Not My College ?

  This is reprinted from a human medical publication.  IMHO it is just as applicable to vets. It's a longish read but well worth it. How Does Second Victim Syndrome Affect Surgeons? Joël Pitre, Dr | 04 April 20 24 Second victim syndrome  (SVS) refers to the trauma experienced by a healthcare provider following a  medical complication or error . It is estimated that nearly 50% of healthcare providers will face this syndrome at least once in their career. Moreover, as much as 20% of hospitalized patients may experience a complication. Some specialties are particularly exposed to SVS, including surgery, obstetrics and gynecology. Most published research does not focus on surgical specialties, even though surgeons face stressful situations and technical challenges daily, making them particularly susceptible to SVS. Strength and emotional control are part of the typical surgeon stereotype. Consequently, the occurrence of a surgical complication is most often approached on...

Well it's Council election time in Punxsutawney, and like 2024, Samizdat believes the 2025 election is still about defending your right to vote . It’s about ensuring the membership retain the right to hold the  RCVS accountable through an elected Council.  Over the last few years the College has borne down heavily on what we the membership are permitted to know.  On one occasion in 2020, a retired police officer was engaged by the College to interrogate Council members suspected of leaking information about a proposed change to the disciplinary process !  (I don’t know what I find more depressing about this, the fact that the College thought they could get away with it or the spineless Council letting them).  In June 2022 the College imposed a revised 'How we work' statement, effectively preventing Council members from publicly discussing RCVS policy which they deemed to be confidential (Ball gag and no balls) .  Since then the ability of the membership (...

  RCVS Council meeting January 2025 - Keeping you informed. 'On Thursday, 16 January 2025, we will be holding our first RCVS Council meeting of the year, which will be online.' Keeping us informed ? Well not exactly Lord Copper, not exactly. Although the College likes to give the impression of openness, with occasional online Council meetings and the farce of regional Question Time  time-up-for-question-time the organisation remains as obsessively secretive as ever. Council members are forbidden - under threat of disciplinary action no less - to reveal details of Council meetings. When a Council member was thought to have leaked some information about changes to the disciplinary process,  the RCVS commissioned a former senior police officer to interrogate council members in a bid to identify the source (or sources) of the leak. The investigation is believed to have cost t ens of thousands of pounds  but the RCVS has refused to say how much ... .    (and af...

Senior vice-president Sue Paterson said she was '100% confident' in the college’s procedures for accrediting UK vet schools’ One word Sue -  Cambridge ! If you want to read more posts, click on the arrow 🠈 on the top left of the page or the 'MORE POSTS' button at the bottom. 

'RCVS council elections to be scrapped in a governance shake-up that may help to secure long-sought reform of veterinary sector legislation.' So said the Vet Times last year. Voting is old hat apparently. According to the RCVS and their supporters  the way forward is by scrapping the final, threadbare vestiges of democratic accountability and handing everything over to appointees. Sounds legit. The appointments process, like everything the  RCVS  does, will be totally transparent of course ... totally ... and if you believe that I have a bridge to sell you.  Meantime new elections are upon us. Of the current crop of former Council members seeking re-election only Will Wilkinson voted to retain an elected Council. 😊👍 Tshidi Gardiner voted to end elections and move to an appointed Council. 😟 Louise Allum  hasn’t responded to emails nor has she signed the open letter in the Vet Record. From this we can reasonably infer she’s not absolutely committed to retaini...

  In April the results of the 2024 RCVS Council were announced. Three candidates were elected, Zara Kennedy, Sinéad Bennett and David Barrett. Two of the candidates ( Sinéad Bennett and David Barrett)  made it clear in their manifestoes that they were opposed to an appointed Council. Looking at the manifestoes of all 14 candidates, it appears that 7 were openly opposed to an appointments system, some vehemently. The only candidate directly associated with the proposal, ex-President Kate Richards, was defeated. Scroll forward six weeks to the 10th of June and the first day of the RCVS consultation on Governance. What do we find ? An acceptance of the membership's near total rejection of an appointed Council ? Far from it. Instead we have page upon page of biased 'recommendations' and a tone deaf video by an ex-President  here  which is billed as 'An Introduction to our Good Governance Consultation.'  In reality it's a one-sided propaganda piece in which we'...

I sometimes think the only way the College survives is through the voluntary, willed disinterest of the membership. Most people actively avoid reading their relentlessly irrelevant newsletters or emails let alone the heavier stuff, which is probably just as well.  A good example of something that missed processing is the  RCVS Standards and Guidance for the Accreditation of Veterinary Degree Programmes 2023.   When hardly a week goes by without some reference, somewhere, in some RCVS communication, about mitigating ‘workforce issues,’ one can only wonder at a process that managed to produce 40 pages of ‘guidance’ for universities with hardly a mention of   improving the criteria for entry into the undergraduate degree course. No practical steps towards selection on the basis of proven vocation and not just exam results, nor of candidate maturity, nor of moving towards post graduate entry, nor of improving the gender balance, nor indeed of anything that might at the e...

'The RCVS will be holding an informal evening for registered veterinary surgeons who who may be interested in becoming members of the Preliminary Investigations Committee (PIC) and Disciplinary Committee (DC).' Received by email 24th February 2024 ... Sorry all places taken 25th February ! It never ceases to amaze me how short the shelf life of these adverts is, it's almost as if they don't want us to attend. I'd be interested to know whether anyone from Northern Ireland, or the north of Scotland, or rural Wales made the (day long) trip to London just to express an interest ... I doubt it. Is this an example of what the College calls an Independent Selection Process, if so it doesn’t bode well for an appointments based Council. Another event for those in the know south of the M25 ? If you want to read more posts, click on the arrow 🠈 on the top left of the page or on the 'MORE POSTS' button at the bottom. If you want updates from NMC click on the menu top l...

  The College is a secretive organisation, it hates parting with information; fact. Whether it's member's questions or muzzling the Council with threats of disciplinary proceedings, the RCVS is an information black-hole. So the decision to stage public Question Time  events seemed like the first glimmerings of hope. The format was simple, invite the membership, dish up some food and let them loose ... well not quite Lord Copper, not quite. The invitations went out and the food appeared but that's where any resemblance to the advertised event stopped. Each of the evenings I attended opened with a question which had (so we were told) been submitted in writing before the meeting began. Initially I was a bit confused. Why should a question submitted anonymously by someone who couldn't be bothered to attend in person take precedence over those who had made the  effort ? Silly me. By taking control of the narrative from the get-go, the College was able to steer the conversat...

  College spends £20 million on extravagant new HQ - see estate agency blurb here  (it takes a while to load but it's well worth it, if only to see how carefully 😂 they spend our money). Who cares if the practicing profession is on its knees, be of good cheer, the RCVS has purchased a new HQ in fashionable Clerkenwell, home to global mega-brands such as  Fred Perry , Unilever , Microsoft  and Linkedin.   A snip at £20 million  (not including what they’ve spent subsequently on alterations or their ghastly, ugly, incoherent new logo)  it boasts 20,000 square feet of ‘media style offices’ and is well suited to ‘remote and hybrid working.’ Which begs the question, if the future emphasis will be on ' remote and hybrid working'  why did we not buy the same space for a third of the price in Leeds or Manchester ?  It would be nice to know what arguments were advanced and by whom to justify this grotesque indulgence  (Pay up suckers) Perhaps...