Description

Navigating the transition from final year student to newly qualified vet can be a difficult task, and there is an increasing amount of awareness and discussion within the profession about what we can do to support our new graduates as they go through this phase. This session will consider what practice teams, final year students and new graduates can do to set themselves up for success with newly qualified staff.

Transcription

So this webinar setting up for success, we'll discuss how employer and employee can help navigate the transition from final year student to new graduate practitioner. New graduate supports an area that's being discussed more and more, and I think particularly over the last 10 years or so since more and more practises are are part of corporates and things and there are more structured grad schemes out there. I think it's really good that the profession's starting to draw more attention to this, and so this will talk about tips and tricks that both final year students slash new graduates and employers and other experienced veterans and practises employing new graduates can do to help make the process as good as possible.
So I'm David Charles. I graduated Bristol in 2019, worked in mixed practise, and then since mixed practise, I've been working in farm practise in Midlands. I was 2018 2019 president of the Association of Veterinary Students, at which time I was involved in the RCBS graduate Outcomes project, which was involved in and led to some of the shaping of the VET GDP, and also some of the changes around the day one competencies and laid some of the foundations for the new EMS review, which was announced last year as well.
I also, at that time, was involved in a lot of work about student support and preparation of finally a scene for the move to practise. My senior vice president year then overlapped with my year as a new graduate as well, at which time I was taken on by the Vet Times to be one of their graduate bloggers and. Wrote a series of articles aimed at 4th and 5th year students from the perspective of somebody who had just qualified, giving tips and advice around topics such as, Selecting your first job, preparing for interviews, what to look for, how to make the most out of your final EMS and everything as well.
So, throughout the course of this webinar, it breaks down into a number of areas. We're gonna discuss our key areas of challenge and perhaps the points when we look at the transition period that are real big challenges and the biggest perhaps areas have changed from being a final year student on EMS and things through to being a newly qualified vet working in in practise with your own MR CBS. We're gonna talk a bit later on about new graduate recruitment.
For me, what's really important is that everybody needs to know that, particularly in the environment we're in at the moment. New graduate recruitment is a two-way process. The interview is just as much for that final year student to.
Interview you as a potential employer as much as it is for you guys to be interviewing a potential employee, and this is where perhaps building that relationship and that clear communication needs to start straight from the interview. Go to consider things that both employer and employee can do before day one to. Set up for success very much from the first day actually in practise, gonna to discuss goal setting and mentorship, and the underlying theme perhaps throughout all of this is around the benefits of two-way communication being the absolute fundamental of any successful transition from final year student to graduate practitioner.
When I think about bets and practise, and particularly new graduates as they make the change and join the profession. I always think about this, the, the carefully balanced stress curve. So, as, as you can see, you've got your, your low low, so low performance, low pressure jobs.
This is also known as kind of boredom zone. And for me, if I think about transition and being in practise, for me, this is perhaps. Likened to getting a new graduate in and then being in a position where they don't feel like they're particularly challenged, they don't feel like they're using their knowledge and skills and they don't feel like they're developing.
So, these are your, your new graduates perhaps where all they do is, Vaccinate puppies and kittens for the 1st 9, 12 months of their career, I will talk about this later, but absolutely, and there are things like, Booking an easy contacts, definitely at the start to help people settle in. But actually, you've spent 5 years building your clinical knowledge, your problem solving and everything in there, it's very important that with the right support, we expose our graduates to more complex cases as well over time, because the risk is otherwise people sit in this boredom zone and they're quite likely to leave in that situation. We then see the comfort zone where people will grow over time as they get more experience in practise throughout that 1st 6, 12 months, and we'll ideally really want to be getting people into this optimal performance stretch zone, and this is where.
With the right support, you're, you're challenging your new graduates, you're exposing them to good clinical cases, but in a situation where they know that they've got support and a friendly, supportive environment around them, that they feel comfortable being stretched and challenged by the cases and the surgeries because they know that they've got the environment around them to have that clinical support and mentorship. The worry is that if we go too far the other way and we put them in a very. High pressure environment.
Performance will also very much drop and we'll enter this, this zone of delusion. So the zone of delusion, Delfi talked about this a lot, and they, they call it the area where you falsely believe that your performance isn't at the level it needs to be, and the only way it will improve is if you keep working harder. Rather than getting better and better, performance actually continues to decrease as pressure increases.
In this situation, surgeons lose focus, frantically multitask, become afraid of asking for help, make more mistakes, and the quality of work and in our situation, the risk to patients' lives. Suffers as a result. So When you're thinking about a new graduate, making this transition to practise, if they spend too long in the zone of delusion, this is where you risk people quitting.
And actually, I know from experience from my cohort, people not finding the right job, not having the right support, and, you know, being in two high pressure environments, performance really dropped, and actually the real risk is if, if people get into this too soon in their first job. They don't necessarily think that the job is the problem, the real risk is that they think that they are the problem, they enter the zone of delusion that they aren't capable or competent or competent enough to be within clinical practise and. They quit, but the the real thing here is that the risk is that people don't just quit their first job.
