Melinda Bell

Curriculum leaders (individuals with responsibility for an institution's veterinary curriculum), are student-oriented, want to make a difference, and prioritize teaching and pedagogy in their work. However, as they work to enhance curriculum development, they experience tensions in their role. This study built on previous quantitative findings, and aimed to explore further how curriculum leaders respond to tensions, and how their identity is constructed and supported in a way that means they can thrive in their role. Using self-determination theory and narrative identity as conceptual frameworks, nine curriculum leaders were interviewed about their experiences. Narrative inquiry methodology enabled in-depth interpretations to be drawn about identity influences and participants' responses to conflict and dissonance. Curriculum leader identity was defined as being student-centered, change-oriented, valuing both clinical (particularly general practice), and pedagogical expertise while engaging in hard work and service to achieve pedagogical goals. Participants were skilled in leading change and had developed skills and personal attributes for this. Leading change involved experiences of conflict and tension that were personally meaningful, evoking feelings of identity dissonance that were characterised by either emotional resilience or disaffection and frustration. This response depended on social identity influences, including opportunities to network with like-minded peers, recognition of achievements from influential others, institutional advocacy for change, and support for advanced pedagogical training.

Curriculum leaders (individuals with responsibility for an institution's veterinary curriculum) play a vital role in driving local curriculum priorities, development, and accreditation. This study aimed to describe the career paths of curriculum leaders, and identify what motivates them, the barriers they face, and the knowledge, skills, and attributes they perceive as essential for the role. Self-determination theory was used to identify tensions experienced within the role. An international online survey targeted at those identifying as curriculum leaders was completed by 45 participants. 91% of participants held a doctoral level qualification and/or clinical Boards; 82% had additional training in leadership; 38% had additional formal training in education. Motivators included a desire to make a difference, personal satisfaction with teaching and working with students, and social influences. Participants experienced barriers relating to self-development and achievement of their curriculum goals; participants described essential knowledge (of the profession, educational theory, and wider higher education context) and skills (leading teams, change management, and communication). Attributes considered important related both to self (open-minded, patient, resilient, able to see the big picture as well as detail) and relationships with others (approachable, listener, respectful and respected, supportive, credible). Tensions arose in participants' need for autonomy (experiencing barriers to achieving their goals), in their social relatedness (achieving curriculum goals while working with colleagues with conflicting priorities), and in perceptions of necessary competence (a need, but lack of opportunity, for advanced training in educational theory). The findings may help institutions more effectively support and train current and future curriculum leaders.

This thesis explores employability in the veterinary context and presents stakeholder-led evidence for the capabilities contributing to a veterinarian’s success, thus validating the application of this concept in veterinary education. Employability had been widely applied to other professional contexts, but seldom discussed in veterinary or medical education, where the dominant paradigm is competency. The first paper of this thesis argues to refocus the goal of veterinary education beyond competence to the broader aim of success, from the perspective of multiple stakeholders including the veterinarian. The rest of the thesis presents multi-stakeholder evidence via mixed-methods research (case study interviews, a large-scale semi-quantitative survey and a modified Delphi process) to highlight those capabilities most important for a successful and satisfying career as a veterinarian. This thesis presents a considerable body of evidence contributing to the outcomes of the VetSet2Go project (www.vetset2go.edu.au), which culminated in the Framework for Veterinary Employability. This multinational collaborative project defined employability in the veterinary context as “a set of adaptive personal and professional capabilities that enable a veterinarian to gain employment, contribute meaningfully to the profession, and develop a career pathway that achieves satisfaction and success”, emphasising the ‘self’ as core to this process and stretching the focus beyond the initial ‘getting a job’ towards a fulfilling and long career as a veterinarian. In this thesis, success is defined around veterinarians experiencing enjoyment and personal satisfaction with their work, developing proficiency, and maintaining passion for the profession. The capabilities found to be most important for employability, and therefore success as a veterinarian were: effective communication (with clients and colleagues), teamwork, enthusiasm, diligence, reliability, willingness to learn, honesty and ethical behaviour, resilience, life balance, technical knowledge and skills, emotional intelligence, workflow management and empathy and compassion. There was acknowledgement of changing emphasis of capabilities over different career stages (initial employment, transition to practice and longevity in the profession), with work-life balance, continual learning, goal setting and business skills most important for long term success. The relationship between the veterinarian (self) and their work, enabled by engagement, meaning and purpose, and respect for their profession was a key finding of the survey, and illustrative of how to achieve personal satisfaction and well-being within the profession. There was striking convergence of the stakeholder views throughout the different studies in this thesis. Participants included recent graduate and employee veterinarians, employer veterinarians, non-veterinary employers, veterinary nurses and technical staff, academics, and policy makers, with multiple international regions, clinical and non-clinical contexts, genders and ages represented. With some minor exceptions, all stakeholders rated and ranked capabilities very similarly. The most notable exception was veterinary academics who ranked communicating with clients and work-life balance lower than other stakeholder groups, sounding a note of caution for those responsible for curriculum development. This work has highlighted many of the important capabilities which are under-emphasised in current competency frameworks and has offered a hierarchical importance of capabilities which competency frameworks lack. The outcomes of this thesis provide a complement to the dominant paradigm of competency, bring needed focus to mental health and healthy working lives, and offer a complementary approach for veterinary educators to consider when preparing veterinary students for a successful and satisfying career.

