One size veterinary education may not fit all
The RVC's Stephen May speaking at London Vet Show.
Opening this session at the BVA Congress, Professor Stephen May from the RVC London, said that the profession needs to become more sophisticated in the debate about educating the next generation of veterinary surgeons and to base it on evidence rather than individual 'knowledge points'. Students need to be taught how to make a professional judgement.
"The really important thing is not student selection; but rather how are they being developed during their time at university and the appropriate application of their skills," he suggested. Theory and skills must be matched to focus and context; and there should be clear trajectories of learning.
"Students should not be sent into practice believing that simple scientific reasoning will get them through Day 1," he said, "Or that the 'hospital approach' can be applied to every case in primary care in general practice."
Building on the previous speaker's presentation, Professor Chris Proudman from the School of Vet Medicine, Surrey, pointed out the difficulties of educating veterinary students for a largely unknown future. There is a need to differentiate between 'education' and 'training'.
There is a place for vet schools to work in partnership with a plethora of external partners in order to build diversity into the veterinary undergraduate curriculum.
Prof Proudman described the results of a study carried out involving both academics and practice clinicians. It identified different emphases in terms of the perceived knowledge and skills required by new graduates. So, for example, practice clinicians thought that leadership skills were as important as clinical reasoning, and that breadth of knowledge was preferable to the comprehensive knowledge favoured by the academics.
A practice-based educational approach enables clinical partners to be involved at an early stage in the educational process and students appreciate this early exposure to the 'real world' approach to problem solving.
During the discussion at the end of the session, it was agreed there was scope for greater co-operation between different veterinary schools and there was perhaps a case to be made for individual vet schools becoming centres of excellence in given subjects such that this could be shared more widely. It was felt that there was a need for veterinary teachers to be better trained in teaching skills too.
Speaking from the floor, a practising veterinary surgeon said how inspirational the talks had been, but that despite this, she still questioned the suitability of the current student selection process and cited the high level of disillusionment of young veterinary graduates during the first 10 years in practice.
Several other delegates strongly supported her view that much more needed to be done in selecting and training students for the realities of veterinary practice rather than leading highly academically driven individuals into an environment in which their expectations could not be met.
RCVS Knowledge has welcomed Professor Peter Cockcroft as editor-in-chief for Veterinary Evidence. 
