Where Can Your Veterinary Nursing or Technology Career Take You?

Perhaps you still value veterinary nursing or technology, but your career has not developed in quite the way you hoped. You may be ready for greater challenge, responsibility, recognition or pay, but uncertain about what to do next. Would another qualification make a meaningful difference? Is a post graduate or Veterinary Technician Specialist pathway worth the commitment? Could working overseas, changing workplaces, entering another industry or moving beyond clinical practice offer something more?

This webinar will explore the pathways available to veterinary nurses, technicians and technologists, including further study, specialist qualifications, overseas opportunities, careers beyond clinical practice and ways to develop within an existing workplace. Rather than treating every qualification or career move as equally valuable, the session will begin with a more important question: what do you actually want to change about your career?

Jennifer Hamlin will consider what different pathways may realistically offer, the questions to investigate before committing time and money, and how to choose an option that fits your interests, circumstances and longer-term ambitions. This will include an honest examination of what further education can and cannot change. Greater knowledge and competence may open doors, but they do not automatically lead to greater authority, expanded scope, professional recognition or higher pay.

Drawing on her research into veterinary nursing and technology education, regulation and professional advancement across several international jurisdictions, Jennifer will distinguish between what someone is educated and competent to do, what the law permits them to do, and what a particular workplace allows and supports them to do. These differences help explain why apparently logical career pathways do not always produce the opportunities people expect.

The webinar will also consider the changing future of veterinary nursing and technology. What might statutory regulation mean in Aotearoa New Zealand? What forms of advanced scope and professional responsibility should our professions be asking for? Should advanced practice mean only being permitted to perform more tasks within existing arrangements, or should it include clearly defined authority to initiate and take responsibility for appropriate areas of practice? What forms of education, regulation and professional assurance would be needed to support that responsibility, and what can be learned from changes occurring overseas? The session will also briefly examine how workplace hierarchies and corporatisation may contribute to professional undervaluation, and how unions and collective representation could influence pay, recognition and the future direction of the professions.

This session is for veterinary nurses, technicians and technologists at any career stage, whether you are considering further study, looking overseas, contemplating a move beyond clinical practice, trying to create new opportunities in your current role or simply feeling that you want more from your career but are not yet sure what “more” should look like. You will leave with a clearer way to assess the available options and decide which ones could genuinely move you towards the career you want.