People quit the profession entirely after having spent In some cases, 2 or 3 months in practise, and this is really important that that we get this right and we aren't putting people into this position because. The risk is that yeah, we, we lose these people from the profession really, really quickly because this is their only experience of veterinary practise. They, it's not their 2nd or their 3rd job, they've not necessarily got friends on other jobs yet, they've probably got friends in other jobs that are having the support, they're in this comfort strep zone.
And people then begin to question why they're not there, and it's too common that people don't question the job and the practise they're in, or the company they're in. They question their own ability to be an MR CBS and a clinical practitioner. So When you leave vet school, there's no two ways about it.
Everything changes. And for me, I, I break this down into perhaps 5 areas of, of significant change or challenge. If we start with responsibility.
Obviously, as you progress through vet school and you go through your rotations, commonly in a teaching environment, in a, in a teaching practise or a teaching hospital, or in some of the newer universities through a disseminated final year model with partner practises who are very focused around student teaching as part of that as well as commercial practise. You, you do have an exposure and a level of responsibility for cases, but you, you have no ownership of cases. So when you come out as a practitioner and you have your own cases, the responsibility.
Can hit you like a tonne of bricks because suddenly it's your case and clients don't necessarily differentiate when it's just you in a consulting room between you as a new graduate and, Somebody who's a new vet who's joined up to having been at other places as well, and they, they very much look to you for answers because we know, the data's out there, the research is out there, we're a very trusted profession, the, the public trust our opinions as vets and they will look to you for answers. Obviously, your knowledge and skills changes when you leave university because you're not in this teaching environment anymore. You're not in a le-based environment.
You are more reliant on your knowledge and developing your skills, and people are very aware that this is the bit we focus on, this is the bit we know people need to. Support with. So, for instance, nobody really nowadays expects you to graduate and be able to do a cal caesarean or a bit spray on day one, but they expect you to have a level of surgical competence and skills that you can be mentored, and with case exposure, develop the ability to do these at inappropriate rates.
Dodging is a big one and. For me, there's two parts to this that we'll dwell on, but as a profession we're not very good about talking for money, and we're not very good at. Charging appropriately, it seems, and the thing is you work in a lot of different practises on EMS and rotations, and the exposure to actually charging is, Is limited, and so this is the big change that people have to get used to is it's not just take your history, do your clinical exam, it's also fit your other bits in as well, within your 1015 minute consult.
Personal finance is another big area of change as well, particularly if you've gone from. School to university, and then your, your first level practise is also your first actual proper job. It's actually your first proper job, then you've also got the general adult life skills that you need to master as well, of which personal finance is quite a large one, and.
I think vet school perhaps doesn't do enough of this yet, and so this is a big change and a big area to focus on. The other bit, obviously, is your support and social network wildly changes because you, you leave the vertical bubble, so. At most of the vet schools you spend at least the last 2, if not more years in a rural remote location.
So for Bristol, obviously, you're at Langford, with Liverpool, you move out to Lee Hurst, RBC obviously you go out to Potter's Bar, and therefore you spend effectively all your time with this brilliant support network of other people in your year of the year above the year below, going through the same experiences in the same lectures. Social and support network is all mixed up with the people you live with as well. And then bang, hit graduation and we're not like other practises, so people that perhaps have done.
Economics degrees say where a huge amount of your cohort are going to move to London and all right, you might live in different parts of London, but you're all still in London, . Vets work all over the country. People move everywhere, particularly if you go into mixed or farm practise, people quite often move more remotely as well.
And that's a huge thing that people have to deal with and people. Don't necessarily feel prepared for by being at university where. Everybody is really close, probably within a 5 minute drive.
And so this has a big impact as well at a time when you're going through other areas of significant change and coping with practise life and everything as well. So it's a big area that employers need to be aware of and need to keep an eye out of, and employees need to be mindful of as well. So when we think about responsibility changes as you become a, a new graduate.
There's a lot to, to really knuckle into, so responsibility has different. Different impact for different people, and I think different new graduates and different employees will have different views on what independence and support mean and, It's really important that right from that first interview, you're being honest with each other about what you want, but also from a practise point of view, what you can deliver. There is.
Nothing worse really than Overpromising and under delivering in terms of support to a new graduate because you'll really risk putting them into this. Zone of delusion on on their stress curve. So it's important to know.
What you can deliver, what Things are gonna look like when you're actually in practise in a busy working environment, what you can give in terms of independence and support, and I think there's, there's two parts of this as well, so. Some people will, for instance, not want to set foot on a farm without another vet there for their 1st 6 months or whatever. Some people will very much want to go to things that they feel comfortable doing by themselves, perhaps once they've been once with the boss to claim that the boss is happy that they can do it.
. And there's a level of Working out what works for both of you, so you don't want to mollycoddle your new graduate, but you also don't want to go, oh yeah, well, you told me you did one of those as a student when I interviewed you, so I've booked you a whole day of cash rate to you're on your own on a farm 30 miles away from the practise. We then like to think as well, responsibility for case management becomes very different once you're a qualified vet as well, because at the end of the day. If you're the case vet, you make the decisions, absolutely, you should be in a position where you can consult more experienced colleagues in their opinion.
