Education

Setting up a cat friendly clinic

Assessing how the clinic is viewed by a new client can be a good place to start. When a client looks at the practice's website, is it easy for them to see that cats are welcome? Is there easy-to-find,...

Learning from mistakes: the use of significant event audit in veterinary practice

So what is clinical governance? Well it certainly isn't rocket science. Scally and Donaldson (1998) defined it as: ‘A framework through which organisations are accountable for continually improving...

Becoming a reflective practitioner

The concept of reflection has been around for a very long time, being described by the philosopher Aristotle as far back as the 300s BC (Kraut, 2012). The contemporary discussion about reflection and...

Preparing students for practice

In conclusion, it is clear that much is already in place to support veterinary nurses through training to prepare them for the transition to working in practice. The high profile of this subject, will...

Coaching and mentoring: beyond the role of the clinical coach in veterinary practice

Mentoring usually involves a more experienced practitioner (mentor) who serves as a role model in support of a more junior member of staff (mentee) in an area or technique. Mentoring within health...

Antibiotic resistance in small animal veterinary practice: veterinary nurses as antibiotic guardians

Mechanisms for antibiotic resistance may be categorised as intrinsic resistance or acquired resistance (Umber and Bender, 2009). Some bacteria are inherently resistant to certain antibiotics due to...

Setting up and running the radioactive iodine unit

Radioactive iodine (I-131) treatment is a form of nuclear medicine. I-131 is a high-energy radioisotope of iodine and begins in an unstable form. Its primary uptake is by the thyroid gland where...

Veterinary hospice: a compassionate option at the end of a pet's life?

The term ‘hospice’ can be traced back to medieval times and refers to a place of refuge for weary and ill travellers returning from a long journey (Lutz, 2011); the term hospice was applied to the...

Evidence-based veterinary medicine (EBVM) — how nurses can get involved

A clinical question can be related to any aspect of a VN's work but the best questions are those that are the most relevant and when answered will make a difference to patient care. It is all too easy...

How Recognition and Response to a Patient's Body Language and Behaviour can Facilitate Positive Veterinary Visits

The concepts, aims and goals of the PFP initiatives, texts and authors reflect a similar ethos: i.e. of building knowledge, understanding and care for the patient's ethology and its individual...

A compassionate journey part 4: self and team care

One study revealed that between 16–85% of healthcare workers based in various fields experience compassion fatigue (IAAHPC, 2014). More specifically, the results of a survey conducted in the United...

Unravelling dominance in dogs

During the second half of the 20th and early part of the 21st century, the prevailing theory regarding the social behaviour of the domestic dog was that, when living in groups, canine social...