The VetGDP e-portfolio: a practical guide for graduates

Okay, the next thing we're going to look at is how to manage your EPAs.

So, sometimes you and your VetGDP Adviser decided at the beginning that you wanted certain EPAs, and it turns out over time that they're not appropriate for your role or you change roles and an EPA is no longer appropriate.

So, again, this is what it looks like when you open the home screen. It's just your recent activities.

If you look in the top bar here, you have a button which is Manage EPA. This will bring up this screen, which is similar to the one you used when you were adding your EPA in the first place.

You can then decide which EPA you want to remove. So, let's remove number two. Also, we have decided that we want to add EPA 11. So we're going to add that.

The next thing we do is review our changes. This shows us that we've added EPA 11 and we're taking away EPA 2.

Then there's an e-portfolio preview at the bottom which shows you what you're left with.

What you then need to do is submit your EPA changes.

At this point, your VetGDP Adviser will get an email saying that you've made changes to your EPA, and they will need to go into their side of the VetGDP and accept those changes.

As soon as they've done so, you will get an email to let you know.

Okay, student feedback has asked us to let you be able to copy your activities from one EPA to another. Here’s how you do that.

This is what your screen looks like when you come into your portfolio - it shows your recent activities. If you click on Your Vet Portfolio, it shows your portfolio by EPA. We want to share an activity from EPA 1, so we’ll click on that and View Activities.

We want to share the "dog head tilt" activity, so we click on that. You have the opportunity to edit the activity first - click on Edit and make any changes you wish. Then, using this gold button here - Copy Activity to Another EPA - click on that.

You can then choose from the dropdown list which of your EPAs you want to copy it to. We are going to copy it to EPA 5 and submit.

This brings up EPA 5 and gives you the opportunity to make any changes you want. It’s very important when copying and pasting activities that you ensure they remain relevant to the EPA you're copying them to. This is the point where you might want to edit it slightly so that it aligns with the new EPA.

Also remember that your reflections must be specific to the EPA you’ve copied the activity to. You can make changes on this page, click Next, make any further changes, and then Save.

As before, you can add a reflection from the tab or come back later. Clicking on the Reflection button at the top brings up all your outstanding activities that haven’t yet been reflected on. There are three tabs:

Outstanding: those without reflections
Complete: those with reflections
All: shows everything

You can copy and paste your activity to as many different EPAs as you like.

So the next thing to talk about is recording a progress review. So again, if you go back to your main page and your EPA, so you want to record a progress review for EPA 1. So you click on EPA 1 and view "add progress review".

So it says here, so progress reviews are records of conversations between a graduate and VetGDP Adviser on an individual EPA topic. Either party can begin the progress review and both can edit it, but the graduate should take ownership of the review.

So we're going to add a progress review. So you can use the recording function. Again, you've got five minutes and you need to remember to save it before you click off the page.

So, when you're recording a progress review, you - I mean, ideally we would like you to record a progress review for each EPA each month, but we do understand that you're busy and that would take up quite a amount of time.

So, you might want to group your EPAs and discuss them in groups or basically just take turns between them each month.

Please always refer back to the description of the EPA and the success criteria. It's a good idea to open it up and have a look at it and read through that before you have your discussion so that you know what you're talking about.

And then you want to talk with your adviser. You want to talk about what you've achieved and which areas need further experience. Look at the activities and reflections in your portfolio and your progress reviews from previous months. And you can talk about ones that you hadn't recorded as well.

And you really want to think about, you know, the evidence that's there and how far that you've come and what other things that you might want to think about.

So yes, so talk about your cases in terms of how far you've come. Compare the case again against a previous one and perhaps talk about transfer of knowledge - so how you've used the knowledge that you've learned in a previous case for another case and the things which evidence your progress.

Do talk about the range of cases that you've covered since your previous review, including the more basic ones, as these are learning opportunities as well, and we do want to see that you've progressed and you do have that wide range of experience.

Review what you've discussed at your last progress review and what has changed and what hasn't.

And then there is the reflection section and this is for the graduate so that they can reflect on the feedback that they've been given and how they feel about that and how they will use that to enhance their experience.

The section at the bottom is for goals. So these should be SMART goals - so Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound goals.

You know, small and achievable things to achieve. Look again at the EPA description and the success criteria and make sure that these goals are relevant, and make sure that you do look at them at your next progress review to see that they've been achieved.

And do put in here how you are going to achieve these goals as well, and then make sure that there's evidence that you have done so.

The sliding scales at the bottom - these are intended to be a conversation starter for you and your GDP Adviser. We often find that graduates under-sell themselves, and you might find that your VetGDP adviser has more confidence in you than you do.

So you would talk about different sorts of clinical presentations. So you basically click and drag, and if you've seen an awful lot of clinical presentations you would be over this side, and if you're still only basically doing vaccinations then you would be this side.