Also, obviously tap into your valuable experienced nurse network as well within a practise on the small animal side. But ultimately, from the client's point of view, it's your decision, and it's what you'll recommend when you ring your clients. And, To empower new grads to have confidence in themselves.
For me, one of the big things we can do to set new grads up for success is. To get our new vets to do the client communication side and have responsibility and take ownership for it. So this is something that hopefully a lot of people are getting more and more exposed to through their final year rotations and having a level of responsibility under the clinician for cases in the hospital and everything as well.
But actually, even if you admit a patient as a new graduate and you are doing a workup in your, Bringing in and and tapping into advice and mentorship from other experienced colleagues, what can really help you as an employer or a mentor, empower your new graduates is, even if you're giving them a lot of input and a lot of advice and helping them with some of the practical skills, make them pick up the phone and give the updates to the client, outline the treatment plans and everything, because it elevates that level of responsibility. It empowers them to have confidence in the knowledge that they've. Got and what they've bounced back and forwards with you, to be confident that they can then present it to the client as the treatment plan and set timelines and check-in points, etc.
As well. Ethics and responsibility around ethics is something that all the way through people's careers, we, we know is a real challenge and. Being quite successful in supporting your new vets is really important.
The big one really that springs to mind straight away is, is euthanasia, and I think this is really difficult because you, Are very, very, very unlikely to have ever been in a scenario before you do your first PTS consult. As a small animal qualified graduate vet, to have been in a room by yourself performing euthanasia, you might have performed the active euthanasia if the owner doesn't want to be there and, and you've done it at the back when the owner's left on EMS or rotations. You might have done it under the supervision of a clinician on rotations, but what you're unlikely to have done is had to run that whole consult.
And perform euthanasia in a room with clients by yourself, and this is something that is very. Emotional, as as we all know, and I think. Perhaps the more PTS concert you've done, the more you you've done it, you become an experienced vet.
I think it's quite common to maybe forget how it feels to do that first one by yourself. And I think this is probably of everything on the slide, this is the one that I think it's really, really important to check in with your new graduates for after they do their first one. Likewise.
The other side of euthanasia is. The ethical side and how you support your new graduates when they see cases that, In their opinion, believe, require euthanasia, but the owner won't give permission. And also the other ones which are always really challenging is, is the other way, where a client requests euthanasia and.
Perhaps as the vet, you know, there are other options, it's how you support your new graduates and have those conversations and it's checking in after difficult cases. Discussing how Other things like economic climate, particularly in large animal side as well, can factor into some of your euthanasia and welfare decisions as well and just being mindful that euthanasia is an acceptable treatment as well. So it's, it's very much a, Situation with I think a lot of the ethical stuff of checking in and supporting people afterwards when they have these difficult situations.
I know a lot of practises like to put euthanasia at the end of a consult slot as well. So does that give you a chance for the more experienced mentor to check in with the mentee, around emotional health and ethical judgement as well? The other side of responsibility as well is questioning.
So, I, I got told when I qualified by, a more experienced colleague, that the point that generally you get really worried is when your new graduate vet isn't asking questions, because it means that they're at a point where something is probably wrong and they don't feel that they can ask anybody in the practise for advice or help. So, This is just a point of something to keep an eye on as you work with your new graduates and you support them through this transition period as they get used to moving into practise. For me, this next section builds on some of the things covered in in responsibility, and this is around knowledge and skills.
And I really like this image on the left here by Liz Fosian, which talks about a really hard thing and how over time it becomes more manageable and more. Easier to carry. So you can see how it feels now, this is probably how a lot of new graduates feel with the overwhelming burden of moving into practise and everything that they have to deal with.
And then in a few months, it's still a bigger burden than them, but they're, they're processing it and they are maybe getting the basics knuckled down until the burden becomes smaller. And then in a few years' time as we get them to, Experienced practitioners, they've completed their graduate scheme, for instance, they can carry this burden well within themselves and, and it's really important that we support our newer colleagues on this journey. So, knowledge and skills, supporting people and setting them up for success, as I touched on before, clear communication is really, really important.
One of the big areas that this comes up is about backup and support for out of hours for practises that do out of hours. There is very, very big difference between on the phone backup and in-person backup when you're new member of staff. Needs it or requests it.
And If you don't have a clear understanding about what both sides of the, the employer-employee relationship want and need, you, you can end up in some really sticky situations. For me, one of my first hours calls involved to carving, I spoke to my backup, and we, we hadn't had this conversation about what that person expected to be delivering his backup and maybe what I'd done before and. I ended up being sent to the car by myself when I thought it was a conversation of if, if I rang this person would, would come, not a sort of go and assess and then.
Ring if you need me if it turns into a Caesar and I think this is. It was just an expectation, reality mismatch, and actually, while I'd had a conversation with the clinical director about what. I kind of saw back up looking like the clinical director just busy day, hadn't had a chance to catch up with the vet who was backing me up for that first night on call, which was about the only time in that 1st 3 months that it wasn't the clinical director.
