Bev left speechless by Veterinary Nurse of the Year award

WITH her bubbly personality and brightly coloured hair you wouldn’t think there is much that could leave veterinary nurse Bev Truss speechless. However that’s exactly what she was on discovering she had been named Ireland’s Veterinary Nurse of the Year at the weekend.

 

Giving her a little luck along the way was our very own ‘mascot’ Daisy, the West Highland dog of the Clare Champion’s John and Shelly Galvin who is no stranger to visitors to our offices on Barrack Street.
Bev’s award was announced on Saturday at the Irish Veterinary Nurses Association (IVNA) annual congress.

At the ceremony one nomination, out of the many received for Bev, was chosen to be read out and that nomination was made by Clare Champion managing director Mr Galvin. The nomination detailed the work that Bev has done, not only with Daisy, but also in caring for their dog, Mac, who passed away in 2007.

Bev acknowledged, “A million thanks to everybody for their nomination. I’m just so thrilled that people took the time and I’m just stunned. On the night they chose one nomination to read out and they picked John’s. When they were reading it I was thinking is it me? But it wasn’t until half way through that it finally clicked. When my name was then called out I just went all Gwyneth Paltrow and I couldn’t stop crying.

“I still can’t believe it, I’m still waiting to get the call from them telling me there’s been a mix up and they want the trophy back. I was talking to one of the girls afterwards and I told her I’m just speechless. She said, sure we all knew you would win, it’s the speechless bit that’s harder to believe,” said Bev.

Bev was shortlisted for the award in December, with one of the committee telling Bev that they had been “overwhelmed” with nominations for her. She was joined at the ceremony by fellow nominee, and colleague at Charlie Kenny’s veterinary practice, Nicola Kildea. “Nicola was absolutely delighted I won. There are only two nurses in Charlie Kenny’s and to have both of us in the finals was just huge,” said Bev.

As well as being a veterinary nurse for the past 25 years, Bev is also a qualified companion animal behaviourist, founder member of the Association of Pet Dog Trainers of Ireland, runs canine first aid and works a lot with wildlife.

Bev’s distinctive purple hair is the result of her and Nicola’s fundraising for Shave or Dye, a charity she feels passionately about having being diagnosed with breast cancer earlier this year. And while she has taken a break from Charlie Kenny’s for the moment, she is looking positively to the future.

“The clinic has been a superb support, giving me time to focus and heal. This is just a hiccup and I’m going to be fine and back to work. I really miss it but my phone is never off and people are always emailing me and I’m still working with the wildlife. My animals keep me focused,” she said.

As well as a trophy Bev also won a stay in a hotel, and she chose where she to stay very carefully.

“I decided that the hotel has to have a golf course because my husband has been a phenomenal support these last couple of months, and we’ve found a place we can take the dog,” she said.

Bev emphasised the important role that veterinary nurses play in caring for animals. “Veterinary nursing is a regulated profession and if anybody is working in a practice claiming to be a veterinary nurse and are not qualified they are actually breaking the law. We’re not just a group of girls or guys helping the vet, we have

to have a certain amount of continuing education each year.
“People don’t always see the hard work that nurses do behind the scenes. We’re not just there to answer phones and clean the kennels. We’re there as a support, anybody can pick up the phone or call in and speak to us. We’re there for the animals and their owners and that’s why I miss work so much, I’m dying to get back. I even do bereavement counselling, I’ve had kids come in and sit with me after they’ve lost a pet and I’ll talk to them. And we can be dealing with all kinds of animals all day, and all kinds of issues.

“Because I’ve been at Charlie Kenny’s for ten years I can often know people from when they bring in their puppy at eight weeks to when they come to the end. And I have to say goodbye to my patients as well. People don’t always see that when this happens it breaks our hearts because we get so involved,” she said.

In his nomination to the IVNA awards, Mr Galvin outlined how Bev had looked after their dog Mac in the last years of his life, and how she helped them socialise Daisy who had been ignored for the first six months of her life before coming to the Galvin home.

“One of the best suggestions Bev made was to bring Daisy into work with us to get her used to people. Happily we are in a position to do this and now Daisy is the mascot of the Clare Champion… It’s got to the stage where customers ask after her if she’s not around,” he said.

“If ever anyone deserved the accolade of Veterinary Nurse of the Year we think it’s Bev on account of her dedication, kindness and gentleness to animals, coupled with her deep knowledge of animal behaviour as demonstrated by the utter transformation we have seen in Daisy in a very short time.”