AMCRS Personnel
The Animal Medical Centre is owned and run by two veterinary surgeons, Rachel Pike and Pip Boydell. They provide facilities and staff to support the work of consultants and specialists in various fields of expertise.
Clinical Staff
Senior Veterinary Clinicians (‘Consultants’)
The AMC’s veterinary referral service is provided and supervised by highly experienced veterinary surgeons who have undertaken extensive post-graduate training and obtained various additional qualifications.* Some of these senior clinicians are based entirely at one of the AMC’s centres, some work from both, whilst others are visiting consultants.
The links below open information windows on the listed senior clinicians who are based at AMCRS:
- P. Boydell: Neurology and ophthalmology
- R. Pike: Medicine, diagnostic ultrasonography, endoscopy
- D. Crossley: Oral, maxillofacial, ENT + reconstructive surgery
- J. Pratt: Orthopaedic and general surgery, radiology
- T. Gillian: Soft tissue and orthopaedic surgery, acupuncture
- C. Stalin: Neurology
Nursing staff
The AMC is a recognised veterinary nurse training centre. It employs several fully qualified veterinary nurses as well as trainee nurses and various animal care staff. As the AMC’s caseload varies considerably, additional locum nurses are drafted in when required.
Nurses are a very important part of the clinical team at AMCRS. See the links here for more information.
Junior clinicians (‘Interns’)
The AMC employs a variable numaber of fully qualified but less experienced veterinary surgeons to undertake day-to-day management of cases under the supervision of the senior clinicians. Interns assist the senior clinicians with major clinical investigations and procedures. Many of the interns are foreign veterinary surgeons who are hoping to undertake specialist training in the future, so do not be surprised if you hear a variety of accents at the AMC.
Non-clinical positions
The first contact with the AMC for most people is over the telephone to one of the reception staff or referral secretaries. Outside office hours a medical answering service is used, their agents contacting the duty clinician when necessary. Reception staff are able to deal with most non-clinical enquiries quickly and efficiently, however, if your call is taken by a trainee they may require assistance, so please be patient. Please note that non-clinical staff cannot give medical advice.
* Qualifications
Your vet will choose a suitable clinician to refer you to according to their experience and expertise, not just their qualifications, so do not judge a clinician’s suitability to treat your pet only by what letters they have after their name Qualifications rarely provide a full indication of a clinician's interest, experience or expertise. If you want to know more about the clinician you are seeing you may find some additional information here on the web site, if not, ask them when you see them.
There are a wide range of possible qualifications and titles available and some of the qualification names can be misleading. For example the specialist qualification in veterinary dentistry requires demonstration of knowledge, experience and expertise in oral medicine, oral oncology, and oral/maxillofacial surgery as well as dentistry!
The currently recognised specialties cover a number of fields, some being extremely broad (eg. medicine or surgery) and require a very broad but only a moderate level of knowledge of each condition, whilst others (such as dermatology, ophthalmology, dentistry, and orthopaedics) require very deep knowledge in very specific areas. If a clinician’s special interests and expertise do not fall precisely within just one these categories it is very difficult for them to reach “recognised specialist” status despite appropriate specialist level skills. That is why not all of the AMC’s senior clinicians are “officially recognised specialists”.
Remember, if you want to know more about the clinician you have been referred to, just ask them.