And so they didn't know what level I was at, and maybe what what I was expecting and. That then ability to articulate what I needed perhaps didn't come across as well as it could have done, perhaps because I thought I'd already done it in a conversation with somebody else. So really it's important that whoever is offering backup knows what your new graduate is expecting and, and what's been promised, and actually, Obviously, the, the needs will, will change over time, but I think it's really important just to keep maybe monthly in your checkings talking about how support, particularly out of hours is going because.
This is normally the situation where there isn't necessarily somebody in the area or other people in the practise to come in and help. So it's the point that we know it's a big stressor. We know it's something that a lot of final year students worry about when they move into practise, but we also know it's an area that a lot of people are excited about.
Because it's a very different case load that you might be exposed to out of hours, and that can excite an awful lot of people, and if we can nail this communication and. Have expectation and reality aligned. We won't shatter confidence and we can really build people who really enjoy out of hours and it doesn't become a dreaded thing where you feel isolated and on your own.
When we're looking at supporting people in terms of knowledge and skills as well, we know. Across the board, a lot of practises, and a lot of the graduate schemes as well are doing more and more in terms of personality profiling. So a lot of people are using disc or insights to really better understand the people within their teams, how the team dynamic looks, how they work.
And this is really beneficial, and it's something that I would really encourage more and more practises do if they're not doing it already. But the other thing that, is really valuable is if it happens to align. Perhaps between when you've hired your new graduate and they've started, but you're doing the exercise.
I'd absolutely invite your new graduate to have the chance to join in because it will help you as you prepare for this new member of your team to join. It will help you understand them as a person and it will help you understand the sort of support that they might need and how they work as a person. Equally, if they've done disco insights on their graduate scheme or something as well, I think it's really fair to ask them if they're happy to share with you a copy of their report as well, because now I'm in a situation where I'm.
Offering support to other people myself, I find it really useful if they've had one and they're willing to share it with me because it really, Helps you understand them in a different way as well, and you can see how you align and how your learning styles are similar, how your learning styles are different, and really see how you can all fit into that bigger team dynamic as well. Mentorship is a very important thing to do and we'll touch on this further when we look at goal setting as well, in terms of aligning knowledge and skills. So for me, one of my real, Big things that I'm an advocate of is that your mentor and support in practise does not have to be your line manager, and actually I think there are a lot of scenarios where it's beneficial that your mentor is not your line manager, and, I think it's also important that as a practise, you're honest with yourselves and you do review this and just because somebody.
Has mentored previous new graduates before, or just because you've assigned this person at the start before your new graduates joined, it's important that maybe after 1 or 23 months that you review it and you see if it is the right fit, both for the mentor and the mentee. There's, there's no problem with changing a mentor and actually sometimes you'll find that your new graduates might gravitate towards somebody else that anyway for advice and support. And so, We're seeing in quite a lot of places now that maybe your, your recent grads around the sort of 3 year out mark you're probably doing quite a bit of mentoring of.
New graduates, and it's similar to what we see with EMS students, where EMS students quite naturally gravitate to new and recent grads because they've been through what they're going through very recently and they are doing what an EMS student is aspiring to get to by being, Recently qualified in practise, it's the same way that for a new graduate, A level of mentorship from recent graduates. There'll be relatable advice about how your recent relevants dealt with challenges in their 1st 136 months in practise as well. And that's where it also benefits to take the line management section out of any mentor relationship and keep that as a more HR focused PDR review type structure, and the mentorship is a separate thing.
So we know obviously GDP has some recommended minimums for how often a mentor and a mentee should meet, but actually, There's a big argument that it should be more led by the two people in that mentor-mentee relationship about what works for them in terms of structure. Do you have to go and sit in a meeting room? Probably not, actually, is their benefit in getting out of the practise for 40 minutes.
As long as people know where you are, if an emergency comes in, I think there's a huge value to going and sitting in a coffee shop around the corner or a cafe or something and making it less formal, because it will encourage open and honest conversation. When you're looking at setting up your, your new graduates for success as well, in terms of boosting their confidence and their knowledge and skills, I think it's really important to look for easy wins in those first few weeks and months. So, can you liaise with the person who books in the, the visits if you're an ambulatory practise and book in some easy wins?
So, can you book in things like Retained foetal membranes or some castrates or smallholder vaccines, these sorts of things that a new graduate hopefully should be able to do. And even if they go with somebody else for the first one, nothing helps you feel more confident in your knowledge and skills than going out as a newly qualified vet with an experienced vet there, an experienced vet doesn't have to do anything, they just help introduce you to the client. That also builds client confidence in your skills as well, which we know in production animal side is particularly important, but likewise on the.
The small animal side, being strategic with how you book consults, can you book them every other consult, perhaps there's a gap for the first couple of weeks so that as they get used to running to time, because traditionally, teaching practises that you're in on rotations have longer consults, so we need to help people get used to that. They've also got to get their heads around. Writing notes and everything as well, so I think booking consults appropriately and, Managing the diary well as well, so.
