty. I was also an active member on the BVNA (British veterinary nursing association) council for 3 years were I was elected for a 3 year term, this was hugely insightful to be active in progressing the profession!
I’m very proud to be a Registered Veterinary Nurse and I am hugely passionate about the progression of our profession, I now have a full time role of an Account Manager across the Midlands with IMV where I support practices on all of the imaging modalities so that they can get the best out of their equipment in order to do the job we all love effectively! I still carry out clinical work in my free time as I enjoy being involved in real life cases in veterinary practice and contributing to the profession in multiple aspects!
Aside from my professional life, I live in Norfolk with my fiancé and our 2 dogs, along with over 20 tortoises! We are currently planning our wedding which is next year and also play short mat bowls in our free time in which we were both successful at the world championships a few months ago so can officially call ourselves world champions!
