Thank you, here's a token of my appreciation

This blog post from VETgirl about what to get for the veterinary nurse (technician) in your life has some really nice suggestions on it. It got me thinking about some memorable gifts over the course of my own career and the variety of jobs that has entailed thus far. Some that stand out (in no particular order) include:

  • a dozen bottles of Irish whiskey (they were a family gift, I just shared them!) that led to an all-day and all-night party with some wonderful clients in New Zealand. Slainte Chris and family!

  • some cash from another lovely client for treating his really sick foal along with instructions to spend it on “something fun”: that turned out to be a sky dive.

  • a free dinner from the man who owned the garage which kept my car on the road during manic springtimes in equine practice.

  • a brace of pheasants (I really like cooking).

  • a mare and foal bronze ornament from a stud farm where I used to do the work.

  • a voucher for a massage at the end of a stud season.

The dreaded OSCE: managing veterinary nursing test anxiety

“I’ve been freaking out about OSCEs from day one!”
— DkIT final year veterinary nursing student
OSCE setup.jpg

An OSCE, or objective standardised clinical examination (hopefully not "one student cries every time"!) is a practical examination format that is widely used in veterinary nursing education.

OSCEs have been around since the early 1970s, when they were recognised as a better and fairer way to assess doctors who were about to graduate from medical school than a rambling, interview-style oral examination. They typically consist of 8-20 individual stations where the student is asked to perform a task within a specified time limit (typically 5-10 minutes). Typical individual station tasks include things like running a blood test or dressing a wound. The student is graded by an examiner on their performance rather than their knowledge i.e. it doesn't matter if he/she can describe a perfect bandage, the student will pass or fail based on how they actually put one on. 

OSCEs are widely used just before graduation as they are recognised as a competency test i.e. they measure what a student can actually do. Successful candidates are deemed to have shown that they are ready to enter the workplace as a registered veterinary nurse. A newly qualified veterinary nurse is expected to be safe, not perfect, and for this reason statistical analysis is used to determine the pass mark per task and for the overall examination.

Being a performance test is seen as advantageous, as it is a better way to test if someone is able to practise as a veterinary nurse than written or oral exams. However from a student's perspective an OSCE is often seen as an ordeal and is associated with a lot of nerves and dread. The reasons for this are often related to performance anxiety and the fear of being scrutinised by a mostly silent examiner (much like a driving test).

We recently undertook a research project at DkIT to see if we could help students to better manage the nerves associated with an OSCE and ensure that they turned up on the day ready to do themselves justice. You can read the resulting article here. My colleagues and I would like to thank all the veterinary nursing students who took part in this research project.     

Karen Dunne

August 2018

Getting on with life in 25 minute increments...

IMG_3445.jpg

My sister (a self-employed graphic designer) recently introduced me to the pomodoro technique. We were discussing the problem of actually keeping on top of our to-do lists (and having time for non-work living too) instead of frantically dashing from deadline to deadline. 

The basic concept is simple: set a timer for 25 minutes and commit yourself to doing whatever it is you need to do for those 25 minutes, without distraction. It's the last bit that's the key. Working efficiently and with focus is much easier if you are free to get absorbed in whatever it is you're doing. Our workspaces are often full of conflicting noises and stimuli, all competing for our attention. Emails, text messages, facebook alerts, colleagues dropping in, student queries...they all pull us away from the task at hand.

Apparently it takes up to five minutes for your brain to regain the level of concentration and focused attention that you were at everytime you're distracted. And it's not just your own phone or email that has this effect; those of others around you will also pull your brain out of a state of focused productivity. So, despite the best of intentions, it's all too easy to end up getting less done than we wished or intended. 

