Abstract
Despite the fact that clinical epidemiology underpins farm animal practice, undergraduate veterinary students often struggle to appreciate the usefulness and relevance of the statistics and epidemiology course, which is delivered during the second year of the BVSc programme at the University of Bristol, limiting their engagement and restricting learning. There are a number of potential reasons: • Statistical concepts such as confidence intervals and p-values are more strongly associated with research. • The application of epidemiological principles to practice is often not obvious or explicit. For example, students may have seen a veterinarian discussing incidence rates of mastitis, the median calving interval or the prevalence of Johnes disease with farmers, but not made the connection with epidemiology. • Data analysis may not feel like a clinical skill and can seem abstract, artificial and disconnected from practice. To address these and to familiarise students with software tools such as Interherd (Pan Livestock Services) in preparation for final year farm rotations, a series of interactive, computer-based workshops were introduced, as part of an embedded vertical theme of evidence-based veterinary medicine. Second year workshops were taught by a farm animal veterinarian alongside a veterinary epidemiologist, and reinforced by a group task which required the software. Real-life examples were integrated throughout, as students got to grips with data from the University of Bristol’s dairy farm. Fourth year workshops, delivered by the same veterinarian, integrated with herd health teaching. Final year students work independently to apply these skills to investigate herd-level problems during the population medicine rotation.