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Category: Student blogs

  • A difference of opinion

    A difference of opinion

    I’m only a few short weeks into my final-year rotations at the University of Bristol’s Veterinary Referral Hospital, but I already feel like I’ve learned a lot:

    • DOPs aren’t as scary as I’d built them up to be in my head.
    • It does get easier to navigate your way around the hospital with time (and trial and error).
    • There are quite a few differences between first-opinion and second-opinion practice that I’d never really considered until now.

    Budgets

    The gift that is the NHS can certainly make us blind to the costs of routine medical procedures. Something as simple as an ultrasound, blood work and a couple of days’ hospitalisation can amass a bill that’s simply unaffordable for a lot of pet owners.

    I’ve seen a lot of cases reach the end of the road due to lack of funds, when the answer (or potential answer) was frustratingly simple, but just too much money. The reality of referral practice, however, is that if your patient has made it to you in the first place, there is likely a higher budget to play with than the average consult.

    When you’re on a certain rotation, you find yourself doing the same diagnostics every day, so it’s easy to lose track of the value of the drug you’re administering, or the probe in your hand. I think my group and I honestly balked when the cardiology team told us the cost of a standard echocardiogram at the end of our week where we’d been observing between 6 to 10 a day. Of course, it’s still important to keep costs low wherever possible, but it’s been interesting to see how larger budgets and insurance policies are broken down.

    Seeing small animal CTs, echocardiograms and neurosurgeries for the first time was an amazing experience, but I do need to keep reminding myself that the proportion of my future patients that will go on to have these sorts of procedures is incredibly small.

    Image © TungCheung / Adobe Stock

    Specialisms

    When you’re learning in a veterinary hospital, you’re constantly surrounded by leading experts in the field of everything under the sun, and sometimes it’s hard not to feel like a monkey with a stethoscope. Usually, in first opinion, there’s an assortment of different strengths throughout the practice – one vet may have intercalated in neurology and behaviour, while another may has done more CPD on exotic animal medicine. These differences are an asset to every practice and make team working an essential and valuable commodity.

    In a referral setting, these “strengths” are often extended to actual specialisms, where the vets are not only actively involved in research in a particular field, but see only animals in a certain category of illness. The need for teamwork, however, is just as paramount here – if not more so!

    After working in cardiology for a week and beginning to feel like I didn’t know anything, I can tell you that it was very refreshing to have the head of another department pop their head through the door and ask what on earth was going on with their patient’s heart. When they also didn’t know the actions of all the drugs I’d been painstakingly trying to commit to memory for the past five days, that too came as a wave of relief.

    Client communication

    Good communication and patience come hand in hand. If you’re delivering bad news to a client or talking them through a complicated diagnosis or treatment plan, that takes time – and although the average first opinion consult is only 15 minutes long, I’d say that, rather oxymoronically, there’s more time to deal with difficult situations in that scenario than in emergency referral.

    Of course, first opinion sees it’s share of emergencies as well, but for the most part vets see a disease present slowly over time and are able to prepare their clients accordingly.

    In the past couple of weeks, however, I’ve seen referral vets have to delicately balance client communication with the urgency of life-threatening conditions. Sometimes there are mere minutes to intervene after an animal enters the hospital, and vets must be very diligent and considerate when explaining this situation to an owner who may not yet grasp the severity. Owners have to have informed consent at all times, and to be prepared and supported in the event of any potential outcomes, but the sooner an animal is triaged and either treated or prepped for surgery the better.

    I think that this is where the truly brilliant vets really shine. To have compassion and humanity at the forefront, with animal welfare and haste also in mind, takes a lot of mental and emotional gymnastics. I’m honestly in awe of every vet I’ve seen both in the past few weeks and over my years seeing practice who’s had to deal with a crisis on both the animal and the human end.

    As of yet, I’m unsure if my career will lead me to first opinion or referral practice, but I can appreciate the similarities and differences between the two – despite us all starting out in the same place.

  • How the vet degree has shaped my plate

    How the vet degree has shaped my plate

    Before coming to university, I never really gave much thought to the life or journey of my food before it ended up on my plate; I wasn’t well informed on the topics of air miles, methane production or abattoir welfare standards.

    If you had asked me if I wanted to make sure the foods I ate were ethically sourced, had a low carbon footprint, or had once lived a healthy and happy life, I would have said “of course” – all of these things mattered to me on a subliminal level, but I don’t think I really grasped how any of these concepts were within my control.

