As part of the RCVS approval process to run their own course, the veterinary surgeons responsible for training veterinary nurses at the Abbey Veterinary Centre wrote a series of training course textbooks some fifteen years ago, and these books are now in their fifth generation of revision.

To help improve national VN pass levels, they felt that their course textbooks would help many more nurses pass the RCVS examinations at the first attempt if made generally available. This has now been done. The ten books have been rewritten to provide all the theoretical and practical knowledge required in the New Syllabus and Portfolio, which satisfy the requirements of S/NVQ Standards at Levels 2 and 3.

Volumes 1-3 cover the full Part 1 Syllabus and Volumes 4-6 cover the full Part 2 Syllabus. The text is divided into daily lectures for all-year-round training.

Volumes 7 (Part 1) & 8 (Part 2) consist of some 2500 multiple choice question and answer sets, plus mathematical calculations tests for fluid therapy, radiography, anaesthesia, solution concentrations and drug dosages, showing full calculations workings in each case.

Volume 9 consists of a full set of guidance examples of completed modules from Parts 1 and 2 of the Portfolio. Each has been completed in the style of a typical veterinary nurse, using a real small animal case with the actual nursing details which applied to these cases in the practice.

Volume 10 consists of question sets based accurately on the RCVS Part 2 six-minute practical/oral examinations. It contains all the preparations which the training nurse must make before the student sits the exam, and the answers are broken down and itemised line-by-line for accurate marking. However, there are also detailed sections on the examination format, on running the examinations in the practice environment and with practice resources, comprehensive guidance on marking and many invaluable hints and tips on improving your mark which could only be learnt by debriefing many students sitting the RCVS exams over a long period of time.

We are sometimes asked what these books offer that other veterinary nursing books do not. Although there are a number of reference books available in which a student or trained nurse can find out specific facts, nurses cannot realistically be trained from any other published text. Veterinary Nurse Training, however, forms a complete sequential training course in the classic medical tradition. Nothing remotely like these books exists anywhere else.

The style of writing is very simple. Great attention has been paid to setting out the text in small, digestible chunks with clear headings and subheadings. Key words and phrases are underlined and/or printed in bold type to highlight their importance. There are many pages of diagrams to help the student relate the written text to a visual picture, which makes remembering things much easier. The result is that the student is encouraged to understand and take in each part of the text before proceeding to the next part, rather than be faced with a page of solid print. Nurses who have trained at the Centre say that this has made their progress much more apparent and that this is a psychologically very important part of the overall presentation. If they feel they are making progress, they are far more likely to stay motivated and continue reading and learning.

The student works from the beginning of Part 1, Volume 1 to the end of Part 2, Volume 3. Inside each volume is a detailed contents list in the same sequence and with the same numbering format as in the actual book. Apart from acting as an index, this helps the student to visualise the overview of a long and complicated subject, where keeping track of divisions and sub-divisions can become difficult. Based on their long experience of VN training, the authors have divided the text into a daily lecture series. Each lecture last approximately one hour.

Integrated with the lectures are the multiple choice examinations, both those designed for self-testing during the period of study and the revision sets for the time leading up to the examinations. Unless a lecture is purely theoretical, a daily practical task is also provided, based on the lecture work for the day, and should be completed at some time after the lecture. The Portfolio guidance volume should be consulted to provide guidelines before any new case log sheet or case report is attempted.

The lectures are each designed to be the basis of one day's learning for an average student. If one hour is allotted during the working day for study of the lecture, it will take on average one further hour in the evening to memorise the information to a high enough standard. Time allocated to the practical work for the day may take as long as the student needs to be sure of learning the tasks. Allowing for revision and completing the Portfolio, the Part 1 course should be started about a year before the Part 1 examinations and the Part 2 course about 18 months before the Final examinations. On this basis, the student should learn three lectures per week, with the other two working days being used for tests, practical work, Portfolio casework or revision.

Student nurses at the Centre complete their entire study course while working within the practice, which means that the practice has the benefit of stable staffing levels and the difficulty of constantly changing duty rotas to accommodate day or block release work is a thing of the past. This can be done in any practice, but involves a substantial commitment of time, staff and equipment. We can advise you on how this could be done in your practice. For most practices, however, college courses will continue to be necessary, but these can be integrated with your daily in-house training based on the books. The student will then have the advantage of continued revision and assessment right up to the examinations, with a predictable effect on pass rates.

It all comes down to a simple fact; if you have learnt everything in the lectures, have diligently carried out the practical work and have passed the self-assessment multiple-choice and practical tests with good results, you will have no difficulty in qualifying as Veterinary Nurses! Good luck in the exams and remember - DON'T PANIC!!

Training Guides