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Veterinary Clinical Teaching Fellow Team

The Veterinary Clinical Teaching fellow team supports final year students studying Veterinary Medicine at the University of Surrey as they complete their placements. The team are driven by the shared goal, “To facilitate final years developing the core skills which will enable them to survive and thrive in practice.”
Year
2022
Institution
University of Surrey

The Veterinary Clinical Teaching fellow team was established in 2017, to support the final year students studying Veterinary Medicine at the University of Surrey as they completed their placements in our partner practices.

The team values of collegiality, passion, creativity, inspiration and support underpin how they work together as well as their interactions with students and mentors. The team has grown rapidly in four years and is driven by the shared goal “To facilitate our final years developing the core skills which will enable them to survive and thrive in practice.”

This goal was motivated by poor retention of vets in practice, many leaving the profession due to challenging working conditions and mental health pressures. The team are united in the belief that underpinning these problems were a result of a lack of human factor skills and situational awareness in veterinary professionals, impacting both productivity and wellbeing. In order to address this, they developed an innovative human factors curriculum and simulation teaching program in collaboration with both internal cross faculty teams as well as external partners.

Research performed on these simulations demonstrated a statistically significant improvement in student confidence in performing key human factor skills. The team also designed a hybrid curriculum, in response to the pandemic in a uniquely collaborative manner, where the whole team were engaged in all aspects from curriculum design to delivery of the sessions. This innovative curriculum was designed to ensure the students developed skills that would allow them both to achieve success and resilience in their careers but also to equip them to be agents for change in the profession, particularly in the field of human factors, diversity and inclusion. This has been achieved by the team's uniquely collaborative approach to designing their curricula, supported by external collaborations with human factors organisations, corporate veterinary partners and other universities.

Success has been evidenced by exceptionally high rates of employability, 100% student satisfaction on The National Student Survey (NSS) and employer feedback, commenting on excellent performance by Surrey students enrolled in the new graduate programme, which they directly attributed to this training.

Advance HE recognises there are different views and approaches to teaching and learning, as such we encourage sharing of practice, without advocating or prescribing specific approaches. NTF and CATE awards recognise teaching excellence in a particular context. The profiles featured are self-submitted by award winners.