Thank you for choosing us to help you look after your precious companions, and to get the most out of life for them. We trust you will be happy here for many years to come, and we look forward to getting to know you better. We realise that we have very big shoes to fill as we bid farewell to Dr Whittington-Jones, and we feel both excited and privileged to be taking over from him. We understand tha
t many of you will have had a very long relationship with him, possibly as long as 40 years, and we know that the change may be difficult for some of you. We will try and make the transition as smooth as possible for you, and it is our hope that you will soon feel comfortable with us and the way we do things. We thought you might like to get to know a little more about the three vets who will be running the practice from now on, and so here is a brief introduction:
Heather graduated in 2001, and soon thereafter moved to Centurion with her husband, Simon. She worked in private practice in Johannesburg for five years, but home is where the heart is, and they moved back to Cape Town early in 2007. Simon is a born-and-bred Pinelander, and Heather's family has lived here since 1993, so it seemed to make sense to move back to the community they knew and loved so well. Once they had started a family, Heather worked as a locum at various practices. This allowed her the flexibility she wanted in order to have time with her children. Matthew and Jaime will both be at the Red School next year, and so it felt like the right time to take on this new venture. Her main love is working with dogs and cats, and she focusses on the medicine side of vet work, rather than surgery. She's also a people person, and so is not only looking forward to meeting all the four-legged children, but also to getting to know you better. She will mostly be handling the morning consultations, as this will continue to allow her to have time with the children after school. Their family has the privilege of being owners of Pi, a rather mischievous little cat who is full of character. She is, of course, the most spoilt cat in Pinelands. Bronwyn graduated in 2008, and started her working career at the Animal Anti Cruelty League. After three years there she made a change to work at an after-hours clinic doing emergency work. For the past two years she has been based at Mowbray Veterinary Clinic. Her main vet passion is surgery, and in this Pinelands venture she will be performing lots of the surgeries and procedures required. She will continue to be based primarily at the Mowbray Clinic. She has a soft spot for injured, abandoned or orphaned birds, squirrels, and any other small critters, so feel free to bring in any of these creatures if you find them in need of care. After also graduating in 2008, Aletta worked at the Citivet Monte Vista Clinic for five years, and then as a locum for three years. She, like Heather, is gifted in medicine, and hopes to pursue a Specialisation in Internal Medicine. Her other passions are cats (and cats and more cats) and horses, although horses are strictly a hobby and not a profession. She is likely to be doing the majority of the afternoon consultations. We will have three receptionists who will gladly help you with anything you require, as far as possible. They are Jenny Nunnerley, Ruth Leverton and Joanne Stoltenkamp. Jenny
and Ruth will be the faces around the practice from the start, and Joanne will be joining us in January. Jenny and Joanne have both worked in private practice, and Joanne also has much experience from a nursing perspective, after spending many years working at the PDSA. Ruth will be helping out on three afternoons a week, and is new to working in a veterinary setup. We are sure that she will learn the ropes very quickly! You will have noticed that the clinic name has changed to Pinelands Village Veterinary Clinic—we wanted to create our own identity, and convey a “homely warmth”. So many veterinary practices have become very “big” and impersonal, and that’s just not our style. We hope you will always find us approachable, and that we will maintain that personal touch when dealing with you and your pets. We have changed the consulting hours, and have extended the morning hours on a weekday to run from 08:30 to 12:30, and the evening hours will be 16:00 to 18:00. All consultations will be by appointment. The clinic will be open from 08:30 to 18:00 for sales. Saturday hours are 09:00 to 11:00. We appreciate there may be a little resistance to having consultations by appointment. Firstly, let us reassure you that emergencies will always be prioritised, and no appointment needs to be made for a genuine emergency. The rationale for having appointments is three-fold. Firstly, we do not feel it is fair on our pets for them to sit in a consulting room, surrounded by many other strange animals. Many dogs are bouncy and excitable when at the vet, which may stress an old cat sitting in a cage next to them! Some dogs don’t like other dogs, and become very anxious or even aggressive when surrounded by other dogs. Rabbits regard cats as predators, and become very nervous when near to unfamiliar felines. It is our aim to
reduce the stress of our patients during their vet visits, as many of them are already unhappy after a car ride, and by being out of their home environment. And after all, our pets are the most important ones in the practice! Secondly, in today’s fast paced world, we have found that many people just do not have the time to sit in a reception area, waiting for an hour to see the vet. We understand that most of you will have many other commitments, things that you need to do, children to fetch, work to get to, etc. By having an appointment system, we are trying to minimise the time you spend waiting. There will unfortunately be times when we are running late, have unexpected walk-ins or emergencies, or have a sick patient in hospital that takes up a lot of our time. We ask that you be patient with us at these times. We will always do everything we can to see you on time. Our last reason is that it is beneficial from the perspective of the vets running the practice. By having an appointment system, we are better able to see what we need to do for the day, and so are better able to plan ahead properly. We can therefore use our time most effectively. It is quite inefficient to see no patients for the first three hours of consultations, and then have eight people arrive in the last 45 minutes! We aim to give the best and most thorough care to our patients. We like to do things properly by working up cases thoroughly in order to get to the right diagnosis, and avoiding taking short cuts that may result in a patient being worse off in the long run. We do understand that for a lot of people, finances will play a big role in decisions made about treatment for a pet. Sometimes doing things by the “gold standard”will not be possible. We hope that you will be able to trust us to make the right decisions with you. We are so glad that this venture has now begun, and we are thrilled that you are joining us on our journey! Please feel free to talk to us about any concerns you might have, and give us feedback and suggestions on how we could improve our services. Best regards
Aletta Mulder Bronwyn Leverton Heather Hill
