Veterinary Nurses and Technicians Conference 2024
The conference will feature two international speakers Marcia Feltcher and Tami Lind, supported by Cat Walker. View the program for lecture topics and times.
Tami Lind
Tami is the current ICU and ER supervisor at Purdue University Veterinary Teaching Hospital. She attended veterinary technology school at Purdue University and graduated in 2010 with a Bachelor’s degree in Veterinary technology. She started as a veterinary technician in the ICU and has been the supervisor at Purdue since 2012. She received her VTS in Emergency and Critical Care in October of 2016. Tami enjoys teaching new veterinary nurses and veterinary students preparing them for their career ahead. Tami has received numerous teaching and leadership awards from the Indiana Veterinary Technician Association including the Outstanding Veterinary Technician Teacher of the Year and Outstanding Leadership Awards. She has lectured at some of the world’s largest veterinary conferences such as VMX, WVC and IVECCS.
Marcia Fletcher
Marcia Fletcher is a registered veterinary nurse specialist and an international speaker. Having 20 + years’ experience in veterinary anaesthesia, she started her career working for the Massey University Veterinary Teaching Hospital in New Zealand and was the senior anaesthesia nurse there for over 16 years. In 2011 she became New Zealand’s first Veterinary Technician Specialist in Anaesthesia and Analgesia. She has been awarded New Zealand’s “Vet Nurse of the Year”, and several teaching awards including “Teacher of the Year”. Marcia is also a RECOVER certified instructor of both basic and advanced CPR.
In 2020 Marcia left university teaching life and created The Pink Stethoscope, her platform to elevate veterinary anaesthesia within the entire veterinary community.
Through The Pink Stethoscope she independently provides postgraduate veterinary anaesthesia education, training, webinars and consultations both nationally and internationally. Marcia loves all aspects of veterinary anaesthesia teaching. Her passion has always been instilling anaesthesia knowledge to the greater veterinary profession - to make a somewhat challenging subject less stressful, and ultimately to empower veterinary professionals to continue their anaesthesia learning journey.
Away from work Marcia is a busy kiwi mum, enjoying her home life with her husband, daughter, son, and very special “fur-daughter” Minnie the tuxedo cat.
Cat Walker
Cat Walker is a Registered Veterinary Nurse, Lawyer, Mediator, and self-confessed nerd with a wealth of experience in the veterinary sector. She has a background in veterinary ownership and management of general practice and emergency hospitals. Cat empowers veterinary teams to maximise patient outcomes by navigating common lines of tension and conflict using evidence-based strategies grounded in conflict theory and neuroscience. With a past life in performing arts, Cat’s skills as a speaker shine through with her interactive, engaging, yet extremely professional style. Delegates benefit from the pragmatic nature of Cat’s talks in which her goal is for individuals to walk away with clear strategies that they can apply to their working lives. Cat is the voice and brains behind the Radio Vet Nurse podcast with over 70,000 downloads.
Venue Information
St Lucia campus parking is free on weekends, so you may park anywhere that is signed for normal parking. Do not park on any yellow lined parking areas. The closest parking will be 98D (also signed P11 on campus signage) on the bottom right corner of the map. The lecture venue is a short walk past/over the lakes. The conference will be held in the Advanced Engineering Building (Building 49 room 200 on Level 3), and registration begins at 7.30am Saturday with the conference program starting at 8.30am.
As it is a weekend, few food and beverage facilities will be open on campus. There will be options for those with special dietary requirements for morning tea and lunch. There is access to drinking water, so it would be appropriate to bring a water bottle.