ABSTRACT: British wildlife nursing is not included in the curricula for most training courses despite Registered Veterinary Nurses (RVNs) being expected to fulfil their professional, legal and ethical responsibilities in practice. These responsibilities should be considered to strike a balance between intervention and unnecessary suffering. As there is limited peer reviewed literature into veterinary interventions towards wildlife casualties, this descriptive and analytical study aimed to identify the major challenges Registered VNs (RVNs) and student VNs (SVNs) face when treating wildlife. Part two of this series of articles outlines the project carried out to gauge nursing competency, determine valuable education activities, and create a nursing model.

Keywords: wildlife; veterinary nursing; challenges; attitudes; education

Authors: Jesle Varu BSc(Hons) RVN and Hilary Orpet MScVetEd, BSc, Dip AVN (Surgical) Cert Ed, FHEA, DipCABT, RVN

Jesle graduated in 2017 from the Royal Veterinary College as a Registered Veterinary Nurse and then undertook the BSc course, graduating in 2018. He currently works in Wanstead Veterinary Hospital (Goddard Veterinary Group) in east London with keen interests in exotics, medicine, teaching and wildlife.
Email: jeslevaru@hotmail.co.uk  Jesle Varu http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5980-6389

Hilary is a senior lecturer on the Foundation and BSc Veterinary Nursing degrees at the Royal Veterinary College. In 2007 she developed The Ability model of nursing care with Andrea Jeffery which is currently the only published veterinary model of care in use.
Email: horpet@rvc.ac.uk

To cite this article: VNJ (2021) Volume 36 (1) January pp43-47