Particularly in the first few weeks, adding in, you know, a lot of vaccines and new client checks is also a good way to boost people's confidence, and again, It, it's important because so often consult booking and visit allocation is done by non-clinical members of the team, so by, by reception or sometimes by practise management, that actually, Your clinical directors or a practising manager are having that conversation with the people who booked the concerts or the visits and being aware, perhaps if there are visits that are really suited to a new graduate, that they are allocated to help them build their knowledge and skills confidence base as well. Charging is a massive area as a new graduate to get your head around and it, it breaks into two areas, so. For me, yes, you have to get to grips with taking notes, assessing your patient, making a plan, communicating with the client, and billing the correct codes within a 1015, 20 minute consult.
But it's very much more about the how much, the big thing that you wrestle with is the new graduate is how much do I charge and am I really worth that much? Is what I'm doing worth the value? I know every new graduate that I've spoken to at conferences or when I've been giving CPD, a lot of them really struggle with this, they all feel like they are not worth the money that the clients are charging, and.
For me there's two parts to the desk, so my, my first boss said. What you have to be aware of is you might not have all the answers, but you're part of a practise and a veterinary team, which will be able to provide all the answers, and that's what the client is paying for. The client's paying for the whole joined up service.
So that consult fee also encompasses the service they get in reception, the. Well, the nurses play your knowledge in the consult, any medications advice, any plans that you draw up with your mentor and communicate back, that's everything that they're paying for. So you very much absolutely are worth it, and I think traditionally vets are really bad at.
Charging appropriately for services, historically we've perhaps been very. Product led in where a lot of our charges have been and historically made large margins on meds to compensate for underpricing ourselves on services. Obviously, as things changed, and online pharmacies and other things have come about.
The profession can't do this anymore and we need to all get a lot better on billing appropriately for our time and our services. But It is interesting as well that when we go and talk to particularly new graduate farm works where things are more traditionally built on time. One of the big things people on grad schemes worry about is how do you level with yourself building something based on the time you were there when a more experienced colleague might have done it faster.
And this is something which I think it's really important to discuss with your new graduates, how you work with this as a practise. So there are all sorts of models out there. Some people will.
Tell their graduates to build the time they were there, and then the CD might look through and say, oh well, we'll. You maybe adjust the time a little bit. Some people use a lot of fixed fee structures.
So, a season might be a fixed fee, or you might have a fixed cash rate fee or a fixed PD fee. You might have clients on contracts, in which case, then it's very different as well, because they might be paying a monthly fee rather than an hourly rate, . Other ones We'll build different bets at different prices, for me that's one that I don't sit very well with personally, I think unless that person is say a, RVS advanced practitioner level or something where you, Are really able to articulate why they are more, I think it, it risks undervaluing and knocking the confidence of your graduates.
I think it's much better to build on time and then have a conversation with your new graduates perhaps about, If times needs adjusting slightly, but I think also we need to be very honest that we. We might find something that's very easy because we're experienced vets, but actually to the public, it's a very difficult thing and we can bill appropriately for the services and the time that we're giving. And that follows through to our new graduates as well.
The next area where we can support. Through the transition period more is personal finance, so. There is more teaching on this at better school than perhaps there was 5, 10 years ago, but.
There's still not a huge amount, and so this is where we're seeing other organisations like VETU and BBA and other people coming into the sector and offering more advice to qualified vets as well as students about personal finance. So. I just came up with 4 areas which I think we can support people more in.
So pensions is a big one, obviously. The vast majority of new graduates have probably not had a job where they've had to contribute to a pension before, and it's a real place that employers, when they're making a job offer, can give more support and advice. I think, particularly as pension schemes are usually uniform across their corporate, so everyone on the grad scheme would be the same.
I think there's a real role that when you're explaining a graduate contract, you can discuss this more to people. And also actually further in as well. There's a role to talk to graduates that later on in their career they might want to consider things like salary, sacrificing to increase their pension contribution and also reduce the tax they pay monthly and potentially increase their take-home pay.
It's important that people understand how they work and I think. There may be a role here for some of the graduate schemes to have a role, perhaps to supplement some of the things that are being taught in vet school. But I think it's also important that we discuss it when we're making somebody a job offer, because a lot of people just say graduate salary, X, and they don't necessarily talk about what else they're getting in the whole package.
They just say standard pension. Most new graduates don't know what the standard minimum pension contribution is, so actually spelling it out and saying what this means is, is quite important, and it can be. Seen as a very supportive thing and it can also look quite attractive to a potential employee if somebody's actually going to sit down and talk to them.
About what you can offer them as well as what you want from them as your new employee. Likewise, a lot of jobs, more on the mixed farm or equine side will come with other perks. So things like company cars, a lot of vets now get things like private health insurance.
And obviously, it's really important that we actually talk to people about what this means in terms of benefit in kind tax, and particularly if there is a situation where you're giving. Your new start is a choice between different vehicles, I think it's quite important to discuss with them what the tax implications of the different vehicle choices would be. Because people often will be getting told as they get towards the end of vet school to budget based on what their salary and everything is gonna be, and people need perhaps a bit of support and advice, maybe when they sign their their contract and you give them the offer letters about how to find out what the impact of any benefits and kind is on their take home pay, so we can help and support people budget appropriately, because again, this is something that, When you budget and you're in your first job, it's very different to when you budget as a student, there's all sorts of things that you don't have to do as a student like council tax that you will have to do once you're qualified and in practise.
