Adam Gow

I love the detective work and problem-solving part of my job, and every day brings a new learning experience. When I’m not on the clinic floor then my day can be more teaching or research focused and fractionally more runs to plan however my list of jobs at the beginning of any week or day are seldom completed as other things appear, but that’s what makes life interesting.

How did you get to where you are today? (obligatory question)

I think it’s really interesting that I could easily assemble a narrative that makes it look like there was a masterplan and this was an inevitable path.  The reality is very different. At a final year student, the last place I wanted to end up was back in vet school and I was determined to become an exotic species vet in practice; particularly treating raptors.  My first job was in a practice that did a lot of exotic species with a specialist that treated birds of prey.  Over the first few years I realised I was very interested in how one made a logical diagnostic path to diagnosis and treatment and this naturally stimulated my interest in internal medicine.  I think the broad answers to the question is that in every step of my career from school student to undergraduate to now, I have been very lucky to have had incredible mentors who were encouraging, and that I’ve not been afraid to make some interesting (brave/foolish) career choices. For example, I was in private practice for 8 years before becoming a postgraduate student; with the significant cut in income that this implies.  My plan on coming back to the vet school was 3 years in academia to become a specialist, then back down to Gloucestershire. However 14 years later…

How did you land your current role? (obligatory question) 

I think see above mainly.  During my residency I realised how important research and teaching was in advancing veterinary medicine and found that really exciting so continued to do a PhD.  Also there is nowhere else to go with the same opportunities as the R(D)SVS, so at this point there was a concerted effort to build an academic CV.  

Was there a time you messed up and felt like you’d failed? How did you bounce back?

I could give many many examples if I thought about it: I applied for and was interviewed for about 6 residencies at most vet schools and didn’t get them. Finishing my residency and going back into a general practice, not yet having my specialist qualification, and having to try and study with our baby son just arrived was a challenging time. I appreciate some reflection can be useful, but there’s no point in dwelling on “might have beens”  You can have millions of alternate realities every day, who’s to say they would be better? How did you learn to embrace risk-taking?

Come on, that’s what makes life interesting.  I think I’m a little bit of an anarchist at heart.  If life is going smoothly then mix it up a little, see what happens.

What do you wish you had known before taking your first clinical/ academic/ teaching /management or support role?

Everything, I think it’s interesting that as far as I can tell you get the role and then much later you get some training. So EdTA teaching award I should have done as a post-graduate student, leadership courses before managing the service.  Also how the University works, I’m not sure anyone really understands the complex systems.