With the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS) Veterinary Clinical Careers Pathway (VCCP) Project now well underway, the College is inviting veterinary clinical practitioners to attend their upcoming focus groups, which aims to allow stakeholders to directly contribute to the development of proposals for future veterinary clinical careers pathways.

The project was launched in January this year and aims to expand and diversify the clinical career options available to veterinary surgeons, including via new training programmes for vets in primary care. It encompasses three major workstreams, which will seek to develop new career routes and roles in the future of veterinary surgeons in general practice. These are:

• Workstream 1: The development of proposals for a veterinary specialty training programme in primary care that will, in turn, lead to a new ‘Specialist in Primary Care’ status.

• Workstream 2: The definition of veterinary clinical roles to develop clearer guidance for the profession and wider public on the different roles veterinary surgeons may hold and what the focus and responsibilities of those statuses typically entail.

• Workstream 3: The development of more flexible and accessible routes for specialist training so that it can be widened beyond the typical internship/residency model, to increase accessibility for those at different career and life stages.

There have already been two focus groups held earlier this year, in London and Edinburgh, which gave stakeholders from across the veterinary professions the opportunity to feed into the development of the VCCP. To build on these events, the upcoming series of focus groups will target specific stakeholder groups from different types of practice and be held online at lunchtime or early evening. It is hoped this format will allow those who were unable to attend the in-person events earlier in the year to participate in the discussions and help the College to gain a wider variety of perspectives on the subject.

The focus groups will be aimed at specific clinical practitioner stakeholder groups who want to contribute to the development of clinical career pathways for the profession. The sessions will explore the potential content of the proposed specialty training programmes for primary care practitioners, the names of different clinical roles with a view to making them clearer for the profession and clients, and suitable learning environments for clinical specialty training.

The sessions are as follows and are open to veterinary surgeons in clinical practice:

• Wednesday 4 September, 12pm - 2pm, online – independent and/or rural veterinary surgeons

• Tuesday 24 September 12pm - 2 pm, online – Advanced Practitioners and Specialists

• Monday 30 September 12pm - 2pm, online – veterinary students, recent graduates, and early career veterinary surgeons (those who have graduated within the past 10 years)

• Thursday 17 October, in-person at British Veterinary Cattle Association (BVCA) Congress – farm veterinary surgeons (TBC)

• Wednesday 23 October 6pm - 8pm, online – equine veterinary surgeons

Dr Linda Prescott-Clements, RCVS Director of Education, said: “Given the large-scale nature of the VCCP project, we are keen to make sure that stakeholders from all backgrounds are able to have their voices heard. We will therefore be running a variety of in-person and online sessions, to make the project as accessible as possible to veterinary practitioners.

“In the session, participants can expect to hear about the aims of the project for further development of veterinary clinical career pathways, including information on the individual workstreams and any co-dependencies between them. Following this, there will be an opportunity for practitioners to contribute to the development of future proposals.

“We are aiming to make the focus groups as interactive as possible, to ensure maximum engagement and productive discussion. The current proposals are not a done deal and should be considered as more of an idea framework; it is important that we hear from a wide range of practitioners on this and allow for an environment which will allow the project to grow and evolve in a productive manner.”

For more information on the focus groups, including information on how to sign up for free, please visit the dedicated Veterinary Clinical Careers Pathways Eventbrite page. Please note, that spaces are limited, and priority will be given to those who have not previously attended a VCCP focus group. For information on further sessions, keep an eye on the RCVS Events page.

For a thriving equine healthcare industry

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