YOU wouldn’t have thought that a girl’s birthday party was the place to be contemplating the future of the veterinary profession.

There, surrounded by fake jewellery, clip on earrings, badly applied make-up, hair extensions and high pitched screams (and that was just the mothers), I ended up quietly considering where this great profession is going.

As the cake was cut, I found myself glad to have been educated when I was, pleased that I was not one of today’s new graduates and grateful of the James Herriot era into which six Highers and a bit of practical experience thrust me.

It all started with a chance conversation.

Fathers always find these parties difficult. Mothers are able to join in the fun.

They can dance with their offspring any way they choose, pretending they are only doing it for the child’s benefit.

Yeah, right. They can help with the food, tasting pizza and ice-cream as if ensuring their loved one is not to be poisoned. They can dress their young charges to reflect themselves and they are able to mingle and carry on conversations left over from the school gates.

Dads are different. We only get to meet at these encounters and are never sure who belongs to who, so all talk of children is prohibited. Football chat is dangerous. Politics even worse.

Clothes are out, as are waxing, nails and underwear. Lawnmowers are a safe but boring bet for a chat so inevitably it boils down to, “So, what is it you do then?”

I hate this. As soon as you say, 'vet', you get one sided discussions on how the other party always wanted to be a vet or insinuations that, since you love animals, you shouldn’t also be entitled to earn a living or (and this is the worst) the life story of absolutely every pet they ever owned.

But this party was different because, pleasantly, I found myself in the company of a human orthopaedic surgeon who only operates on hips. That’s right, only hips. Nothing but hips

Now I find that strange. But that’s because last week I calved cows, carried out a caesarean section on a bitch, spayed a cat, performed a dental procedure on a rabbit, amputated a dog’s leg, certified leather going to China, chicken wings going to Thailand and fish oil going to the Philippines, as well as treating coughing dogs, diarrhoeic cats, breathless rats, bald cockatiels, and car sick puppies.

I then operated on more cats, dogs, guinea pigs and rabbits, injected calves with pneumonia and sheep with bad feet and filled in a passport application for a member of staff.

Additionally, I paid bills, paid staff, wrote a reference for an ex staff member who is joining the police and one for a school student who is applying to university. I also negotiated the price of new equipment, bought drugs, a new lock for the front door, advertised for a new receptionist, read through the applications and couldn’t make my mind up, ordered new floor mats and did a lot of other things I’ve since forgotten.

Meanwhile, he did hips.

Soon, the veterinary profession will be specialising too. They will miss out on so much.