Healthcare graduate students are constantly adapting to various practice settings and increased rigor to meet program expectations. This increasing level of high expectations and having to perform in front of competent clinicians often induce feelings of inadequacy, anxiety, and fraudulent characteristics of a student impostor. Individuals who identify with the impostor phenomenon may set high self-standards of performance to feel worthy, feel fraudulent, and lack a sense of belonging, and often attribute personal successes to external sources or situations. Identifying the student impostor is the initial step to fostering student success in the clinic. Clinical and academic faculty suspecting a student impostor should take immediate measures to intervene to prevent further decay of the student’s clinical experience. Unmasking the student impostor followed with swift interventions using suggested strategies provided in this paper will improve the student’s and preceptor’s overall clinical experience, leading to a positive outcome.

In this article, we explore the issue of prerequisite veterinary experience hours as a requirement for veterinary school applications. Our interest in this topic began with an investigation into the correlation between species-specific animal experience hours reported in Veterinary Medical College Application Service (VMCAS) applications and third-year grades in companion animal, equine, and ruminant medicine courses for 288 veterinary students. We hypothesized that species-specific experience hours prior to veterinary school would correlate with grades in species-specific courses, particularly in equine and ruminant-focused courses. Using an isometric-log regression analysis, we found no significant association between final course grades and total, or species-specific, veterinary experience hours reported in VMCAS applications. We propose that these data support the assertion that students with wide ranges of pre-veterinary animal experience hours can be successful in third-year Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM) species-specific medicine and surgery courses. With this finding in mind, we discuss the potential benefits and drawbacks of veterinary work experience as a prerequisite for DVM program admission. Although additional studies are needed, we suggest that DVM program admissions criteria should be carefully reexamined with particular consideration for unintentional barriers to equity and inclusivity within the veterinary profession.

Background: Health professionals are cited as the most trusted source for vaccine information, even among the unvaccinated. Research suggests that health professional educational programs lack training and education related to vaccine safety and addressing vaccine-hesitant patients and caregivers. Education for health professional students has been shown to impact knowledge, individual hesitancy, and confidence in ability to address patient vaccine hesitancy. Methods: A virtual educational program was developed and delivered to pharmacy, nursing, and medical students to impact vaccine-related knowledge, hesitant attitudes, and confidence in addressing vaccine-related topics with patients and caregivers. A survey was delivered before and after the training to identify the educational impact. Results: In total, 8 nursing programs, 1 school of pharmacy, and 1 medical school participated in the program. There was a significant (P < 0.05) increase in confidence and knowledge for pharmacy, nursing, and medical students. There was a significant (P < 0.05) decrease in vaccine-hesitant attitudes among nursing students. Overall satisfaction with the program was high, with 92% of students stating they would recommend the virtual educational program. Conclusions: A virtual education program designed for multiple health professional disciplines increased student knowledge, decreased individual hesitancy, and increased confidence in their ability to address patient vaccine hesitancy.

This article details an innovative undergraduate veterinary nursing online educational module integrating workplace safety, management, and communication concepts with a review of hazards for immunocompromised individuals, such as zoonoses, and veterinary workplace risks to reproductive health. This flipped-classroom online session was designed based on the interactive, constructive, active, passive (ICAP) framework for active learning and using the principles of self-determination theory applied to the educational setting. The session used the expertise of a veterinary nursing instructor and a physician. The compressed time frame of veterinary nursing education compels veterinary nursing instructors to incorporate actionable real-world workplace issues and strategies into foundational science content in the classroom. The published literature on veterinary nursing education offers limited examples of this type of integration. This article breaks new ground in offering an example of an educational innovation in a veterinary nursing curriculum, building learner knowledge and skills in an interactive session.