IMPLEMENTATION OF A PILOT CLASSROOM OF PRACTICAL SKILLS FOR THE CLINICAL SUBJECTS OF THE VETERINARY DEGREE

Abstract

Time limitations in the teaching of clinical subjects of the Veterinary Degree, as well as the high student/teacher ratio and especially student/patient, determine the training of students and compromising the acquisition of specific competences. Thus, students should amortize the time devoted to learning these subjects, integrate the knowledge acquired in them and be able to face clinical situations with the consequent accomplishment of the necessary manual procedures. In the present study, derived from a teaching innovation project, we consider the practice-based teaching with inanimate models or mannequins as a complement of the teaching of clinical skills and acquisition of competences. Due to the high number of students, the short time they spend in clinical rotations with animals and bearing in mind the ethical considerations, it is very difficult for the students to perform the basic clinical skills and even to see them in real situations. The students must know these procedures within the subjects: Clinical Propedeutics, Anesthesiology and Intensive Care, Surgical Pathology and Internal Medicine, as well as to develop these abilities since they will be evaluated of those competences. We have proposed the implementation of a pilot classroom in the Department of Animal Medicine and Surgery where students can practice several times in the inanimate models in order to acquire the necessary expertise for the successful development of clinical skills. This initiative will promote an integrative teaching which will improve the learning and development of specific skills, as well as the acquisition of other transversal competences that will help the future veterinarian in the exercise of their profession.