Trust me, I'm a veterinarian: incorporating entrustable professional activities into veterinary education

In December, the RCVS informed us once again that veterinary surgeons are among the most trusted professionals in the UK.1 Those of us with ‘glass half full’ mindset might have nodded to ourselves with a smile as we balanced Christmas clinical activities and family life to some degree. However, in the current sociopolitical climate, the more cynical of us might have wondered whether this makes us feel any better if we are being compared with politicians, bankers and journalists. Without questioning how the survey was run, it does appear that veterinary surgeons are trusted. This trust is paramount for patient treatment, safety and care – the public need to trust the vets looking after their animals, and the veterinary team must trust each other. When teaching undergraduates in the clinical environment, supervisors entrust students to assume clinical responsibilities. This is not far removed from William Osler’s clerkship system, which was introduced at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore in 1889. Osler moved medical teaching from the lecture theatre to the bedside, enabling students to model themselves on more experienced colleagues and gain tacit knowledge in actual workplace settings.2 That model, combined with a variety of different educational theories, still dominates medical education today, and, by proxy, veterinary education. More recently, there is a trend in veterinary education to move away from solely knowledge-based assessment and to include assessment of clinical competence. This usually involves a structured assessment either in the workplace (eg, direct observation of a practical skill, such as placing an intravenous catheter) or in an assessment centre where an aspect of a clinical scenario is examined using a structured assessment tool (eg, objective structured clinical examination [OSCE]). #### What you need to know