    Welfare

    Animal welfare makes up such a large part of the veterinary course from the very first year, so it’s no wonder so many students are vegetarian or vegan by the time they graduate. I must admit that my Easter Sunday lunch was a little hard to swallow after my first-year lambing placement… and one week on a pig farm certainly had me seeing my Christmas pigs in blankets in a whole new light.

    The vet course provides a window into the side of meat production the public will never access – and may not even want to.

    In an ideal world (where every animal has a full and healthy life devoid of stress, discomfort or suffering before it is killed), I would have no qualms about eating meat, but the sad truth is that’s just economically and logistically unviable – at least for now.

    But welfare isn’t as cut and dried as people might think. Take cows, for example: if you picture a happy cow, it’s probably roaming around in a field, right? Well, frustratingly, fields have many disadvantages – offering parasites, botulism and rogue pieces of metal, while providing no protection from the elements, nor a means for the farmer to moderate their food intake to ward off laminitis, hypocalcaemia and a bunch of other welfare issues.

    “One week on a pig farm certainly had me seeing my Christmas pigs in blankets in a whole new light.” Image © HQUALITY / Adobe Stock

    The environment

    Along with owning a pair of flared jeans, or developing calves of steel thanks to the endless hills, you didn’t go to the University of Bristol unless you’ve developed a complex over your carbon footprint.

    One of the simplest ways to be more environmentally friendly is to eat less meat, but many studies are showing that a global move to veganism/vegetarianism is not the answer for our ever-growing population. A lot of land just isn’t suitable for crops, and rice farming already makes up more than 10% of global methane production.

    Again, if we were looking for an ideal scenario, it would be to eat less meat, sourced locally and sustainably, and to value it enough to pay a price that would allow farmers to invest in greener technologies.

    Student budgets

    Working on farms at all levels of the course gives vet students an appreciation for how much farmers care about their animals, and how hard they work to balance that priority with sustaining a business. Even if you’re sceptical about the meat industry, there is always the option to do research into the farms and butchers that are close to you.

    Frustratingly, making good choices from both a welfare and environmental perspective can be much pricier than the alternatives, and this has been one of my own drivers for decreasing my meat consumption during my uni career. Despite this, I still try very hard to make informed choices, and when I do buy meat I aim to prioritise quality over quantity wherever possible.

    In very small, but meaningful ways, change is shaped by the decisions and purchases we all make, and understanding the steps that brought the ingredients from the farm to your plate fosters a respect and appreciation for what you are eating, beyond just its taste.

  • Don’t limit yourself

    Don’t limit yourself

    Fourth year at vet school seems to finish before it’s even begun – and that’s not a romanticism.

    It’s only six months (running from September to February), so even if you factor in time spent on exams, it sort of feels like cramming a whole year into just half the space of time. Like too much butter over too little bread.

    Short year

    There are many maladies of fourth year that nobody quite prepares you for.

    For starters, exams come before Easter (so you don’t even get a chocolate fix while revising), there’s no real summer holiday (unless you count an overseas EMS placement) and – the scary part – it’s the stepping stone between being a plain ol’ student and basically being an actual vet.

    Despite these curveballs to the regular programming of the vet course, I believe fourth year has been my favourite so far. However, I’m not sure if it’s the nostalgia after intercalating for a year, the delicious lack of biochemistry and 9am dissections, or the slow and almost intangible sensation of everything coming together.

    Mixing bowl

    It’s most certainly a scary jolt when you realise that, academically speaking, the university staff have essentially taught you everything there is to teach you. There are no more ingredients to becoming a veterinary professional – all that’s left is to mix them all together and hope you come out fully baked.

    It’s also a familiar type of “scary” – like holding your unopened A-level results envelope, or moving out of home and into halls. It’s a precipice of the unknown, but there’s also a lot of potential there. Staring into the jaws of final year is a humbling experience and it feels like the beginning of the end of a very long journey.

    Looking back, the past five years seem like a blur and despite the fact most of the friends I started university with are now working 9 to 5 and getting on the property ladder, I can’t quite believe I’m already here. Is it really that time already?

    Limitless

    Academics aside (you know, the actual important bit), I’d say my takeaway from my time so far probably boils down to just one point: don’t limit yourself.

    This applies to every aspect of life at vet school – from trying different clubs and sports in your first year, to keeping your options open when it comes to what type of vet you actually want to be. For example, when I first started writing for Vet Times as a wee 19 year old, I knew down to my bones that I wanted to be a farm vet… until I didn’t.

