Andreja Kastelic Hrček works in Slovenia as a small animal locum vet. She is a board member of the Slovenian Small Animal Veterinary Association and Veterinary Chamber and joined the WSAVA TGG earlier this year.
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Why did you decide to work as a locum?
I wanted to figure out how to combine my clinical work and my work for the wider veterinary community. Working as a locum gave me more freedom to organize my time, and working with different teams is more interesting. I feel very fortunate to be able to combine everything I am passionate about.
Tell us about your role on the board of the Small Animal Veterinary Association and Veterinary Chamber in Slovenia.
When I started working, I faced many frustrations. I had three options – trying to fit into the system and complain all the time; move to another country where veterinary medicine is more advanced – or stay in Slovenia and try to make things better. I decided to stay and got involved in our association and chamber. My mission is simple – to make the veterinary path for vets stepping behind me easier to walk.
You’re also involved with the Federation of European Companion Animal Veterinary Associations (FECAVA) – what is your role?
I work part time for FECAVA as a digital content editor. I manage its website and social media, collecting content, co-ordinating work between working groups and graphic designers, coordinating translations of FECAVA publications, photographing events, editing videos, etc. Almost everything distributed via FECAVA’s digital channels has my fingerprints on it.
You’re passionate about the importance of communications technologies to veterinary medicine. Why do you believe it is so important that these disciplines work together?
Digital communications bring benefits to our profession – it keeps us connected, facilitates the sharing of knowledge and enable us to support owners in maintaining their animals’ health in new ways. Of course, it has negative sides, but we should not be afraid of it and use it creatively for the benefit of our profession. Like it or not, digitalization is already part of our everyday lives.
You’ve recently joined the WSAVA’s Therapeutic Guidelines Group. Why did you want to do this?
In Slovenia, we struggle to access some therapeutics because we are a small market, and for some products it’s not viable for pharmaceutical companies to go through the process of authorisation. This may change with the new EU veterinary medicines law coming into force this year as it will make the EU market for medicines more open. Overall, the lack of access to essential veterinary therapeutics in some parts of Eastern Europe dramatically impacts animal welfare and risks unregulated black markets.
What are you looking forward to in joining the Therapeutics Guidelines Group and what do you hope to contribute?
There is a saying: “If you want to learn to fly, you have to hang out with eagles.” Working with this group of amazing people at a global level makes me feel that I am serving something greater than myself. I see my contribution to the group mostly in helping to disseminate its messages to general practitioners.
For me, the fight against antimicrobial resistance is a personal issue because my father died of a MRSA-related disease. I feel I have to be part of the solution, not part of the problem. AMR can seem so abstract that it just doesn’t concern people unless they have a personal experience, such as mine. Yet AMR is deadly for huge numbers of people and animals worldwide. Veterinarians think of themselves as treating animals but we should not forget that we are responsible for health of people as well in the concept of One Health.
Tell us something about you that might surprise us!
You might have noticed I have two surnames. I’m not married, but I just added my partner’s surname Hrček. It means hamster in our language. My clients enjoy calling me Dr Hamster!
I worked as a stewardess on a commercial airline while studying. Even though I enjoyed it because I love traveling, I never thought how valuable the skills I learned would be now that I’m working as a vet: handling demanding clients or double checking everything for more safety in the surgical theatre.
What do you like to do in your spare time?
For me, it isn’t easy to draw a clear line between what is work and what is spare time. I enjoy combining education with traveling. When I need to ‘recharge my batteries’, I spend time in nature mostly with my companion, Dalmatian Snow – hiking in mountains, forests, or on water stand up paddling. I also enjoy books, music, and visual art.
Meet the other members of the Therapeutics Guidelines Group