Wangoom sisters Abbey and Ella Titmus are helping to fill a growing void across regional Australia for large animal and mixed practice vets.
Australia is struggling through an ongoing veterinary workforce shortage, particularly in regional areas and in large animal practice, with many regions unable to meet demand for services and many job vacancies remaining open for more than a year.
But Ella and Abbey are keen to play their part in addressing the problem.
Ella has completed her five-year veterinary science studies at James Cook University in Townsville and is starting her first job in Moss Vale, NSW, while Abbey is set to start the second year of her veterinary course at Charles Sturt University in Wagga Wagga.
Both sisters, who come from a beef farm at Wangoom, are being supported by DemoDAIRY Foundation scholarships to complete their studies.
Ella, 23, will be working with five other vets at Southern Highlands Veterinary Hospital, one of the few large animal clinics in an area that serves 50,000 people and many large and hobby farms.
“There’s a bit of dairy and a lot of hobby farms so I will get really good at my cattle medicine skills,” she said.
In the long-term, Ella hopes to return to south-west Victoria and concentrate on dairy. “I’ve done placement with three or four clinics in the south-west, which has been fantastic, but wanted to get experience in another area,” she said.
“I’ll be doing a good mix of large and small animals so I’m pretty excited to get into it. There’s a big push for rural mixed vets at the moment which is good because that’s what I want to do.”
Ella will be the sixth vet working in the practice. “I’ve met them and I’m confident it’s going to be a very supportive workplace,” she said.
She described the DemoDAIRY Foundation scholarship as a game-changer. “We don’t get paid for placements and have to fund them ourselves so the support has been invaluable. I cannot express enough the difference the foundation is making to regional students and creating such a positive impact on our future,” Ella said.
Ella was drawn to the Townsville course because of its focus on large animal skills. “We had a farm on-site which gave us amazing opportunities, such as preg testing, and now I’m really keen to go out and put that in practice.”
She’s happy her younger sister is following in her footsteps. “We both wanted to do it,” she said. Coming from a farming property had a big impact on both of us. We had lambs and calves to rear as we were growing up and that cemented what we wanted to do.
Abbey, 20, returns to study on March 1 and says she was inspired by Ella’s experiences. “I was watching the cool things she was doing and her placements and it really convinced me it was what I wanted to do,” she said.
The sisters grew up on a hobby farm which was expanded to include about 100 beef cattle in 2020. “I was spending more time on the farm and saw what Ella was doing and the pieces all fit together,” Abbey said.
“Those couple of years on the farm before I finished Year 12 really made me aware of the industry and I found out there was a shortage of large animal vets. I have a passion for animals and can’t imagine myself doing anything else.”
Her first year of study has laid the groundwork and Abbey is looking forward to more vet-related subjects in her second year.
The DemoDAIRY Foundation scholarship has been “immensely helpful”, she said. “Because I’m living on campus, most of it went on rent which took a load of pressure off and meant I could spend more on groceries and text books and other learning resources.”
After her course, Abbey expects to follow Ella into a mixed practice and also has long-term plans to work with large animals in south-west Victoria.