Overview

NC State College of Veterinary Medicine is an internationally recognized leader in the veterinary medicine because we are bold, innovative, and comprehensive in our approaches to research, clinical service,

and education.  For us to maintain our preeminence, we know that we must continue to evaluate, innovate, and evolve.

Veterinary education, like medical education, is changing rapidly in response to a variety of factors:

  1. Accreditation standards increasingly prioritize the demonstration of graduate competence in key areas over more time and content-based approaches.  This approach, generally termed competency-based education, with
  2.  a competency characterized as “An observable ability of a health professional related to a specific activity that integrates knowledge, skills, values, and attitudes. Since competencies are observable, they can be measured and assessed to ensure their acquisition.”[1]  
  3. Accreditation standards reflect a more comprehensive view of professional competence, including elements of communication, collaboration, practice management, clinical reasoning, and information literacy, among other domains, formally acknowledging the breadth of what medical practitioners have perhaps always needed to be able to do.
  4. The tremendous and expanding quantity of knowledge paired with ever-easier means of accessing new information forces us to think differently about carry-around vs. look-up knowledge and how we prepare our graduates to continue to update their practices and perspectives.
  5. Finally, our awareness of the relationship between teaching practice and learning is evolving rapidly as our educators pair learning about cognitive psychology, learning theory, and practice with content expertise in veterinary and scientific disciplines.

It’s an exciting, challenging time.

The CVM is currently in a three step process, centered around a required curricular review, to continue to evolve it’s DVM educational program.

 

  1. AAVMC Working Group on Competency-Based Veterinary Education, Molgaard, L.K., Hodgson, J.L., Bok, H.G.J., Chaney, K.P., Ilkiw, J.E., Matthew, S.M., May, S.A., Read, E.K., Rush, B.R., Salisbury, S.K. (2018) Competency-Based Veterinary Education: Part 1 – CBVE Framework. Washington, DC: Association of American Veterinary Medical Colleges.