FIVM Series presents: Resilience in Veterinary Students and New Graduates

Much has been published on negative mental health outcomes in the veterinary profession such as anxiety, depression and suicide. To date, research has been limited to factors that protect against these negative outcomes by building veterinary student and new graduate resilience.

On Friday, November 17, Dr. Susan Matthew will discuss how resilience is a dynamic process and how veterinary students and graduates can strengthen their resilience. She will also talk about the need for students, graduates, educators and practice owners to have a shared responsibility for building resilience in the veterinary profession.

Dr. Matthew’s seminar will include results of research into early-career veterinarian resilience that has been conducted as part of the VetSet2Go project investigating employability capabilities for new graduate veterinarians, funded by the Australian government.

Dr. Matthew is a veterinarian and Associate Chair of Veterinary Medical Education at the College of Veterinary Medicine at Washington State University. She works with and leads her colleagues in enhancing the curriculum and teaching of the Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree program. One of her major projects focuses on working collaboratively with faculty to identify and articulate the learning outcomes expected of all DVM graduates, and reviewing and refining the DVM curriculum in light of these. Her teaching focuses on clinical communication skills and leadership; and her research focuses on veterinary resilience, education and outcomes assessment.

As a follow-on to Dr. Matthew’s research into early-career veterinarian resilience, she is investigating resilience and mental health in mid- and late-career veterinary clinicians. In the future she also plans to expand this research to veterinarians working in all sectors of the profession.