    That’s not to say that cows aren’t still the cutest things that fill me with absolute joy, because they do. It’s even become a sort of car game among my vet friends to point out fields of them on long journeys. The fact of the matter is, I don’t know what I want to be any more, unless there’s an option for everything?

    Growing confusion

    I never really considered myself an exotics enthusiast, or a conservationist, or a wildlife welfare advocate until halfway through my veterinary degree, and with each passing EMS placement I become more and more torn as to which area I’d like to branch into.

    “Don’t limit yourself” is also applicable to your life and interests outside of the course, to giving yourself a much-needed break during the revision period, and not being scared to ask questions of that vet who knows everything now, but was once just like you.

    Don’t miss out

    It makes for a very cheesy motto, but if you get too caught up in where you think you should be going when you first start vet school, you might miss out on some really incredible opportunities along the way.

    It’s natural for you to end up being a very different person at the end of the course than you were when you first applied (a culmination of all of those years and experiences) – I know I certainly am.

  • ‘Long COVID’ within the veterinary industry

    ‘Long COVID’ within the veterinary industry

    Despite that all COVID-19 restrictions are due to be removed as early as the end of the month, the long-term impacts of this pandemic have yet to ease and will likely be sending ripples through many professions for the foreseeable future.

    The virus has already left lasting changes to the landscape of the veterinary industry – not only in how it operates, but in how new professionals are taught from the ground up. Long gone are the days of packed-out waiting rooms and lecture theatres.

    The more things change

    Even with restrictions out of the way, it’s thought that measures put in place over the past two years to reduce viral transmission in our practices may remain the “new normal”, with clients asked to wait outside until necessary, and often with only a single owner asked to come in with their pet at any one time.

    Several vet schools now operate under the banner of “blended learning”, whereby the curriculum is taught in a mixture of face-to-face content, live and online lectures, alongside pre-recorded, virtually accessible resources.

    In the face of recurrent industrial action – coupled with the rising, desperate demand for new veterinary professionals – online teaching may offer a convenient, long-term solution.

    Fallen behind

    As with all change, there are pros and cons, although one area I think is yet to be fully addressed is the issue of EMS backlogs.

    There are current backlogs in the NHS, the postal system and in many other major industries throughout the country, and I don’t believe the veterinary student training system has escaped unaffected.

    Car park consults may remain the “new normal” for some practices. Image © Eva / Adobe Stock

    Exaggerating social inequity

    For a good 12 to 18 months, many practices – especially small independents – were forced to shut their doors to both pre-clinical and clinical placements – and although EMS requirements were lowered for all year groups due to graduate by 2023, every succeeding year must complete the formerly required 26 weeks.

    This has led to an overwhelmingly large number of students competing for a progressively smaller number of placement opportunities.

    This makes it particularly difficult for students who lack their own transport, or the funds to travel far from their university or hometown, meaning there may be growing social inequity in the variety and quality of experience vet students are able to obtain.

    Better the devil you know

    Not only this, but large veterinary conglomerates may have the infrastructure to accommodate larger numbers of students, and new graduates may want to “stick with what they know” and, therefore, be less likely to consider signing contracts with smaller, independent practices.

    There is also the argument that, with the rise of online teaching and decrease in student-lecturer contact, work experience has never been such a valuable tool in supplementing a student’s learning.

    With the demand for placements higher than ever before, and veterinary practices sometimes two or three times busier than before the pandemic, the financial cost of EMS for some students has never been greater.

    Essential experiences

    Confidence, satisfaction and a balanced education behind all new graduates serves the interest of both individual professionals, and the profession as a whole.

    In my opinion, there has never been a greater need for a review of the need for higher education funding for veterinary students, to allow every student access to a large variety of work experience and the opportunity to see what different avenues are available to them after graduation.

  • Prophylactic mental health

    Prophylactic mental health

    Many facets of mental health are comparable to physical illness/fitness, and I’ve gained a lot of introspection on how to keep myself mentally healthy and happy on the vet course from lessons I’ve learned from my physical training.

    Since joining the gym a couple months before the pandemic hit (as futile as that turned out to be) to focus on my physical health, I’ve noticed a profound increase in my mental health and my general mood.

    There’s a lot that links mental and physical health that we’re barely scratching the surface of. Endorphins released while exercising improve your mood and reduce anxiety, wearing out your body a little more during the day helps you sleep better at night, and building a routine can certainly be beneficial in a course as time-management crucial as veterinary medicine.

