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Veterinary Nurse of the Year

NZVNA, in conjunction with Hill's Pet Nutrition, realise the importance of veterinary nurses. The Hill's Veterinary Nurse of the Year Award has been launched to recognise veterinary nurses who advocate and significantly contribute to the care of their patients and who are an integral part of the veterinary health care team

Nominations are now open for Vet Nurse of the Year 2020.

Please download the Nomination form here and also read the Terms and Conditions

Congratulations to NZVNA/HILLS VETERINARY NURSE OF THE YEAR - JESS BYRNES-CLARK

Jess Byrnes-Clark

Jess is the supervisory veterinary technician in the Farm Services Clinic at the Massey University Veterinary Teaching Hospital where she overseas two junior vet techs as well as providing practical tuition to both Bachelor of Veterinary Sciences and Bachelor of Veterinary Technology students.

Jess is very well thought of across the Massey School of Veterinary Sciences due to her dedication and organisation to not only veterinary nursing but also the care of students and colleagues.

She is continually looking to improve what she and the Farm Services Clinic do to engage the students as well as developing a new system, in her own time, for marking students that reduces the time of both the vet and vet tech teams time spent on these tasks.

Jess is innovative and a problem solver. She is the go-to person in the clinic when it comes to how we do things and how we can do them better.

Massey vet school is near completion of a new Production Animal Isolation Unit and will soon start building a new Production Animal Hospital. Jess has been instrumental in the designing of both of these buildings to ensure not only the best care for our patients but that the workflow and practicalities of running the facility will be as effective and efficient as possible. Her work will ensure the future best care for our patients as well as the best education for all of our students on hospital care with her efficient and effective operation of the service.

She has a great influence on the future standard of both vets and vet techs in New Zealand, receiving constant positive feedback from her students who leave with not only an education but also an understanding of what it is to lead and work in a team with an excellent work ethic and the importance of a strong client-vet relationship. Jess has implemented and trained students in systems such as pharmacy and vehicle stocking as well as teaching the importance of organisation.

Jess is proactive and motivated to achieve her goals but always puts the needs to her patients, students, clients and organisation first. She has great empathy and care for her students and has even taken a student that was not on the Farm Services roster, to the hospital ER because she knew that they had no one else to do it.

Jess is also a volunteer with the Massey Veterinary Response Team (VERT) where she organizes training for all of the volunteers as well as the logistic support for the team when they were deployed to assist in the Tasman-Nelson wildfires in February. She has previously been recognised by the SPCA for her contribution to animal rescue in the Edgecombe floods in 2017.

While being able to whip up a three-tiered birthday cake with ease, after stopping off to jump start a colleagues car, Jess goes above and beyond the expectations of her role and her profession every day.