As I write this I’ve just finished my week of nights through the Christmas period. More importantly though my final module (of six) composing the learning for the CertAVP has been graded. Looking at it the small green tick on my case log, and the grade above 50% means that I have passed this module.
I have always been extremely self-critical. I rarely stop to celebrate. And I spend hours analysing what I could do better. This time I have decided I will do it differently. It is not an official result until it goes through the module review board which is in February. And to be fair I am not really going believe it until I hold the certificate in my hands. However this will still only be halfway there.
I am doing a named certificate in small animal surgery so I still have to sit a synoptic exam. This is something I have applied for. With covid there are no dates set apart from hopefully sometime this summer. So I am planning to spend a month or so studying at the end of my internship for this.
In the meantime, I think looking back some of the things I have learnt through the CertAVP process are:
Case Logs
In total I have submitted 120 surgical cases throughout my modules. To find these I went through 2.5 years’ of patient histories which took me several weeks to move this data into an easily accessible excel spreadsheet. In total I found over 700 surgeries I have done or assisted in. I probably missed quite a few as well that were not linked to my name or that were done during out of hour shifts at another practice. And my final module threw a slight curveball as I took Critical Care and Analgesia so there was a last minute scramble for cases here.
My advice would be to log as you go (I do this now with any surgery/case I see) so you can find them easily and select appropriate cases later.
Case Reports
These were hard at first. And this was not helped by my dyslexia. I failed and had to resit all the case reports from the entire first C module I sat. This left me questioning whether I should even continue. However this was because I failed to read the question and address what the examiner wanted. I also found the marking rubrics after this as well so knew how much detail was needed in each area. I also tried to pick the more interesting cases which were too complicated to present properly within the available word count.
My advice here would be to answer the question – if it asks about analgesia/antibiotics/fluid therapy/post-operative management focus on this. Also some of my best marks were simple cases things like an enterotomy, or pancreatitis – there is a lot to discuss in detail here.
Workload
I did my first 4 modules working full time in general practice, the first 3 modules were a 5 day week and every other Saturday, plus a 1:8 weekend OOH rota. The practice moved to a 4 day week by module 4 which helped however the long days exhausted me. And then module 5 and 6 I completed during a rotating internship. The guide is that 6 hours a week was needed, for me this was a minimum as it takes me ages to read a paper or book chapter. This has taken much of my free time over the past 2 years.
My advice is that having a day a week free to work on the certificate would be ideal. Having a job where a 4 day week is the norm. However I’ve seen recently some people have been given a day a week study leave as their employers see the certificate benefiting the practice which is even better.
Looking forward
I am going take the next week off from all things veterinary. To sit, relax, chill and read some fiction. After that, I start my postgraduate diploma (PgDip), on the journey to complete my masters (MSc). I’ve got two modules starting in January 2021 which I will introduce you to later.
