Vet Times

Tag: veterinary school

  • Learning communities for vets and nurses

    Learning communities for vets and nurses

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    Following on from my previous blog on new vet and vet nurse schools I wanted to write an almost parallel piece about the learning communities we create and the importance of these to our future vets and VNs. What is a learning community? In the strictest sense, a learning community is a group that meets to…

  • Two things you probably already knew about pathologists (but I didn’t)

    Two things you probably already knew about pathologists (but I didn’t)

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    A few years ago, after spending a decade and a half in general practice and possibly inspired by watching a lot of Quincy, M.E. – when I was too young to know any better (incidentally, does anyone know how old we have to get before we do know better about things? I’d like to be…

  • Academic snobbery

    Academic snobbery

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    With the news of a new vet school opening I feel it’s time to talk about the elephant in the room with veterinary education. By ”veterinary education” I mean education for vets and vet nurses, as this issue affects us all. By “issue”, I mean academic snobbery. Yes, you know who you are – out…

  • Embrace change

    Embrace change

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    Change can be scary. But it can also be exhilarating, liberating and exciting – and it happens all the time. By the time you read this, for example, Harry and Meghan will have made one of the biggest changes possible by embarking on married life (read how some homeless hounds marked the occasion on page…

  • Am I still a new grad?

    Am I still a new grad?

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    I find it hard to believe students from the year below me at vet school received their finals results last week. It doesn’t feel like a year since my friends and I were sailing down the Kelvin for the infamous Glasgow raft race on results day. Well, there was more falling into the river than…

  • Be Kind

    Be Kind

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    It’s Mental Health Awareness Week. I hadn’t planned it, but a certain package I had been waiting for arrived just in time – a navy sweatshirt with pale blue writing on. Many vets will know what this symbolises, demonstrating how tightly knit our profession is. From the age of 15, I spent a lot of…

  • It’s not personal, it’s strictly business

    It’s not personal, it’s strictly business

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    Veterinary practices are businesses. Their purpose is to make money for their owners. I state this clearly, because it’s a truth always felt incongruous. We all have our own reasons for entering the profession, of course, but mine didn’t include owning a business – that aspect of the veterinary world barely crossed my mind –…

  • How to handle breeders: let battle commence

    How to handle breeders: let battle commence

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    Breeders (of any species) can be some of the most challenging clients you’ll come across as a vet, and every year Crufts reminds us why. A lot of tension always ensues as interpretations of The Kennel Club’s breed standards often contrast with the opinions of vets. Despite a well-rounded veterinary education and some excellent EMS…

  • Testing times: reliving the exam nightmare

    Testing times: reliving the exam nightmare

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    Remind me why I’m doing this? I swore I’d never put myself through it again. Amid the bittersweet feelings at the end of my veterinary degree – sadness I’d never pass time in quite the same way with many of my fellow students again, nervousness about a suddenly unplanned future (I’d known exactly what I…

  • Occupational hazards

    Occupational hazards

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    Before I started vet school, I attended a workshop for aspiring vets where students shared anecdotes about the various occupational ailments they had experienced or witnessed over the years. Despite having to defer the start my veterinary degree due to a horse-related incident, I got through university largely unscathed by veterinary-related disease. I contracted a…