Frey Erin
North Carolina State University, College of Veterinary Medicine, Department of Clinical Sciences, 1060 William Moore Drive, Raleigh, NC 27607 USA.
J Vet Med Educ. 2023 Apr;50(2):140-146. doi: 10.3138/jvme-2021-0140. Epub 2022 Apr 27.
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the important role veterinarians play as public health communicators and emphasized the importance of engaging veterinary students in epidemiology and public health curriculum, the majority of whom have a clinical focus and struggle to see their relevance in relation to future career plans. To enhance student engagement, second-year DVM students were asked to create a one-page risk communication handout centered on a zoonotic disease and organized with public health message mapping. Informed by the distribution of students' self-declared career plans at admission to the DVM program, students were asked to choose from a list of zoonotic pathogens previously covered in the DVM curriculum and to select a relevant focus species and expected lay audience member. This assignment was scaffolded with previous infectious disease and communication coursework and provided an opportunity for all students to engage with public health material regardless of prior interest or knowledge. Students chose 13 of 15 zoonotic diseases provided, and their species and audience focuses were distributed across previously stated career focuses, including companion animals, food producing animals, exotic animals, and wildlife. Providing options relevant to diverse student experiences and connecting the assignment to clinical competencies supported student autonomy and engagement in public health content outside clinically focused core classes. Students' successful delivery of constructive peer feedback indicated their engagement with the public health course material, integration of learning from other parts of the curriculum, and perceived relevance of the assignment to their future career focus.
持续的新冠疫情凸显了兽医作为公共卫生传播者所发挥的重要作用，并强调了让兽医专业学生参与流行病学和公共卫生课程的重要性，其中大多数学生专注于临床领域，难以看到这些课程与未来职业规划的相关性。为了提高学生的参与度，要求兽医学二年级学生制作一份以人畜共患病为中心的单页风险沟通手册，并按照公共卫生信息映射进行组织。根据学生在进入兽医学课程时自我申报的职业规划分布情况，要求学生从兽医学课程之前涵盖的人畜共患病原体列表中进行选择，并选择相关的重点物种和预期的普通受众群体。这项作业以之前的传染病和沟通课程作业为基础，为所有学生提供了一个参与公共卫生材料学习的机会，无论他们之前是否感兴趣或有相关知识。学生们从提供的15种人畜共患病中选择了13种，他们所关注的物种和受众群体分布在之前提到的职业重点领域，包括伴侣动物、食用动物、外来动物和野生动物。提供与不同学生经历相关的选项，并将作业与临床能力联系起来，支持了学生的自主性以及他们在以临床为重点的核心课程之外对公共卫生内容的参与度。学生成功提供有建设性的同伴反馈，表明他们参与了公共卫生课程材料的学习，整合了课程其他部分的学习内容，并认为该作业与他们未来的职业重点相关。
