A personal journey leads to making history

Nearly 7 years ago when I joined the New Zealand Veterinary Nursing Association (NZVNA) Executive Committee, I had no idea that I would soon find myself making history.

After a couple of years on the NZVNA Executive, I found myself at the core of discussions about statutory regulation of our country's veterinary nurses. This was an important topic to me, dating back to the 90s when I was on a NAVTA (North American Veterinary Technician Association) student governance committee. Even back then we were talking about regulation. When I moved to New Zealand in 2002, and began lecturing veterinary nursing, I found myself sharing my office with BVNA Honorary member Sally Bowden. As you can imagine, our ideas flowed and her inspiration and experiences in the UK drove my passion to see changes in New Zealand.

Shortly after I joined the NZVNA Executive a working committee was formed to evaluate feasibility for implementing regulation in New Zealand. It had been tried on a couple of previous occasions over the years, but had never gained a foothold. In January 2015, four of us sat around my kitchen table and discussed how we might push it forward. Our early conclusions were that a voluntary register was an important first step and we looked to the UK and to our own Veterinary Council of New Zealand (VCNZ) for guidance as to the infrastructure needed to implement such a move.