Resources
Meet the Committee
ACV Committee 2024
Chair: Ian Futter BVMS MRCVS
​
Ian qualified from the University of Glasgow in 1992 and went into mixed practice in the Glasgow area. He moved to the Scottish SPCA in 1999, as part of a small team to provide in-house Veterinary treatment to animals at Glasgow Dog and Cat Home. He is now Chief Veterinary Officer with and advises Senior Management on Veterinary related matters and to run the Veterinary Department.
​
Ian has been practising Shelter Medicine in Scotland (since before he knew it had a name!) and he lectures at the University in Glasgow. Ian is married, lives in the West End of Glasgow and has two teenage daughters and a very lazy three-legged cat.
​
He has been involved in Welfare Casework for the Society for the last 16 years.
​
Declaration of interests: Employed by the Scottish SPCA
​
​
Treasurer: Lisa Morrow DipAppChemBiol BMLSc DVM MSc (Vet Epi) DLSHTM PGCHE FHEA MRCVS
​
Lisa graduated from the Ontario Veterinary College at the University of Guelph, Canada in 2000 and has a Master’s degree in Veterinary Epidemiology from the Royal Veterinary College and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Prior to training as a vet, she taught and did research and method development in the field of Medical Laboratory Science.
Lisa has provided services to and been an employee of Cats Protection in various capacities: providing clinical services as a private practitioner, as Head of Veterinary Services from 2003 - 2005, and as Field Veterinary Officer from 2009-2018. She has also worked at the Royal Veterinary College as a research associate for various contract research projects. In 2018, Lisa joined the team at the University of Nottingham School of Veterinary Medicine and Science. Lisa's professional interests include shelter medicine, clinical epidemiology, evidence-based medicine and feline medicine. She teaches Shelter Medicine and is part of the Vets in the Community team.
​
Declaration of interests: Employed by University of Nottingham
Secretary: Alex Castro BA BS BVetMed MRCVS
​
Alex graduated from the Royal Veterinary College in 2022 and has been working at the Animal Trust hospital in Bolton since then. Before qualifying she volunteered with multiple shelters in the United States while gaining her Animal Science degree.
She is passionate about accessible care and promoting the idea that every pet deserves quality veterinary care.
​
Declaration of interests: Employed by The Animal Trust
Bree Merritt BSc BVMS PGDipCABC FHEA MSc (Vet Epi) MRCVS
​
Bree has spent most of her career working with shelters in the UK, working with shelter clients from small foster-based rescues to large national charities. She educated final year vet students on Shelter Medicine rotations from 2015 to 2023, first at Nottingham Vet School and then at the Royal Veterinary College, where she was based at Woodgreen Pets Charity as their lead vet.
​
Bree is now studying for a PhD in canine welfare and epidemiology, looking into how and why people sell dogs online in the UK.
​
Declaration of interests: RVC PhD student funded by Dogs Trust
Emma Dobson
​
Emma graduated from Nottingham in 2016 and started her career in a wonderful first opinion hospital whereby she took on a lot of RSPCA charity work. After two years she undertook a rotating internship at Cambridge. After finishing this she spent some time doing locum shelter work which led her to making some fantastic contacts! She then took on the role of First Opinion Veterinary Surgeon at QVSH. Here she has pushed the implementation of 2 x 1 week first opinion rotations based largely at their local RSPCA centre, working with multiple local charities and aims to provide as much student exposure to charity based primary care practice as possible.
She is passionate about charity practice/accessible veterinary care and utilising this as a teaching resource.
​
Michelle Henry-Clement BSc (Hons) PGCert (CAB) RVN
Michelle is a registered veterinary nurse with a background in animal behaviour and welfare, obtaining a first-class BSc (Hons) in Applied Animal Behaviour and Welfare in 2012 and a Post Graduate Certificate in Clinical Animal Behaviour with the University of Edinburgh in 2020. Her veterinary nurse training was completed in a high-pressured 24-hour hospital with multiple certificate holders. Michelle’s passion for nursing and animal welfare combined when she started her charity career at Battersea in 2018.
Michelle now works for Dogs Trust in the veterinary department helping dogs on their funding schemes and working on projects to aid the charity. Michelle strongly believes there is massive benefit to cross charity collaboration to provide learning opportunities and promote animal welfare. This year she hopes to focus further on quality improvement and evidence-based medicine.
​
Declaration of interests: Employed by Dogs Trust
.jpeg)
Victoria Henry BVetMed MRCVS
Vicky graduated from the RVC in 2013 and since then has been working in small animal practice, mostly in the UK but with a short stint in Australia. She left private practice in 2021 and joined Dogs Trust’s central veterinary team. Her role as a vet at Dogs Trust is very varied but involves supporting all of the teams across the organisation including the large network of rehoming centres in the UK and Ireland, and the international branch of the charity. She believes strongly in promoting pragmatic care for animals and feels that it is particularly important to try to engage with young vets and VNs early in their careers through platforms such as ACV.
Declaration of interests: Employed by Dogs Trust
Ali Limentani BSc(Hons) PGDipCABC MA AFHEA RVN
​
Ali started working in the kennels at Wood Green as a teenager. She went on to study animal behaviour to post-graduate level, while training as a veterinary nurse and working part-time in the surgery at Wood Green. She has been an RVN for over 10 years and still works one day per week at Wood Green, splitting the rest of her time between working as a Veterinary Radiographer at Cambridge University’s Queens Vet School Hospital and running her own illustration business.
​
Her interests include shelter medicine, low-stress handling, imaging and veterinary illustration.
Laura Davies
​
Laura is a second year accelerated graduate entry vet student at the University of Bristol. Prior to starting vet school she spent 10 years working in rehoming shelters and as a veterinary assistant in both charity hospitals and ECC practices.
Laura is passionate about both animal welfare and education, along with having an interest of some of the more unusual species that seem to be becoming more common as pets (and in practice)!
​
​
Isobel McCarroll MVB MRCVS
​
Isobel qualified from University College Dublin in 2009 and has worked mostly in charity practice ever since, at Blue Cross and in her current role at Cats Protection as Field Veterinary Officer. She is also a regular Street Vet volunteer.
Isobel’s interests include infectious disease management in shelters, and pragmatic medicine and she is ably assisted at work by her one-eyed rescue cat Bobby.
​
Declaration of interests: works for Cats Protection
Lauren Guthrie-Murray Bsc (Hons) BVMS (Hons) MRCVS
​
​Lauren qualified as a vet in 2010 at Glasgow University and during her time as a vet student undertook an Intercalated Degree in Animal Behaviour and Welfare. She worked for 3 years in Devon as a mixed animal practitioner and then moved back home to Scotland and worked for 3 years in private practice as a small animal GP. She started working with the Scottish SPCA as a charity vet in 2016 and since then has continued to thoroughly enjoy shelter medicine and all of the variety and challenges it offers. She runs a small holding at her farm looking after her rescue pet sheep, pigs, chickens, ducks, dogs and cats.
​
Declaration of interests: Employed by the Scottish SPCA
