CVS co-runs first workshop to explore teaching contextualised care in student placements
CVS has co-presented a Vet Ed workshop with the University of Bristol to explore the teaching of contextualised care during student placements in practice.
Held in July, workshop delegates attended from across both UK and international veterinary and nursing schools. It is the first time senior members of the veterinary education profession have come together to discuss and agree approaches to teaching contextualised care in first opinion practice.
The workshop aimed to give delegates an understanding of what contextualised care is and why it is important. It also covered the types of clinical training settings that were conducive to supporting contextualised care learning. Evidence suggests community-based clinical training placements promote contextualised care learning and students' perception of preparedness as a new graduates[i].
Delegates then discussed the challenges associated with contextualised care learning in community-based clinical training settings[ii]. This included; perceived conflicts between educational and commercial interests; a lack of previous formal teaching of contextualised care (during education); and, the absence of established culture (and experience) of undergraduate teaching in clinical practice.
They also reviewed and agreed enablers for contextualised care learning, covering the creation of a semi-community-based model of clinical training to support contextualised care learning and assessment. This encompassed how to; recruit and onboard educational partners prepared to support students to practice contextualised care; overcome the ongoing challenges within distributed settings to provision of contextualised care learning and practice; and, assess competence in contextualised care in the distributed setting.
Workshop co-presenter and CVS’ Equine Development Lead Charlotte Sinclair, said:
“Most veterinary graduates will enter primary care practice upon graduation and we know the majority of new graduates and employers agree that graduates are not prepared to practice contextualised care. The consequences of not being prepared include a tension between presumed ‘gold standard’ and the realities of practice, stress and moral distress.
We hope that our landmark workshop will go some way towards helping trainers to support graduates in developing authentic communication skills, building client rapport, creating shared decision making, and being outcome focused. As true contextualised care relies on all of these skills.”
The 'Developing a contextualized care pedagogy; supporting students to practise contextualised care during veterinary clinical placements in community-based settings’ session was held at the beginning of July at the University of Bristol’s Langford site.
It was co-run by CVS’ Head of Online Course Creation Nigel Stansbie, CVS’ Equine Development Lead Charlotte Sinclair, Bristol Veterinary School Lecturer in Primary Care (Small Animal) Liz Arnold, and Bristol Veterinary School Lecturer in Primary Care (Equine) Jenny Mason.
[i] Fingland et al. 2021, Meindl et al. 2019, Stull et al. 2018, Englar 2023a&b, Armitage-Chan and May 2018, Hunt et al 2025, Lee et al 2014, Claramita et al. 2019, Goswami et al 2018, Ross and Holder 2022
[ii] Community based settings = distributed settings; contextualised care = spectrum of care (SoC).