    Getting physical

    Having said that, I think there’s a lot more to it when it comes to prophylactic mental health.

    When I started weightlifting, for example, it was easy to feel like more was better – to the point where I was putting in more time in the gym, but seeing less results.

    As counterintuitive as this sounds, your body needs time to rest and recover before starting back fresh with renewed levels of energy. Usain Bolt isn’t trying to break records every single day, and being at 110% all the time sounds exhausting… and is probably also impossible.

    The same can be said for working and revising. If you have an inbound deadline or exam, your impulse is likely to think that the more you work, the better your grade. But trust me, that’s just not always the case – and I learned this the hard way.

    Heed the warning signs

    After suffering from burnout in my first year – after three months straight of revision (which I began four months before exams) – I had to accept that, long term, high intensity just isn’t sustainable.

    Recently, I’ve been able to apply the warning signs I’ve learned to pick up on at the gym to my work on the vet course.

    If I’m noticing that I’m not motivated to work out, that the weight I lifted easily last week now feels super heavy, or my muscles are sore for longer, I know it’s time to tone it down. Similarly, if I can’t bring myself to stare at another textbook, if a fact I previously knew now keeps escaping me, or if I’m noticing longer periods of bad moods and shorter periods of feeling happy, I know that something needs to change.

    For the former problem, I take a couple days off, do some stretching, and give myself time to heal. For the latter, the process is much the same, rest, relaxation and doing my best to switch my mind off – whether that’s TV, a good book, or, ironically, a good gym session.

    Preventive approach

    With the busy work life that comes with being a vet, I think the luxury of being able to go to the gym three or four times a week falls by the wayside, despite even the best of intentions.

    I know of a lot of professionals who’ve given up hobbies like running or hiking because there simply aren’t the hours in the day.

    However, giving our medical staff the time to take care of their physical health could go a long way to lessening the mental health crisis that has existed in the veterinary community for decades.

  • When emotions run high

    When emotions run high

    Vets have to handle a variety of difficult situations, from delivering bad news to addressing financial difficulties. But when it comes to tackling client grief, awkwardness or anger, it’s a bit like that old children’s book, We’re Going on a Bear Hunt – we can’t go over, under or around it – we’ve got to go through it!

    I recently had a three-hour communications practical, during which my fellow students and I were tossed into a randomly selected clinical scenario designed to help us deal with uncomfortable areas of future practice. These included such topics as:

    • discussing the needs for euthanasia
    • apologising for clinical mistakes
    • reasoning with angry farmers when their herds came back TB-positive

    Role play

    We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, written by Michael Rosen and illustrated by Helen Oxenbury, is available from Amazon.co.uk and other booksellers.

    All scenarios were conducted with real actors portraying the clients – and although we’d been given a list of topics to revise if we wanted – any revision turned out to be next to useless as the exercise was less about what you knew, and more about how you dealt with people.

    Personally, I find this type of practical as rewarding – if not more so – than our clinical skills work. We have countless opportunities to practise suturing, spaying and catheterising in the labs at school, and in final-year rotations, but dealing with the raw side of client communications is the one thing we never actually get to experience until we’re suddenly in the driver’s seat.

    It’s completely understandable – nobody wants a student present at their most vulnerable moments. If my own pet was being put down, I’d want the comfort of an experienced vet doing the job and walking me through it from start to finish.

    Learning experiences

    That’s why I think communication practicals are so incredibly useful, and it’s a real shame that I’ve only had three in my course so far. It can be difficult to learn from and build upon experiences spaced years apart from one another, and I feel incredibly sorry for the year before me (while I was intercalating) who had to do their scenarios over Zoom.

    One of the most valuable lessons that these practicals have taught me, is not to be afraid of emotion.

    It can be difficult – especially when a very valid defence mechanism for many medical professionals is to distance yourself from it at all costs – but there are moments when all is required of you is simply to be there, to listen and understand.

    Just be there

    There’s no textbook in the world that can teach you that. When a client (or an actor pretending to be a client) is crying in front of you, you want to fix their grief because fixing things is, quite literally, your profession.

    Your instinct is to talk and fill the silence, but instead, you need to wait for them to process the moment and then be there to answer their questions.

    Some things you can’t fix and you can’t work around – you just have to go through them.

