Royal College Day 2019 speeches: Outgoing President Amanda Boag

Well, what a year this has been.

In many ways, it doesn’t seem five minutes since I stood here last year, although in others it feels the number of things that have happened must have taken place over a decade.

In recent weeks I have been asked by a few people what my highlight has been and I’ve found it very difficult to put my finger on.

Certainly, being involved with the graduation and registration ceremonies of both vets and nurses is a real privilege but I think more than anything else, the highlight has been meeting so many people and being constantly reminded about the extraordinary breadth of our professions.

Not only have I heard the words Dictyocaulus and Ostertagia for the first time in 20 years, I have also been fortunate enough to chat to people from across the whole professional landscape.

When I think of all of those conversations, I would be lying if I said there haven’t been differences of opinion on some issues, but the one common theme is just how much every single professional I have spoken to this year (and it’s quite a lot) cares deeply about our professions and the animals under our care.

So what have been the key topics of conversation?

One of the key themes for my year was the importance of everyday leadership skills, ensuring that all vets and vet nurses recognise that, pretty much regardless of our role, we are all called upon to be everyday leaders at times.

At this event last year, Stephen May spoke very eloquently about the principles underlying professionalism and there is much overlap with leadership skills.

The launch of the Edward Jenner online leadership MOOC has been a big success with nearly 7,000 participants from 130 countries. Feedback has been excellent and with its novel approach to education, the programme has recently been shortlisted for the European Foundation for Management Development Excellence in Practice Awards– thank you to Anthony, Oliver, Greer and our NHS partners for all their work on this project.

This is, however, just one strand of our leadership programme and today we are delighted to share with you our first group of leadership role models – individuals from a wide variety of roles across our profession who all display leadership of different sorts.

You’ll have seen their portraits on your way into the auditorium this morning, and will hopefully take their stories home with you in this lovely booklet and help us to share them online, but let’s now hear just a little more from these inspiring veterinary leaders themselves. 

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