Spain is a beautiful country, and a place where you can find Feline Practitioner members! This profile looks at what life is like on a lovely Mediterranean island for one of our association members.
In 1996, Dr. Llibertat Real Samprieto graduated University of Zaragoza. She studied in the last year of college in Glasgow. Since graduation she has been working at Mon Veterinari, Manacor. It is one of the largest small animal practices of the island of Mallorca. There she worked the afternoon shift, attending only feline patients until 2005, when doggins were added to the schedule due to a retiring colleague. She left the job in December to help her family, but she says "“Even when I had to see both species, all my attention was focused on feline medicine".
Sounds like a keen cat doc!
Llibertat Real Samprieto is truly a veterinarian with a passion for cats! She lives in an area where feline specialty practices do not exist, but likes to focus on feline patients whenever the opportunity arises.
Why did you join the AAFP?
At graduation, I joined because I realized that during my training I was crazy for anything related to feline medicine. In my veterinary degree, there was a dearth of information about cats, when compared to dogs, for example.
I traveled to Barcelona to see a feline-only practice and discovered the Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery. I really enjoy
AAFP/VIN rounds and the E-Mews. They are my best way of not losing touch at all with the kitty’s medicine while I take time to help with my new daughter Aurora. The only thing I regret is not being able to go to the
AAFP conferences to date, but I hope to go in the future.
What are your interests and goals?Feline medicine has always been my only interest. In my country, there are very few feline practices, maybe two or three, so I’ve struggled a bit to try to give to my patients the best medicine possible, with a “feline only” point of view. I was thrilled to attend to only feline patients in my old job. I think clients here really appreciated being treated by someone that was focused solely on cats.
My clients knew that I really cared and that cats were special for me. I got a lot of positive feedback for my efforts. I would love to spend the rest of my professional life working exclusively with feline patients. This focus encourages me to learn new things every day, so I feel that I’m improving day-by-day in order to be able to do the best for them.
What is so special about being an AAFP member where you live?
When I joined
AAFP there were only three of us in the whole country, and we had no national or even European feline association! In the last years things have changed, and we have the European Society of Feline Medicine in Spain, in the national small animal veterinary association, we have a feline group and we are quite active through the internet, especially discussing clinical cases. We also have a conference once a year, so that like-minded veterinarians can meet and share stories.
I think all the information I get through the conference proceedings, the E-Mews, and the Guidelines really make a difference in the way I treat my patients.
What is the type of practice like locally, regionally, nationally?
In the private practice there are big hospitals, with maybe five to six vets on staff, but most of the practices are small, with only one or two vets and one nurse or receptionist (or both). In Spain, the hospitals are frequently located in premises not build specifically for a clinic to use, but rather adapted after the purchase. In cities, hospitals generally don’t have parking facilities. They are frequently on the street floor of a six to eight story building. In the countryside, they are often in houses or are purpose built.
Spain has just two or three feline-only practices in all the country. I practice in a special place in many ways. I live on an island in the west part of the Mediterranean and until 70 years ago it was very poor—all the economy was agriculture-based. More recently there has been a tourist boom, and many hotels were built and people came to work and live on the island, so there is quite an eclectic mixture of clients. In the countryside, there are still people making a living from agriculture, living alongside millionaires in big mansions, and many workers from hotels and the tourist industry. This variety is reflected in the pets that we see.
The practice where I worked previously was built 20 years ago, and back then there was no other like it in the island. It is located on the east coast, and I had two shifts. The practice has compounded and packaged medications, but we never count pills. Most of them have a small number of veterinary drugs in stock, but the rest are given as a prescription and clients go to the chemist (our equivalent term is pharmacist). We may refer to the larger practices, but the mainland is too far away for most clients.
Mostly Spanish is spoken but also Catalan, the local language. My name in Spanish has one L (libertad) while in Catalan, it has two—the second l is for Liberty. German and English are spoken because of the tourists and the number of foreigners who have moved to the island.
Closing thoughts..It is fascinating to touch bases with veterinarians working in far away places. There is so much we have in common, but so many interesting differences due to locale and traditions. Without a doubt, the ability to get information to veterinarians around the globe is helping to keep the standards of practice high and is helping keen practitioners keep abreast of new developments.
