"I have greatly enjoyed my time spend working with you all and will be extremely sad to leave. However, for personal reasons I will be moving to south London which has prompted this change in job. This has not been an easy decision to make. You genuinely have such a fantastic nursing team that are highly skilled, motivated and great fun to work with. I am very grateful for having had the opportunity to work with you all and will be sad to go. "
"I was extremely happy in my job, but changes in personal circumstances meant I felt the need to make a fresh start. I moved to Australia for a year or two and experienced a different culture, while I still had relatively few ties. I feel extremely fortunate to have started my career in such a fantastic practice. I can't fault the support , advice and encouragement you gave me over the two and a half years, and can't thank you enough. I was very sad to leave the practice, and know it is hard to find anywhere else that will compare. I count myself as very lucky to have had the privilege to work with such a lovely group of people. I will always look back at the time I spent in Braintree with great fondness and know it has provided such a fantastic start into veterinary practice for me - I genuinely don't think I could have asked for a better first job!"
"Being part of the MVP team really was a great experience and I would still be there today if I didn't have to move closer to home due to family commitments. I was really allowed to develop my skills as both a ward and theatre nurse and always felt supported when I came up with new ideas. MVP really is a fab practice that puts animal welfare at the heart of everything it does from the rehoming programme to the client education club. I have made many life long friends from my time there and when I return I still always feel part of the family!"
I spent a lot of time at Millennium Vets gaining initial experience and during the stages of my nurse training. I began doing work experience and progressed onto becoming a nursing assistant a couple of evenings a week. When I began my degree veterinary nurse training at the Royal Veterinary College, MVP was kind enough to take me through the first half of my course in placement blocks! I can't thank the practice enough for all their hard work, patience and help which in turn set me in great stead for the completion of my course and my graduation ceremony which I had in July 2016 to become a Registered Veterinary Nurse! The staff are so friendly and always happy to help and brush off some of their wisdom onto you! I gained a lot of experience and fun as well! And I'd also like to add that since moving to Braintree in 2000 all the animals we have had have been registered at Millennium Vets and again I can't fault their service, day or night! The dedication and sympathy given to us, helped us to make certain decisions and get through some difficult times and I would thoroughly recommend this practice as both a training practice for any potential future veterinary nurses, a place to work as an RVN or vet and also as a veterinary practice for animals!
"I worked at Millennium Veterinary Practice for two and a half years and I can honestly say that it is the best practice I have ever worked for! The hospital is purpose built so it is sensibly laid out with separate cat and dog wards, spacious consulting rooms and well equipped surgical and diagnostic suites. At MVP everyone works as a team and will be there to support you in whatever way they can. The directors are approachable, the nurses are fantastic, the receptionists are well trained and really know what they're doing, having dedicated pharmacy and lab staff is a real bonus and the office staff are invaluable.
MVP consults run from 8am-8pm which is great for clients but also reduces the burden on the the out of hours service. MVP provide their own cover until 10pm at which point Vets Now take over until 7am. This is a system that I feel works very well as it ensures that even when you're on call you will always get some time to sleep! As you would expect from a busy practice OOH duties can vary - some nights there will only be one or two in-patients that the late nurse will largely attend to (there's a ward nurse on site until 10pm during the week) or it might be a busy one with caesareans and splenectomies galore! Try not to be put off by this - when I first started I wasn't entirely confident with splenectomies so I was always able to ring one of the Directors to come give me a hand, it is a very supportive practice.
Naturally CPD is well funded and encouraged. MVP were more than happy to encourage me in my interests and offered to support me through a certificates but at the same time weren't pushy about it (as I've found at other practices). They appreciate that some vets don't want to be pigeon holed or are striving to be a good all round GP or want to enjoy a good work-life balance.
As for work-life balance MVP are hard to beat! A four day week with 2 early finishes leaves plenty of time for leisure, the ethos being that you turn up for work refreshed and ready for the day ahead.
The nursing team at MVP are fabulous!! It makes all the difference working with fully qualified and confident nurses, there are a couple of students but they are very well mentored and are only included on the OOH rota to shadow or assist the qualified on call nurse. The nurses rota between ward duties, surgery and consulting and are very well utilised. Many of the nurses have additional certificates or specialised interests and are always more than happy to pass on their knowledge or assist you where possible. Some of these areas include: emergency and critical care, anaesthetic monitoring and surgery, behaviour, nutrition, wound management, exotics, diabetes and endocrinological nursing. Most importantly the nurses all have a great attitude, are happy to help and make patient care their top priority.
Once you get to know everyone you will see that it's a very social practice. We have running and netball clubs, go on practice days out, have Halloween and Christmas parties or organise lunches over at the nearby Prezzo or Nando's. The Directors believe very importantly in making you feel appreciated and respected for the work you do, if you work a Saturday then they buy you lunch! There's also free fruit Thursday to keep you healthy or occasionally on a hot summers day a morale boosting McFlurry!!
You could be forgiven for reading this and thinking "blimey - this is some propaganda!" Or "if it's so good why did she leave?" Trust me it was no easy decision to make and I put it off making it for the best part of a year because I loved working for the practice so much! But sadly my partner is based in the West Midlands and after living apart for 2.5yrs one of us had to make the move for us to start our next chapter. Genuinely (and especially when I'm locuming in some practices!) there's not a day goes by without thinking of my friends and colleagues at MVP. It is a brilliant team and if my situation changes I would go back to them in a heartbeat, so if you're on the fence heed my advice and Take The Job!!"