Partners at Penmellyn Veterinary Group

Pete qualified from Glasgow Veterinary School in 1975 and worked in practices in Northumberland, Herefordshire and other parts of Cornwall before coming to Penmellyn, where he joined the partnership in 1989. Pete particularly enjoys general farm and small animal duties with both longstanding and new clients. He is married to Ann and has two sons. Away from work, Pete keeps himself busy by running marathons, half marathons, orienteering, gardening, piano playing and walking with Benson the Labrador and his family. Pete and Ann are currently planning their latest project; to build an ecologically friendly house in St Columb.

Ruth is one of the partners at Penmellyn. She graduated from the Royal Veterinary College, London in 1981. Ruth was born in Worcestershire and has been riding ponies since she was in nappies! She hunted with the Croome and West Warks as a teenager. Ruth has two children, Tess (who shares her mothers interest in riding) and Geoffrey (who prefers Rugby, rowing and Cornish wrestling). Ruth’s children and horses form the basis for her outside interests- which are watching Geoffrey wrestle and Tess ride at horse shows, along with vetting and riding at endurance rides. She also shares her home with three dogs (the most recent is a Husky x Belgian shepherd called ‘Lucky’ who is already huge and still growing!). Ruth’s family has eight horses now. Within clinical practice Ruth’s work is mainly based in the equine department where she is the main vet looking after our equine inpatients. Her future aims are simply summed up as ‘Keeping the equine clients happy’.

Hannes qualified as a veterinary surgeon from Vienna University in 1996. His background involves equine sports and horse breeding. Hannes is one of the partners at Penmellyn and his responsibilities include leading the Equine Department, promotion of the equine department, health and safety and COSHH. Outside of work his interests are horses and motor racing. He has a rescue Greyhound called ‘Laughing Elay’ who Hannes says is the most perfect hound in the world. He also has ‘Henry’ and ‘Haya’, his pet horses who are his carbon neutral lawnmowers. Hannes’s future ambitions are to continue developing the practice to meet the highest client and staff expectations.

Pete was born in Truro, Cornwall and has always aimed to return to the greatest county in England as soon as possible after graduating. This he managed by coming to Penmellyn after graduating from the Royal Veterinary College, London in 2001. He has been brought up with animals all of his life and rode a lot as a child and teenager. He gained his British Horse Society assistant instructors qualification whilst studying for his A-levels and spent time teaching riding before going to veterinary college. Pete became a partner in Penmellyn Veterinary Group in April 2005. Pete is a mixed vet and enjoys all aspects of veterinary work but with more of his time currently spent carrying out equine work. He heads up our involvement within the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons Practice Standards scheme, which incorporates all aspects of veterinary practice, across all of our surgeries and all of the species that we treat. He is also responsible for veterinary nurse training within the practice and has been an assessor within the practice for a couple of years. He is a past president of the Cornwall Veterinary Association (2005-2006). Pete has served on the Animal Care and Veterinary Nursing Advisory Committee at Duchy College, Rosewarne, for a couple of years and has been appointed to the Duchy College Council in 2010. Pete, his wife and two daughters share their home with quite a few animals. Currently they have three cats, two rabbits, three Guinea pigs, twelve chickens and some goldfish. They also have a mare, a three year old filly and a welsh pony. Outside of work his interests include time with his family, walking, squash, skiing and gardening.

Phil comes from a farming family in Devon and left to attend university in Liverpool from where he qualified as a veterinary surgeon in 1999. At this point he moved to Cornwall and worked in two practices before coming to Penmellyn Veterinary Group in 2003. He became a partner in 2005. Phil currently spends the majority of his time carrying out farm work and he enjoys improving the welfare and profitability of farms. He still enjoys all aspects of veterinary life and can regulary be found consulting at one of our surgeries. Phil is married with two young sons, Finlay and Harry. Most of his free time is taken up with family commitments. .

Colin qualified as a veterinary surgeon from the University of Liverpool in 1998 and gained a Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons post graduate qualification- Certificate in Small Animal Surgery- in 2003. He worked for 8 years in a small animal practice in Cheshire and a year as a small animal surgery resident at the University of Liverpool, before joining the team at Penmellyn as Small Animal Clinical Director in 2007. Colin became a partner at Penmellyn in 2010. Colin is responsible for heading up our small animal department as well as running our small animal surgical referral service (A30 referrals) seeing soft tissue, orthopaedic and spinal surgical referrals from throughout Cornwall and West Devon. His clinical interests are pain relief; surgical training; orthopaedic, spinal and soft tissue surgery; arthroscopy; fracture repair; disc surgery and ear, nose and throat surgery. (phew!). Colin has a range of publications in these fields. Outside of work Colin lives with his wife and two children in Wadebridge and enjoys taking them camping and trying to show them as much of Cornwall as possible. The family have two pet Guinea Pigs. His future aims are to ensure that the practice continues to provide surgical, medical and diagnostic facilities and expertise at the forefront of current veterinary practice, whilst maintaining its strong reputation for patient care and service.