Species - some people will see very few different species depending on what role they're in, and others will see lots. But relative for your work, if again you've had experience of exotics and small furries and all that sort of thing, then you can move it right the way over. If you're currently just on cats and dogs and that's all, then you would leave it over that side.

Case complexity - so if you’ve started to see more complex cases then you'll be moving over, and if you haven't, it's still your first month or two, then that's fine. You would leave it over here.

Experience of different levels of client cooperation - again, here, some clients can be very difficult and other clients are easy, and we want to see in your portfolio that you've had a real depth and breadth of experience across the board.

And the same would be true for animal cooperation. These should stay in the same place for your next progress review, so you'll be able to see how you're progressing across. And then you save there.

You can if you want to change your mind or go back and change something, then you can edit and go back in and make changes to that. Just remember to save it again.

So once your EPA have been accepted, this is what they will look like. Your list of EPAs will be down the left-hand side and you can click through them and you can add activities and progress reviews for each of them.

So what we're going to do is we're going to show you how to record an activity for EPA 1. So we're going to click on record activity and it brings up the box, and you can see that that's for EPA 1.

So the name of the activity - it’s a good idea to call it something useful so that you can remember what it is, and so that your adviser and the peer reviewer will know something about it. So let's call it Happy Vaccination.

And the date you completed it - you click on the date. You can backdate them as far as you like, or it brings up today’s date for you.

So you will then add in your activity description. So when doing this, you want to think about what you put in it. So do make sure that what you're putting in is clear and concise and it's evidence demonstrating that the requirements of the particular EPA that you're in -in this example, it's EPA 1, gather a history.

Do add in the signalments so that we know what you're talking about, and a description of the issue and/or the procedure appropriate to the EPA, and then talk about what happened when you saw the animal.

Do include justifications for why you made the decisions. Do talk through your thought processes and your considerations. Some people prefer to put that bit into their reflection section; others prefer to have it in the activity. Both are fine.

Do mention if you're working independently or if you were supported by a colleague, if it's appropriate, and any appropriate information that you feel you should include in there. So you simply just click into the box and type into it - activity example.

There are then questions underneath.

Was this activity observed by your Vet Adviser? Yes, it was. You can undo if you click in the wrong box and then click again.

Did you receive guidance or support for this activity? Yes, you did.

Click on Next.

There are some more questions.

What's the type of clinical presentation? Chronic.

What's the type of case complexity? Low.

Type of species involved in the activity? We're going to put dog.

Degree of client cooperation - just clicked on that for me, so I'm going to undo it and put it to moderate.

Degree of animal cooperation - moderate as well.

And then save.

And then you can go straight into add your reflection or you can go back to the main page if you've gone away from it and want to add your reflection later.

And then if you click on Reflect, this shows you all the activities that you have that you haven't yet reflected on. So this is the only one that is outstanding in your portfolio at the moment.

These buttons over here - if you hover over them, it tells you what they mean. So the "i" means that you were observed because you clicked that in when you entered your activity, and this one means that you received guidance.

So click on it again.

You have three options for adding in your reflections.

The first one is Guided and it asks you different questions.

So: What areas did you find challenging? They want more than "I found this challenging." They’re really looking for the whys.

What have you learned from this situation? It's often the case that you learn more from cases that were a lot more challenging rather than the easy ones. And we really are very keen to see the full range - we don't want you to just put in your kind of best cases where everything worked out really well.

This is all about showing your learning. So we really want to see everything that's there.

Which areas did you find challenging? Why did you find it challenging?

Did you receive any feedback? Was that feedback useful? Did you agree with the feedback?

If you found it challenging, how did you cope with it at the time? What sort of things would you do differently next time? What did you learn from this?

And then: Which areas you completed well? Why did they go well? What experience were you drawing on that made them go well that time?

Which areas need further development? Goals identified - it's always a good idea to put in SMART goals. So if I can remember it: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-bound.

For individual cases like these, they're likely to be small goals that you want to achieve. And the key really is to put in what your goal is and how you are going to achieve it.

Then you’ll want to come back to this in the progress review and actually look to see that you have achieved those goals and how that was done, and make sure that there is then evidence in your portfolio that you have achieved this.

Then there’s any additional comments that you want to use.

The other options are Free Reflection. Some people don't want the questions. They just want to be able to think about it and put down their thoughts as they come and reflect in a free way, which is absolutely fine.

And other people would rather do a recording for their feedback so that they can just think out loud.

So to do that, it's very simple. You click on Start your recording.

"This is my recording. This is a test for the demonstration."

And Stop recording.

You can play that back. You can also change the playback speed. So if it's a particularly long one and you want to listen back through it, you just want to make it a little bit faster, then you can do that.

And that’s also the option there for your Vet Adviser if they want to listen to it a bit more quickly.

And then do remember to save your reflection. If you click away from this page without saving, it won’t save for you. For the written ones, they will, but for the recorded ones, they won't.

So do save that reflection.

And then, if you go back to your main list, that will take you back to the beginning again.

