Not My College ?

  So said the brilliant singer, song-writer, satirist and mathematician, Tom Lehrer ... well not quite Tom, not quite. On the 18th of January 2024 the RCVS voted by a majority of 16 to 5 to abolish  Council elections and replace them with an 'independent appointments system.' One of the sixteen who voted to end elections and move to an appointments based system (Kate Richards) stood for election in March 2024 and was roundly beaten. An almost unheard of event for a past President. The candidates for the new election in 2025 will shortly be announced. Be assured Samizdat will advise our loyal readers if any of the candidates standing for election/re-election voted to end the electoral process. If we lose the vote the practicing profession loses its voice - forever,  This is excellent - The Elements by Tom Lehrer If you want to read more posts, click on the arrow 🠈 on the top left of the page or on the 'MORE POSTS' button at the bottom.

' The  Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons has introduced environmental sustainability requirements as part of the  Practice Standards Scheme (PSS) . These requirements aim to address the global climate crisis and encourage veterinary practices to lead the way in sustainability.  The key points include a w ritten environmental sustainability policy for all practices and nominating a d edicated sustainability champion or team.' More virtue signalling from the College, more pointless paperwork for overworked vets. Good for big corporations with compliance departments. Bad for the smaller practice tied up with inconsequential trivia such as ... oh, I dunno ... patient care ?  But don't be downhearted, help is at hand. China might be building two large coal fired power stations per week, but the  Greener Veterinary Practice website has some useful hints to help us all do our teeny tiny bit. These include,  'reducing the use of disposable surgical textiles,' c...

'The RCVS will be holding an informal evening for registered veterinary surgeons who who may be interested in becoming members of the Preliminary Investigations Committee (PIC) and Disciplinary Committee (DC).' Received by email 24th February 2024 ... Sorry all places taken 25th February ! It never ceases to amaze me how short the shelf life of these adverts is, it's almost as if they don't want us to attend. I'd be interested to know whether anyone from Northern Ireland, or the north of Scotland, or rural Wales made the (day long) trip to London just to express an interest ... I doubt it. Is this an example of what the College calls an Independent Selection Process, if so it doesn’t bode well for an appointments based Council. Another event for those in the know south of the M25 ? If you want to read more posts, click on the arrow 🠈 on the top left of the page or on the 'MORE POSTS' button at the bottom. If you want updates from NMC click on the menu top l...

  The College is a secretive organisation, it hates parting with information; fact. Whether it's member's questions or muzzling the Council with threats of disciplinary proceedings, the RCVS is an information black-hole. So the decision to stage public Question Time  events seemed like the first glimmerings of hope. The format was simple, invite the membership, dish up some food and let them loose ... well not quite Lord Copper, not quite. The invitations went out and the food appeared but that's where any resemblance to the advertised event stopped. Each of the evenings I attended opened with a question which had (so we were told) been submitted in writing before the meeting began. Initially I was a bit confused. Why should a question submitted anonymously by someone who couldn't be bothered to attend in person take precedence over those who had made the  effort ? Silly me. By taking control of the narrative from the get-go, the College was able to steer the conversat...

  College spends £20 million on extravagant new HQ - see estate agency blurb here  (it takes a while to load but it's well worth it, if only to see how carefully they spend our money). Who cares if the practicing profession is on its knees, be of good cheer, the RCVS has purchased a new HQ in fashionable Clerkenwell, home to global mega-brands such as  Fred Perry , Unilever , Microsoft  and Linkedin.   A snip at £20 million   it boasts 20,000 square feet of ‘media style offices’ and is well suited to ‘remote and hybrid working.’ Which begs the question, if the future emphasis will be on ' remote and hybrid working'  why did we not buy the same space for a third of the price in Leeds or Manchester ?  It would be nice to know what arguments were advanced and by whom to justify this grotesque indulgence  (Pay up suckers) Perhaps the ‘stylish glass box penthouse with sensational views across Central London,’  (see background photo),...

