Page 19 - RVC Undergraduate Prospectus 25-26

HANDS-ON CLINICAL EXPERIENCE
CLINICAL SKILLS

CENTRE

Our Clinical Skills Centre (CSC) is We are not only an inter-professional team, but a neuro-diverse

based at our Hawkshead Campus and team, often working closely with students of different learning
styles or SENs. We have recently started an online group for
comprises two large teaching spaces neuro-diverse students and are adapting a room in our building
full of various veterinary equipment as a quiet study space to assist learners who may struggle in a
noisy space. We have a mental health first aider on our team as
and models dedicated to learning and well and pastoral support of students is also a large part of our
practising skills in a relaxed environment. role – especially as exams approach!
It is staffed by an inter-professional SO WHY A CLINICAL SKILLS CENTRE? A BIT OF HISTORY!
team of six veterinary staff, dedicated The RVC was the first veterinary school in Europe to set up a
Clinical Skills Centre with teaching staff for its students in 2004.
to supporting and facilitating nursing The CSC provides a safe environment where students can
and veterinary students with learning learn practical skills in a uniform way. Individual students can
decide what and how much they need practice in their own time,
practical skills. following on from the initial small group taught skills classes.
We equip our students with the basics of a skill, so they will be
more confident out in practice – be it suturing, holding instruments
The students can return after their practical classes and try correctly, scrubbing in or remaining sterile in theatre. This helps
the skills they have learnt again in their own time, with the them to integrate better into a veterinary team and thus gain more
confidence that the staff in the CSC will be on hand to help, from seeing practice, either as a veterinary or veterinary nursing
should they encounter difficulties or want reassurance that student and to be practice ready when they graduate.
what they are doing is correct.

Students can practise aspects of many different veterinary
disciplines, such as:
• Anaesthesia • Cannula placement “Every week we head down to the Clinical
• Radiography • Fluid therapy Skills Centre and put into practise a skill
• Lab skills • Animal handling that ties in with what we’ve been learning
• Bandaging • Theatre skills that week. For example, we learnt about
wounds and wound management in our
…to name but a few! lessons, and then at the end of the week we learnt how to
bandage wounds in the CSC. Another time we learnt about
On our virtual learning platform, Learn, all the nutrition and then we learnt how to syringe feed in the CSC.
resources the CSC Team have developed can The CSC staff are so lovely and the CSC itself is amazing!
be accessed by students including the many All the skills you need to learn can be practiced there and
‘skills sheets’, videos and infographics. We it really solidifies your learning.”
use QR codes on the sheets in the CSC, so
students can scan these to watch the videos OLIVIA WIMSETT, FdSc Veterinary Nursing
as they practise a skill.
EXPERIENCE THE RVC 19