Identifying the capabilities most important for veterinary employability using a modified Delphi process.

Background: In the veterinary profession, employability has been defined as 'a set of personal and professional capabilities that enable a veterinarian to gain employment, contribute meaningfully to the profession, and develop a career pathway that achieves satisfaction and success'. This study was part of a multinational collaborative research project aiming to define the capabilities most important for employability in the veterinary context (www.VetSet2Go.

International multi-stakeholder consensus for the capabilities most important to employability in the veterinary profession.

Background: Employability has been defined within the veterinary context as a set of personal and professional capabilities that enable a veterinarian to gain employment, contribute meaningfully to the profession, and develop a career pathway that achieves satisfaction and success. This study explicitly addressed the construct of veterinary employability by exploring the perceptions of multiple stakeholders (recent graduates, employee veterinarians, veterinarian and non-veterinarian employers, para-veterinary staff, academics and policy makers).

Methods: A four-part online survey was distributed internationally via various agencies.

Beyond Competence: Why We Should Talk About Employability in Veterinary Education.

The purpose of this article is to explore employability as a complement to competency in defining the overarching objectives of veterinary education. Although the working usage of the term competency has evolved and stretched in recent years, and contemporary competence frameworks have expanded to better reflect the range of capabilities required of a veterinary professional, the potential remains for the dominance of competency-led discourse to obscure the aim of producing not only competent but also successful and satisfied veterinarians. Expanding the educational mission to include employability may provide this broader focus, by stretching the end point, scope, and scale of veterinary education into the crucial transition-to-practice period, and beyond.

Which professional (non-technical) competencies are most important to the success of graduate veterinarians? A Best Evidence Medical Education (BEME) systematic review: BEME Guide No. 38.

Background: Despite the growing prominence of professional (non-technical) competencies in veterinary education, the evidence to support their importance to veterinary graduates is unclear.

Aim: To summarize current evidence within the veterinary literature for the importance of professional competencies to graduate success.

Methods: A systematic search of electronic databases was conducted (CAB Abstracts, Web of Science, PubMed, PsycINFO, ERIC, Australian and British Education Index, Dissertations & Theses) from 1988 to 2015 and limited to the veterinary discipline (veterinar* term required).

The Life of Meaning: A Model of the Positive Contributions to Well-Being from Veterinary Work.

We present a veterinary model of work-derived well-being, and argue that educators should not only present a (potentially self-fulfilling) stress management model of future wellness, but also balance this with a positive psychology-based approach depicting a veterinary career as a richly generative source of satisfaction and fulfillment. A review of known sources of satisfaction for veterinarians finds them to be based mostly in meaningful purpose, relationships, and personal growth. This positions veterinary well-being within the tradition of eudaimonia, an ancient concept of achieving one's best possible self, and a term increasingly employed to describe well-being derived from living a life that is engaging, meaningful, and deeply fulfilling.