Involvement with BEVME is voluntary and self-directed, people put in only the time and effort that they choose to and the major question was how could organisations work effectively without BEVME being lost within the myriad of important and urgent things that people have to do.

The answer arose out of the quote by Dr Peter Mumford (of learning styles fame) who said:

“The endpoint of Learning is action not knowledge”

Addressing this point makes the final important step to supporting action within the organisations and practices so that they see genuine benefits from their membership and using small group processes allows the organisation to interact flexibly and with support.

Action Learning(AL) and Action Research(AR) are the related concepts being used. I have used the concepts in the past both within academia and business and they can be
extremely effective.

• AL originated in the UK with the work of Reg
  Revans at Lancaster University – http://www.ifal.org.uk/brief.html
• AR originated in the US with the work of Kurt
  Lewin – http://www.infed.org/research/b-actres.htm
• www.actionlearningassociates.co.uk/actionlearning.html
  gives fairly good background to AL from a business perspective.
• Details of one specific “Mastermind
  Group” concept is given at www.theinspiredgroup.com/business-development-programmes/inspired-mastermind-groups/

The concepts will be refined for BEVME and I will probably be offering a similar opportunity to the profession later in the year with Collaborative Practice Groups (CPG’s) that will work in a similar way.

Essentially:

• 4 – 8 representatives from organisation
  (depending on size, type etc)
• BEVME provides facilitator
• Initial meeting to establish goals, objectives
  and rules
• Subsequent contact via EMails, telecons or
  meetings(virtual ?)
• First goal to explore and answer the WIIFU
  (Whats in it for us) question
• Identify ROI of membership
• If engaged and committed, pursue goals

They are the first corporate that I met with whilst visiting the two Scottish Vet Schools.

Interestingly, whilst they seemed to see the business advantages of BEVME, their involvement seems to be prompted by a strong altruistic concern for the wellbeing of not just their own staff but also the wider profession.

Generally seemed to go well and he seemed to get where I was coming from. I had adjusted my approach in the light of the meeting yesterday with Edinburgh and am more comfortable with it.

He expressed an interest in interacting with BEVME with regard to EMS provision and this led to an interesting progression of thinking:

Edinburgh interesting in developing relationships with GP practices via BEVME >> enhancing the EMS experience by providing training to the practices >> Training in the development of coaching and mentoring support rather than clinical training in that these skills would be of direct use and benefit to the practices concerned.

This was the first meeting with a university and there was a lot to learn from it.

Though interested, there seemed to be a real difficulty making the jump to taking a systemic perspective and an expectation that I would lay out the benefits rather than co-creating them.

I need to look at what is communicated and how. It is said that you need to start the journey wherever the person is and I did not achieve this here.

The imminent appointment of a new head of school adds somewhat to the time stress for all involved and it was agreed to revisit the issues early in the New Year.

A generally positive meeting and a number of potential actions for the future emerged.

For me, The key philosophical difficulty remains in that, as things stand, practices are being expected to fulfill a function (Clinical Coaching) for which they are not being trained and we need to either adjust the job name/description or provide appropriate training.

Watch this space !

The reason for choosing this audience was that they are likely to have more
knowledge of the underpinning theory and therefore good to get a critique
from.

Generally, the presentation went well and usefully, they highlighted the
need to focus on the benefits and on encouraging wider engagement into the
process.

They also suggested a potential link at a regional conference that they are
going to hold in 2012, Watch this space.

We have now been invited to a meeting at RCVS to discuss the results and possible ways forward. Our objective for this meeting will be either the removal of the coaching requirement from the VN Scheme or ensuring that adequate effective clinical coach training is provided.

If you would like a copy of the of the surveys and are not yet a member of the BEVME community, please go to: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/BEVME

The conference was geared to provide a low cost/high quality event and the
team are to be congratulated on a very successful event attracting over 50% more
participants than were expected.

The organisers were very keen to include more GP Vets and  I think this is
something that we should certainly encourage through BEVME. The idea is that the
event rotates around each of the Vet Schools and, next year, it to be held in
Edinburgh which will be a great opportunity to see their new facilities.

I shall feedback some ideas and thoughts as they occur to me but the two
big messages that came over to me were:

1. Sir Peter Rubin, head of the GMC and involved in the development of the
Nottingham Vet School, gave the second plenary address. Although he was suitably
non-judgemental he discussed the extreme conservatism of the medical and the
veterinary profession when it came to change but how, although it was happening
now in the medical profession, the veterinary profession was lagging behind with
curricula reministent of those seen in medical schools in the 1960′s. This
struck a chord with my doctorate finding that adult learning principles that
developed in the 1970′s & 1980′s still remain largely absent from veterinary
CPD.

A case, perhaps, for BEVME to inform and support a more critical approach
by GP Vets to the products of our universities and CPD providers. After all, we
are the end users, bear significant costs (EMS, CPD etc) and should, perhaps,
take more responsibility for the fitness for purpose of what we consume.

2. Having heard about the conservatism and inertia within the educational
machine, I then spent two days in the company of the most pleasant, dedicated
and innovative educators you could ever imagine. This got me to thinking about
just where the barriers are and how , within BEVME, could have an
influence.

Food for thought !

Definitely a lot of good work going on, huge potential but a lot of work still to do.

RCVS have been working hard to address the issue and, to gather evidence, BEVME conducted surveys of Clinical Coaches (101 respondants) and Clinical Coach Trainers (18 respondants).

The results have been made available to RCVS and are available to the BEVME community.

If you are not a member of BEVME and would like a copy of  the results, you can join BEVME at: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/BEVME