Welcome to the British Veterinary Chronic Illness Support (BVCIS) website!
Who are we?
BVICS exists to support veterinary staff who are living and working the all kinds of chronic illness. We are a peer-lead organisation, run by spoonies, for spoonies. We aim to mutually support and encourage one another, and to provide practical advice on living and working with ill-health.
We also work to promote understanding of chronic health conditions in the workplace, and to help employers to see the benefits of being flexible and forward-thinking in their approach to veterinary staff with long-term illnesses.
In the wider veterinary community, we seek to represent and advocate for those who are living and working with chronic illness, whether in or out of clinical practice. For more details on our current activities, check out our blog, and follow us on social media.
How can we help?
We are developing this website as a resource both for those who are affected by chronic illness, and for those who are looking to support them in a veterinary context. There are resources to help spoonies in day-to-day life, and for colleagues to understand how our symptoms can affect our work, as well as information on certain specific heath conditions. We have also collected together links to some external resources - both veterinary and non-veterinary - that our members have found useful.
Our community - made up of vets, nurses, students and veterinary support staff who are living with chronic illness - provides. It is currently centred around our Facebook groups, but we have plans to extend this further in the future!
As part of our role in advocating for spoonies in the wider veterinary community, we are happy to hear from anyone who has a concern or cause that they wish us to raise!
What is a spoonie?
You may see the terms "spoonies" or "spoonholders" used in various places around the site, and in the name of our Facebook group (Veterinary Spoonholders UK). This is taken from the popular "Spoon Theory" that is used to try and explain life with a chronic illness - click here for more details.
