Editors choice December

VetScript THE OFFICIAL MAGAZINE OF THE NEW ZEALAND VETERINARY ASSOCIATION

D EC E M B E R 2 0 16

STUDENT SELECTION A radical rethink TOUGH TIMES Getting farmers talking DIFFICULT DOGS In-clinic safety tips

It takes a

TEAM

Providing equine healthcare

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STUDENT SELECTION

IT TAKES all sorts

Matt Philp explores the reasoning behind a radical rethink of the selection criteria at Massey University’s veterinary school.

THE BRIGHTEST OF the bright. That’s always been a reliable description of the student body at veterinary school, and in recent years it’s become even more the case, with both the number and academic quality of applicants steadily rising.

According to Eloise Jillings, who chairs the selection committee at Massey University, the grade point average cut-off for selection has been creeping up to such an extent that by 2013 if you had an A-minus average you would have been turned away.

“It got to the point where we believed it exceeded what you needed to be academically capable of managing the course,” says Jillings, Associate Veterinary Dean (Admissions and Student Affairs).

That tipping point has led to a radical rethink of the selection criteria at Massey, which until now has effectively only been concerned with an applicant’s academic track record.

As of next year, would-be veterinary students will instead be assessed on an even split of academic and nonacademic criteria. The veterinary school wants sharp minds – the programme is demanding, so applicants will still need a minimum B average from their university courses to be considered – but it wants them to have soft skills too.

Jillings says that shortcomings in communication and interpersonal skills among some veterinary students was the other motivation for changing the criteria.

“The majority of students are fantastic, but we do have a number – one or two every year – who, while very bright, don’t have the skills they need to either navigate through the programme or be successful out in the veterinary world, particularly in clinical practice.”

Some might graduate, but never progress into the profession. Others will go into practice, but may struggle with the demands (Jillings cites anecdotal evidence that a large number of veterinarians leave the profession within the first five years). Still other veterinary students struggle with the pressures of the Massey programme, for which they’re academically equipped but temperamentally ill-suited.

“They could have been much more successful elsewhere and been spared a lot of undue stress and angst,” she says.

“I don’t think that’s a good use of our time, their time and money, and all that government funding. So we have a moral obligation to make sure that the selection process we’re using is actually the best for the students and for the university, and the profession.”

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A long and considered process – almost five years, in fact – is behind the new approach, reflecting the significance of the decision. As Jillings points out, this is a huge change for the profession, and among other things it’s been important to get buy-in from practising veterinarians.

A 2013 survey of the profession answered that point, with most veterinarians stressing the importance of attributes such as communication, interpersonal skills, problem-solving and empathy.

“If somebody is working in veterinary clinical practice they need to be able to interact in a team environment, and they also need to be able to explain things to and communicate with clients, rather than just talk at them,” comments Jillings, who reckons that most complaints to VCNZ are rooted in poor communication.

But how do you measure an applicant’s interpersonal skills? Or their judgement?

It’s not easy, and in the end Massey looked overseas for reliable assessment

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“CURRENTLY FOR A LOT OF PEOPLE THE ACADEMIC STANDARD IS SO OFF-PUTTING THAT THEY DON’T EVEN TRY TO APPLY.”

tools, eschewing anything that didn’t have sound research justification.

Personal statements were ruled out on the grounds that they’re too easy to fake, and too hard to check – Jillings has a nice anecdote about a woman applying to a Canadian medical school whose heart-rending answer to ‘Why do you want to be a doctor?’ turned out to have been sourced from the internet, and was replicated by dozens of her fellow applicants. Likewise, the classic 30-minute panel interview and letters of recommendation were rejected as being potentially misleading and prone to bias.

Instead, assessments of non-academic attributes will be done through a combination of multiple mini-interviews (MMIs) and two types of situational judgement tests (SJTs). The former is akin to interview speed dating, with candidates completing eight interviews of eight minutes’ duration, each dealing with a scenario potentially encountered during their training. The idea, says Jillings, is that assessing an applicant’s attributes multiple times is more reliable than a one-off interview.

In the case of SJTs, candidates are given a series of hypothetical scenarios in written form and are asked to rate the appropriateness of a number of responses. A second, video-based round of testing presents other hypotheticals and a set of open-ended questions.

The criteria have been piloted on this year’s students and will be reassessed for effectiveness after two years, says Jillings. “By then we’ll have more data to be able to say, ‘Actually, it looks like MMIs perform much better than video SJTs’, or what have you. In the future there probably won’t be as much involved as there is now, unless the evidence suggests that having each of those components adds something to the process.”

None of these assessments are about recruiting certain personality types, she stresses. “There are a lot of students who are introverts. You don’t need to be a super out-there personality to be successful, but you do need to be able to work with others and to communicate well.”

It’s a point repeated by Sue Crampton, Australia-based Business Manager and Lead Consultant with Provet/Crampton Consulting Group. Crampton ran a mentoring workshop for veterinarians at this year’s NZVA conference, during which she used the DISC behaviour assessment tool to drill down into the participants’ behavioural and communication tendencies. Again, this was not a psychological profile, but a means to help them develop an awareness of how they operated.

