Kick starting our ‘Ask the Experts’ series this week is Catherine Stowell, one of the managers at Vet Image Solutions. Over the next few weeks, we will be learning how Catherine ended up working in the field of veterinary ultrasound, and she will be revealing her tips and tricks that those beginning with veterinary ultrasound are sure to find useful.

Catherine has always had an interest in animals which helps to explain why she ended up working closely with them on a daily basis! From the age of 14, Catherine’s flair for business manifested itself via the establishment of a cat grooming service, and following a prior job selling ultrasound medical equipment in the United States she was able to greatly expand her knowledge of the ultrasound technology that was available to consumers. She then decided to marry these two areas of interest together, resulting in her pursuing a career in veterinary ultrasound. Working for Vet Image Solutions enables Catherine to help in improving the quality of life of animals and regularly learn new things, two things that are very important to her.

Catherine actually does a little bit of everything at VIS, from arranging training days for canine and cattle scanning, to helping with the ordering process, to attending exhibitions to make sure that the clients of Vet Image Solutions have the most recent and cutting edge technology available to them. Even more importantly, this also means that clients will also receive the best deals and prices when purchasing ultrasound equipment.

Catherine has the opportunity to scan a whole range of animals, although she says that if she had to choose, her favourite animal to image would be the cow. She explains that the structures inside the cow are very easy to distinguish using ultrasonography, and describes scanning cows as a ‘privilege’ and ‘being let into one of life’s biggest secrets... ‘seeing’ into a hidden world’. However, give Catherine an alpaca to scan and she might not be quite as happy...an animal with an aversion to being touched on their stomach doesn’t bode well for scanning, requiring more than one person to get the job done. In addition, regurgitation of the contents of their stomachs is a justified cause for concern, particularly due to their precise aim of said regurgitation!

Catherine also discloses the details of another memorable scanning experience, when she was given the task of scanning a lizard bigger than her - coupled with the fact that this was carried out ‘standing below a triangular yellow warning sign depicting a man in the process of losing his arm to such a beast’, all that’s left to say is it’s a good job this isn’t a daily occurrence!

If coming face to face with an alpaca or a giant lizard hasn’t put you off pursuing a career in veterinary ultrasound, make sure that you visit the website in a couple of weeks’ time for Catherine’s tips on how to make it in the veterinary ultrasound industry. In the meantime, if there are any questions you would like to ask, please don’t hesitate to contact us.