Vet Times

Tag: graduates

  • Staff retention: double or quits?

    Staff retention: double or quits?

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    The recruitment problem in the veterinary profession is omnipresent and as crippling as ever. The most recent method of trying to tackle the shortage is the announcement of the University of Nottingham School of Veterinary Medicine and Science’s dual intake. The university has opted to enrol 150 undergraduates in September – as many institutions do…

  • Why am I a farm vet?

    Why am I a farm vet?

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    I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about purpose lately… I suspect, as a lot of veterinary students prepare for finals and graduation, they’re probably wondering what theirs is, too. They’re only a handful of years into this career and they’ve probably had to answer “why did you want to be a vet?” thousands of…

  • Mentorship

    Mentorship

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    After reading an article on “What veterinarians and veterinary students really want”, I’ve been assessing the top three things wanted from a veterinary role. After looking into work-life balance and a positive team environment, this article will explore mentorship. It goes without saying, anything you can do to ease new graduate vets’ transition from studies…

  • Positive team environment

    Positive team environment

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    In the previous entry, we started to look at the article “What veterinarians and veterinary students really want“, which named work-life balance as the most important aspect for new graduates. This time we look at the second most important: working in a positive team environment. “Salary will not keep a young vet in a practice…

  • Tackling the loneliness

    Tackling the loneliness

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    As a new graduate vet, you face many challenges – not all of which are related to your working environment and clinical experience, or knowledge. Not only are you embarking on the very first steps of a career with a phenomenally steep learning curve in the first few months, but you’re also faced with the challenge…

  • Physician agency – striking the right balance

    Physician agency – striking the right balance

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    I was terrified when I started my consulting career. As I walked out to call in my first client, I was full of doubt, just as everyone is. Could I do it? I wasn’t very good in most social situations – was this the right career for me? In the end, consulting actually came naturally…

  • Rest, relax and recharge

    Rest, relax and recharge

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    As a final-year student applying for jobs, or as a newly graduated vet, one piece of advice that will come up time and again is “book a holiday”. Some will advise you not to rush straight into a job from university – “you won’t get the chance to take a long break once you start…

  • ICU later

    ICU later

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    In a few recent blogs, I have reminisced nostalgically about how things have changed in the profession since I qualified in the distant misty-swirled lands of the last millennium. However, there’s something I don’t miss: blearily sleepwalking my way through morning surgery in the numb haze only familiar to chronic insomniacs, those with young children,…

  • Retention prevention: stop blaming students

    Retention prevention: stop blaming students

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    My interview at the University of Bristol was as terrifying as all my others, although it was my last chance. The interview at Edinburgh hadn’t gone well; I had been sent to the wrong room in the library and subsequently forgotten about, then hastily hurried in during lunch, with grumpy interviewers and a flustered interviewee.…

  • Public health: the less recognised role of vets

    Public health: the less recognised role of vets

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    Bovine spongiform encephalopathy, commonly known as “mad cow disease”, hit the news again after an isolated incident was reported in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. In the 1990s, this disease resulted in the mass culling of hundreds of thousands of livestock, devastating the farming community and causing ripples throughout the British economy. Soaring meat prices, a ban on…