VetEd 2025 - Best Short Comms

This year the VetEd conference was hosted by Bristol Veterinary School on their beautiful Langford campus in Somerset.

The conference theme was ‘Preparing the New Graduate’ and this was reflected in the plenary sessions by Kristin Jankowski, who spoke on contextualised care, and Brian Faulkner, who delivered an insightful talk on the psychology of confidence. Bridging the gap of education to the workplace with the use of artificial intelligence was discussed and the conference was closed by Jo Hartland with an excellent discussion on ‘Challenging Exclusion in Health Sciences Education’. 

Avril McGinn from the UCD Center for Veterinary Education presented a short communication alongside Kathryn Loft, University of Bristol. ‘Teaching multiple consecutive practicals: Investigating task load, challenges and strategies for success’ is a multi-center study between University of Bristol (Kathryn Loft, Sarah Baillie), University of Surrey (Priya Sharp) and University College Dublin (Avril McGinn). 

This study is a two-part study investigating the effects of consecutive teaching on teacher’s mental and physical workload, using a well established scale (NASA Task Load Index) and observational studies. 

This study is ongoing and preliminary results were shared at VetEd earning Kathryn and Avril a prize for best short communication presentation. They look forward to sharing more on this study in the future!