1 Mar 2021
RCVS formally welcomes overseas-educated surgeons to UK register at online statutory membership exams admissions ceremony.
Paul Imrie
Job Title
Six overseas-educated veterinary surgeons have been sworn in and formally welcomed to the profession at a virtual admissions ceremony.
The six had sat the RCVS’ statutory membership exam and their names have now been added to the UK register following the ceremony involving RCVS president Mandisa Greene and chief executive Lizzie Lockett.
The exam is undertaken and passed by vets with qualifications not recognised by the RCVS so they can join the register to practise in the UK.
The successful candidates were:
Joined by family and friends, they all attended the ceremony over Zoom.
During the ceremony, Ms Lockett said the candidates had sat the exam in difficult conditions, and she praised the RCVS’ education committee for its efforts in running the exams despite the pandemic.
She said: “When today’s new members first signed up for this exam, they thought they would be travelling to London in spring to sit the written paper, followed by a trip up to Glasgow in the summer to take the practical examination.
“When COVID hit early last year, we had to postpone the exam and then set about trying to find alternative means of delivery, which would allow the candidates to sit the examination that they had spent so much time and effort preparing for in a way that was safe and secure for everybody involved.”
Ms Lockett added: “As a result, in August 2020 these candidates were the first to sit the written component of the exam online, allowing them to take it from the security of their own homes. They turned out to be trailblazers, as our education committee decided recently that this mode of delivery would now be the norm for all upcoming diets of the exam.
“Today’s new members all passed this component and went on to sit the practical examination at Glasgow vet school in December 2020. This posed a new set of unique challenges, as we had to run this face-to-face, practical exam in a way that was COVID-secure, which entailed new measures such as kitting out all of our examiners with full PPE, spacing the OSCE stations out to allow for social distancing and adding in extra time for the equipment to be sterilised between tasks.
“Despite all these challenges, the new members we have here today passed the statutory membership exam, and I’m very pleased to be able to welcome you as new members of the college.”
