Meet Our Staff

Stuart McArthur B Vet Med MRCVS

Stuart qualified in 1986 and started work as a cattle vet. In the 23 years since then, Stuart has worked in all manner of veterinary environments including the PDSA and a turtle hospital abroad, but his greatest veterinary pleasure is still to work as part of an effective nursing and veterinary team in a busy modern small animal hospital environment. That is why Stuart started Holly House 14 years ago!

Stuart has written and contributed to several veterinary reference texts including “Medicine and Surgery of Tortoises and Turtles” (Blackwell 2004), “Veterinary Management of Tortoises and Turtles” (Blackwell 1996), BSAVA Manual of Reptiles, 2nd edn and BSAVA Manual of Exotic Pets, 2nd edn. Stuart has lectured at BSAVA, BVZS, NAVC (USA), ARAV (USA), in Europe, and various UK Veterinary Universities. In 2008 Stuart was given the BSAVA Melton Award for meritorious contribution to small animal practice. Stuart remains active in veterinary research and publishing and is currently working on online veterinary information resources for GP vets worldwide via mobile phones and the Internet

Sarah Brown MA Vet MB Cert Zoo Med GP Cert (ExAp) MRCVS

Sarah is a Veterinary Surgeon who has further qualifications in Wildlife and Exotic species. She runs the exotic animal clinic at Holly House and people come from far and wide for her expertise.

Lawrence Baker BEc LLB LLM BVSc (Hons) MRCVS

Lawrence came to the veterinary profession after practising law for 10 years. He worked in a small animal clinic in Australia before coming to the UK. Since coming to Holly House in early 2011 he has become a key member of the surgical team and is working towards a GP Certificate in Small Animal Surgery. Lawrence is married with two children with whom he spends weekends hiking the beautiful Yorkshire Dales and the Lake District. They live with their cat Buckley, whom they adopted from Holly House after repairing its broken leg when its owner could not be found.

James Brooks B Vet Med MRCVS

James graduated from the RVC in 1995 and spent then next 4 years in mixed practice. Since then he has spent his time entirely in companion animal practice and developed strong interest in surgery and was lead surgeon at AVC referrals in Maidenhead. Currently he is studying for the RCVS small animal surgery certificate. Family relocation brought James to Yorkshire and they have settled in well, including two geriatric cats which appreciate the plentiful wildlife. Outside work he enjoys cooking and tiring out his young twins.

Ross Machin LV MRVCS

Ross has always had a special interest in internal medicine and exotics; for years he has maintained dozens (probably over one hundred) of reptile species and other exotics including tenrecs and African hedgehogs. He spent two months at the Wildlife rehabilitation centre in Murcia attending especially the reptile and avian patients. After qualifying from Murcia University in Spain he worked in a small animal practice in southern Spain where he worked on internal medicine cases of cats and dogs with a small case load of exotics. He went on to work in a new practice in the centre of Murcia city which specialised in neurology and equipped with MRI but still maintained contact with with the exotic case load in the specialist practice nearby.

He also designs and runs a website in spanish named reptiland.es focused on maintenance and pathologies of reptiles.  He is hoping to create the english version this year.

He did not plan to come to England but saw the opportunity at Holly House to specialise in exotic animals and progress in internal medicine.

Holly Kitson B Vet Med MRCVS

Zoe Costigan BVSc BSc (Hons) GP Cert SAP MRCVS

Zoe graduated from Liverpool University in 2004 and commenced veterinary practice in Lancashire before moving across the Pennines where she lives with her husband and son in a village near Harrogate. She joined Holly House as a locum for one month in 2009 and is still here as a key member of the team over 2 years later. She is studying towards the Royal College Certificate in Small Animal Medicine and has lots of practice with her own two cats, two dogs, five sheep and one egg-laying hen.

Marina Markule MRCVS

Marina joined Holly House as a part-time veterinary surgeon in september this 2011. She graduated Latvian university in 2005. She has very talkative African grey parrot called Venja. Outside work she enjoys making flower arrangements, gift wrapping and crafts.

Holly House is also proud to have seven fully qualified Veterinary Nurses working with us.  Our nurses provide around the clock care, as there is always a member of the nursing team on site 24 hours a day.

Amy Martin BSc (Hons) RVN DipHE CVN NCert(BusDev) MBVNA

Amy qualified in 2003 from the Royal Veterinary College with a degree in veterinary nursing.  She has taken an interest in teaching student nurses and became an assessor and lately a clinical coach.  She was the honorary secretary at the British Veterinary Nursing Association for 4 years until October 2010.  Amy has her city and guilds qualification in veterinary nursing exotic species and has just obtained her higher education diploma in clinical veterinary nursing along with a practice management qualifaication.  she leads the nursing team here at Holly House.  Her special interest is surgical nursing.

Jo Matthews Cert Ed Dip AVN (SURG) RVN MBVNA

Jo qualified as a veterinary nurse in 1994 and continued to work in small animal practices until she felt the urge to study again. In the year 2000 she was awarded a diploma in surgical nursing. Soon after Jo began to take an interest in training students nurses within practice and this led to taking qualifications within assessment (D32,33), which ultimately led her to move into education, where she gained the internal verification qualification (D34) and a certificate in education (Cert Ed). Jo has spent the last 9 years teaching and veryfying students work, but now feels it is time to return to practice life to not only continue to train students but to do what she started out to do in the beginning..... to nurse.

Sian Stanton RVN

Sian is a qualified veterinary nurse from New Zealand.  She moved to the UK 5 years ago.  She has settled in Leeds with her cat and dog.

Sherene Long RVN

Sheryl Wheldrick RVN MBVNA

Sheryl started at Holly House Vets in March 2010, although she has been working as a veterinary nurse since November 2006. She has been qualified since October 2009.

Although Sheryl likes all animals, she has a particular interest in exotics! She even owns her own corn snake as well as a very lovely cat and Jack Russell Terrier. She is also interested in Behaviour of Animals.

Sheryl is now the Clinic Nurse at Holly House Vets, although she still likes to help out on inpatients and organises work experience for students.

Amanda Stevenson RVN

Amanda qualified as a Veterinary Nurse in May 2007.  She started at Holly House as a nursing assistant and built her way up to becoming a senior nurse over her 8 years of employment.  Although she is now part time so that she can care for her 2 small children she still takes on extra responsibilities and her main interest is Laboratory work.

Arianne Morris RVN

Arianne qualified in June 2010 and has a foundation degree in Veterinary Nursing.  She is intrested in Medical Nursng and enjoys working with all types of animals.