Cara Golden set up Whiteley Village Vets in 2012, opening the main branch in August 2014. Prior to this, she had been working at a large practice in Portsmouth, which was unfortunately taken over by a corporate company. This led to a parting of ways as Cara had been at the point of leaving the profession altogether when trying to work for a company with such different values. This culminated in a huge row, and Whiteley Vets emerged.
Cara qualified as a vet from the R(D)SVS in Edinburgh in 1995 and immediately joined a small animal general and referral practice. Even at that stage, she knew that she wanted to specialise – but also loved her patients. Over the next few years, she discovered her love for people too – and hence the increasing dilemma between general practice and specialising further.
After a brief year in a larger, more general practice (which she hated) she spent a year as watch-leader, racing yachts around the world. A return to a great practice – but in Harrogate, meant that she then moved to the South Coast in order to keep on yacht racing – and vetting at a high standard with the patient’s interest first – until that all changed.
Whiteley has been set up to be the practice that we would all want to work in. The patients come first, with a superlative level of equipment allowing us to treat them in the best way possible. Cara has continued with her surgery, now having added a Certificate, an Advanced certificate and a Diploma to her name, all in small animal surgery/ soft tissue surgery.
She has purposely picked the rest of the team to have complementary disciplines as well as being good GPs. This allows her to concentrate on her general practice and surgery, with others taking on the things that she doesn’t like or is less proficient at!
Outside work, Cara lives locally with her husband, Martin Moody, their dog Bronson and her 2 cats. She still sails as often as possible, although that has been curtailed by working too much recently. That’ll be back again soon!
