Accreditation visit chance to show off college

Dr. Chris Clark of the Western College of Veterinary Medicine (WCVM) is always up for touring visitors through the college and pointing out key highlights.

This fall, his tour guide skills will come in very handy when a group of veterinarians from across the U.S. and Canada visit in early October. The team of six men and women, who represent the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) and the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association (CVMA), are conducting a five-day site visit of the WCVM as part of the AVMA Council on Education’s accreditation review.

Clark, who is the WCVM’s associate dean (academic), says he’s very proud of many things at the college — including its exceptional students and veterinary program, its patient caseload, and its “fantastic faculty and staff.”

“When you have all those things laid out together, it’s not surprising that your outcomes are as solid as they are.”

Clark says the numbers collected through outcomes assessments and surveys since the college’s last accreditation review in 2010 show that the WCVM is succeeding in its mission – “to provide veterinary education in Western Canada, to act as a centre of veterinary expertise and research.”

Based at the University of Saskatchewan, the regional veterinary college accepts students from the four western provinces and Canadas’ northern territories. The WCVM has watched the number of applicants for its four-year Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM) program increase by over 50 per cent in the past 10 years. In 2017 the number of applicants reached a five-year high of 461. Since the WCVM only has 78 seats available per year, that equates to nearly six applications per seat in 2017 — making for stiffer competition.

This year’s application increase was driven in large part by a surge in the number of applicants from Saskatchewan: 98 students applied to the WCVM compared to the previous four years when the province’s applicant numbers ranged from the 68 to 76.

The WCVM uses a two-stage admission process to select its veterinary students each year. In each province, students are ranked according to a formula based on their undergraduate grades. Only some of them will be interviewed — typically two for every available seat, Clark explains.

During the structured panel interview, which usually lasts about 40 minutes, the students are evaluated on their community involvement and leadership, their experience working with animals and in veterinary care, and their general communication skills.

“We get to pick the very best students,” he says. “Literally I think we could lock them in the dark with a textbook and they’re still going to do well.”

That enviable position is reflected in results from the North American Veterinary Licensing Examination (NAVLE) — a test that all veterinary graduates from AVMA-accredited schools must pass before they can be licensed to practise veterinary medicine in North America.

For the past decade, WCVM students have scored in the top quarter of all students taking the exam and performed well above average in questions related to all species. During that time span, the WCVM students’ NAVLE scores have also been trending upward.

Clark notes the diversity of practice that WCVM students enter when they graduate. Out of this year’s graduating class, one graduate has begun a residency in laboratory animal medicine and another 13 are participating in one-year clinical internships. While 44 per cent of this year’s graduates are beginning their careers in mixed animal practices, others are working at clinics that focus on small animals, poultry, swine, equine, dairy and beef production. And while one recent graduate is working in mixed animal practice right now, she has her sights set on aquaculture in the future.

“It’s that breadth I’m really proud of, too,” he says. “We’re not just producing one type of person, we’re producing the veterinarians that Western Canada needs.”

Clark sees broad diversity in this year’s incoming class, adding a common element that the admissions committee members look for is an understanding of all that being a veterinarian entails.

“We want people to have great respect for animals, who care for animals. But sometimes that means having to make difficult decisions.”

Students must also understand that they are entering a broad-based veterinary program and must be prepared to treat all animals — big or small. And, they must be “prepared to work hard and struggle through the program, because it is a tough program,” adds Clark.

Every year, a Saskatoon-based company administers surveys of WCVM’s graduating students as well as alumni two years after finishing their degree. Ten years’ worth of survey results show some key findings:

• About 80 per cent of graduating students are satisfied or very satisfied with the college’s veterinary program. Satisfaction ratings have been above 70 per cent for the last eight years.
• More than 90 per cent of WCVM alumni express satisfaction with their veterinary education after two years of being in practice, and 98 per cent feel they were prepared for their careers.

The same company also conducts regular surveys of veterinary practices that employ WCVM graduates. Overall, about 79 per cent of survey respondents were satisfied to very satisfied with the new graduates’ performance.

However, about one-third of employer respondents said WCVM needs to provide more practical experience in order to improve veterinary graduates’ performance. That point is also highlighted in feedback from the college’s graduating students and alumni.

To help address that concern, the WCVM opened the new BJ Hughes Centre for Clinical Learning in 2016. This simulation centre provides new opportunities for students to develop their clinical skills. It also helps the college’s move toward incorporating competency-based assessment in the DVM curriculum.

So far the WCVM has introduced competency-based exams in the program’s first year. As Clark describes, students must demonstrate they can do such things as identifying features on a live animal, suturing a wound or getting an accurate heart rate with a stethoscope during the exams. The plan is to gradually implement competency-based exams through all four years of the program.

Since more WCVM graduates are entering small animal practice where they must contend with pet obesity along with renal and liver disease, a greater knowledge of clinical nutrition was also flagged as an area of improvement. To address this need, the veterinary college hired a board-certified clinical nutritionist, Dr. Tammy Owens, who has developed nutrition courses as well as a clinical service in the WCVM’s Veterinary Medical Centre.

Outcomes data identified veterinary business as another area the college needed to work on. To help improve students’ business management skills, the WCVM now works with an expert who teaches a veterinary business course in the third year. As well, first-year students now take an introductory veterinary business course.

The WCVM’s curriculum continues to evolve, but there is a limit to what can be taught in four years. As Clark points out, there has been so much research and development in veterinary medicine that it’s impossible to include everything in the students’ veterinary program.

Some of the “extras” need to be filtered out so students can focus on what they need to know when they graduate and enter practice.

“They’ve got a 40-year career ahead of them. We want to train them to be self-learners and to build their knowledge base for the next 40 years,” he explains.

As for this fall’s accreditation site visit, Clark is looking forward to showing that the WCVM is doing what it was created to do in 1963: producing generations of well-rounded veterinarians for Western Canada.

Kathy Fitzpatrick is a freelance journalist in Saskatoon. Born in Manitoba, she has spent close to four decades working in media — including radio, television, print and digital.