Dr Jodie Wilson is a second generation veterinarian from Queensland, Australia. Jodie graduated from the University of Queensland in December 1996, with a passion for both primary care practice and the veterinary community. She has been active in the Australian Veterinary Association since 1994. In 1997, in her first year out of university, Jodie was elected President of the South-West Western Australian Branch of the AVA, whilst living in Albany and working in a busy 4-vet mixed practice. Her contribution to the profession continues: she is also the past President (2010) of the Brisbane Veterinary Practitioner’s branch of the AVA, and the past President (2010) of the Queensland Division of the AVA, and in 2013-14 was President-elect of the AVA Practice Management SIG. Jodie served as the AVA’s media spokesperson in QLD from 2008-2011, and continues in that role as required. In 2012, Jodie received the AVA’s prestigious Distinguished Service Award for services to the veterinary profession at local, state and national levels.

Jodie’s interest in veterinary practice management had begun long before her graduation – growing up in the industry, she became intensely aware of serious flaws in the way most practices ‘do business’. The ability to ‘experiment’ in her own practice soon showed how flawed traditional practice management could be, and in 2008, Jodie won the AVA’s Inaugural Chris Baldock Prize: Creating a Vision for the Future of the Veterinary Profession in Australia. She has presented at State (QLD 2012), and National (2008, 2009, 2010) Veterinary Conferences in Practice Management Streams, as well as at stand-alone Practice Management Conferences in Australia (AVPMA 2009). Jodie believes that practice management in Australia must constantly evolve and change to meet the changing needs of our clients and patients – and the best way for us to do that is to better understand those needs.

Jodie opened a single ‘man’ Brisbane practice in 2002. Vienna Road Veterinary Surgery is a boutique small animal practice, offering excellent medicine, loving patient care and a WOW! client experience. As part of that philosophy, Jodie became interested in end-of-life care as a distinct life stage, and in 2010 became one of the first veterinarians in Australian to offer formal palliative and hospice care plans to her clients and patients. Jodie put  Vienna Road Veterinary Surgery on the market in 2014 in order to concentrate more fully on Animal Hospice, and in December 2014 received approval from the Veterinary Surgeon’s Board to operate Australia’s first full-time Veterinary Hospice Practice. The Last Gift Veterinary Hospice Care accepts patients by referral from primary accession as well as specialist veterinarians. The practice offers in-home veterinary hospice care and has a network of trained respite carers available to assist care-givers with their animal companion’s end-of-life needs.