  • Lessons learned from intercalating

    Lessons learned from intercalating

    Although it may technically have finished in September with my final deadline, it didn’t feel complete or right to celebrate the end of my MSc intercalation until the final grades were released this month.

    With my shoulders a little lighter, I can now look back on the experience with a fondness similar to that which I felt after completing my silver Duke of Edinburgh’s Award (a similarly exhausting experience) – and although it was definitely a steep learning curve, I’ve come away incredibly grateful for the experience and having learned the value of intercalating.

    Lesson #1: you don’t have to be a one trick pony

    Now, I’ve spoken before about the plethora of jobs a veterinary graduate can apply themselves to beyond clinical practice. Not only has intercalating made this all the more apparent to me, but it has also expanded my academic experience.

    The vet course is very exam-centric (with the occasional directed self-education), and for those like me coming straight from GCSEs and A-levels with no prior undergrad degree, exams are all we’ve ever known. Course work and deadlines are an entirely new kind of process.

    To put it in athletic terms, I feel it’s a little like a long-distance runner retraining for sprinting events. I’m used to planning six months ahead and slow-burning my revision in preparation for one big exam, so changing my mindset towards two to three coursework deadlines a month did not come naturally. Despite this, I appreciate the challenge, and it felt good to apply my mind in a different way – like stretching a new muscle.

    Lesson #2: comfort zones are there to be defied

    Everything I’ve learned and applied myself to over the past few years has been entirely vet related, so, for a while, I felt a bit like a fish out of water. Saying that, why does anybody intercalate, if not for a fresh perspective? I now know more about conservation efforts than I knew there was to know about, including several career routes I never would have even considered beforehand.

    Image © WindyNight / Adobe Stock

    Pushing yourself and not getting set in your ways are valuable traits to have as a clinician. You need to be versatile, adaptable and open to new ideas, as well as constantly trying to work on yourself both personally and professionally (no sleeping on the job either, literally or figuratively).

    At the start of this course, I’d never written a literature review, a grant proposal or a research paper – to tell you the truth, I’d have had no clue where to even start. The closer I get to graduation the more I worry about all the new challenges that lie ahead, but the past year has really helped my confidence and made those challenges seem less intimidating.

    Lesson #3: absence makes the heart grow fonder

    If it hadn’t been obvious to me from the beginning, it certainly is now. I really, really, really (am I overdoing it?) cannot wait to be a practising vet.

    A short break from the course made me miss everything about it, which affirms that I am:

    1. a total nerd, and
    2. have likely been on the right course all along

    Intercalating doesn’t have to imply disinterest in whatever medical degree you’re studying – quite the opposite. So, if you’re reading this article trying to decide on whether to intercalate yourself, my advice would be to go for it. Expanding your interests or abilities is never a bad thing.

    Many vets return to education several years post-graduation anyway, and intercalating is a really useful way to explore a whole new world of academia in a relatively short space of time.

  • When is a dog not a dog?

    When is a dog not a dog?

    Every vet has their niche, speciality or personal interest. I think I’m slowly finding that mine may be located somewhere in the gastrointestinal (GI) system; as the daughter of an endoscopy nurse I like to think I’m following in the family footsteps.

    I was really enjoying my lectures on the topic until we reached the point of hiatal hernias.

    The unfortunate cognitive dissonance of veterinary medicine is that the more interesting or objectively “cooler” the case, the more likely it is often incredibly sad from the perspective of the patient.

    Vet geek

    In this case, I personally was finding the concept of a sliding hernia pretty “cool” (don’t judge, I’ve been out of the game for a year and I’ve missed nerding out over-vetty stuff), until I learned that the majority of brachycephalic dogs suffer from the condition.

    The mechanism behind this being that, in an effort to breathe through an actively collapsing airway, a brachycephalic dog can effectively create such a negative pressure that it sucks its stomach through its diaphragm and into its thorax.

    The worst part of this is that it’s suspected the majority of cases are subclinical (or, at least, subclinical to the owner), as the main clinical signs associated with nausea, such as drooling and lip smacking, are characteristic of short-nosed breeds anyway.

    Less love?

    I wonder if a pilot finds it impossible to enjoy a flight? Even if you stuck him in first class with a martini, the Friends box set, comfy slippers and a sirloin steak on the menu, would he be able to switch off, or would he find his mind focusing on minute turbulence? Would he keep checking the altitude, or picturing the cockpit, wondering: “What on Earth is going on up there?”

