VetGDP: Graduate case studies

So, I'm Lucy. I work at Scarsdale Vets in Derby in 100 percent farm practice and I've been graduated nearly two years now.

I think I was really lucky to start work at a very supportive practice generally. So I was kind of supported by all of the vets and I always generally felt that someone has got my back. But I think it was really helpful to have that time with my adviser and sometimes it felt a bit laborious sitting down, going through all the EPAs, and it takes quite a long time, but it was quite useful, particularly on things like surgery, to actually look back over what you've done recently and also what you've done sort of a few months ago and you do see your progress a lot more.

So we tended to have fairly informal meetings because of the time constraints of farm practice, and you don't know when you're going to get sent to emergencies, so we kind of blocked time out.

And then when we could sit down together and we'd try and talk through recent cases I'd seen and get a bit more advice on those and then sit down and go through the EPAs and try and fill out the boxes and put the sliders to where we thought I was at.

I think it's just having that set time to sit down with your adviser, which is really easy to kind of slip in, particularly in springtime when you're super busy just making sure that you're going to have that time to catch up about things you might otherwise forget about.

I think the whole first year as a vet is just really challenging. It's probably the most challenging part going from being, you know, all the time supervised, and it's never your responsibility to all of a sudden you're out on your own.

I think in the practice I'm working at, I'd have still been alright because there are several senior vets around who are all really keen to help develop new grads.

So I'd have been supported and I would have had that help, but I think it wouldn't have been as good as having one person who's kind of dedicated your helper.

And we definitely wouldn't have spent as much time sat down reflecting. So I think it has been really helpful for my progress just through that really difficult first year.