Tonight Donna had a Cuppa with Joanne Fielder, of Tilehurst Veterinary Centre. Donna has treated several of Joanne’s patients over the years, and whilst they have communicated via email, this was the first time they finally got to actually meet! 

Jo was quite a person! We were blown away to learn that she so very nearly stayed in Indonesia treating the Orangutans. Give her lots of love or she might go back! We also almost lost her to olympic rowing! How incredible!

She didn’t know her real path, but she found it was veterinary and we will be super grateful of that! Jo has made the most of her career, forging it around her passions for travel and family. She tried her hand at the management too but recognised that her passion lay in being a frontline worker and giving every patient and owner the individual care they deserved. 

Jo’s Top Tip for pain is that no body is the same, and you need to look at many aspects of pain control, including, lifestyle, diet, the home and exercise plans to name a few. Then you can make the best plan for the individual, Many modalities is the key! 

It was lovely to meet you Jo!

What Joanne Loves about Physio:

So, as an athlete, I think I probably really appreciate the strength of physio. I’ve had a lot of physiotherapy over the time, you know, with either nursing injuries or just trying to use it in a preventative manner to stop yourself from getting injured in the first place. But I’ve just really seen the power of it.

And I’ve used it a lot in conjunction with the acupuncture as well, not only for chronic pain management, but for post op recoveries, and for diagnostics, as well. And so, you know, sometimes particularly with soft tissue injuries, and we can’t really identify exactly what the injury is, and I’ll often get a physio involved in helping me to make the right diagnosis. If we know that, we haven’t got joint disease, nothing obvious on X rays, just to have an expert pair of hands, because I think you guys are so much more used to, manipulating and understanding muscle than we are.

It’s a little bit like, if you’ve, as a person hurt yourself, if you go to your GP, you’re probably not going to get an awful lot out of them other than go home and rest and take anti inflammatories, whereas if you go to a physio, they’re going to have a much better understanding of exactly what you’ve done and how best to help you recover.

So, you know, I think that I hope that the day of the arrogant surgeon in the veterinary world is really at an end. I think you see it both with human surgeons and with veterinary surgeons that it’s not just the surgeon has done their magic and you aren’t fixed. That’s just the start of the healing process and that process is better guided by a good physiotherapist.

Joanne’s Biography:

I qualified from Edinburgh in 1997 and initially worked with livestock and horses before spending 4 years as a wildlife vet, including a year working with orangutans in Indonesia. Finally settled down to life in Oxfordshire as a mum (to 3 children and one hairy ginger hound) and becoming a small animal vet. I have particular interests in chronic pain management including acupuncture; ultrasonography and cardiology; and promoting ‘shared decision making’ with our clients.

If you want to catch them live, join her on her socials on our facebook and youtube channels or follow us on spotify. You can catch up on previous episodes on our vlogs page.

Enjoy the show! And if you want to nominate your vet to join Donna for an interview, then email [email protected] and we will do our best.