    Can a pilot enjoy just being a passenger? Image © xixinxing / Adobe Stock

    Along a similar vein, by the time I finish vet school I wonder if I will ever be able to truly enjoy a dog in the way I used to? If somebody had presented me with the fluffiest, most adorably friendly puppy in the world the day before I’d started first year, I’d have been ecstatic – I may even have passed out from happiness.

    Not just a puppy

    Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m never NOT going to love being handed a puppy, but it’s not just a puppy anymore.

    • Has it been vaccinated?
    • Was its mother healthy?
    • Did the breeder socialise it effectively, or will it forever have a fear of bearded men in funny hats?
    • Is there a cleft palate behind those tiny teeth?
    • Are there worms lurking in that adorable pot belly?

    It’s like my subconscious races to take a history in every animal – even if they’re not a patient!

    Natural versus artificial selection

    As a constant reminder of my disturbing lecture notes, while tutoring GCSE biology I regularly cover the topic of “natural versus artificial selection” with my students. This includes covering the staggering feet of man’s journey over the past 1,000 years to convert the wolf into anything from a small bear to something that fits in a handbag.

    Each time I teach this topic I find myself fighting the urge to be overly pious, knowing no exam will ever ask them to list the ways the pug is destined to a snorting existence or why the dachshund can’t jump onto his owner’s lap for fear of shattering his spine.

    I feel including that sort of thing in the syllabus could certainly go a long way – and perhaps the best way to promote healthy dogs is with re-education from the ground up. But is that my responsibility? More importantly, is it the responsibility of vets in general?

    Flawed from birth

    With some owners (especially breeders), mentioning any predispositions or hereditary conditions of their dog is akin to attacking their personal brand.

    Some people are “dog people”, while some are very passionately and unequivocally only “pug people” or “sausage dog people” or “golden people” – and it’s generally a struggle not to cause offense when telling an owner their animal is slightly overweight, let alone that their pride and joy is genetically predisposed to be flawed from birth.

    Image by ExplorerBob from Pixabay

    Do better by your pet

    The frustrating thing is that if owners knew the risks to their particular pup then prophylactic management could really make a difference to these animals’ lives.

    Not walking brachycephalic breeds on hot days, keeping the weight off of larger dogs to take the stress off of their joints – prevention is always better than cure, and if we can’t prevent the breeding and purchasing of puppies with a gene pool so shallow only a gnat could drown in it then at the very least we should be aiming to prevent suffering and promoting comfort.

    Balancing act

    The danger, as always, is that if you tell an owner what they don’t want to hear too many times, they won’t come back. So, the balancing act lies in maintaining the client-vet relationship so as to ensure animal welfare, while not being too pious or condescending.

    This is equally important in day-to-day life. Being able to switch off is a must for any professional to maintain mental health, yet it’s sometimes hard to stay quiet when your friend mentions their aspiration to own 50 sausage dogs.

    My question for you is, does a vet ever stop being a vet, and is a dog ever really just “a dog”?

  • Tips for making the most of extramural studies

    Tips for making the most of extramural studies

    Thanks to it that shall not be named (the pandemic) I started my clinical work experience or “extramural studies” (EMS) a little later than is usual for a veterinary student.

    Having 10 weeks of work experience cancelled out from under me in 2020 did feel incredibly frustrating at the time, but in hindsight, I think it made me appreciate my first few weeks of clinical work so much more.

    With this in mind, I wanted to provide a couple of tips for any student who, like me, are a little late to the game, or who are simply looking to get a little more out of their placements – whether it be clinical or pre-clinical.

    1. Don’t be afraid to ask questions – or answer them!

    I’ll be honest, I dread being quizzed and questioned by a seasoned veterinary professional as much as the next person. The key, however, is to think back to your university interview days: it is impossible for you to know everything, and there are bound to be parts of the course you haven’t even covered yet – vets do understand this.

    When you’re asked a question in practice, you’re not expected to get it right 100% of the time, but to give it your best shot. Questions are designed to get you thinking, and as long as you apply yourself and have a go, you’ll gain far more respect from your peers than if you hadn’t tried at all. Remember: any answer is better than a blank-faced stare of internalised horror.

    Likewise, vets expect you to ask questions back, so if you don’t know the answer to a particular question asked of you by one vet, there’s nothing stopping you from asking another vet about it later in the day.

    Be curious and engaged, and if you don’t understand what’s going on, just ask.

