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Tag: BEVA

  • How to survive your first weeks as a new grad

    How to survive your first weeks as a new grad

    You’ve done it – five long years of hard work and study have paid off and you’ve graduated as a fully fledged vet. Welcome to the veterinary community.

    And it is just that – a community of people who’ve all been there and had a first day as a vet. You’ll find that everyone (meaning more senior vets than you, which is basically any vet) is happy to offer what I consider “well-being” advice, such as “don’t be too hard on yourself, you will make mistakes” or “don’t be afraid to ask if you don’t know”.

    Now, while this sort of advice is true, I don’t think it’s practically helpful for getting you through those first few weeks. No matter how much positive encouragement you receive from other vets, you will probably still be terrified for your first day/week/month.

    Practical advice

    "Familiarise yourself with the drugs in the dispensary. At uni, you learn drug names, now you’re in practice you will have to learn the brands."
    “Familiarise yourself with the drugs in the dispensary. At uni, you learn drug names, now you’re in practice you will have to learn the brands.” Image © JackF / Adobe Stock

    Having been there only a year ago, I have some practical tips and tricks to help get you through the day during those first few weeks:

    In-practice consultations

    • Make sure you know where things are kept in the consult room, so you don’t have to open every drawer in front of the client to find the syringes on your first consult.
    • Likewise, familiarise yourself with the drugs in the dispensary. At uni, you learn drug names, now you’re in practice you will have to learn the brands.
    • Make a note of the vaccination protocol used at the practice and the most common recommended flea/worm treatments (such as those on the pet health plan, if your practice has one).
    • Note down anything you may want to look up quickly, particularly premed doses. Depending on how your practice works, nurses may draw up premeds and have vets check before giving them, which can sometimes just be a waft in the vet’s direction for assertion – don’t panic and agree just because you don’t know what the dose is off the top of your head.
    • Keep a health plan or puppy/kitten package leaflet handy for when clients ask about them.
    • The stethoscope is one of the most useful tools for allowing yourself time to think without the client bombarding you with questions.
    • ALWAYS leave something essential outside of the consult room (a thermometer, fluroscein or tear test strips, for example). This gives you an excuse to leave the room have a flick through a book or ask another vet (don’t do it too many times in one consult).
    • If it’s something you want another vet to look at, most owners respond well to getting a second opinion. Alternatively, take photos “for comparison” then go and show another vet (be careful here – you need permission from the owners and check your practice policy regarding GDPR. You may be okay to use a work phone/camera, but not a personal one).
    • If you want to remove the animal from the owner – either to get another vet to look or for thinking space – ask if you can go and get a nurse to help restrain.

    Being on-call/farm visits

    • Open things before your first equine/farm visit (gloves, lube, etc) to avoid awkwardly trying to rip open boxes while the farmer is waiting.
    • Save dropped pins on Google maps or your satnav for your main farms or big equine clients. Again, work within GDPR, which may only allow this on work phones.
    • Make a cheat sheet for the car detailing drug doses for the most common things you use on farm – to avoid the inevitable mind blank resulting in an inability to do simple mental maths while staring at the bottle of Pen and Strep with the farmer staring at you. I made one for a 300kg/500kg/750kg size horse for quick reference.
    • If you need to call a colleague for advice while on farm, make an excuse to go back to the car. I would go to examine the animal first with minimal kit (just a stethoscope, for example) then, if necessary, make a call when I had to go back for a thermometer or relevant meds.
    • Make a note of who to contact regarding out-of-hours, door codes and alarm codes – and make sure you have practice keys.
    • Be prepared to be tired. It doesn’t last forever, but working as a vet is very tiring to begin with – don’t make too many plans for week nights or weekends for the first couple of weeks to allow you to relax when you get home.
    • Plan easy, quick meals so you don’t end up ordering a takeaway every night.