It's also important to remind people that they will need to notify the HMRC of what vehicle they have as well. Student finance, I think it's important that employers are aware that the vast vast majority of people, unless they've had another. Degree before, won't start paying their student finance until the April after graduation as it stands at the moment, and the other, the other big one, which I think, All graduate employers and vet schools as well need to talk about more is income protection.
It's something that hopefully the vast majority of the profession will never have to rely on, but it's something that, We should really be encouraging people to use more so that they know it's out there, and that hopefully they take it out before they're in a situation where an accidents happened, and they, with hindsight go, I really wish somebody had told me about this because it would have made my situation an awful lot easier. I often talk to final year students about their support and social networks when they come out as a new grant. Obviously, as we said at the start, a lot of their friends and their existing support network may have disseminated across the country.
Yes, there is. Much better communication than maybe there was 20 years ago, you know, social media, better phone coverage, all of these things. But it's still very different to being able to just walk around, walk down the road and pop into somebody else's house and see them and seeing all your friends in the pub all the time.
So it's important that, that you think about what you do when inevitably you have a case where something goes wrong, because. We have to be honest as a profession that everybody has those cases where something goes wrong, and a huge amount of time, it's probably not the clinicians' fault. It can be all sorts of things.
It could be predisposing factors, but it, we inherently know that vets are traditionally high achievers and tend to very much relay negative outcomes weighing heavily on themselves. So what can we do as employers to support people? Can we do significant event audits and get the opportunity to get everybody involved in that case to sit down and have an open conversation about how it went, what happened, what lessons can we learn, what changes can we make so that these things don't happen again.
BDS obviously have VettSafe, which is a really good way of facilitating significant event audits meetings and having those conversations. Similarly, there's a lot of work done about practises signing up to a no blame culture and being able to have these conversations without it feeling like your CD is trying to point the finger and find out who's to blame. It's very important about how we communicate this, particularly to new graduates who maybe haven't had a negative outcome case before.
It's important that we, we take the time and chat and check that everybody's OK and everybody's processing with it as well. And really, I think these significant event audits, vetsa meetings should involve reception and everybody as well because they quite often see the patients come in and then they don't necessarily know what's happened. And so, yeah, I'm really keen that we are doing more of this and really engaging everybody.
Likewise, what can you do as an employer, as a mentor or as a CD to give constructive feedback. There's a lot of good resources out there now about how to give, you know, smart objectives when you're giving feedback, but also. It's important that As a new graduate, you're also thinking about how to vote work, what you're gonna do in terms of your support network as well.
So I quite like to remind Final year students and new graduates about the different networks that they set in for support as well, so. The first one that people obviously think about is, is their graduate network. So, they should be connected probably to a lot of their university friends through different social medias.
A lot of people now, obviously, are on graduate programmes through the corporates or through some of the independents that come together to run their own graduate training days. These are a really good chance to talk to people who are going through everything that your new graduates are going for. And we see more and more of these now offer.
Like a 2-day graduate CPD with an overnight. And it's interesting that when you talk to a lot of people who run these schemes, they say that for them, the, the networking and the social side is just as important as the clinical or non-clinical daytime content because they value the benefit of building the support network for their graduates. We might see the BDS reunions return, and again, this is a good chance to check in just over a year after qualification as well.
But the other thing that a lot of people do now is you can book CPD courses obviously with other friends from all over the country, there's a good chance to check in with your network, talk about what's going on, but. I think it's important also that we advocate to new graduates that when they are catching up with friends, they're not just talking about cases, I think. People will, in the early days, always just want to talk about work in cases and, and outcomes and what they're doing.
And there's this almost perhaps slightly unhealthy culture that it gets a bit competitive of, oh, well, so and so from my year was doing solo bit spaces at 3 months out or whatever, and some people, particularly if they're in mix, right, they're gonna progress at a different speed, and I think we need to be mindful that. Everybody's progress is different and actually somebody who might be doing surgical things faster might be struggling more with their medicine side and it's important that. We try and encourage people not to benchmark against each other too much, and also to really see the value in checking in and chatting about things that aren't vet related as well when they're having these conversations.
Social network as well, so. By this I don't mean social network as in social media, I mean as in your social support network in the area that you move to for your practise. So a lot of people might move.
Back to where they grew up, that's quite common. Other people might have the mindset that I did where they moved to the right place for the right job, and I think that inherently has its own challenges outside of work because you may have to forge your own. Social network, and really I think there's a lot.
Practise as much can do kind of socials to help people feel welcome, help them kind of get to know the area as well. One of my jobs had a really good manual that lived in the office because we had a lot of locums and, and they'd had new grads before about things in the area, so good places to go for a day out, sports clubs to join gyms, these sorts of things as well. I really encourage people when they qualify to plan ahead and book a holiday after they've been at work for maybe 2 or 3 months as well, because.
