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New Challenges

Diary Of A Student Veterinary Nurse: New Challenges

Hi there, it’s Emma again and it’s time for my monthly update on how my training at Pride Veterinary Centre is going.

New Topics At College

I’m still loving it and I’m excited about starting all of our new topics at college. We started back at college last week and have been given our first assignment on communication. Alongside this, throughout second year we also have another assignment and three exams spread out until the end of July. These are based on infection control and nursing care. You’ll hear more about what these involve as I work through them.

Learning New Disciplines Around The Practice

As well as all the new college topics I’ve also started rotating more around the practice. I recently worked on surgery and neurology where I followed and ensured all the referral cases were completed smoothly and successfully. When on these areas I updated the clinician, looked after the inpatients, updated the owners and also helped planning the procedures. I love learning in such a variety of areas so that I can hopefully be knowledgeable in a variety of areas when I qualify.

On The Road To OSCEs

Now that I’ve started second year I think that it’s time to start to look at the OSCE (Objectively Structured Clinical Examinations) practical examinations. These are the final exams that you sit at the end of year 3 and if you pass these, you will then be a qualified Vet Nurse. You rotate around stations and carry out the tasks from memory that you may see in a veterinary practice on a daily basis. These could include; putting gloves and a gown on ensuring sterility, carrying out a urine dipstick test or showing how to complete a tube feed (alongside many more possible scenarios). I think the key to this exam is preparation which is why I’m going to start looking at it now.

So that’s you all updated, thanks for reading, until next time...