    General advice

    • Have a pocket-sized notebook and pen at all times, and hold on to that pen for dear life. Pens have a habit of wandering in vet practices.
    • Take a look at one of my previous blogs on language (Fake it ’til you make it) for some handy phrases to help assert your ability when you don’t really have a clue what’s going on.
    • "Plan easy, quick meals so you don’t end up ordering a takeaway every night."
      “Plan easy, quick meals so you don’t end up ordering a takeaway every night.” Image © serguastock / Adobe Stock

      Have a couple of books handy for quick reference when you need a memory jog. I use 100 Top Consultations in Small Animal General Practice and Gerardo Poli’s The Mini-Vet Guide for small animal, but I hear good things about the “Nerdbook” as well. For equine, I find the Handbook of Equine Emergencies great for quick reference on the go, along with the Saunders Equine Formulary.

    • Make lunch in advance to start with. It may be that you always get a lunch break, but sometimes things are manic, so ensure you have food to keep you going.
    • Take part in any work social activities and get to know your team – it will make the working day much more fun if you get on with those around you.
    • Book a holiday for three months time. You will need it.

    Handy resources

    Make use of the vast range of apps and websites out there. Here are some I found really helpful:

    • BSAVA app for the formulary (it’s quicker to search drugs than flicking through the paper formulary).
    • BEVA apps – which features drug doses, certain procedures and joint blocks.
    • NOAH Compendium – there isn’t an app (at the moment), but the mobile version of the website works well. Open the NOAH website on your computer before a consulting session starts – practice computers are notoriously slow and I guarantee it will freeze when you’re desperately trying to do a quick search for doses while the client is waiting.
    • Norbrook app – for drugs not on NOAH.
    • BHA Vaccination Date Calculator for horses saves a lot of time when working out vaccine validity.
    • MSD Vet for the Merck manual.
    • Vet Calculator for various calculations, particularly the heart rate counter.

    While the word “survive” carries negative connotations about veterinary practice (and I have previously discussed how this sort of language can be harmful), I do think you feel like you’re firefighting in those first few weeks.

    There’s no doubt it is a steep learning curve, but I’m confident you’ll come out the other side and thrive on the challenges of being a new grad.

    Good luck and enjoy finally being able to say you’re a vet.

  • Omnicompetence – maybe not so foolish?

    Omnicompetence – maybe not so foolish?

    The first of April brought with it the usual abundance of amusing online articles, tweets and blogs, only claiming credibility until midday – and the veterinary community was no exception.

    Gran with boa
    Sun Life’s “courtesy pet” joke didn’t have vet student Jordan fooled for a minute.

    Some April Fools were obvious hoaxes – such as Sun Life’s courtesy pet scheme, offering owners a replacement pet in place of their beloved while away at the vets – while others were a little harder to interpret, such as BEVA’s announcement of a privately funded equine vet degree – or maybe that’s because I was still half asleep and it was the first one I’d seen before realising the date.

    Food for thought

    Although it was cleared up at midday that BEVA president Mark Bowen was not due to become dean of the first UK equine-only vet school and that the nine traditional degrees would remain the only ones available, it did provoke some thought about whether it would be such a bad idea after all.

    While plans for a traditional five-year omnicompetence approach, followed by a further three years of equine-only study, seemed a little far-fetched (fourth year has nearly finished me off – I certainly don’t think I’d hack eight years at vet school), many veterinary schools around the world use a condensed version of this model.

    For example, Utrecht University in the Netherlands follows the format of a three-year bachelor’s degree for all species, followed by a three-year master’s degree aimed solely at one species/area (with the exception of 20 weeks). The University of Leige in Belgium compromises in that the fifth year is spent rotating through clinics for all species and half of the final (sixth) year is spent in one area in particular, with a choice of small animal, farm or equine.

    Omnicompetence or specialisation?

    The question of omnicompetence or specialisation is highly debatable and seems to go around in circles in the UK. Earlier career specialisation would be favoured by some who know, undoubtedly, they never want to see a cat, dog or rabbit again after vet school – likewise for those who shudder at the thought of an emergency caesarean and an angry farmer.