    2. Get stuck in

    Now this one certainly applies to any stage of your training, whether you’re visiting a farm or a referral hospital. Placement providers appreciate students who aren’t afraid to get their hands dirty – be it literally or metaphorically – so pick up that broom, laryngoscope, mop or stethoscope and give everything that’s offered to you a go.

    Vets are often busy and focused on the task at hand, so you may have to ask if you can have a go at intubating, or that SC injection, or using the thermometer. The worst they can say is no if, perhaps, there isn’t time. However, in my experience, asking to try something makes them more likely to offer you the chance further down the line.

    When it comes to certain things, it helps to take initiative:

    • See a dull looking calf? Report it to the farmer.
    • See a dirty consult table? Clean it.

    And if you find yourself without anything to do between consults and ops, or in a lull between milking sessions, asking a nurse or farmhand if there are any odd jobs that need doing is a surefire way to bring a smile to their day.

    When it comes to most farms/vet practices, there’s always something to be done.

    3. Keep your head in the game

    To paraphrase Dolly Parton, working 9 to 5 can take its toll – and I’m sure she would have been shocked to know the hours an average vet or farmer clocks in each week.

    Not many vets work 9 to 5. Some work 12 hours a day or even longer, and if you’re not used to a busy work week then you may find yourself flagging by day four or so.

    It can be all too tempting to zone out, check your phone or stare out of the window thinking about what you’ll have for dinner that evening – but all the time you’re doing that, really interesting stuff could be going on around you without you even knowing.

    No placement provider is impressed by a student who looks bored or disengaged, but beyond that, by not paying attention you’re robbing yourself of really vital experience that is only meant to benefit you and your career.

    Try bringing a bag of mints or sweets to keep your energy topped up during the day, bring a notebook or revision book to study from in the quiet hours, and maybe leave your phone in your bag instead of your pocket, so you won’t be so tempted.

    4. Enjoy it!

    At the end of the day, EMS is meant to be an enjoyable and exciting experience. It’s a glimpse into the future for most vet students, and even for students who choose not to go into clinical work, it can teach you a lot about client communication, business management and how to cope with a busy workload.

    It’s perhaps a slightly overused saying, but when it comes to work experience, “you only get out what you put in” – so I wholly encourage you to throw yourself into your placement (not literally of course – literally, walk calmly and confidently into your placement).

  • Top tips for studying effectively with video lecture recordings

    Top tips for studying effectively with video lecture recordings

    As the new academic year begins, veterinary schools across the UK are welcoming student vets on their journey to their chosen careers. While we all hope this year will be less eventful than last year, there’s little doubt that many large lectures will continue to be recorded or put online to minimise the spread of COVID-19.

    Learning with technology is fast becoming standard practice for vets. There are eye-catching new tools, like simulation models that mimic arrhythmic heartbeats and augmented reality videos to demonstrate catheterisation, but there are also more subtle technologies many students may not think about. Lecture recording – the practice of capturing audio and visual representations of the lecture – is now common in many universities across the world.

    There is a temptation to think about lectures as they were in James Herriot’s day, with a lecturer standing in front of a chalkboard drawing complicated anatomy diagrams while students squint and try to capture as much as they can on paper. Now – with smart boards, PowerPoints and recordings – students can have a much more complete record of the material covered – and fewer hand cramps.

    Image by Michael Kopp from Pixabay

    While some lecturers have been concerned that recordings will stop students learning how to take notes, research at the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies has found many students use recordings very effectively in their study strategies.

    In this work, some of which was funded by Echo360, a video-based teaching and learning platform, we have identified five top tips for students who want to make the most of studying with lecture recordings.

    Whether your lecture is on campus in a bustling lecture hall or on a screen from the comfort of your bedroom, these tips will help you to get the most of your time at vet school (and we won’t lie, they are good for online CPD, too, for those qualified vets among you).

    TIP #1: Know what the lecture is for

    Most lectures will have “learning outcomes” or “instructional objectives”, either clearly detailed at the start of the lecture or highlighted as part of your course material (such as the course handbook).

    Learning outcomes are a great way of making sure you have understood the purpose of the lecture and met its aims1. Learning outcomes usually begin with a statement like “at the end of this lecture, you should be able to…”. Unsurprisingly, these are the skills you should be able to do after you’ve finished the lecture!

    Imagine a lecture designed to teach you how to make the perfect cup of tea. The learning outcomes might be:

    • Identify the sugar caddy, tea caddy and milk jug in the kitchen.
    • Describe how you would assess a person’s tea preference.