Getting rid of distractions:

  1. Set aside a time for focused work, preferably early in the day when most of us are most alert
  2. Decide not to check your email until after the end of this designated work period
  3. Actually follow through on step 2. It's so easy to think "oh I'll just check my email before I start that important job". Two hours later and you still haven't gotten to it.  
  4. Turn off the "push" setting on your phone and other devices, so your email only picks up new messages when you check it.
  5. Turn on the "do not disturb" setting on your phone. It's only going to be for 25 minutes, so you won't end up neglecting anything important.
  6. Close the door of your office and put a "please do not disturb sign on it" or try and work somewhere quiet (I sometimes head down to the library at work if I need to get something finished).
  7. Put on earphones. You don't need to listen to anything but other people will be less likely to disturb you unless it's immediately important (or the building is on fire). 
  8. Set a timer for 25 minutes and get started.
  9. Once the timer rings you can stop and put a check mark on a piece of paper. This physical act is intended to confirm your completion of the work period. Then check your messages, have a break, a stretch, a coffee, a chat. Whatever you like for five minutes.
  10. Repeat if necessary, until the task is done or your designated productive work period is over. Take a longer break (20-30 minutes) after four pomodoros. This will avoid you getting over-tired and less productive.

Francesco Cirillo came up with the concept as a time management technique in the 1980s. He decided to call the intervals pomodoros (the Italian plural for tomatoes), after the tomato-shaped kitchen timer he had used as a student.  

So does it work? In a word: yes, for me anyway, I found it highly effective, 25 minutes is long enough to get absorbed in a task and make good progress, but not so long that I got bored, hungry, stiff or distracted.

It's much easier to talk yourself into doing something you've been putting off if you're only making a 25 minute commitment. I found however that once I got started the job wasn't so bad. I found myself wondering "why did I put this off for so long already?". I'm well aware that there is no motivation fairy and usually I'll never feel ready for a job that I nevertheless need to start (like writing an academic journal article so that I can finish my PhD on schedule!).

Changing my mindset from "I need to write 5000 words" to "I need to make a start on that and I can stop in less than half an hour if it's going nowhere" has improved my motivation and led to less procrastination. Actually getting started on it has meant that after one session I can see some progress and so the overall task is that bit less daunting. This makes it easier to commit to another 25 minutes and so on. There's a nice feeling of progress being made, which is also motivating. So thanks to my sister Eileen for making me aware of this and here's to finishing a PhD thesis in half hour increments! 

Further details

Overview of the concept: https://cirillocompany.de/pages/pomodoro-technique

Some more details: http://baomee.info/pdf/technique/1.pdf

A video overview from Med School Insider, aimed at students:  https://youtu.be/mNBmG24djoY

Fanfreluche: the mare who disappeared

Kevin Blake mentioned this story on the latest episode of the Final Furlong podcast (highly recommended listening for any horse racing fans out there by the way, check it out). 

She was named by her French-Canadian owner after a children's TV character. As a daughter of Northern Dancer from the same crop as Nijinsky she was bred in the purple. Success on the track saw her became a champion filly and she went on to great success at stud before events took an unexpected twist in a paddock at Claiborne Farm, Kentucky, in July 1977. 

It's an amazing story and a reminder of how racehorse pedigrees can turn on chance and luck; no matter how much science, angst and planning breeders might put in. Read the full story here in Kevin's blog: http://www.attheraces.com/blogs/kevin-blake

Fanfreluche

Learning to learn can be frightening

"Learning often consists of scrabbling around in the undergrowth, on the edge of your comfort zone."

I came across this educational blog post recently and I think it emphasises a really important point: learning is often uncomfortable, and challenging.

Before we can learn how to do anything new, we have to be prepared to admit that we don't know it and/or can't do it (yet). This takes confidence and self-belief, as well as faith in your teacher that they can get you there.

Those who are hamstrung by fear, or expectations of failure, can't let themselves go. You have to be prepared to jump in there and just try, without any guarantee of success.   

Can the "nose to tail" approach to meat eating help reduce food waste?

This week's episode of The Food Programme from BBC radio 4 looked at food waste and the efforts being made to reduce it by one New York chef: Dan Barber. Dan's approach is to look at the question of sustainability across the entire farming and food production industry.

It's a  perspective that began when he found himself standing in a field in New York State, surrounded by dozens of food crops that the farmer had no market for.

You can catch the podcast here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08k1h2h