Page 6 - RVC4Life - May 2020

EMS+ SUPPORTING STUDENTS
TO DEVELOP SKILLS IN PRACTICE
Your donations to the Alumni Fund support exciting EMS+ placements for RVC students, giving them access to enriching opportunities to apply their learning in practice
The importance and impact of good EMS opportunities cannot be over- estimated. Not only do students
get to learn and develop their technical and communication skills in practice, they can experience different areas of the profession first-hand. This in turn helps them start to build their networks meaning they can start to shape the career they really want to pursue after graduation.
The RVC has always tried to encourage students to organise aspirational opportunities to stretch themselves and really discover the different aspects of the profession.
This year, thanks to the generous support of alumni, we were able to launch the RVC EMS+ Award Scheme. This was funded by the profits generated from the sales of RVC clothing and other goods purchased from the RVC Shop. The pilot scheme is open to all BVetMed students who can apply for grants of £500 with one grant of £1000 available. Your donations to the Alumni Fund will help to continue to support the RVC EMS+ Award Scheme in the future.
ThefirstroundwaslaunchedinDecember 2019 and we were able to fund a number of fantastic opportunities before the COVID-19 crisis put the scheme on hold. We were delighted by the response from our students who put forward some fantastic plans, overseas and UK based. We were even more pleased when we
received update reports from those who had completed their funded opportunities and are very happy to share these with you.
Pafiakos and CCP Animal Welfare - Alexander Davies Following two incredible weeks at Pafiakos and CCP Animal Welfare in Cyprus, Alex believes that he is a more competent and professional veterinary student: “At first, the placement was very daunting, but Alex was able to put into practice knowledge from lectures and rotations along with other EMS experiences to successfully and confidently perform spay and castration in cats and dogs.
One case that was particularly memorable for Alex was a male cat that presented forcastration.Aftersedation,aphysical examination revealed severe dental disease, pale mucous membranes, a body condition score of 3.5/9 and severe splenomegaly. Alex reported the clinical findings to the owner and then performed routine haematology and biochemistry and an FIV snap test which was positive.
“I used my knowledge of FIV to explain the disease to the owner and a mutual decision was made that the best option in this instance was euthanasia. Although a sad outcome, the experience was very valuable to me as I applied my clinical reasoning and professional reasoning approach to discuss prognosis and euthanasia with an owner.”
“By performing up to ten surgeries per day, I am more comfortable with tissue handling, entering the abdominal cavity (flank and midline) and closing/suturing. I was able to develop my handling and knowledge of different suture material to select the most appropriate suture for different animals or procedures.
“As a new graduate I think that routine surgeries will not be a source of anxiety and this surgical experience will put me at an advantage.”
There was no shortage of emergency and critical patients at the clinic and Alex was responsible for triage and
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