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STUDENT SELECTION

Traditionally, says Crampton, veterinary medicine has attracted strongly detail-focused and taskfocused individuals “and that can cause some communication challenges”.

She strongly supports the change of emphasis at Massey.

“In this day and age, it’s important to get a really strong soft skills focus into universities and veterinary practices.

I think for the generation now coming through, having strong mentoring and communication coaching is absolutely critical for them to be the best they can be and to handle the challenges of veterinary practice.”

Even if personality profiling is not on the agenda at Massey, could the new selection criteria help to broaden the range of individuals entering the veterinary profession?

A few years ago Masterpet Training and Development Manager Fiona Couchman did a Myers-Briggs analysis of a group of New Zealand veterinarians. The results essentially confirmed the stereotype, with the vast majority profiled as ‘SJ’ types – dutiful traditionalists, not particularly

“IT’S IMPORTANT TO GET A REALLY STRONG SOFT SKILLS FOCUS INTO UNIVERSITIES AND VETERINARY PRACTICES … HAVING STRONG MENTORING AND COMMUNICATION COACHING IS ABSOLUTELY CRITICAL FOR [STUDENTS] TO BE THE BEST THEY CAN BE AND TO HANDLE THE CHALLENGES OF VETERINARY PRACTICE.”

innovative and only inclined to believe what they can taste, touch, smell or hear.

Couchman, who does some communication training with Massey veterinary students, says veterinarians tend to be “highly intellectual, but the EQ isn’t nearly as strong. And EQ is a huge element in mental agility and our ability to manage stressors”.

Again, Jillings prefers to frame the issue as being about useful general attributes such as communication skills, rather than about personality. But she certainly hopes that Massey’s new approach will help to create a profession that is more broadly based in all sorts of ways, including more ethnically and gender diverse.

“Currently for a lot of people the academic standard is so off-putting that they don’t even try to apply. If there’s a kid in high school thinking, ‘I’d love to be a vet’, and the counsellor is saying, ‘You have to be the smartest of the smart to get in there’, well, we’ve lost them before they even start. So I’d hope this would provide a greater opportunity for those people to see themselves as vets.”

It takes all sorts, after all.

Help wanted ... Interested in helping to select future veterinarians?

Eloise Jillings will be looking for people to work as MMI raters/interviewers at the MMI weekend scheduled for 1-2 April 2017. Look for more information in the February 2017 issue of VetScript.

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OVERCOMING THE

lifestyle block ‘BLOCK’

Many veterinarians are uncomfortable when faced with the diversity of lifestyle block animals. Bette Flagler reports on a VetScholar course that aims to boost the relevant skills and veterinary confidence.

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PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

HANDS UP IF this sounds familiar: a call comes in about a sick alpaca, and everyone runs for cover.

This behaviour is not, presumably, based on a deep-seated, profession-wide hatred of alpacas. More likely, says Lotte Cantley, NZVA Academic Director, it’s because many veterinarians don’t feel comfortable treating them. Ditto for backyard chooks, donkeys, pigs and pet lambs.

Raising veterinarian confidence around the critters found on lifestyle blocks is the purpose of a new VetScholar course set to run in April and May. A 2011 Landcare Research project identified 175,000 lifestyle blocks in New Zealand – up from 100,000 in 1998.

While the purpose of that project was to investigate the impacts of lifestyle blocks on the loss of productive soil, the underlying growth in the sector in 13 years is remarkable and, while more recent data isn’t available, it’s pretty safe to assume that lifestyle block numbers have continued to increase.

“There’s definitely a growing need for veterinarians to be confident working on lifestyle blocks,” says Cristin Dwyer, a member of the Massey Farm Services team who particularly enjoys lifestyle block work and who is collaborating with Cantley on the overall design of the course and its content. “The current

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INCREASING CONFIDENCE AMONG VETERINARIANS IS ABOUT LEVELLING THE PLAYING FIELD FOR LIFESTYLE BLOCK ANIMALS.

veterinary curriculum is improving on the types of animal that might be seen in practice – such as backyard pigs, alpacas and chickens – but there’s still a lack of confidence, and oftentimes with a lack of confidence comes unwillingness.

When people have more education and confidence in their skills, the animals are going to get better treatment.”

Dawn Mills, who is responsible for the backyard poultry and pet lamb sections of the course, concurs. “There seem to be two mindsets in vets,” she says. “Probably the most common is, ‘If it’s something unusual and I don’t know anything about it, I don’t want to look at it’. I’ve always taken the other attitude, that the world is full of dogs and cats. They’re very precious to people, but some of these other animals are much more rare or scarce and we know so little about them.

This course is designed to encourage people to say, ‘Yes, I can look at this animal. I’m just going to use my normal clinical skills and my normal laboratory techniques and I’m just going to transfer

them to these species and I’ll be able to do a good job’.”

Increasing confidence among veterinarians is about levelling the playing field for lifestyle block animals, she adds. “I think that sometimes with these other animals that, rather than make a mistake, people just don’t look at them – which seems unfortunate. That’s why I was keen to be involved. I think all animals deserve proper veterinary care if we possibly can [provide it].”

