It is heartening to see the need for diversity in the profession getting some airtime and column inches of late. Discussion of the issue is long overdue, but has this led to progress? Let’s be frank. Look around you – in your vet school class, your workplace, your boardroom and your practice.
I’m going to go out on a limb to say in the majority of cases a lot of work still needs to be done here.
To place this in perspective, let us consider the black and ethnic minority (BAME) population in the UK is larger than the total population of Scotland and Northern Ireland combined. Imagine the UK veterinary landscape without representation from two whole countries.
Behind closed doors
Our profession is undergoing a change in demographic, but it is not the picture of diversity. Our doors still remain largely closed, or at least very heavy, to many BAME people who are not adequately represented in the public face of the profession.
I am fully aware I cannot speak for the experience of these people, but would like to acknowledge and support them all the same.
I have thought a lot about what it means to be an ally to groups of people I do not share a life experience with. I’ve wrestled with whether being vocal in my support might just come off as virtue signalling, or some ill-advised Gap Yah endeavour to save the world.
This compelled me to get in touch with the British Veterinary Ethnicity and Diversity Society (BVEDS), members of which are living this experience, and who kindly offered their time to help me navigate this issue.
Awkward conversations
I can understand the apprehension in reaching out to confess ignorance of an issue, but BVEDS wants you to get in touch and have those awkward discussions, as you probably have a common goal – to make the veterinary profession more appealing to BAME students, and to make universities and workplaces inclusive enough for them to STAY in the profession in the UK.
We are very caught up in the reasons why (white) people may leave our profession, but perhaps not so quick to catch on to the fact many places are still hostile environments to students and vets of colour.
As employers, not considering the barriers in front of BAME students and vets means we’re missing a trick; consider universities are opening more and more places to overseas students, who pay a significantly higher rate than UK students to study. We still don’t have a system that truly welcomes those new vets, so every year we lose a whole bunch of RCVS-ready UK graduates. Seems a bit wasteful of a UK education that we’re all so keen on.
Unasked questions
Even looking to the UK, we are missing out on British students from BAME backgrounds at a school level, because we assume they don’t want to be vets due to familial and cultural pressures to be doctors or engineers. But has anyone asked?
Are we too proud and frightened to do this for fear of causing offence? Why are we not targeting this issue by taking pride in the fact and demonstrating a veterinary career is a worthy one?
Have we approached students of colour and asked about their experiences to help us open doors to others from similar backgrounds? We seem quite happy to photograph them for a prospectus, but are we just using their image without learning from them?
Again, this seems a bit of a waste. BAME children make up half of the London school-age population – potential vets of the future are right there if we recognise intangible roadblocks in their journey and make some changes.
Recognition and support
By not asking questions of the students put off even applying, we are effectively closing ourselves off to some brilliant minds, who don’t apply for reasons we don’t think of because we don’t have to navigate the world like they do.
And the small percentage who do make it into our vet schools, resilient as they may be: do they feel wanted and supported? Do they know who to turn to for action to be taken if they are victim to a racist incident on EMS? Is a structure in place to protect them? How do they know their future employers are aware racism and other types of discrimination are still very much an issue (from clients and colleagues) – from ignorance to wilful outpourings of hatred?
They are aware these are situations they might have to navigate, but are we?
Putting discrimination back on the table
These are difficult questions we are going to have to ask ourselves, not just in the future, but now. This is happening now, and given the dire shortage of vets coming in to some areas of practice – as well as the uncorked leak of them from the profession altogether – it is not something we can choose to ignore.
Though unpalatable, we have a responsibility to put racism and discrimination back on the table and hash it out with people who have lived this experience, and who can help us make our profession more appealing and safer for talented people who could drive it forward in ways yet unknown.
A great way of doing this is by opening a dialogue with BVEDS. It offers a sounding board, signposting and advice, and it needs support to keep going. It is already supporting BAME students behind the scenes, who describe issues I wouldn’t have given a second thought as we pushed on through veterinary school. It was hard enough passing my exams, so I dread to think what it must be like for those more socially isolated and wrestling with whether a client was going to refuse to have them in the room because of their skin colour.
Hope
Within my own social circles, I am watching with interest and hope as people who genuinely didn’t think this was “a thing” start to ask the more sensible questions before brushing this off as yet another move to appease the PC brigade.
I can see a lot of people who may have appeared set in their ways start to wake up to the possibility that the world does not always work the same way for everyone. There’s hope for all of us here, and with that, hope for the profession.
Let’s put aside our pride and bluster for one moment and ask: how can we be better?
Thank you
This article was written with huge amounts of help and support from the British Veterinary Ethnicity and Diversity Society, who are active on Twitter and Facebook.
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