Veterinary Sciences – Inherent Requirements

• Objective and professional behaviour is essential to safety in the veterinary setting.

• Being receptive and responding appropriately to constructive feedback.
• Coping with own emotions and behaviours and maintaining a professional approach.
• Demonstrate a high level of emotional intelligence and self awareness.
• Demonstrate desire and aptitude to function effectively under stress, tolerate physically and emotionally taxing workloads, and cope with uncertainties inherent in assessing and treating health problems.
• Demonstrating resilience in the face of challenging situations, such as dealing with patient loss or difficult cases.
• Students should monitor and manage their own psychosocial health and seeking help as required.
• Effectively managing interpersonal conflicts with clients or colleagues through negotiation and problem-solving skills.

• Capacity to locate appropriate and relevant information.
• Ability to process information relevant to practice.
• Ability to integrate and implement knowledge in practice through clinical reasoning.

Justification of inherent requirement:

• Safe and effective practice in the veterinary sciences is based on comprehensive knowledge that must be sourced, understood and applied appropriately.

• Ability to conceptualise and use appropriate knowledge in response to academic assessment items.
• Appropriately applying knowledge of policy and procedures in the veterinary setting.
• Know and correctly interpret a wide range of scientific information to safely work in veterinary settings.
• Information will be obtained, analysed, integrated, and synthesised from multiple sources efficiently and accurately.
• Decisions and appropriate diagnostic and treatment manoeuvres are often time-sensitive, which requires the ability to process multiple situations simultaneously.

• acquire information and to accurately convey messages.
• comprehend a range of literature and information.
• construct written communication appropriate to the circumstances.

• The ability to acquire, read, analyse and comprehend information from multiple sources and to accurately convey messages is fundamental to ensure safety in veterinary settings.

• Conveying a spoken message accurately and effectively.
• Paraphrasing, summarising and referencing in accordance with appropriate academic conventions in written assignments.
• Producing accurate, concise and clear documentation.

• Competent application of numeracy skills and the provision of accurate data to be acted upon by self or others is essential to ensure safe and effective care in the veterinary setting.

• Understand and use mathematical concepts to perform accurate veterinary procedures and provide accurate, reliable results and data, e.g. calculation of drug doses.
• Critical analysis of relevant literature, including numeracy in statistics.

• Sufficient visual acuity is necessary to demonstrate the required range of skills, tasks and assessments to safely undertake veterinary procedures.
• Visual observations, examination and assessment are fundamental to safe and effective work in the veterinary sciences.

• Accurately choosing the correct instrument or drug.
• Observing and detecting subtle changes in animal behaviour, clinical signs or test results.
• Observe and assess animals at a distance and in close proximity.
• Interpret test results, diagnostic images, microscopic analyses, and anatomic dissections.

• Sufficient auditory ability is necessary to safely and accurately work in the veterinary settings.

• Accurately undertaking physical parameter measurements by auscultation. Detecting sounds that indicate another person requires assistance or has been injured.
• Detecting sounds that indicate that the affected person is in danger from nearby animal(s).

• Sufficient tactile ability is necessary to work safely and with accuracy in the veterinary setting.

• Distinguishing tissue during surgical procedures.
• Performance of dental prophylaxis amongst variable tissue structures.
• Identifying the site for intravenous injection.

1

The veterinary scientist has physical demands and requires gross motor function.

2

Student demonstrates the ability to perform gross motor skills to function within scope of practice.

3

Justification of inherent requirement:

• Sufficient gross motor skills are necessary to perform experiments and analyses in the veterinary sciences. Tasks that involve gross motor skills including lifting, carrying, pushing, pulling, standing, twisting and bending. Students must be able to demonstrate and perform these tasks consistently and safely to reduce the risk of harm to self and others.

4

Adjustments must facilitate functional effectiveness, safety of self and others and a capacity to perform duties required in veterinary settings.

5

Exemplars:

• Respond safely in emergency situations.
• Maintaining balance while safely working in the veterinary setting.
• Safely retrieve, set-up and operate equipment.
• Carry out animal restraint/ handling to undertake essential diagnostic and treatment procedures.

• Sufficient fine motor skills are necessary to perform experiments accurately and safely. Tasks that involve fine motor skills include being able to grasp, press, push, turn, squeeze and manipulate various instruments and objects. Veterinary science students must be able to demonstrate and perform these tasks consistently and safely to reduce the risk of harm to self and others.
• High-level motor skills are required for general care, and surgical and emergency treatments.

• Surgical procedures or assistance in surgical procedures.
• Palpation of intra-abdominal organs.

• Consistent and sustained level of physical energy to complete a specific task in a timely manner and over time.
• The ability to perform repetitive activities with a level of concentration that ensures a capacity to focus on the activity until it is completed appropriately.
• The capacity to maintain consistency and quality of performance during an entire shift.
• Adapting to new information, changing circumstances, and unexpected challenges in both academic and clinical settings.
• Engaging in self-reflection to identify areas for personal and professional growth.

• Sufficient physical and mental endurance is an essential requirement needed to perform multiple tasks in an assigned period to provide safe and accurate data.

• Participating in tutorials and practicals throughout the day.
• Providing consistent care over a negotiated time frame e.g. work shift.

• The ability to understand and respond to verbal communication accurately, appropriately and in a professional and timely manner.
• The ability to provide clear instructions in the context of the situation.
• Timely clear feedback and reporting.

• Speed and interactivity of communication may be critical for individual safety or for successful completion of experiments.
• Timely, accurate and effective delivery of instructions is critical to individual safety, and accuracy of the given task.

• Participating in tutorial, laboratory experiments and discussions.
• Responding appropriately to a change in protocol in the laboratory and clinical setting.
• Communicating in a professional manner towards other students and instructors.
• Establish rapport to explain issues to clients and fellow professionals.

• The capacity to recognise, interpret and respond appropriately to behavioural cues.
• Consistent and appropriate awareness of own behaviours.
• Sensitivity to individual differences.

• The ability to observe and understand non-verbal cues assists with building rapport with people and gaining their trust and respect in academic, work and professional relationships.
• Displays consistent and appropriate facial expressions, eye contact, being mindful of space, time boundaries and body movements and gestures.
• Being sensitive to individual differences; displays respect and empathy to others and develops trusting relationships.
• Interpret non-verbal cues to elicit information.

• Recognising and responding appropriately in classroom situations.
• Recognising and responding appropriately to cues in the practice environment.

• Construction of multiple essays/assignments to academic standards is required in order to convey knowledge and understanding of relevant subject matter, procedures and professional practice.
• Accurate written communication, including record-keeping and certificate writing is vital to work safely and accurately in the veterinary environment.

• Constructing an essay to academic standards.
• Accurately providing the necessary information in a timely manner that meets professional standards.
• Producing accurate, concise and clear documentation in clinical records.

Student demonstrates:

• Awareness and Sensitivity: Understanding and respecting diverse cultural, racial, gender identity, neurodiversity, and socioeconomic backgrounds and practices.
• Inclusive Communication: Ensuring communication is respectful and inclusive of all clients and colleagues.

• Awareness of all forms of diversity is a key element of what it is to be a professional.
• Diversity and inclusive sensitive practice is a requirement of veterinary accreditation standards, aligning to defined Day 1 Competencies.
• Working with diverse clients is essential to successful clinical and professional outcomes.

Exemplars:

• Working with clients who manage their animals according to different cultural norms.
• Managing financial aspects of clinical cases where clients have less ability to cover costs.