Have you ever thought about where your veterinary career is heading? Some people graduate from university knowing exactly what they want to do. Others have a squiggly career path as they change their minds and find new interests. One thing is clear – there's no such thing as ‘a normal vet’.
Every year, the RCVS CPD requirements mean vets in the UK must do at least 35 hours of CPD, and what you choose to do can make a big difference to your career as a vet. What are the different routes that a new graduate vet can go down? Is it worth it to work towards a veterinary certificate? What are the different types of postgraduate certificate for vets? And how do you choose a veterinary CPD provider? The landscape of CPD – and certificates – can be very confusing. It's hard to map out, so we’ve done it for you.
In this article, we’ll explain the different career pathways that vets working in the UK can take, and the CPD and certification required to get there. It’s your guide to the veterinary CPD landscape, and how to make the most of your options. Read on!
While it’s not set in stone, most people tend to choose one of these paths during or shortly after graduating from veterinary school.
For those that enjoyed their dissertation or research projects at university, going into academia might seem like a good idea – a Master’s and PhD can follow your veterinary degree. Vets that go down this route may never go into clinical practice (although some do - either before choosing an academic career or after a few more degrees!). Vets with academic qualifications will often hold teaching posts at universities as well as continuing to research their chosen field. Some may go into industry, such as working for drug or pet food companies.
Some vets know during or shortly after university that they want to become specialists. For this reason, internships are often geared towards attracting new graduates. If you’re later in your career, it’s still possible to go down this route, but it’s a bit harder to find opportunities, and the return to training can be hard work. Normally, specialist training involves a rotating internship, sometimes followed by a discipline-specific internship, and then a three-four year residency before sitting exams to become a board-certified diplomat in your chosen field. Most vets with this high-level qualification work in private referral hospitals or university hospitals often holding teaching posts as well as undertaking clinical work.
This one is a bit of a catch-all, considering how many types of GP vet careers there are, and the various areas of interest that are available to GP vets in the UK. These vets normally leave university and go straight into practice, complete their Veterinary Graduate Development Programme (VetGDP) and continue to contribute to this vital part of the profession.
So, you’ve chosen general practice – but that doesn’t mean you can’t still have areas of interest. In fact, there are a plethora of options available to GP vets to help them continue learning, develop their careers, become more niche, and increase their income through CPD and veterinary postgraduate certificates – let’s take a look at the options.
The RCVS requires that general practice vets complete 35 hours of CPD per year (veterinary nurses undertake 15 hours), although many do significantly more. It also needs to be 'planned' (thought needs to be given to choosing CPD that will develop you professionally) and reflected on, so that you can demonstrate how the CPD you’ve done will change how you practice. Our article about reflecting on your veterinary CPD can be helpful if you are struggling.
Most jobs provide time off and/or a CPD allowance to help you do good, relevant training, but it’s up to you whether you do this CPD over several interest areas, or whether you focus on one area specifically. It’s usually best to plan your CPD and think about areas that interest you or you want to improve on, rather than ‘scattergunning’ with whatever free CPD you can find.
If you decide to focus in on one area, you might want to work towards a veterinary postgraduate certificate. This is a nice way to demonstrate your hard work, gain peer recognition, and to develop your confidence in practice. Let’s look at those options now.
Postgraduate certificates are university qualifications, recognised by employers, the RCVS, and internationally as a demonstration of your commitment and competence in a particular area of veterinary medicine. Lots of providers offer a Postgraduate Certificate level qualification, including the GPCert and PgC from Improve Veterinary Education, the CertAVP from the RCVS and the BSAVA’s PgCert to name a few. All of these are ‘Level 7’ qualifications and may provide eligibility for application for RCVS Advanced Practitioner status (although not all, and there are additional criteria to be aware of too!).
When choosing a veterinary postgraduate certificate provider, it’s important to choose one that suits your learning style and offers quality and credibility too. Some providers offer certificates that are taught face-to-face, while others have online- or blended-learning options, which might be easier for vets studying around unusual shifts, those with dependents, or vets who are based further away from training facilities.
You’ll also need a programme with challenging assessments and an accredited award from a reputable body to ensure that the qualification you receive is well respected by your peers. You might also want to look at your options for further progression after you complete your certificate, such as whether your provider offers Advanced Certificates.
At Improve Veterinary Education, our delegates receive two types of certificate from successful assessments in a General Practitioner programme: The General Practitioner Certificate (GPCert), awarded by the International School of Veterinary Postgraduate Studies (ISVPS), is a highly regarded international qualification. In most subjects, delegates have the option to progress from this certificate to a university-validated Postgraduate Certificate (PgC). The requirements for the PgC may vary depending on the subject; however, this progression could include an additional learning module, along with further assessments. While many of our students opt to continue their programme of study and achieve the PgC, this isn’t essential, and the ISVPS GPCert is a highly regarded international qualification in its own right.
Once vets have their postgraduate certificate, what then? Well, some vets go on to take more certificates in other disciplines – you might be interested in hearing from this vet who took their second certificate with us and has booked into a third and fourth. Other vets go on to take Advanced Certificates, Postgraduate Diplomas, or Professional Master’s.
Those with PgCs and equivalent certificates might choose to apply for RCVS Advanced Practitioner status – we explain more about how this works and which of our certificates are eligible in our article here. With a postgraduate certificate and experience, many vets start taking second-opinion cases or may even get a job in a referral centre. In other words, a veterinary postgraduate certificate can be a route out of general practice for those that want to pursue other career paths.
There are a lot of options for veterinary CPD, and it can be a confusing landscape at first glance. If you don’t wish to specialise by undertaking an internship and residency, it doesn’t mean you can’t demonstrate your interest and expertise in a particular area of veterinary medicine and progress your veterinary career in a fulfilling manner. As a general practitioner, you can use your CPD hours to focus on a particular area and even work towards a postgraduate certificate and RCVS Advanced Practitioner Status, which can further your career, increase your earning potential, and be highly fulfilling, improving your mental health and job satisfaction.