15 Sept 2025
CVS previously ran a workshop alongside the University of Bristol at the 2023 VetEd conference in Edinburgh, with future workshop collaborations between them said to be “highly likely.”
A major care provider and a leading vet school teamed up to deliver a pioneering workshop focused on the teaching of contextualised care to veterinary students.
CVS and the University of Bristol led the VedEd workshop as part of the 2025 Veterinary Education Symposium, which centred on the theme of “Preparing the New Graduate.”
“Developing a contextualized care pedagogy; supporting students to practise contextualised care during veterinary clinical placements in community-based settings” was held at Bristol’s Langford campus.
It is said to be the first time senior educators have gathered to discuss and agree on approaches to teaching the concept in first opinion practice.
The seminar sought to provide delegates a grounding in contextualised care and its importance.
It was attended by delegates from around the world including the US, Australia, Bangladesh, Hong Kong and the Caribbean, who found it “informative and thought-provoking.”
The workshop explored the types of clinical training settings that support contextualised care learning and students’ perception of their preparedness as new graduates, and the evidence for community-based clinical training placements being particularly conducive.
Challenges in such settings, such as perceived conflicts between educational and commercial interests, lack of previous formal contextualised care teaching during education and the lack of experience and culture of undergraduate teaching within clinical practice, were also discussed.
How to overcome such challenges, recruit and onboard educational partners supporting students to practice contextualised care, and assess competence in it within distributed settings, was reviewed as part of the creation of a “semi-community-based” model of clinical training.
The workshop was run by CVS’ head of online course creation Nigel Stansbie and equine development lead Charlotte Sinclair, and Bristol vet school lecturers Liz Arnold (small animal primary care) and Jenny Mason (equine primary care).
Dr Sinclair said: “The majority of new graduates and employers agree that graduates are not prepared to practice contextualised care.
“The consequences of not being prepared include a tension between presumed ‘gold standard’ and the realities of practice, stress and moral distress.
“We hope that our landmark workshop will go some way towards helping trainers to support graduates in developing authentic communication skills, building client rapport, creating shared decision making, and being outcome focused. As true contextualised care relies on all of these skills.”
