What underpins veterinary success and sustainability?
- Competency (knowledge and skills to perform tasks - easier to assess).
- Employability (adaptive personal and professional capabilities to gain employment).
- Professionalism (attitudes and behaviours expected of a professional - meet other people’s standards and ability to recognise personal and professional limits).
What are the key employability domains of veterinaries?
- Self-awareness (key central domain that influences all other capabilities)
- Veterinary capabilities (for the task)
- Professional commitment (for the mission)
- Psychological resources (for self)
- Effective relationships (for others)
What is a key capability of the effective relationships domain?
Collaboration and teamwork.
- fits into and supports effective vet team
- works with others collaboratively to shared goals
- friendly and personable
What is a key capability of the veterinary capabilities domain?
Effective communication.
- clear and effective communicator (including body language)
- listens and seeks understanding
- confidently discusses difficult issues
*73 specific communication skills have been identified
What is a key capability of the professional commitment domain?
Continual learning.
- keen to learn
- open to feedback
- strives for improvement and best practice
What is a key capability of the psychological resources domain?
Emotional competence.
- able to navigate emotional situations
- self-regulate emotional responses
- remain calm
What is a key capability of the self-awareness domain?
Self-confidence and identity.
- positive self esteem and self belief
- anchored in professional self-concept based on personal values, beliefs and goals
What are the key parts of growing employability skills?
- Slow learning (can’t be good at everything)
- Multiple reflection cycles (on thoughts, feelings actions in different experience+ learning from them)
- Multi-source feedback
How do you get self-awareness?
Through reflecting on experiences and learning from them.
How:
- Written reflection
- With safe friend or peer
- From a mentor
- Feedback from tutors and lecturers
- Personality essessments
- Mood metre
- Mindfulness practice
Are employment capabilities the same for different career paths?
Yes.
(Only really the specific knowledge and practical veterinary skills will differ - skills specific to jobs).
What is a mosaic career?
A career where you jump around a lot and change your mind, try different career paths (not a linear career).
What is the Dunning-Kruger effect?
There isn’t a linear relationship between confidence and experience (can be more confident when we know nothing and as we learn more, we become less confident because we realise there are a lot of things we need to learn).
As we build more experience, confidence begins to build again (most experts however, are never 100% confident because they are aware of what they don’t know).
