IT is a long haul to get to graduation – from entering school at five to leaving vet school at about 23 seems like a lifetime to be able to do what we do. After a few years in the job you start to forget how much you had to learn and take for granted what you know: right from reading and writing to spaying a bitch, calving a cow, dealing with a colic, and so on. Education starts with being brought up. One of the disturbing things about having your own children is it makes you realise that humans aren’t naturally good. It is up to the parents to gradually shape those little packets of evolutionary dynamism (that’s a fancy way of saying selfish little buggers) into something that can function in society. To share, to help each other, put other people first, etc., are not things that appear for years and after much guidance. Self-preservation and acquisitiveness are much further up the agenda. A few weeks ago I was left in charge of an alarming number of under fives, and at some point one had locked itself in the toilet in the dark. From the other side of the door came this earnest little voice, “Freddie did it, Freddie did it.” She was telling me that my son had locked her in. As the lock was on the inside and he was next to me on the outside, this was impossible, unless I had produced the next Houdini.
Self-preservation
This was a nice example of self-preservation, i.e. not getting into trouble by blaming someone else. Anyway, her adamant denial that she had not been naughty herself was uppermost in her mind and distracted her from being scared whilst stuck in the pitch black. After a while the funny side wore off and I had to take to the door with a lump hammer and crow bar to free her. It was good to put that orthopaedics CPD to some use. I asked a friend who teaches in a fairly rough primary school at what point the future ASBO kids can be spotted: what is the latest you can intervene to save them? Seven, 11, 15? She said that some are a lost cause before they get into primary school. If it’s gone badly wrong by three, they may have had it. I wonder how many potentially gifted vets have been lost to society like that?
So in the 18 years of education, where does it go right and wrong for us vets? My bugbear would be maths. I was given a calculator
just before I had long division cracked and was shocked to see my seven-yearold’s maths book had in it a sum I couldn’t begin to do: something like 3,259 divided by 17.
Statistics a core subject
I also feel let down by vet school in not teaching us much in statistics. Familiarity with statistics and the maths of scientific papers should be a core subject. For those, like me, struggling, I would highly recommend Ben Goldacre’s book Bad Science. It has enough maths to help you round a paper and it also explains important concepts like surrogate outcomes, a favourite ruse of drug companies to prove that their drug does what it says on the packet. As well as being ill-prepared in some subjects, it is a fault of the secondary system that we have to give up so many subjects so early. The profession would be a much better place if we had a wider educational base. I worked with an Italian vet who had a much broader-based education (including during university) and seemed better off for it, rather than all us science drones who have done nothing but science from age 16 onwards.
Poetry reading
A while ago I went to a poetry reading by one of Britain’s most famous living poets (Brian Patten) and I couldn’t find a single vet or nurse who had heard of him. Similarly, I couldn’t name a single classical musician, dancer, etc. The veterinary degree has at least
remained a broad degree with no species specialisation at undergraduate level. It has been debated (last time by the “Education Strategy Steering Group” in 2002) whether to go down
the route of species tracking, but it decided that: “the veterinary degree should continue to provide a broad, vocationally directed,
science-based education … it should be seen as the ‘springboard’ for professional veterinary careers, rather than as the final assessment of full professional competence… The degree should cover clinical training across all common domestic species, and should cover all the ‘day one competences’… The degree should allow for pre-registration differentiation, through a curriculum covering core and elective subjects….” Which I think most practising vets would agree is a good decision. Interestingly, a degree is registrable with the RCVS if up to 20% of the undergraduate training (i.e. one whole year) is in just one species group.
Professionally competent?
I also wonder what the general public would make of the phrase “rather than as the final assessment of full professional competence….” When I started driving round farms on my own on day two of my career, I think my clients and I would have hoped that I had been assessed as being professionally competent! After graduation, the next phase of our education is courtesy of that multimillion pound industry that is modern veterinary CPD. It’s a competitive market with many glossy brochures arriving each week. However, they do seem quite samey after a few years. I recently did a two-year course which was excellent, but practice budgets can’t stretch that far too often. For the 10-years-plus qualified, it’s quite difficult to find CPD that really appeals. Any suggestions for CPD for the experienced vet gratefully received at
garethcross@hotmail.com. So what can we do about the education of the current vets and vets-tobe? Maybe get involved with a school. I’ve got a regular gig now dissecting hearts and lungs, etc., for the A level biologists at the local comprehensive. Most
practices do school talks of one sort or another. We should all read Bad Science. Veterinary magazines like this one should look to publish articles peripheral to our core interests, for example understanding the statistics in science papers and study design, why poetry/music/dance/art matter and are relevant to us. CPD providers should be more creative. Extra-mural studies should remain a fundamental part of clinical undergraduate training so one generation of practitioners can pass on their knowledge and experience to the next. One of the best vets I’ve ever met was one I saw practice with a lot in Leeds (Tom Clarke). He used to say that if you think you have fully understood or have correctly diagnosed/treated every case in a day, then you’ve missed something. If there isn’t something that puzzles you every day, then you’ve stopped looking hard enough. Or as a northern farmer I knew put it simply: “Allus learnin’.”