It is knackering, and I think all of us who have been through that new graduate phase really know how knackering it can be. And so having something to look forward to and and a bit of a break is gonna be really, really valued. But also, there's a lot about encouraging people to do something non-vet related each day, just to break that, go to work, eat dinner, watch TV, go to bed, wake up, go to work cycle.
So, for me, it literally started as going for a walk once I got home. And then it progressed to, I found a squash club, and I'd go and play squash on certain nights. And, you know, then you build up to going away for weekends and everything, so you feel more, more comfortable.
But it's important that you are encouraging people to do more than just go to work, go home, eat dinner, and go to bed. The other thing I include on this slide at the little top here is this picture of the phone, so. I think also it's very easy for new grants to get fully, fully immersed and want to do everything really fast and say yes to everything.
You know, volunteer to get involved in everything all the time, and, and that can be a huge amount, and it can really risk burning people out, so. You know, there's a huge level of work phones for work, obviously, unless you're on call. So actually, if you can encourage people to turn them off when they get home for the day and, and switch off for the evening, that, that is something really valuable that I think we need to make sure we're not building a culture where people are always contactable on their phones, not just by clients, but also by, by vets to talk about cases late at night when they're at home and everything as well.
I think we just need to be a bit careful how we're introducing our new graduates to. That side of things as well. So, as mentioned, we're gonna briefly talk about new graduate job interviews.
It's really important that. Both employers and primary students see a new graduate job interview as an opportunity for you both to interview each other, so. Some tips that I've sort of learned from talking to.
Different vets and final year students as well about what they wanted and what they got and perhaps what they will want as final year students as well. So, It's really important that practicers understand that new graduates are similar but very different, so the needs of each graduate is unique and it's important to. Be honest and encourage.
The person you're interviewing, to be honest about what sort of support they might want as well, what kind of Involvement and introduction to out of hours rated and these sort of things they want as well. Because that's the only way that you, as a potential employer can be honest and work out if you can deliver what that individual in front of you wants and needs. And that's that first point where we work together to avoid this expectation reality mismatch.
On the other side, We heavily encourage primary students that first isn't always best, and that they shouldn't just accept the first job offer they get, even though it is wildly exciting when you get your first job offer to be an actual qualified vet after you've spent 5 years plus the rest, working towards it. But we also know that at the moment, we're, we're in a bit of a buyer's market. There are.
A recruitment problem. So we know that students can afford to take the time to decide if the practise is the right fit. And therefore, as potential employers, we need to think about how this affects our recruitment strategy.
You might interview this person first. You might offer them this first, and they might ask if you can wait a bit, because they've got some other offers coming in. So really, what, what are you doing to show them that you are able to give them what they want and that they will be a good fit in your practise?
And I think this links into my next point, which I commonly say to students is grad schemes aren't everything. I think grad schemes are really valuable in a lot of ways, particularly as I mentioned before, about the social support side and some really good graduate focused CPD. But the vast majority of any new graduates learning and support.
As they transition into being a qualified vet, comes from the practise that they work in, the graduate scheme is obviously a guaranteed minimum salary. It guarantees a level of other support, it guarantees a certain amount of CPD, but actually, you're gonna be working in your practise for 28 out of 30 days a month and then have 2 days away on CPD. So it's really important that you, Are also selling and considering what you offer as your own practise team as well in terms of mentorship and advice and support as well.
The other thing we really need to encourage as well is getting some face to face. I think it's really hard to make a decision as a new graduate on a job from an online interview. And I know, obviously, a lot of interviews were done online when COVID happened and a lot of people are still interviewing online as a result, and I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing to do that.
As a first stage, but I would, I would be wary of ever accepting a job that doesn't let me come down and meet the team and have a look around the practise. And I think what you can do as a potential employer is potentially offer them some EMS so they can actually come for like a week, tick a box that they need to fill as well as have a good exposure to the practise, and you can see how, how they learn, how they work, they can see how you teach, what kind of support they get. But also it's a good chance for them to talk to people who've been graduates with you before and get a real understanding of the support and advice that they got.
It's something that students are being told more and more now, so. It's very apparent that if you get your transition to practise support right, people will stay with you for a long time. So.
If you don't let people sit down and chat to your most recent graduates, it will definitely start ringing questions in any student's head about well why aren't they let me talk to them, have they not had a good experience. We also know. Students obviously all talk to each other and they'll ask their friends about, oh, have you done the EMS here?
What was the experience like? How were the grads doing? Do you think they'd be good at teaching grads as well?
So I think Facetime with potential employees is really important to build that relationship and discuss how you can work well with each other. But then once you've made your decision, you've you're finding a student is gonna be a new graduate, there's a number of things that you can do to help people feel wanted, feel settled and help set your graduates up for success. So a key part of this is making feel, making people feel like they're welcome, making people feel like they belong in the team, like you're excited to hire them.
