5 Dec 2022
Vets in Scotland are being urged to get behind a new project aiming to inspire more young people to consider careers in the sector.
Allister Webb
Job Title
Image © Friends Stock / Adobe Stock
Vets in Scotland are being urged to get behind a new project aiming to inspire more young people to consider careers in the sector.
Dozens of practices are already part of a database of sites that offer work experience for teenagers before they apply for vet school places.
The project is also offering support for careers advisors, and digital resources are accessible to every secondary school in the country.
But the project’s developer, Karen Gardiner, is now urging other care providers – particularly the largest companies – to get involved for the sake of the industry’s future.
The call follows a wide-ranging and continuing debate about how to address the industry’s well-documented retention and recruitment crisis.
She said: “Why would you not? What we’re trying to do is create a bigger funnel of kids applying to vet school, to create a bigger funnel of people graduating from vet school, to create more potential recruits for the vet practices in the UK. That, fundamentally, is it. Otherwise, an industry that is already starting to crack at the seams will be in an even greater crisis down the line.”
Dr Gardiner, who runs a training and consultancy business for the life sciences sector, believes the scheme can be replicated in other parts of the UK and explained she had been inspired to act by the experiences of her own daughters – one of whom is a newly qualified vet and one who enrolled on a degree programme this autumn.
She added: “I’ve got two of my three children who have chosen to join a profession which, from the outside, looks quite broken.”
Dr Gardiner sees work experience as a key element in encouraging young people into the sector and wrote to all of Scotland’s veterinary practices to ask if they were prepared to allow secondary school students to see practice and join their searchable database, which includes a map.
Although some said they were unable to do so, and others said they already had effective programmes with schools in their local area, around 80 – approximately one in five of all the country’s practices – have signed up to date.
Dr Gardiner said she wants to break down the industry’s entry barriers and wants as many practices who can offer access as possible to sign up.
She said: “We keep animals. We know our local vets, but if you’re an inner city kid that doesn’t own a gerbil, has parents with jobs that are nothing to do with animals or veterinary, and you’re harbouring a dream, it is really difficult to organise the practical experience that you need.
“I want to make sure any kid that has any aspiration to be a vet can get work experience.”
Other elements of the project include an annual event, which is accessible to all of Scotland’s secondary schools, where recent graduates, more experienced vets, veterinary nurses and university admissions staff discuss the potential career paths the profession offers.
The inaugural session, which is intended to be presented to students at around the time they are choosing their subject options for the National 5 qualifications (the Scottish equivalent of GCSEs), took place in March and plans are already in place to repeat it next spring.
There is also a summer event, to be hosted alternately by the Edinburgh and Glasgow vet schools, which it is hoped will help school careers advisors to support students in the process of applying for university places.
Dr Gardiner said her younger daughter’s careers advisor had not been able to help her apply and the process of applying for medical schools was more widely known.
In recent weeks, the RCVS has published its own Workforce Action Plan, as well as proposals for EMS reform, which include the development of a national database of placement providers.
Delegates at the London Vet Show and BCVA Congress in Birmingham have also heard pleas for easier access to practices for students.
But, while the college has warned it can’t reform the industry alone, Dr Gardiner argued action is better than long-term discussion, even if a change of course is needed later.
She said: “What needs to happen, without a lot of talking shops, is the industry needs to come together, identify some of the key issues and come up with some really pragmatic ways to address them.
“While those young vets are not having a great experience in their jobs, that retention problem is still going to be an issue and, at the moment, we don’t physically have the number of UK graduates we need to fill the jobs.”
The database can be accessed at https://fida.world/veterinary-career-support and any practice interested in being listed on it can find out more by emailing [email protected]
