{"id":18580,"date":"2025-09-22T12:26:26","date_gmt":"2025-09-22T11:26:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vets-now.com\/careers\/?p=18580"},"modified":"2026-03-27T14:13:45","modified_gmt":"2026-03-27T14:13:45","slug":"zara-kennedys-journey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vets-now.com\/careers\/news\/2025\/09\/22\/zara-kennedys-journey\/","title":{"rendered":"Running the extra mile: Zara Kennedy&#8217;s journey in veterinary leadership"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Zara Kennedy, our Head of Veterinary Standards, was two thirds of the way through her latest running challenge when doubt began to creep in as she looked at what lay ahead. It was hardly surprising though &#8211; Zara was tackling the Arc of Attrition, a gruelling 80 kilometre event.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt begins just outside Lands End and takes you along the stunning South West Coast Path in the middle of winter,\u201d said mum-of-three Zara. \u201cI was fresh enough halfway, but when I got to 50k I became really aware I still had 30k to go and I was arriving at checkpoints with only minutes to spare before cut offs. You need to have physical and mental toughness, and I was determined to get through it, which I did.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A similar determination has driven Zara throughout her veterinary career. This year marks 15 years as a vet for Zara, a dozen of which have been spent with Vets Now. \u201cI only lasted 10 months in first opinion before I realised that the routine just wasn\u2019t for me and went into ECC in Liverpool,\u201d she says. \u201cI then moved down south with my husband soon after having our first child and I started with Vets Now in Salisbury. The flexibility was a big part of the appeal, and I initially did one night a week which fitted with being a new mum. I then upped my shifts before moving to Southampton as Principal Vet, then a District Vet.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Taking up the role of Head of Veterinary Standards in 2021 allows Zara to work from home and balance work with being mum to her three boys aged 12, 10 and eight. Previously, though, the clinic shifts also facilitated family life.<\/p>\n<p>Zara recently completed a Masters in Patient Safety and Clinical Human Factors, and the parallels with human medicine and the practices that can be introduced, are a major part of our new profession-leading Care Frameworks which Zara is involved in overseeing the roll-out and development of.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey are new to the veterinary profession and such an exciting development to be involved with. As on the human side, they are frameworks on how to approach specific symptoms or disease processes, something Inspiring Vet Care spearheaded, and we\u2019re proud to have developed emergency care frameworks at Vets Now.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She added: \u201cOur first is a seizure care framework. It brings together all the available evidence on seizures, and real-life experience, on which our patients will benefit most.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Three others, also for the types of cases that regularly come into our emergency clinics, have since been released, with more to follow.<\/p>\n<p>She added: \u201cWhere we\u2019ve had visual cognitive aids, like treatment algorithms or drug sheets, they\u2019ve been made very visible within the clinics, and the teams have really embraced sharing the pet owner information sheets that have been created. It\u2019s all contributing to improved patient care.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Zara Kennedy, our Head of Veterinary Standards, was two thirds of the way through her latest &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":810,"featured_media":18581,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[243],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v20.3 (Yoast SEO v22.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Zara Kennedy&#039;s journey in veterinary leadership | Vets Now<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Learn about Zara Kennedy, our Head of Veterinary Standards, latest running challenge and the implementation of Vets Now&#039;s internal Care Frameworks.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" 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