Making your choices count

Traditionally, CPD was booked if the staff member had an interest and a budget existed that covered it. The practice fulfilled an obligation to develop staff, and the attendee had some CPD attendance chalked up and more enthusiasm for the workplace that funded it.

These days, there are options that allow a flexible, structured learning path that can result in a qualification, as well as in-depth knowledge. CPD is available that includes time spent with a tutor, putting the theory learnt in lectures, into practice in a safe, supervised and relaxed environment and this offers even greater value. A person who can actually do something is of so much more value than one who has listened to how to do something, but hasn’t actually done it yet!

Pick the right course and you can take on more responsibility, set up your own clinics, have more enthusiasm for your anaesthesia, or put a marketing campaign in place that sees clients flooding through the door and regularly returning for all the services they now know you offer.

Budgets

The VN training budget purse is rarely the biggest. Sometimes flexibility is offered by a forward-thinking practice that realises it’s not the amount spent, but the return, that counts. Spending an extra £500 on a VN who will stay in that practice and offer outstanding care, when it really counts to clients, will be worth their weight in gold. Compare that value to advertising, recruiting and training a new team member and it’s clearly money well spent.

For some practices, the budget really is a budget and you need a flexible payment plan, or attendance option that means you can get the same structured in-depth training, but spread over a longer period.

Flexible but structured training

Attending a course like the eight-module Certificate courses offered by Improve International is a simple way to make your training relevant, to make it pay, and improve the prospects of both yourself and the practice. 

Author

David Babington BVetMed MRCVS

To cite this and other BVNA content use either 

DOI: 10.1111/j.2045-0648.2011.00.101.x or Veterinary Nursing Journal Vol 26 pp 332

• VOL 26 • September 2011 • Veterinary Nursing Journal