Review of Beyond Supervet

There are many reasons to read biographies and autobiographies.  The most prurient reason can be dismissed immediately – a voyeuristic predilection in the reader to learn salacious facts about the person in question.  When it comes to such reading material, the majority of readers find inspiration in reading about their heroes.  They expand their understanding of their subjects’ lives, gain insights into their personalities and relationships with colleagues and friends, learn about how they coped with life’s challenges, and, as a result, gain an awareness of historical developments that impacted their heroes during their lifetimes.  These are just some of the reasons I have always read biographical and autobiographical material.

I want to review Professor Noel Fitzpatrick’s latest book, Beyond Supervet: How Animals make us the best we can be (Trapeze, Orion Books, 2022).  This book was a number one Times Best Seller in England in 2022.  Readers of these posts probably need no reminding that Professor Fitzpatrick is now one of the leading veterinary surgeons in the world. He came to prominence through the television programme The Supervet. He established the veterinary practice called Fitzpatrick Referrals, based in Eashing, Surrey, a practice that specialises in orthopaedics and neurosurgery. He also leads the Fitzpatrick Institute for the Restoration of Skeletal Tissue (FIRST) at the same site and many other related spin-offs with equally inventive acronyms.

Beyond Supervet is many things at once.  It is a defence of his belief in the sentient nature of animals and how they enrich the human world.  As a defence of his beliefs, I would put it on a par with the passion with which John Henry Cardinal Newman authored his Apologia Pro Vita Sua (1845), the learned and authentic account of his religious convictions and conversion to the Catholic faith.  While obviously Newman’s style is infinitely superior and essentially Victorian, Fitzpatrick’s passion and authenticity are equal to that of the Victorian scholar. It is also a very personal account of how a bullied little boy survived his time at school, and so we can gain psychological and sociological insights into how Fitzpatrick coped with bullying as a young boy.  In fact, it was his relationship with the family farm dog Pirate that brought him through the worst of it. Pirate served as his closest companion and confidante during his childhood and helped him cope with being bullied at school. The bond between Noel and Pirate was so strong that it inspired him to pursue a career in veterinary science.

Again, at the heart of this autobiography lies a quest to be the best and most healing veterinarian in the world.  Understandably, and he readily admits this, his profession often misunderstands his motivation and sees him as an oddity and outlier among his colleagues. His very identity is inextricably linked with his profession, which is nothing short of a vocation. For Fitzpatrick, it has been and is the animals in his life that have been the source of healing for him personally.  He lists all the traumas, big and small, through which he has gone throughout his life.   However, he mentions a central one, which I will not name here as it will spoil the book for prospective readers.  That trauma provides a fitting climax at approximately the halfway mark in the autobiography.    

Apart from personal traumas, the book is rich in great stories about our animal friends and the lengths to which Noel goes to solve whatever grave problem his patients are afflicted with.  In general, he explores what makes us connect with animals so deeply, and as we read, we encounter Peanut, the world's first cat with two front bionic limbs, designed, developed and constructed by the Supervet.  We also meet eight-year-old therapy dachshund Olive; Odin, a gorgeous five-year-old Dobermann, who would prove to be one of Noel's most challenging cases - and of course his beloved companions Ricochet, the Maine Coon, and Keira, the scruffy Border terrier who is always by his side.  Behind his love for animals, he tells us early in the book that he has been “guided and driven by a single simple idea – unconditional love…. Our animal companions are there for us through thick and thin…. They share every tragedy and epiphany with us.  They are molten reservoirs of love, bathing us in the warmth of unconditional affection wherever they go.” (p. xxv)

The book recounts the philosophy that repeated failure leads to success and describes the thirteen traits that helped Noel on his journey, and those characteristics were learnt mostly from the animals he treated. These traits are humility, passion, thankfulness, openness, kindness, commitment, authenticity, trustworthiness, creativity, love and hope.  Again, these could be the chapters of a theology, spirituality, philosophy or ethics book. Noel also lists the musicians who have comforted and inspired him on his journey through life, such as Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” and the songs and music of Oasis, to name only two.  However, it is the love for the animals in his care that takes first place in teaching him and their owners about unconditional love: “It never ceases to amaze me the humility imbued upon us by our love for our companion animal.  Because they give us unconditional love, we as their guardians feel a profound sense of moral responsibility which subdues our own ego” (p 71). 

There is a link between Professor Fitzpatrick’s philosophy outlined above and that of Professors John Gray and Mark Rowlands' books, namely Straw Dogs and The Philosopher and the Wolf, respectively, both of which I have reviewed in these posts. See Gray and Rowlands.  Gray and Rowlands both believe that we humans are specist, that is, we have a decidedly lopsided view of existence insofar as we overvalue humans and undervalue animals.  They argue that we humans should be adjudged human animals rather than solely and exclusively human beings.  They argue for a point of balance or a “via media” somewhere between the two.  As Noel Fitzpatrick puts it: “animal or person, we’re all the same under the surgeon’s knife or on the doctor’s table.” (p. 76). In this regard, he outlines his “greatest life purpose” as the promotion of what he terms “One Medicine”.  Consequently, he founded the Humanimal Trust charity to attempt to give animals a fair deal, whilst also moving medicine forward for humans too (see p. 79). In general, the author pins his philosophy to the mast in this riveting read: “I absolutely know that each and every one of us is connected through love to what’s really important in life. I call it the ‘universal string of oneness’” (p. 106)

In short, this book is a captivating and passionate read, and anyone who loves animals, music and both human and animal stories and especially those narratives of the special relationship between animals and their human carers, will find this a fascinating and enlightening autobiography.   It will lift the spirits with its passionate and compassionate philosophy of life.  Such intense and committed positivity for all sentient creatures, including us human animals of course, was never more needed in a world which is sadly growing in ever more indifference to all forms of life.