Background In the veterinary profession, employability has been defined as ‘a set of personal and professional capabilities that enable a veterinarian to gain employment, contribute meaningfully to the profession, and develop a career pathway that achieves satisfaction and success’. This study was part of a multinational collaborative research project aiming to define the capabilities most important for employability in the veterinary context (www.VetSet2Go.edu.au). Methods The project gathered empirical evidence from multiple stakeholders including employees, employers, clients, team members, academics and professional bodies. These perspectives needed to be brought together as a cohesive body of evidence. We used a modified Delphi process, whereby a panel of experts were asked to reach consensus on the capabilities most important for veterinary employability, after considering the evidence from the sub-projects. Results The Delphi panel reached rapid consensus upon 21 of an initial 47 capabilities, including effective communication with clients and colleagues, teamwork, technical knowledge and skills, resilience and well-being, adaptability, emotional intelligence, workflow management and empathy and compassion. Conclusion Of note for veterinary educators are those attitudinal items identified by this Delphi process as important to employability but potentially underemphasised in existing competency frameworks, such as accepts responsibility, keen to learn, diligence (high standard of care) and self-awareness.

The conceptual complexity of employability remains a barrier for its integration into discipline-based curricula. In the health professions, a particular challenge lies in integrating employability with the dominant paradigms of competency and professionalism. In this study, we explore these contextual challenges, and present the rationale and conceptual basis for a potential re-framing of employability within the context of this discipline group. We propose a novel definition and a conceptual model of employability better aligned to the needs of health professions. While employability has proven difficult to define broadly, it is framed around the expectations of both the employer and employee, thus may be viewed as a mutual transaction of expectations, which is most sustainable when all are optimally satisfied. Given that most work contexts involve multiple stakeholders, employability is defined here from an individual’s perspective as their capacity to sustainably satisfy the optimal balance of all stakeholder demands and expectations in a work context, including their own. We draw upon a scan of the literature and evidence from one health profession, veterinary science (including re-analysis of comments from a stakeholder survey), to inform a conceptual model of employability for these contexts. We propose employability is only partly comprised of skills and knowledge (human capital), and more of psychological capital spanning approaches to work, approaches to self, and approaches to others. The expectations underpinning employability are partly oriented to the work itself, and partly to the human interactions supporting it; partly to efficacy and partly to sustainability. These principles establish a matrix of five domains: effective practice, productive relationships, professional commitment, and psychological resources, plus a central element of reflective identity representing the fundamental growth process of self-awareness and identity formation. By this conception, employability is complementary to, but readily integrated with, outcomes frameworks such as competency and professionalism.

This paper presents a mini-review of employability as a guiding outcome in veterinary education—its conceptualisation, utility, core elements and dimensions, and pedagogical approaches—through a summary of the findings of a major international project with the same aims (the VetSet2Go project). Guided by a conception of the successful veterinary professional as one capable of navigating and sustainably balancing the (sometimes competing) needs and expectations of multiple stakeholders, the project integrated multiple sources of evidence to derive an employability framework representing the dimensions and capabilities most important to veterinary professional success. This framework provides a useful complement to those based in narrower views of competency and professionalism. One notable difference is its added emphasis on broad success outcomes of satisfaction and sustainability as well as task-oriented efficacy, thus inserting “the self” as a major stakeholder and bringing attention to resilience and sustainable well-being. The framework contains 18 key capabilities consistently identified as important to employability in the veterinary context, aligned to five broad, overlapping domains: veterinary capabilities (task-oriented work performance), effective relationships (approaches to others), professional commitment (approaches to work and the broader professional “mission”), psychological resources (approaches to self), plus a central process of reflective self-awareness and identity formation. A summary of evidence supporting these is presented, as well as recommendations for situating, developing, and accessing these as learning outcomes within veterinary curricula. Though developed within the specific context of veterinarian transition-to-practise, this framework would be readily adaptable to other professions, particularly in other health disciplines.

Background Employability has been defined within the veterinary context as a set of personal and professional capabilities that enable a veterinarian to gain employment, contribute meaningfully to the profession, and develop a career pathway that achieves satisfaction and success. This study explicitly addressed the construct of veterinary employability by exploring the perceptions of multiple stakeholders (recent graduates, employee veterinarians, veterinarian and non‐veterinarian employers, para‐veterinary staff, academics and policy makers). Methods A four‐part online survey was distributed internationally via various agencies. Free‐text responses, ratings of capabilities and rankings of categories were analysed. Results The congruence of stakeholder responses was notable, regardless of age and geographical location, with minor differences noted in academics’ and para‐veterinary staff responses, and gender. The most important capabilities were honesty, ethical behaviour, communicating effectively and collaboratively with clients, knowing when to ask for help, and the willingness to learn. The categories of communication and teamwork ranked highest. Conclusion This study adds granularity to the existing evidence for the importance of communication and teamwork. The relationship between the veterinarian (self) and their work, enabled by engagement, meaning and purpose, and respect for their profession was a key finding, and illustrative of how to achieve personal satisfaction and well‐being within the profession.

This study qualitatively explored success factors across career transitions in veterinary practice. Semistructured interviews were conducted independently with pairs of veterinary employers and their recent graduate employees, focusing on success in gaining initial employment, their transition to practising veterinarian and longevity in the veterinary profession. The divergence and convergence of interviewees’ perspectives, the changing emphasis of capabilities over different career phases, and the meaning of success were explored. Overall, the perspectives of employers and employees were similar, and highlighted communication skills, confidence, diligence and reliability, and technical skills and knowledge as important themes for initial employment and transition to practice. Other important success factors for initial employment included interpersonal skills, teamwork and team fit, enthusiasm, willingness to learn, and previous experience with the graduate. Support, resilience and work–life balance were important to the transition to practice phase. For career longevity, work–life balance remained an important theme, but also continual learning, business skills and goal-setting. Success was defined around enjoyment and personal satisfaction, developing proficiency, and maintaining passion for the profession. Job fit was a persistent theme throughout. This exploratory study highlights the capabilities and factors supporting success in veterinary career transitions, some of which may be inconspicuous in traditional competency-based frameworks.