You’ll know that no two lifestyle blocks are the same: the species combination and number of animals vary, as do the land and other environmental factors.

And, really, where could you find a more diverse group of owners?

Each species has its own needs, and when you run them all together – often the case on lifestyle blocks – it can become complicated. Some animals may be for production, while others may live long and lazy lives; some animals will be underfed and others will be obese. Some will be treated like the family pet until something goes wrong and then it’s ‘just a sheep’.

It’s important that those keeping many different animals know that food suitable for one species isn’t necessarily appropriate for another, says Michelle Logan (nee Dicken), who is responsible for the equine portion of the course.

The section will cover donkeys, ponies and miniature and draught horses – animals that are kept more as pets than as riding horses. In addition to routine veterinary care, students will learn about caring for geriatric animals and specifics such as how castrating a donkey is different from castrating a horse. They’ll also learn about feed toxicities and plants that are no-go, and will be reminded that particular calf feeds are toxic to horses.

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PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

“THERE’S DEFINITELY A GROWING NEED FOR VETERINARIANS TO BE CONFIDENT WORKING ON LIFESTYLE BLOCKS.”

WHAT ELSE CAN YOU EXPECT TO LEARN? The VetScholar lifestyle block course will also cover the weird and wonderful that you’re likely to come across, including the particular challenges of Highland cattle and other exotics like rabbits, emus and ostriches.

And then there are pigs. If you get anxious when you’re called out to castrate a piglet, put a ring in its nose, or trim its needle teeth, you’re not alone.

After the pig module, you’ll be much more confident when it comes to dealing with oinkers.

Hand-reared agricultural pets present challenges of all sizes to veterinarians visiting lifestyle blocks. Ag Day lambs, kids and calves raised by clients without any animal experience can end up with some serious problems that you’re unlikely to see in commercial operations.

Sign up today at www.nzva.org.nz.

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When a client is looking after so many species, Logan says, it’s hard to know the right thing for each one. Veterinarians can help owners by giving correct information, including new findings about hoof care and laminitis, pars pituitary intermedia dysfunction and – a hot topic, this – equine metabolic syndrome. Treatment for the last is no longer about simply reducing feed to fat ponies, as those taking the VetScholar course will learn.

The course will be divided into two modules – one in April and one in May – and registrants can enrol in either or both. Each module will cover three of the six species topics: pigs, backyard poultry, alpacas, goats, ponies, miniature horses and donkeys, and ‘odds and sods’.

In addition to animals that are usually managed on large farms (lambs, cattle, goat kids), odds and sods will cover how to educate clients – a key point, according to Dwyer.

“We’ve been seeing quite a lot of lifestyle blocks through our clinic, and

it’s frustrating to go out and see animals basically at their end point,” she says.

“The clients – usually out of ignorance – may not have been able to notice how ill the animal was until it got to a rather advanced stage and, of course, by then there are limited things you can do. Often these are very preventable or treatable things if they had been identified earlier in the disease state.”

Dwyer recently ran a lifestyle block workshop for local animal owners. Partly, she wanted to increase client education so they could do a better job with their animals, but she was also keen for clients to become more familiar with veterinarians and their services.

With the lifestyle block trend showing no sign of abating, the VetScholar course offers an opportunity for veterinarians to expand their range. By gaining more confidence in your own abilities, you can put yourself in the position of being a trusted advisor to the growing world of small farms.

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PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Appli cation open s 1 Feb ruar 2017 y

RxVet and CAV present: “A week with…”

Are you a CAV member wishing to upgrade your skills in a particular area of veterinary practice?

Following on from the popularity of the grant in 2016, RxVet have lent their support to this initiative. This means that we are able to extend the offer to support two recipients in 2017.

Applications are invited from practitioners with over three years experience, who would be interested in spending a week with one of the following specialists: •

Dr Pru Galloway, BVSc (dist), MANZCVS, FANZCVS (feline medicine), to see feline medical referrals at Catmed Lower Hutt in Wellington.

•

Dr Warrick Bruce, BVSc(Dist), MVM, DSAS(ortho), CertSAO, MANZCVS, to see orthopaedic surgery at Vet SOS in Hamilton.

•

Dr Alastair Coomer, BVSc, MS, Diplomate. ACVS, to see small animal referral surgery at the Veterinary Specialist Group in Auckland.

•

Dr John Munday, BVSc, PhD, Diplomate ACVP to spend a week in the pathology department at Massey University in Palmerston North.

•

Dr Debbie Simpson, BVSc, MANZCVS (Small Animal Medicine) FANZCVS (Veterinary Dermatology), to see referral dermatology practice with The Skin Vet in Auckland.

This is a chance to tailor a CPD course to your own specific interest at a time that suits you best.

The grant is for $2000 and covers your time away from practice and travel costs.

To benefit all CAV members, as a condition of the grant, we request that you share your experience by writing a report about your time seeing practice and an article based on a topic of interest for the Companion Quarterly Magazine.

Further information and application forms available on the CAV website nzva.org.nz/cav or email cav@vets.org.nz.

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