Virtual Internships: Unlocking New Doors for Professional Networking
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In a post-pandemic veterinary world, virtual opportunities are growing steadily, offering diverse options to carry out CPD, access remote specialist advice, experience online networking, gain qualifications via distance-courses, and much more. We have all started to merge our virtual networks with in-person encounters when finally meeting at Congress events and CPD evenings. I was inspired by the other fantastic finalists at the Vet Show ‘30 under Thirty’ awards ceremony at last year’s London Vet Show, hearing of the incredible work being done by so many across the veterinary network, and subsequently wanted to discover what I could do to help contribute within the profession.
As we continue to discuss how to diversify routes into specialisation within our profession, it is a good time to evaluate what further virtual experiences are available that may shape our own decision making over possible future career pathways. Throughout the past year I have had the pleasure of discovering the Veterinary Information Network (VIN) Virtual Veterinary Internship (VVI). Created by Dr Stijn Niessen and Dr Yaiza Forcada, this year-long experience is aimed at any practicing vet in a clinical small-animal setting, not just those who have recently graduated or want to specialise.
This process started when I discovered applications were opening in the summer of 2023, and as a budding new graduate vet I decided this would be good to bridge the gap between full-time undergraduate teaching and the independence of being a small animal general practitioner (GP). I was lucky enough to be considered for the role after a brief application period and so I started with deciding my core virtual rotations timetable and picking a final ‘elective’. I considered ‘Clinical Pathology’ a rotation relevant to my current role and so chose this, but there were other options to such as behaviour, exotics, reproduction and obstetrics, ophthalmology, and dentistry. Over the year, I engaged in virtual “rounds”, discussing a logical clinical problem-solving approach to many GP cases that each intern would see within their daily caseload, supervised by different diplomates depending on the time zone of each intern, offering up attendance on multiple times and days of the week to ensure flexibility. We also watched monthly seminars and posted rotation-specific cases, in addition to completing further reading using the VIN resources for each rotations learning objectives. This was all great for expanding on the possibilities of case work-up in GP, reminding us of the benefits within a GP-specialist collaboration.
It is through this internship that I have found my virtual family, building personal connections with vets around the world and providing the possibility for life-long mentorship. Despite the incredible clinical content accessible to interns, the most constructive aspects of the internship for me were the quarterly catchups with my personal mentor Stijn, and the supportive advice threads in our online community. It taught me that post-graduate education is so much more than clinical decision making, and most (if not all) recent joining members to this profession would benefit greatly from additional personal mentorship alongside any graduate development programme.
Throughout the past few years at the London Vet Show I have attended many non-clinical discussions centered on supporting post-graduate qualifications for the entire veterinary team in all settings, and I discovered that my virtual internship experiences resonated with the profession’s current aims for ongoing inclusivity and adaptability. I have found that the best part of any conference event is when you can sit down and chat with likeminded individuals that you wouldn’t have had the ability to in your day-to-day life (hence why the evening social events are always so popular). The internship enabled me wider access to a larger network at CPD events, where I found that my increasing confidence both virtually and in-person has since shone through. After completing the internship and receiving a lovely certificate and supportive message from my personal mentor Stijn, I have gone on to volunteer within the network as a peer mentor, passing on advice and support to the next generation of interns.
Whilst the realities and demands of a clinical internship programme at different institutions and hospitals cannot be replaced for many reasons, experiences like these might provide some ‘food for thought’ to those who feel stalled in their approach to their current veterinary role, no matter the context, and want a flexible way to experience their CPD requirements. With constant improvements being made to virtual veterinary services year on year, I have no doubt that post-graduate education and specialisation will provide inspiration for future conference lecture and discussion content to come. The benefits of some internships are that they provide exposure into both GP out-of-hours caseload alongside referral patient workups, enabling a comprehensive insight. The virtual internship experience echoes this sentiment and aims to provide excellent individualistic support; this is something that I would advocate for, especially for those individuals that are fresh out into their new career and still need a helping hand.
My favourite aspect of the internship was having vets from all walks of life, some 20+ years into their career coming back from a break, conversing with other interns without any barriers. After all, the main descriptor for the VIN VVI is “an internship without borders”. Hopefully we will only see positive expansion and increasing opportunity within this area, and I look forward to the impact this will have on our future networking.
Relevant links:
VIN VVI: www.vin.com/vvi
Social media:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielle-golds-48a8b51b4/
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