16 Jul 2020
Carla Husband, Abbie McMillan and Lauren Sweeney – all studying veterinary nursing at the University of Bristol – win first prize in RCVS Knowledge’s Veterinary Evidence Student Awards 2020.
Paul Imrie
Job Title
From left: Carla Husband, Abbie McMillan and Lauren Sweeney.
Three VNs have won first place in a prestigious RCVS Knowledge award scheme for their research project on hand hygiene compliance.
Carla Husband, Abbie McMillan and Lauren Sweeney, who are all studying veterinary nursing at the University of Bristol, finished top of all the entries in the organisation’s Veterinary Evidence Student Awards 2020.
The trio were the first veterinary nursing students to place in the awards, which were launched by RCVS Knowledge last year to recognise and support students’ engagement with evidence-based veterinary medicine (EBVM) and its application into practice.
Their winning Knowledge Summary highlighted the paucity of evidence about the impact of educational interventions on hand hygiene compliance in companion animal environments – a highly relevant topic during the current COVID-19 pandemic.
They called for more research to be carried out to support compliance in both the veterinary and VN professions.
On the win, Miss Husband said: “I feel so proud of myself and my co-authors for winning this competition. We worked very hard on making this Knowledge Summary the best it could be and can’t believe our hard work has paid off.
“I also feel very proud to represent the vet nursing profession and to come out of university with a published paper. To any vet nursing or vet students out there who are thinking of submitting to Veterinary Evidence, I say go for it.
“The more evidence we can contribute to our knowledge base, the better our profession can become.”
Second place in the awards went to Laura Pratley, vet student at the University of Liverpool, whose paper asked “In horses with osteoarthritis, is mesenchymal stem cell therapy more effective at managing lameness than intra-articular corticosteroids?”
She said: “I became interested in research and EBVM in the latter years of vet school, and was worried I’d missed opportunities to get involved with research/studentships. So when I saw the Veterinary Evidence Student Awards, I really wanted to get involved and have found the whole process really rewarding.”
Lesca Sofyan, a veterinary medicine student at the University of Sydney, took third place for her paper investigating whether meloxicam is superior to carprofen for reducing discomfort in dogs diagnosed with OA. This is the first time an international submission has been recognised in the awards.
Submissions are open for the 2021 awards. All undergraduates studying veterinary medicine, veterinary nursing, veterinary bioscience or bioveterinary science are eligible to enter.
Further information is available from the RCVS Knowledge website.