    Lion blood sample
    Early specialisation as an equine vet could mean you’ll never find yourself taking a blood sample from a lion. Image courtesy Shamwari Conservation Experience.

    But what about those like me, who, after a considerable amount of vet school already under his or her belt and a variety of EMS placements (good and bad), when posed with the question “what sort of practice do you want to go into?” still can’t come up with anything more eloquent than: “Umm… mixed?”

    The advantage of omnicompetence is that, in theory, graduates should leave vet school equipped with the knowledge and skills to address most cases in general practice in any field/species, deal with emergencies and know who or where to refer a patient to if the case is beyond his or her abilities.

    Early specialisation could change this to the extent an equine or farm graduate asked “can you just look at my dog” may end up looking a bit silly.

    Everything changes

    Circumstances also change and accidents do happen. A vet may end up sustaining an injury while working with horses or livestock that could prevent him or her from doing so in the future, so a species-specific degree could force him or her to leave clinical practice altogether.

    Similarly to the “new vet schools” debate, it is feared introducing species-specific degrees may reduce job availability for graduates who have taken the traditional educational pathway, making the equine sector, in particular, even more “elitist”. Ultimately, this could potentially drive the profession away from the concept of mixed practice altogether.

    Master of one?

    More like our medical counterparts, we could lose our “Jack of all trades” status and end up being highly specialised instead, which does, of course, have its advantages, but leaves those of us who want a bit of variety and flexibility in the dark.

    For me, omnicompetence is definitely the right starting point for a veterinary degree, but I know others have very different opinions. I did, however, enjoy the brief social media debate before a communal sigh of relief.

    My personal favourite April Fool this year, however, was the University of Glasgow’s announcement the university tower would be reopening as a public helter-skelter (see video below) – and I’m still disappointed it isn’t true.

  • A high-risk profession

    A high-risk profession

    Currently nursing a bruised tailbone after being propelled twice from a four-legged fiend I had a disagreement with regarding a small upright jump, I can’t help but wonder why we do these stupid things.

    "HorseKick" by Daniel Johnson - originally posted to Flickr as IMG_1328. Licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
    “HorseKick” by Daniel Johnson. Licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

    Horses can be hazardous enough when you’re on top of them, but they’re not all angels at ground level either. The results of a 2014 study commissioned by BEVA revealed equine vets are at the highest risk of sustaining injury out of all the civilian occupations in the UK.

    While these results have been published for some time, and whether the news was surprising or not on first reading, my recent injury certainly made me consider more seriously whether we are cautious enough around horses in a veterinary context.

    I was probably about as safe as possible this week during my falls, kitted out with a high standard helmet and air jacket, yet I still got injured. We can’t prevent every injury or accident possible, but we can try to take measures to minimise the damage.

    The second most common site of injury reported by equine vets in the study was the head, but when was the last time I saw a vet enter a stable wearing any form of head protection? Never.

    In some cases, I believe this is a matter of pride, practicality or even client confidence. If a vet turned up at the yard with a riding hat on, clients may believe they’re not confident around horses – and how difficult is it to look into a horse’s mouth while rasping teeth with bulky headgear?

    Armour
    “Jousting? No, I’m just off to the stables…”

    However, safety should come first and perhaps vets should consider being more vigilant, despite the potential judgemental attitude they may be presented with.

    What about repro work? I’ve seen many a fractious thoroughbred mare lash out with her hindlegs while being scanned, luckily with an appropriate board or stocks used to protect the vet. But I have seen an equal number of occasions when vets have been rectal scanning with nothing except confidence in a “good tempered” horse to protect them.

    So, how can we make situations like that safer, short of carrying a portable kick board in the car or persuading clients to invest in appropriate equipment.

    It should be a daunting prospect entering a profession that has been proven to carry the highest risk of injury in the country, and yet most of us take this as a given, not giving it much thought. The results of the study have only confirmed what many of us already knew about equine work, but I think it should act as a wake-up call to encourage vets or practices to alter policies to maximise safety in the field.

    After all, it would be pretty miserable work if most of the time was spent hobbling around like I currently am.