Professional standards

PhD work is ongoing and with it the many threads entwining to create the Victorian veterinary surgeon as a medical professional. It’s got me thinking about how a “professional standard” is decided upon by the profession today and those who uphold the profession’s disciplinary and regulatory aspects.

In particular, a couple of incidents in veterinary history regarding access to and quality of information for animal health care has raised some questions.

In 2025, we have access to information on patient care, client care and clinical decision-making from several sources. There are the traditional sources of peer-reviewed journals, organised CPD events and EBVM sources. Clearly, these have a status as sources of information for patient care

However, as has been identified from several sources, including contextualised care sessions, EBVM and peer-reviewed research can often sit at a distance from the reality of patient, client and practice contexts.

EBVM application

The application of EBVM into general practice in particular is not as simple as a research paper makes it seem. The patients in a trial have been specifically selected for the trial. The choice not only includes the patient type, condition and ability for interventions, but also client ability to provide care that can be standardised as part of the trial. This selection of patients is not how patients present for veterinary care, especially in general practice.

In my role as a veterinary historian, journals and research outputs were available around 175 years ago, but what was not available was social media and online forums. These add another aspect to contextualised care as another source of information for patient care.

However, what is the legality of non-peer reviewed advice solicited from fellow professionals? If you follow advice given via this medium, what could happen if the patient has a poorer than expected outcome, and if the client complains to the RCVS? How professionally valid is peer-to-peer advice in the 21^st century.

Contextualised care, yes I’m there again. As one of the contributors to the Vet Humanities publication on CC in 2021 it is often at the forefront of my mind. When considering the value of status of advice solicited from Facebook groups, online vet and vet nurse forums or other social media sources I feel a CC approach could help decide…