For our first Cuppa tea with the vet of 2021 we caught up with Christel Van Veen of Mobile vet UK.

Christel and Donna‘s history goes way back! They had worked together when Donna was an emergency and critical care nurse in Vets now. They did the odd shift together. But there was one of the most horrendous nights ever and clearly neither of them have even forgotten!  

Donna then set up her physio clinic in Castle vets where Christel was a vet and they worked together every week. They even ha some mutual clients of the years and Christel sent some to Donna for physio. 

Christel decided after 18 years at Castle it was time to fledge her wings. She didn’t want to do the “usual”. She wanted to work how she wanted to work. She wanted to be spending quality time with patients and owners. So she set up a mobile clinic! She now visits people in their homes and she loves every minute! 

We also got to learn more about Christel. We learnt that she loves horses! She would love to win the Grand Prix in dressage! She does acupuncture and believe completely in a holistic care program for the animals. She would love to have spoken more with her amazing grandfather. She is incredibly smooshy and had a love story worthy of Hollywood! She has a disgusting cat! And she dislikes drool and stringy things! 

What do you love about physio?

We also asked her “what do you love about physio” she answered:

I just love the difference it makes to animals. There’s a patient of mine and his owner is amazing: he does everything… but he came to me probably 4 years ago and walked in and I said “how long’s he been walking like that?” and he went “ what do you mean?” and I went “like he’s on egg shells” and he said “but that’s just how he walks?”. So we x-rayed Archie and he was still quite young and he had arthritis in all the joints… his back leg is juddering, because he’s not really bearing weight on it, so there’s a problem here. So he went to a physio that had some gait analysis where they do the percentages of weights so they could actually prove that he wasn’t bearing weight on it. They’ve given him all these exercises to do, and the difference it makes to the dog alongside the stuff we were already doing has been amazing…

and I’ve seen patients of yours that, it just makes such a difference to their life and part of that is the participation of the owners. Physio is all about the practitioner but it’s 10 or 15% the actual physio session and 85-90% the effort the owner puts in to doing all the stuff… because physio is about muscular rehab and training and you only get muscles if you train them, so it’s a daily thing so it’s all about the owner and the physio and the vet and the team.

We learnt so much about Christel in this Cuppa tea with the Vet, including how loved she is by all her fans! So if you want to learn more about Christel, then watch this show! 

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