Lynne Mowbray | A Yamba veterinarian has been awarded for her innovative approach and passion towards helping clients and patients, in the area of end-of-life and euthanasia care. Dr Karen Teasdale of Angourie Road Veterinary Surgery at Yamba was recently selected to speak at the AVA Annual Conference’s VetEd talks. The title of her talk was ‘Where to start with the end’, which explored the difficult but important topic of end-of-life discussions, with pet owners. Dr Karen was selected because of her passion for helping clients and patients experience the very best in end-of-life and euthanasia care, and for her desire to empower all veterinarians to be comfortable discussing end of life decision making. In a moving and passionate speech, Dr Karen shared with her esteemed colleagues the innovations that Angourie Road Veterinary Surgery has made in the field of palliative care and was able to discuss her ground breaking workbook, designed to give pet parents a framework to plan and structure end of life decision making. At the end of the talks, a winner was selected in two categories – the people’s choice, voted on by Dr Karen’s veterinary colleagues, as well as a judge’s choice, selected by current and past presidents of the Australia Veterinary Association. Dr Karen was the clear winner in both categories and hopes that by starting a conversation in the veterinary realm, we will all be able to become comfortable discussing our end of life plans with honesty and openness.