Local innovative veterinarian named an award finalist

by Courtney O'Brien
Warragul veterinarian and founder of Veterinary Support Services Becky Dickinson is one of the 2026 Victorian AgriFutures Rural Women's Award finalists.
The award acknowledges and celebrates the vital role women play in rural and regional businesses, industries and communities.
Dr Dickinson founded Veterinary Support Services (VSS) four years ago, to provide proactive support, mentorship and training for rural vet graduates, particularly those working outside clinics with livestock or horses.
There is no structured postgraduate pathway for graduate veterinarians and while in-clinic support is available, when on the road attending to large animals, the work can be isolating, overwhelming and intimidating for new graduates.
"We believe that this really contributes to quite high attrition rates from rural work and also to things like poor mental health and burnout. So, I wanted to try and fill that space with a kind entrepreneurial venture with my business, to see if that support might help them to build that confidence and competence needed to work independently, and in the hope that that would help to retain them in rural areas," explained Dr Dickinson, who has 20 years of experience in large animal vet work and started as a graduate with West Gippsland Vet Care.
Dr Dickinson accompanies graduates on the road, and the benefit is two-fold - graduates receive on the job training, as well as support and mentorship within the car.
It also allows practices to send graduates to jobs they may not otherwise attend, improving work flow and efficiencies.
A $1.5 million grant from the Cattle Compensation Fund enabled Dr Dickinson to expand to deliver a structured two-year graduate training program via VSS, called the Victorian Livestock Veterinary Scholarship Program which supports eight graduates across eight clinics.
With an existing workforce crisis and with 50 per cent of large animal vets expected to retire in the next five to 10 years, supporting and retaining vets in rural areas, is vital, and not just for the industry, Dr Dickinson said.
"This is a huge problem as you can imagine, not just for animal health and welfare but also for things like our national biosecurity and disease response and food security for Australia and our public health. It also seriously threatens our ability to retain those export market relationships, a lot of which underpins the Australian economy."
Being named a finalist in the AgriFutures Rural Women's Award, Dr Dickinson said she felt honoured and lucky - especially to have the opportunity to form connections to previous winners and finalists across rural and regional Australia. These connections together with a potential bursary would see Dr Dickinson look to develop pathways to deliver the program more widely.
"A lot more needs to be done in the space. My work is a very small drop in the ocean to working towards trying to create meaningful change and I would love to see a structured, prescribed pathway for all vet graduates across the whole of the country."
The Victorian winner will be announced at a ceremony on Wednesday March 4. The national winner will be announced on Tuesday, September 8.