It's their probably their first full-time job as well, so that's an added level of excitement that they're gonna have. So if they can turn up on day one, pick up. The uniform, whether it's scrub tops, parlour tops, work branded polo shirts, pick up the work phone that's all ready for them.
Get information. Ahead, so can you do them a bit of a welcome pack that gives them key information like, these are your logons for the system, here are some general things about how you view the diary. Bit of an introduction to the different people in your team.
It's important to also introduce them to the non-clinical members of staff as well, who quite often aren't on the practise website, which they might not have had a look at. Can you give them a point of contact in the couple of weeks before they start, so they can feel like they can reach out with any questions? Commonly that might be the person who's gonna be their mentor anyway.
The other thing that's really important is. If you really want to set up for success with your new graduate, make sure you tell the rest of your team the day they're starting and who they are. There's a lot of people out there that have turned up on day one, and reception don't know they're coming.
They don't know where to report. Some of the vets don't even know that they're graduates starting that day. And then this person just turns up, who's probably a bit overwhelmed anyway, because it's their first ever day in practise.
And it's a bit demoralising to feel like the practise isn't ready for you. Can you plan their first day well? Can you maximise their engagement and capitalise on this excitement for them to join your practise?
So, I think it's really important that we don't just get people to sit at a computer screen and do their health and safety and compliance training. It's really important that we get them getting some hands on, whether it's shadowing somebody, whether it's doing an A couple of easy consults on their first day, they're gonna be really excited because they've just qualified at what they've been working on for years, so to then, Sit them behind a computer and make them do health and safety training is is very depolarizing and may well switch them off from coming back on day two. From a New graduate point of view.
I think yes, people can. Prep and not over prep is important, like there's no point sitting down and revising all the time and going over everything, but you could definitely make a few crib hits and you can, you know. Make sure you're ready for day one and you feel prepared, but equally, make sure you take some downtime in that time between graduation and farming it, if you're doing farm, can you get out and network with young farmers in the area, start to get a feel for the area where maybe some of the farms are.
Can you do a bit of a social with your new employee before so that they feel like they've met some of the team already and they know people a little bit before they turn up on day one and. And feel like they're moving into a brand new environment with a brand new team. So, finally, I just want to touch on goal setting.
Because the, the transition period from student to practitioner doesn't end on the day that they come in on day one, and they, they are an MRCS and they are working in practise. The transition period, really, I think we need to look at it with at least the 1st 6 months, if not in some cases, even the first year. You know, most grad schemes now are running for 2 years, so that they are.
Really ingraining the whole development process from being a new and recent graduate. But you can sit down together with your with your mentor or and your mentee and set some realistic goals, so. At the end of the first week, I think it's important to check in with people, check that they feel happy, check that they've worked out how to use the computer system, check that they kind of know their way around the practise, maybe that they're starting to get to grips with some.
Of the computer system things, for instance, like invoicing and calling in clients. And at that point, also, it's a good chance to set some longer term objectives. So I like to think month one and month 6.
So at the end of month one, it's a good point to have a touch point about how they're settling in, if they've grasped the systems, if they're happy with the basics. So, you know, I, hopefully, at this point, they're gonna be kind of happy with their kind of core vaccination consults and their, you know, new puppy checks and these sorts of things. And, and you might.
Assess whether this is the point that you start to bring them onto the out of hours road from these sorts of things, and then you can also at this point, check if you think your 6th month. Objectives are still realistic and I, I very much like smart objectives. I think they're a good way of actually measuring things and being able to check in how things are going.
But also you, you can't fully hang your hat on a smart objective. It's important that if you don't achieve that in the time that you planned, that you sit down and review it and you realise, Maybe why you're not at the point that you both hoped you would be at, and then reassess them and look at what you can do going forwards to put a new timeline in and what extra steps you need to do to get them there. So, month 6 is another big point, I think, for a good check-in.
Clinical skills wise it will vary on that person and what casespo they're having, but I think, They will have had more firsts in their 1st 6 months in practise than they may well have for the next 6 years because everything is new when you start. And so it's a really good point to. Come together with your, with your new graduate and reflect on how far they've come.
And a lot of what people say is around about the 6 month mark, quite often this might tie in if they've started September sort of time of Easter holidays. So you might be having some EMS students and a lot of new and recent graduates say having EMS students in the practise was a really interesting way of reflecting on how far they have come from being a vet student. And seeing how much they've grown and developed when they can answer a lot of the EMS students' questions and give advice and also you might then be at a point where you're thinking, are we in a position to take another new graduate?
And I think this is important when you're talking about success for people as well as, If you don't think you can have a new graduate every year because you don't think you can support them, then you don't necessarily have to have a new graduate every year, and I think. It's important to be realistic, as we say, with this two-way communication, even interviews about what support they're gonna get and how long that support's gonna be. And if it, if you know, so that you run an internship and you're gonna bring somebody in every year, then I think it's important that you say that to people when you interview, because that will be a factor on how much support is available and at what point they're gonna be expected to start to do more as well.
Thank you very much for listening. To today's webinar setting up for success, and I hope it's giving you some good tips about how employer and employee can make the most of the transition to practise phase. Thank you.

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