So now we're going to show you how to submit your portfolio. To physically submit it is quite straightforward. You would click on the Submit e-portfolio button in the top blue bar.

To be able to submit your portfolio, the minimum that you can have for the system to allow the submission is one activity, one reflection, and one progress review per EPA. This will allow you to submit. However, there is most likely not enough evidence within your portfolio to be able to submit it for peer review if there's only one thing per EPA.

Some questions to think about before you submit:

Does your portfolio contain sufficient activities, reflections, and progress reviews for each of your chosen EPAs?

We get a lot of questions saying, "How many EPAs should I have? How many activities and reflections and how many progress reviews?" This is going to be different for every single graduate. Everybody has had different experience. Everybody has a different role. Everybody's working in a different working environment. Everybody has a different VetGDP Adviser.

If we give you numbers, it makes it very much a box-ticking exercise. We want to see that you meet the description and the success criteria of each of your EPAs.

So, let's have a quick look at those. Go back into the portfolio. The information for your EPA is always here in your portfolio. Your portfolio needs to give enough evidence to show that you can gather a history and perform an examination on an individual animal or herd/flock and assimilate the information collected to derive a prioritised differential diagnosis list.

Your portfolio needs to show that you can do this. It should show the history and examination are tailored to the clinical situation and specific to the patient encounter. So your portfolio should show that you do this.

This data gathering serves as a foundation for evaluation and management. Expectations include integration of the scientific foundations of veterinary medicine with clinical reasoning skills to guide information gathering. So it needs to show that you've used your clinical reasoning skills, and it needs to show that you can integrate your knowledge.

Then there's the success criteria. You need to be able to do all of this, and you need to be able to do it across the different animal species that you see. So, all of the species that you see in practice - we need to see an example of each of them across different clinical presentations, across acute or chronic conditions, across different case complexities, and across different degrees of animal and/or client support and cooperation.

So that's looking for a real depth and breadth of experience.

That's for each of these EPAs - they will all be different, and you'll need to meet each of those for your EPAs.

It's worth thinking about again at this point whether your EPAs match your job role or whether there are any missing. Because when it goes to the peer reviewer, the peer reviewer may say, "You've got EPA 1 and EPA 3, but it seems a little bit odd that you don't have EPA 2, which is to develop a diagnostic plan and interpret the results", which is very much the step between these two. So they might question why it's not there.

You may have a perfectly good reason for it not being there, and that's absolutely fine. But if you don't, then you might have to spend more time adding more things to your portfolio, and that can be quite frustrating.

So we'll go back to Submit your portfolio.

The second point here says: Looking at each of your chosen EPAs, have you achieved the relevant success criteria for each EPA?

The peer review will be looking for a depth and breadth of activities across each EPA. That's what we just discussed - that's what they'll be looking for.

Does your portfolio show evidence of progress?

It's very difficult for a peer reviewer to see progress with only a couple of progress reviews. Some people show more progress within their activities and reflections, and some people show more in their progress reviews, but you need to make sure that the evidence is there to see that progress.

Have you set goals with the assistance of your VetGDP Adviser and shown evidence of achieving them?

It's a good time to go back and look at those goals which have been set and just check that there is evidence in there that you've achieved them.

And then: Are you a confident and competent veterinary surgeon who can perform all activities within your role without support or without a lot of support? Because all vets throughout their entire careers will need some support at times. Those sliding scales that we look at should be mostly over to the right-hand side - that's a way of showing that. But you do need the justification for that within the progress reviews and the reflections as well.

Have you checked that your e-portfolio does not contain any personally identifiable material for yourself, your clients, or the practice?

You need to make sure that this remains anonymous so that it's a non-biased peer review.

Then you can submit your portfolio, and you select your area of work - which in this case is companion animal - and confirm.

This is what you will then see. Your VetGDP Adviser will then get an email saying that you've submitted your portfolio. They will then have an opportunity to comment on each of your EPAs before they send it to the RCVS for review.

It then comes to us at the RCVS, and we have a first fairly simple check of your portfolio, basically just to check that there's enough evidence within there for it to go to peer review. On some occasions, we might send it back and say that we don't feel that there's enough information there, and we'll give you some guidance as to what extra things you might need to add.

It will then be given to an independent peer reviewer - basically, these people are somebody else's VetGDP Adviser. They will look at your portfolio to check - as we went through - to see that you've got that depth and breadth of experience and you've shown progress.

About 60% come back saying, "Well done, that's complete," and about 40% might come back with, "These EPAs are great, but in this EPA have you thought about X, Y, and Z? Could you add a bit more evidence on this particular area?"

Then you can add that and discuss those areas with your VetGDP Adviser and make some additions to your portfolio and submit it again.

The VetGDP is not a pass or fail. It's not an assessment. It's a tool for your learning.

So don't be disheartened if it is sent back - you gain that learning experience from having another GDP Adviser look over your work. They will send it back to the RCVS, and we will send it to you with comments saying that it is complete.

Then you'll be able to complete one final questionnaire and print out your certificate.