Our approach
We have a collaborative approach to education, with the Medical and Nursing teams working closely to deliver clinical education content that supports a whole-team approach to care delivery. Many of our courses, such as our canine and feline friendly courses and our pet bereavement course, are suitable for the whole veterinary team.
Tailored to you
Alongside our team-focused courses, we deliver tailored content to support all our Associates to reach their full potential and have fulfilling career journeys.
For primary care teams, examples include certificate holder education and networking days, practical skills labs, focused modular courses including our AVA Accredited anaesthesia course for nurses, senior nurse forums and our Graduate Development Programme (GDP).
Development opportunities for our referral teams include our discipline-specific away days, referral nursing monthly focus groups, discipline-specific referral nursing training programmes and our Post Registration Programme (PRP) for referral nurses. We also have a number of well-established internships and residency training programmes within our world-leading referral practices.
We understand that flexibility and on-demand access to educational content are important. This is supported through our extensive online resource library, where all our Associates have easy access to current, evidence-based medicine. New resources are regularly added with existing materials going through a review process. There is an equal focus on developing non-clinical skills, with content focused on areas such as consultation and communication skills, non-technical skills and quality improvement.
Continual professional development of Associates
Andrew Perry has started a Fellowship of the American College of Veterinary Surgeons in oral and maxillofacial surgery.
“The Fellowship is overseen by the American College of Veterinary Surgeons (ACVS) and is a post-specialist qualification indicating further specialisation in maxillofacial surgery. It’s two more years of study, including the need for publication in an international journal, and then an exam in the US.
The primary benefit is the continued development of my skills, ensuring that, here at Eastcott, we are operating to the highest international standards and can treat patients with the most complex problems. It shows our commitment to dental and maxillofacial work and we believe we are leading the way with our cutting-edge surgical procedures and innovations within our state-of the-art facilities. We are not just one of the foremost centres of excellence for this specialist work in the UK but throughout Europe, too.”
Andrew Perry, Head of Dentistry and Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Eastcott Veterinary Referrals
Worldwide links
We work closely with Mars Veterinary Health (MVH) to deliver combined education initiatives, including the recent provision of an Introduction to Mentor Training Online Course, which connected mentors from five business units across three continents. As part of the wider MVH education team, we are exploring innovative, cutting-edge methods of education delivery to remain at the forefront of veterinary training.
We also work closely with selected external providers to support our education provisions, ensuring journal access for all our referral clinicians and negotiating group rates for valued education.
Collaboration
We actively encourage collaborative working and the sharing of best practice across the Linnaeus family. The Clinical Education and Development team facilitate this through online interest and discipline-specific groups, which connect Associates with similar interests across our primary care and referral practices.
These groups take part in clinical case discussions, journal clubs and resource sharing. Examples include emergency and critical care, infection control, physiotherapy and hydrotherapy and small animal medicine groups.
We believe there are huge benefits to our Associates and the wider profession in strengthening our relationships and building our professional support networks.
Specific training initiatives
We help our veterinary and nursing Associates fulfil their clinical education and development needs with constantly evolving initiatives that focus on appropriate learning outcomes such as our Excellence in Dentistry initiative.
In conjunction with our specialist dentistry team at Eastcott Veterinary Referrals, we are delivering a series of intensive practical training sessions for our vet and nurse dental leaders across our primary care sites. This sits alongside an extensive library of dentistry resources and the creation of an ongoing support network for dental leaders.
In-practice support and training
We strongly believe that mentorship is fundamental to the success of our post-graduate training programmes, including our internships, residencies, Graduate Development and Post Registration Programmes, providing practical mentor training initiatives, alongside the establishment of support networks for mentors. Our extensive resources include access to regular training content delivered by industry experts and motivational guest speakers.
Graduate Development Programme
Our Linnaeus Graduate Development Programme (GDP), is a robust and immersive two-year graduate development programme offering a practical and comprehensive transition from university to rewarding work in practice.
The GDP has been crafted to develop new and recent graduates in all areas of their career, combining clinical and professional skills, educational days, practical experience with mentoring and practice-based support.
This ground-breaking programme sees graduates working alongside many highly-respected internal and external veterinary surgeons, including specialists and leaders in their field. Graduates are placed in one of our supportive primary care practices for the duration of the programme, supported by a primary and secondary mentor. Beyond this, graduates will develop a peer network with other graduates on the programme and have the support of the entire Linnaeus family.
We are passionate about supporting all our new and recent graduates to be the best vets they can be. Our GDP is aligned with the RCVS Professional Development Phase (PDP) and VetGDP models and aims to develop our graduates into highly skilled veterinarians, equipped for long and fulfilling careers within the profession.
Undergraduates
We know the future of veterinary excellence is in the hands of those young vets working through their educational journey, which is why we support our veterinary undergraduates with access to clinical lectures from Linnaeus experts and specialists as well as opportunities to talk to our current GDP graduates and our Clinical Education team. We are proud of our wellbeing initiatives which, at the undergraduate level, include running events and yoga sessions.
Alongside our outreach initiatives, we are committed to providing undergraduate veterinary students with supportive and hands-on EMS placements throughout their education. We offer both pre-clinical and clinical placements throughout the UK in both primary care and referral practices. We are dedicated to making EMS as accessible and as inclusive as possible and have recently launched an EMS Bursary Scheme to support undergraduates with travel and accommodation costs associated with attending farm and equine placements.