Twenty years ago, as I was getting ready to start my life as a veterinarian, a big part of the process was to plan what instruments, equipment, medicine and materials to buy, and from where to order them. Among my friends we would compare lists and supplier details and consider how much equine work and how much cattle and how much small animal practice we were likely to be seeing in our first jobs. Medicine and equipment supplier companies arranged specific events for the graduating batch of students to get them to know the industry representatives and from where to order what.

Those days in Finland, the most common type of first job for a young vet was to go to a country-side municipality mixed practice where you were partly running private practice and partly were employed by the municipality as veterinary officer. This meant that the vets had to come with their own car and with their own instruments, equipment, and medicine stock to be able to attend the clinical cases as municipality subsidised private practice. This often meant a bank loan to be taken to be able to get started. Though there was significant financial investment involved in starting your career as a vet, it also meant that you were then independent and equipped and ready to start attending all kinds of cases and that of course over time would develop your general practice skills and confidence. The process of buying our own equipment was also an important part in the development of our professional identities as veterinarians.

Practices vary across the world and even in Finland the expectation for young vets to invest to their own equipment right at the start of their first job like that is not as common nowadays as it used to be. In India, such a concept is very unheard of. However, while we should not expect that young graduates would be immediately able to invest a lot to their equipment, there is something very important to understand about the need to connect industries with the young veterinary professionals. 

There is massive potential for small private vet clinics to get more involved in humane dog population management by providing easily accessible and affordable spay/neuter surgery services for dogs. Investing into surgical instruments and equipment and actively providing spay/neuter surgeries has also the additional benefit of improving the surgical skills and preparedness of the vet, which can then lead to him/her being also eventually able to perform other surgical procedures; mammary tumors, traumatic injuries, C-sections, foreign bodies – all of these very common cases all over the country but sometimes not attended in time properly because of lack of access to surgically prepared vets, especially in small towns and villages.

After 15 years in the field of veterinary surgical capacity building in India, I have come to see that sometimes a surgically interested vet may not have continued to do surgeries just because the clinic where they work did not have the required instruments and equipment. To help to overcome any such barriers in surgical preparedness, we have now introduced ‘Ready, Set, Spay’ -surgery instrument set.  With this set you get all the surgical instruments required for a female dog spay surgery PLUS washable, re-usable & autoclavable surgical drapes for packing the set as well as for covering the patient to create a sterile field. This is exactly the same set of instruments as many vets around India have already come to know as the ”WVS India female set.”

We have made it now super easy for you to order a set of instruments and the drapes from the Access to vet care -shop. Just add it to your shopping cart, pay and it will be mailed directly to you. You don’t need to spend time thinking what are the instruments you need and where to order them and how to get the drapes done. There is also an option to choose between the standard quality material instruments or premium quality, made of 410 grade marine steel.

I still have the first surgery instrument set I bought over 20 years ago for my first job. I have performed several pyometras and C-sections and spays with it and I still carry it along in my vet kit. With this initiative I’m looking forward to the stories from many young vets of what all they have done with their first surgical instrument set. This is the first very essential investment to your own equipment that I think all vets who are into clinical practice, should make. Moreover, making this small investment can become an important part of the development of your identity as a veterinarian.