Practising with an obstetric box and a dummy improves students' confidence in performing obstetric procedures involving large animals

Confidence among Veterinary Students to Perform Canine Orchiectomy: The Impact of Live Animal Surgical Clinical Training

Canine orchiectomy (COE) is one of the most commonly performed procedures in small animal veterinary surgery. The aim of this study was to assess veterinary students' confidence in performing this surgery in relation to their previous surgical experience of the procedure. The hypothesis was that confidence to perform canine orchiectomies among recent veterinary graduates increased when having participated in the procedure as part of practical surgical training. A cross-sectional survey was conducted and included 65 fifth-year veterinary graduate students at the Swedish University of Agriculture in Uppsala, Sweden. The survey investigated how differences in experience of COE affected students' confidence to perform the procedure. Of the responding students, 24.6% had performed the procedure, 47.7% had observed the procedure live, and 27.7% had not seen nor performed the procedure. They were asked how confident they were to perform the procedure both with and without assistance. Data were compared using a non-parametric test (Mann-Whitney U test). The results showed a statistically significant increase in confidence to perform COEs in the group that had previously performed or observed COE compared with the group that had neither performed nor observed the procedure. In conclusion, veterinary students' participation in COEs significantly contributed to their clinical confidence to perform the procedure.

Effective Veterinary Clinical Teaching in a Variety of Teaching Settings

This review explores different modalities for clinical teaching of veterinary learners globally. Effective clinical teaching aims to prepare graduates for a successful career in clinical practice. Unfortunately, there is scant literature concerning clinical teaching in veterinary medicine. Our intent for this review is to stimulate and/or facilitate discussion and/or research in this important area. We discuss the different forms that veterinary clinical teaching can take, depending on their setting, which can be university-based clinical activities, work-based in commercial clinical practices, or in a traditional academic setting with little to no real-time exposure to clients and patients. We suggest that each of these modalities has a place in clinical teaching of veterinary learners at any point in the curriculum but that a mix of these approaches will likely provide an improved experience for the learner. Further, we discuss strategies to improve clinical teaching in these different settings. Potential strategies related to the teaching skills of clinical instructors could include training in delivery of clinical teaching in a variety of learning settings, and instructors’ official recognition, including opportunities for career progression. Potential strategies to improve clinical teaching in different teaching settings would vary with the learning settings. For example, in traditional academic settings, case-based learning with incorporation of simulation models is one proposed strategy. The involvement of learners in ‘teach-others’ is a strategy for both traditional academic and clinical settings. Finally, clearly addressing Day One competencies is required in any clinical teaching setting.