The beast from 20,000 fathoms just saying ... 😊

Update; So the Cass Report and the WPath files have confirmed what 99.9% recurring of us knew - that puberty blockers and irreversible surgery performed on minors is child abuse. What genius (geniuses) in the College thought it was acceptable to allow our good name to be associated with this abomination ? The College needs to concentrate on the profession, not chase after every stupid progressive butterfly that catches its passing attention. The RCVS has announced (albeit very quietly) that as of 2023 it will no longer be a Stonewall Champion. This is tremendously good news for everyone in the profession, the reputational damage of continued association cannot be overstated. It's particularly good news for all the profession's Gay/Straight biological women (adult human females). When Stonewall's  CEO Nancy Kelly can describe lesbian girls declining to have relations with male bodied trans-women (men) as 'sexual  racism,' it really is time to go.  All in all we'...

The last government’s Inclusion at Work panel, convened by Kemi Badenoch in 2023, unveiled its report into UK employers’ Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (DEI) practices in 2024. Composed of private and public-sector experts and advised by a Harvard professor, the panel noted that 10,000 DEI jobs in the public sector are estimated to cost the British taxpayer £557 million per year. According to the report, many DEI  initiatives have little evidence behind them, are often ‘polarising’ and in some cases ‘unlawful.’  As Badenoch put it, concepts like ‘unconscious bias’ and ‘white privilege’ regularly employed in diversity training, are ‘bunkum’ . The report joins existing research on diversity training in finding that by calling attention to differences and casting whites as oppressors and blacks as oppressed, such initiatives often increase racial tension. And few will many be surprised to learn that many of these initiatives are often little more than virtue-signalling. Accord...

No, I was imagining it, sadly. After years ... nae decades ... of minimal communication, obfuscation and opacity, the RCVS appeared to have turned over a new leaf.  Two of their recent newsletters were generally more informative than before.  Ditto the plans to actually invite the membership to participate in consultative meetings. Had they ditched the habits of a lifetime, were they actually listening to the real (practicing) profession for once - alas not. Their  'consultation'   - 'An Introduction to Good Governance' is accompanied by pages of one-sided propaganda and a tone deaf video by the outgoing president  here in which we're told that we must move to an appointed system because it is the norm. If this is the norm count me out -  College thinks 'Dysfunctional' GMC is a good model to adopt. No thanks. If you want to read more posts, click on the arrow 🠈 on the top left of the page or on the 'MORE POSTS' button at the bottom. 

The veterinary profession is in trouble. Put simply there are too few of us to run the surgeries, visit the farms or perform the public health duties on which so much of British industry depends. It’s been going this way for decades, but rather than tackle the difficult business of structural reform we imported the solution instead. At one point more than half of all vets registering to practice in the UK came from the EU, post Brexit that number plummeted by two thirds. The spike in pet ownership during Covid was the last straw.  In November 2021 the profession’s governing body, the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, convened a ‘summit’ meeting in London to address the crisis. After some party games to get everybody in the mood, the eighty handpicked ‘stakeholders’ were invited to ‘co-create’ and ‘ideate,’ to ‘look for the thoughts on the edge of their thinking’ and to come up with innovative solutions to ‘wicked problems.’   If ugly neologisms, infantile role-play and ...

Am I alone in seeing numerous contradictions between what the College loftily proclaims and what it actually does ... for example have a look at the document,  The Role of Council Members (2023) which states that; 'Holders of public office should be as open and transparent as possible about all the decisions and actions that they take. They should give reasons for their decisions and restrict information only when the wider public interest clearly demands.'   Really ? Perhaps I missed something but aren't Council members now forbidden to criticise any decision on which the Council has taken a vote - even when the public/professional interest might demand it ? And if they have the temerity to do so, the College will call in the heavy mob  No one expects the Spanish Inquisition This tendency towards authoritarianism and message control doesn’t stop with muzzling the Council. Recent demands from within the RCVS in their 5 Year Plan (a nice irony there for those who get it)...

' The mandatory regulation of veterinary practices, including statutory powers of entry and inspection, is one of the key elements of RCVS proposals for new primary legislation that would replace the current Veterinary Surgeons Act 1966.' It doesn't take a lot of imagination to see how this is going to go. A bit like the PSS but worse. Heavy on written protocols, heavy on tick-boxes, heavy on whatever 'progressive' nonsense has currently caught the College's butterfly attention (have you appointed your sustainability champion yet ?) Light on practicality, light on affordable treatment, light on serving a community. Good for big employers with compliance departments dedicated to fielding this sort of garbage. Bad for smaller practices who prefer to dedicate their finite time and resources to intangibles like patient care (but if you can't record it, it ain't happening - right?). And of course it'll come with a nice fat fee attached.  Another attempt...