Supporting Veterinary Preceptors in a Distributed Model of Education: A Faculty Development Needs Assessment.

Effective faculty development for veterinary preceptors requires knowledge about their learning needs and delivery preferences. Veterinary preceptors at community practice locations in Alberta, Canada, were surveyed to determine their confidence in teaching ability and interest in nine faculty development topics. The study included 101 veterinarians (48.5% female). Of these, 43 (42.6%) practiced veterinary medicine in a rural location and 54 (53.5%) worked in mixed-animal or food-animal practice. Participants reported they were more likely to attend an in-person faculty development event than to participate in an online presentation. The likelihood of attending an in-person event differed with the demographics of the respondent. Teaching clinical reasoning, assessing student performance, engaging and motivating students, and providing constructive feedback were topics in which preceptors had great interest and high confidence. Preceptors were least confident in the areas of student learning styles, balancing clinical workload with teaching, and resolving conflict involving the student. Disparities between preceptors' interest and confidence in faculty development topics exist, in that topics with the lowest confidence scores were not rated as those of greatest interest. While the content and format of clinical teaching faculty development events should be informed by the interests of preceptors, consideration of preceptors' confidence in teaching ability may be warranted when developing a faculty development curriculum.

Exploring the Teaching Motivations, Satisfaction, and Challenges of Veterinary Preceptors: A Qualitative Study.

Optimization of clinical veterinary education requires an understanding of what compels veterinary preceptors in their role as clinical educators, what satisfaction they receive from the teaching experience, and what struggles they encounter while supervising students in private practice. We explored veterinary preceptors' teaching motivations, enjoyment, and challenges by undertaking a thematic content analysis of 97 questionnaires and 17 semi-structured telephone interviews. Preceptor motivations included intrinsic factors (obligation to the profession, maintenance of competence, satisfaction) and extrinsic factors (promotion of the veterinary field, recruitment). Veterinarians enjoyed observing the learner (motivation and enthusiasm, skill development) and engaging with the learner (sharing their passion for the profession, developing professional relationships). Challenges for veterinary preceptors included variability in learner interest and engagement, time management, and lack of guidance from the veterinary medicine program. We found dynamic interactions among the teaching motivations, enjoyment, and challenges for preceptors. Our findings suggest that in order to sustain the veterinary preceptor, there is a need to recognize the interplay between the incentives and disincentives for teaching, to foster the motivations and enjoyment for teaching, and to mitigate the challenges of teaching in community private practice.

A romifidine and morphine combination for epidural analgesia of the flank in cattle.

The objective of the study reported here was to determine the onset, duration, and degree of analgesia achieved with a combination of romifidine (50 microg/kg body weight [BW]) and morphine (0.1 mg/kg BW) administered epidurally. Ten adult Holstein Friesen cows were assigned to either a treatment group receiving the romifidine and morphine combination or a control group receiving 0.9% saline in a randomized, blinded, crossover design. Cows were assessed for degree of flank analgesia and systemic sedation at various time intervals over a period of 24 hours. The romifidine and morphine combination, compared with saline, provided significant analgesia for at least 10 minutes (P = 0.016) and up to 12 hours (P = 0.004) after epidural administration. Treated cows were sedate between 10 minutes (P = 0.016) and 6 hours (P = 0.002) after epidural administration. These results provide evidence for a potential cost-effective intra- and postoperative method of analgesia; however, the sedation seen in this study could be detrimental to patients expected return to the farm shortly after surgery. Further research into withdrawal times, systemic effects, and potential adverse effects are needed before an opiod and alpha2-adrenergic agonist combination can be used safely in a clinical setting.