Vet Times

Tag: exams

  • Rabbiting on at London Vet Show

    Rabbiting on at London Vet Show

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    Well, I finally did it. Like Christopher Reeve in Superman III, I am using my superpowers for evil. I’m not suggesting I am planning to melt anyone with laser eye beams (though if I had them, they would be great for amputating limbs), but I did agree to write this blog post for a pet…

  • How I know what hell’s going to smell like

    How I know what hell’s going to smell like

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    I hoped for many things when I embarked on a career in veterinary medicine, including fame, fortune and power. All have now, of course, come to pass (except for those three), but there have been many unforeseen benefits on this rocky road. For instance, I had no idea what an exciting new world of smells…

  • Compromise: learning the ‘art of veterinary medicine’

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    It was my first day at work. I was nervous as heck, keen to impress, and desperate to prove to myself I could actually function as a veterinary surgeon (and, ideally, without writing my car off in the first week, which is what my university mates had voted me the person most likely in the…

  • OSCEs are over… so, what’s next?

    OSCEs are over… so, what’s next?

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    The big summer OSCE extravaganza is over. For many nursing students it’s just a wait for results and then it’s “RVN time”. For those who need to resit (and it’s never that many), the focus returns to exams. But what do you do if you’ve passed and suddenly have all this free time on your hands? You’re qualified.…

  • What is normal in the veterinary world?

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    As veterinary students (and probably later as vets), we have a very distorted view of “normal”. Exam season (for Glasgow) is now over, but during revision, the social media stakes noticeably increase. While many of my non-veterinary friends share photos of their piles of notes captioned “T-minus 2 weeks”, “Revision hell” or the like, in…

  • Doctor?

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    Stuart Reid, current president of the RCVS, wants to revisit the old chestnut of using the title “Doctor” for UK-trained vets. Good luck to him. In the face of widespread protests, the Royal College recently reconsidered its decision to stop publishing additional postnominals a member may have where they aren’t directly relevant to his or…

  • Procrastination as a force for good

    Procrastination as a force for good

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    The first part of a two/three-year slog started this month – the “A” module part of taking the Certificate in Advanced Veterinary Practice (CertAVP): Fundamentals of Advanced Veterinary Practice. I’ve been qualified for coming-up-to 17 years, and this is the first part of me “capping it off”, as it were; getting formal recognition for what…

  • Social mobility and the vet profession

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    I can’t help thinking that efforts to improve “social mobility” and help people from all backgrounds to get into “the professions” are looking at people from disadvantaged backgrounds only, and not looking at the whole picture. This means they miss out on a group who really would enrich and diversify our profession: the mature student.…

  • OSCEs

    OSCEs

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    It’s rolling around to another OSCE window – that memorable day in a SVN’s life when their skills and nerves are put to the test. I remember mine well. My boyfriend drove me to them (thank you darling) and they were handily timed at 10am. I would be finished and having a pub lunch by…

  • It pays to be nice

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    When I was at vet school in the nineties I reached fourth year, the last year of teaching at Glasgow, and realised I would graduate and not know anything about non-domestic animals. There was to be a day of lectures, optional attendance, given by a well-respected RCVS specialist imported for that day. This was a…