Initiatives to support the general practitioner in teaching/higher education: Workshop

Following ‘The 2019 survey of the Veterinary Profession’ (RCVS, 2020) which revealed that less than 20% of practicing vets felt that new graduates were entering the workplace with the skills necessary for general practice employment, the RCVS modified their accreditation standards and guidance to fill this perceived skill gap and widen the spectrum of care education being delivered. As of January 2023, accredited schools must ensure that at least 70% of their courses clinical content is delivered in a ‘general practice’ (GP) context (RCVS, 2025). This edict brought to the foreground the importance of recruiting and retaining enthusiastic, highly skilled general practitioner vets and vet nurses as educators to help shape our students, teach them an array of transferable skills, understand the primary care relevance of referral case experience (O’Shaughnessy et al, 2024) and make our curricula fit for purpose. However, suitable applicants can be difficult to find. Better salaries and working conditions for those in practice over recent years, coupled with the current difficult financial climate, and pervasive imposter syndrome, may be contributory factors to a potential reluctance to enter academia.

For those GP professionals who do make the leap to education, a return to practice is becoming increasingly appealing due to barriers to progression built into the academic promotion process, as well as university budget cuts resulting in redundancies, reduced job security and higher workloads. Financial cuts also leave little or no budget to fund career necessities such as RCVS membership and CPD. Without the retention and advancement of these educators to positions where they might affect curricular change, there is a risk that the RCVS’s vision for clinical teaching to more accurately reflect the reality of general practice work (which aligns with the global movement towards widening the spectrum of care in veterinary education) may not be fully realised.

This workshop will explore potential initiatives to encourage general practitioners to enter academia and, once there, support them to expand their knowledge, skills and confidence, ensuring not just an increase in the amount of general practice teaching by educators experienced in this area, but also the quality of teaching they are able to offer. To address retention of our general practice veterinary educators, we would also like to discuss pathways to improve their access to experiences necessary for academic promotion, which are more easily encountered by those who to pursue other career paths such as research or specialism.