I don’t really consider myself a particularly “app-y” sort of person. Happy, for sure, but my mobile phone is not full of the sort of apps that crowd the devices of my kids or students. I use Instagram – every day I upload a new case on my ophthalmology feed (@bow_teye!) – and a pedometer too, to ensure I reach my 10,000 steps a day. (I do that by walking in the fields surrounding our village.)
Yet, in the last couple of months, I’ve enjoyed using a new app (well, new to me) called Merlin. It gets my phone to listen to the birdsong around me as I walk and tells me if I pass a goldcrest or a treecreeper. Those are relatively rare ones, I must admit. More commonly, I hear a robin or a thrush, a blackbird or a wren: over the weeks, I’ve got used to recognising them! The exuberant bubbling voice of the tiny wren, the whistling syllables of the robin, the fluted, carefree song of the blackbird. I’m not really having to try very hard, it must be said – it’s just noticing the song again and again and seeing the app light up to tell me I was hearing a thrush or a wagtail or a blue tit.
Could we spend more time teaching students the patterns they need to recognise in practice and less on the particulars of the basic science their preclinical lecturers say are ‘foundational to understanding medical and veterinary science’?
This repetition is, of course, how we learn so much. A milky white haze in a cornea is corneal oedema, while a set of starker white dots in a circle in the central cornea is a stromal lipid dystrophy. This is the whole point of having an Instagram account that puts a case up every day so those who follow can start to recognise patterns in problem eyes. The trouble is that learning through repetition this way does take time.
Yesterday evening, I wished our final year vet students well as they stood and proclaimed their prime concern would be the welfare of the animals under their care. How exciting it is to remember them at their interview joining the vet school six years earlier and see how they have progressed over that time. The amount they have learned is phenomenal! Some of it they will most probably never need to use. The physiology of voltage-gated sodium channels or the intricacies of the organ of Corti probably won’t ever come up in veterinary practice, so one does wonder why quite so much of the preclinical years are spent learning these minutiae. Could we spend more time teaching students the patterns they need to recognise in practice and less on the particulars of the basic science their preclinical lecturers say are “foundational to understanding medical and veterinary science”?
The challenge is that the vet students in those first months are looking forward to their clinical years; so, all too often the basic sciences are seen as merely a hurdle to be jumped over
Let’s go back to the birds. The great thing about the Merlin app is that as well as just identifying the bird, it gives you a picture and plenty of information about its biology and behaviour. It’s fascinating to read! In the same way, learning the physiology and biochemistry of those first years of veterinary training could be a remarkable journey for students. The challenge is that the vet students in those first months are looking forward to their clinical years; so, all too often the basic sciences are seen as merely a hurdle to be jumped over. My task with the students I teach is to show how exciting and relevant those first facts are in veterinary medicine, even though most of the examples they are given in the lectures are from human patients.
In biochemistry, vet students first learn about the control of sugar metabolism but, generally, from a human perspective. So in my classes, we discuss diabetes in cats and dogs and equine metabolic syndrome too. In physiology, the voltage-gated sodium channel makes its presence known early in the course. In humans, mutations in the genes for these channels are involved in myotonias, but we see similar channelopathies in the veterinary world, such as spinocerebellar ataxia in Alpine Dachsbracke dogs. Just showing that the “fundamentals” are relevant in animals as well as people is vital to keep our vets keen on learning the material.
Just showing that the ‘fundamentals’ are relevant in animals as well as people is vital to keep our vets keen on learning the material
On a final note, I did love the comment from the professor speaking at the forementioned RCVS graduation ceremony that “medics are merely vets concentrating on just one species”. How much more exciting to be able to compare and contrast diseases across different species than just concentrating on one! And to have the delight in dealing with a dog one moment and a degu the next is a dream some medics can’t hope to enjoy. My job is to ensure students grasp this right from the beginning of their course.
