Dispositions

A veterinarian must be able to work collaboratively with many stakeholders and accommodate changes in personal goals and the profession.  Success in this vein requires a set of professional dispositions guiding behavior and decision making towards positive outcomes. We feel it is essential that the curriculum supports the development of self-regulation, professional values, and interpersonal awareness implicitly, explicitly, and with careful intentionality.

The Curriculum Steering Planning Committee (CSPC) gathered extensive feedback from CVM faculty, staff, and students, as well as from veterinary employers representing a variety of focus areas.   This information was used to create a list of traits and attitudes necessary for success as a veterinary professional. Using this list and consulting studies of inter-professional dispositions, the CSPC has defined three critical dispositional domains with sub-components that may be individually taught or assessed.

Self Regulation

Professional Values

Interpersonal Awareness

DISCUSSION POINT:  How do we guide development of professional dispositions?

Intentionally developing professional dispositions requires a system for providing feedback and remediation.   To this end, a consistent and clear framework for comparing students’ behavior to dispositional standards will be established across all four years and all course areas.  A clear framework facilitates student and faculty understanding of expectations and guides feedback where necessary.  At the course level, this may take the form of an outline or rubric of dispositional expectations included within the syllabus and referenced as needed.  Students who fail to meet expectations should feedback and guidance towards remediation from their teachers, advisors, and/or Student Services.

Defining the structure of this system is part of the Stage 2 mission.