We were in Swindon this week, visiting Eastcott Vets with the Graduate Development Programme.
Ingrid one of their Residents did our Dental lectures and she's awesome. She is Italian, had a gold chain around her neck with her initials on and was really interesting to listen to. I quite like dentistry anyway but I learned a fair bit ...and answered one of her questions correctly.
The second day we were doing Confidence in the Consulting room with the VDS and it gave me anything but...
We were in groups of 15 new grads, sat around with a scenario and client (played by an actor), we were the vet and basically acted out a consult which they paused every few minutes and over-analysed every word.
I'm not usually a shy person but because there are so few vet schools in the UK, all the other new grads know each other and I'm the only European vet, which is fine 'cos I know a few of them and have made friends with the others by now; but studying abroad I've never done these scenarios before. Some of the UK grads have done these exact consults for exams and things so have textbook answers they can reel out to 'pass' the scenario.
At first when I was called out to speak I was not prepared at all and could feel myself getting stressed and flustered, which because you're being analysed, when you're aware you're flustered it makes it even worse.
I did another one in the afternoon which I felt went a lot better and I took much more from it. I did a couple of things the VDS lady running the session said she was surprised at and worked well (I think?). I've also realised I'm not great at reflecting, other new grads were really good at saying they think things went, how it made them feel etc which I guess is something they do at uni and I need to practice more.
I'm pretty comfortable consulting now and after spending a few days at work after the course I really appreciate some of the things they taught us and I've put them into use in practice but at the time I wanted the ground to swallow me up!
Ingrid one of their Residents did our Dental lectures and she's awesome. She is Italian, had a gold chain around her neck with her initials on and was really interesting to listen to. I quite like dentistry anyway but I learned a fair bit ...and answered one of her questions correctly.
The second day we were doing Confidence in the Consulting room with the VDS and it gave me anything but...
We were in groups of 15 new grads, sat around with a scenario and client (played by an actor), we were the vet and basically acted out a consult which they paused every few minutes and over-analysed every word.
I'm not usually a shy person but because there are so few vet schools in the UK, all the other new grads know each other and I'm the only European vet, which is fine 'cos I know a few of them and have made friends with the others by now; but studying abroad I've never done these scenarios before. Some of the UK grads have done these exact consults for exams and things so have textbook answers they can reel out to 'pass' the scenario.
At first when I was called out to speak I was not prepared at all and could feel myself getting stressed and flustered, which because you're being analysed, when you're aware you're flustered it makes it even worse.
I did another one in the afternoon which I felt went a lot better and I took much more from it. I did a couple of things the VDS lady running the session said she was surprised at and worked well (I think?). I've also realised I'm not great at reflecting, other new grads were really good at saying they think things went, how it made them feel etc which I guess is something they do at uni and I need to practice more.
I'm pretty comfortable consulting now and after spending a few days at work after the course I really appreciate some of the things they taught us and I've put them into use in practice but at the time I wanted the ground to swallow me up!
