Get to know: Rebecca Geddes – Insights into Teaching and Treating in Small Animal Internal Medicine
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Rebecca Geddes, Senior Lecturer in Small Animal Internal Medicine at the Royal Veterinary College, has built a reputation for combining clinical excellence with an infectious enthusiasm for teaching. Her work bridges the worlds of academia and practice, inspiring the next generation of vets while advancing how we approach internal medicine.
We caught up with Rebecca to hear about her journey into veterinary medicine, the defining experiences that have shaped her career, and what she’s most looking forward to sharing at this year’s London Vet Show. Her reflections offer a glimpse into the challenges and rewards of balancing teaching with clinical work, and a reminder of the deep curiosity and compassion that drive this profession.
Q: Can you tell me a bit about yourself and what inspired you to pursue a career in veterinary?
A: I always wanted to be a vet - my first word was ‘cat’! I loved animals since being a small child. I also really like interacting with people, therefore a career in clinical veterinary work really appealed to me. Once I graduated, I became really interested in internal medicine, hence I decided to specialise in this area.
Q: What are some of the most challenging/interesting cases you've managed in small animal medicine?
A: The ones that take some work to figure out what is really going on! For example, I really enjoy seeing hypercalcaemic dogs, especially when the reason for the hypercalcaemia is not quickly apparent. Recently we had a young hypercalcaemic dog that ultimately was found to have hypervitaminosis D but threw us off with a positive test result for Angiostrongylus vasorum during the work-up.
Q: Can you tell me more about your session on “Diagnosing and Staging Chronic Kidney Disease in Cats” and some of the topics you will cover?
A: Many cats diagnosed with CKD in practice are found to have renal azotaemia, but this automatically places them half-way through IRIS stage 2. This talk will review the IRIS staging system and explore the tools we have at our disposal for making an earlier diagnosis of CKD in cats. I will discuss how reliable those different methods are and how we can best use them to detect these patients with non-azotaemic CKD.
Q: What do you find most rewarding about teaching internal medicine?
A: That moment when previously misunderstood concepts all start to fall into place! I am passionate about CKD in cats and helping other vets feel as confident as they can with these cases.
Q: What advice would you give to aspiring vets wanting to pursue a career in this field?
A: Find yourself a mentor, someone who is already doing what you want to be doing. I have some wonderful mentors, who have really helped me to get to where I am today!
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