Donaldson’s Vets is one of a number of Veterinary Practices who are registered with the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons as a Veterinary Nurse Training Centre and we have been training nurses at the practice for nearly 25 years. We currently have 3 trainees – Leah Hirst, Rachel McDermott and Claire Brogan.
The format of the training has evolved continually over that time and the name of the qualification has changed several times but our nurses currently study over a 3 year period to achieve the Level 3 Diploma in Veterinary Nursing.
Our nurses need a high degree of dedication to the role if they are to be successful in completing their qualifications. The trainees work within the Practice where they gain hands on experience of handling the wide range of challenging cases while being mentored by an experienced member of the nursing team. This valuable practical experience is backed up with in-practice training sessions and either “bock release” or “day release” time at a training college. Currently our nurses attend The College of Animal Welfare in Leeds. A large amount of home study is needed to complete written assignments and allow background reading of relevant topics.
The course is demanding and our trainees find that they need to invest all their time and energy to achieve success.
Most of our experienced nursing team are “home grown” having trained with us and we have many nurses who trained with us 10, 15 and even 20 years ago who are still caring for pets at our surgeries.
Recently, a further formal qualification for experienced Nurses has been introduced called the Diploma in Advanced Veterinary Nursing and we currently have one of our experienced Nurses, Sarah Kane who is in the second year of studying for this award. Sarah has submitted work on a variety of advanced nursing techniques and has reviewed several scientific papers.
Modern veterinary nursing is a well defined and challenging career, learn more about it on the BVNA website.
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