    After the lecture, you should be able to go into your kitchen and point to the relevant equipment, and ask your guest how they like their tea to be made.

    If you haven’t been able to achieve these things after the lecture, you might want to revise the topic again, review the recording, or ask the lecturer clarifying questions (“can you describe the sugar caddy again, Doctor?”). If you’re not sure what the learning outcomes are, be sure to look in your course handbook, but also don’t be afraid to ask your course organiser or lecturer.

    TIP #2: Lectures as the diving board

    Although it can seem as though you’ve just had an ocean’s worth of material dumped on your head in a lecture, your lecturer will be thinking you’ve barely dipped your toe in the water.

    Often, the lecture is an introduction to the subject, a diving board that helps you find the right materials to study further. We’ve seen in our studies that students can use lecture recordings in all sorts of inventive and useful ways to support their learning.

    Photo by Markus Spiske from Pexels

    It might be tempting to put lecture recordings on while doing the dishes, like your favourite Netflix series, but studying should be a dynamic activity. In one study2 we found vet students would watch recordings, pausing often to look up references or clarify concepts from their own notes.

    We’ve also seen that students like to revisit their lectures on EMS3 – particularly to reconsider tricky topics that may have come up on placement, or just as a reminder that they do know this material really.

    TIP #3: Make good notes

    While it’s easy to say “make sure you study actively with recordings”, it can be a bit harder to imagine what that looks like. Here are some of our recommendations for making the best of your notes.

    Remember that your notes can (and maybe should) begin before the lecture. You will most likely know the topics in advance, so outline what you think you’re going to learn, and even some potential questions before you review a lecture recording or go to class.

    Leave gaps in your notes where you might want to revisit important phases or concepts. This is particularly useful in recorded sessions, because you can concentrate on listening to the lecture, knowing you can revisit the recording and look up the spelling of “blepharorrhaphy” later. We all know that’s suturing eyelids, of course, but if you weren’t sure, you could test yourself when you’re filling in your notes after class by researching the answer after you’ve made a guess.

    It’s important to remember that the best notes aren’t just a transcript of the lecture. The recording is there to help make sure you don’t miss the details, but you need to return to your notes and expand on them. There should be more in your lecture notes than what was said by the lecturer.

    The notes you have at the start of class won’t be the same notes you have before the exam. The notes should evolve with you and your understanding of the subject. You may find it useful to reorganise your notes as you study. It might not be logical to you to have them in the order of your lectures. Most importantly, your notes are for you and don’t need to be pretty, or make sense to anyone else.

    Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay

    TIP #4: Mix it up

    One of the great things about recordings is that they give you the freedom to experiment.

    Let’s say you wanted to try a new way of taking notes, like the Cornell system4, you can pick a recorded lecture to experiment in. If you hate it, you can use the recording to fill your notes in again. Perhaps you feel you might concentrate more if you take notes on pen and paper instead of on a laptop – why not try it out?

    You may also find it useful to take and store your own notes online alongside recorded lectures or, if your institution has one, use a dedicated chat thread to discuss them with your lecturer or fellow students. It can be helpful to supplement your own understanding of the topics being covered by drawing from different perspectives.

    Vet school can feel very pressured, but experimenting is a really important part of learning. Taking the step from school to university can be a great time to figure out what works for you, and what you might want to change.

    This tip is also especially useful for graduated vets who are working on CPD recordings – what worked for you before you graduated might not work when you’re also running a practice and dodging children underfoot.

    We’ve heard that our students like to use recordings in group study sessions. Think about sharing your notes in sessions like these, be they in person or over an e-conferencing platform. Can you get any tips on organisation from others, or help each other to get a better understanding of the topic? These kinds of group discussions are so important, both for learning the topic, but also learning how to become collegiate vets.

    Image © as-artmedia / Adobe Stock

    TIP #5: Relax

    My final tip is to try to relax. The last 18 months have been tough on everyone, and you might be worrying about sitting formal exams again, anxious about leaving your family dog behind or simply concerned about how you’ll balance all the clubs you’re trying to join.

    Everyone needs a sick day occasionally, and one of the big things we’ve heard from our students is that having recordings and virtual learning environments can help take some of the pressure off.

    Ultimately, the way you study will be very personal to you. The tools and technologies are there to help, and they are worth exploring and experimenting with. Most of all, take the time to enjoy these lectures. They are the first step on the path to becoming the vet you’re going to be.