Professions

Publications

This article examines why early twenty-first century animal research governance in Britain foregrounds the ‘culture of care’ as its key problem. It adopts a historical perspective to understand why the regulation of animal research became primarily a problem of ‘culture’, a term firmly associated with the social relations of animal research, at this time and not before.

The concept of advocacy is of increasing importance to the veterinary profession internationally. However, there are concerns around the ambiguity and complexity of acting as an advocate in practice. This paper explores what ‘animal advocacy’ involves for veterinarians working in the domain of animal research, where they are responsible for advising on health and welfare.

The veterinary profession has been relatively understudied in social science, though recent work has highlighted the geographic dimensions of veterinary expertise. This paper draws on in-depth qualitative interviews with Named Veterinary Surgeons (NVSs) working in UK animal research to demonstrate how and why they distinguish between ethical aspects of veterinary work in the spaces of the laboratory and general clinical practice.

In this new paper published in the Vet Record journal, Alistair Anderson and Pru Hobson-West report findings from the project which focuses on the role of the UK Named Veterinary Surgeon. The article focuses on why and how vets move from a clinical role, into an animal research role. The paper concludes that laboratory animal work is often considered by NVSs as more manageable or fulfilling than practice work.

While sociologists of medicine have focused their efforts on understanding human health, illness, and medicine, veterinary medical practice has not yet caught their attention in any sustained way. In this critical review article, we use insights from the sociology of diagnosis literature to explore veterinary practice, and aim to demonstrate the importance of animals to sociological understandings of health, illness and disease. We hope that this work encourages more focus on the veterinary profession, and a better understanding of the role of the vet inside and outside the laboratory. 

Vets play an important role in a wide variety of social contexts, including in ‘non-therapeutic’ roles, for example in facilitating the use of animals in sport or for food production. This paper focuses on a further non-therapeutic example, namely the role of the vet in laboratory animal research

Blog entry

Written by: Alistair Anderson, Pru Hobson-West

 

Over three days in July 2022, colleagues from the UK and beyond gathered online to discuss the thorny question of veterinary expertise.  

Written by: Vanessa Ashall

Working within a multidisciplinary research environment provides every member of the AnNex team with unique opportunities to think outside the boundaries of their own discipline and benefit from exposure to the methods and perspectives of other hu

Events

Academics at the University of Nottingham are pleased to announce that a conference on Veterinary Expertise is now available for booking!