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Student Welfare The veterinary course is very demanding and as a result the AVS is becoming more and more aware of the increasing prevalence of problems involving stress, depression and eating disorders and we feel very strongly about student welfare! These issues remain at the forefront of out committee meetings and so this section of the website will become more padded out over the next few months. As a starting point, we felt it was most important to provide a set of links to the student counselling services at each university, and advise to seek their help, as well as that of your doctor or student health service, if you or any of your peers is experiencing difficulties at university: Bristol
About a year and a half ago the Veterinary Benevolent Fund began to fund a project in response to the rising suicide rate in the veterinary profession… depressing and terrifying stuff, but the AVS was privileged to be asked to be involved and the current president and our welfare representative at the time; Kate Lee were involved from day one with a joint VBF/BVA/RCVS working group who began address the problem. The 10 recommendations from this working group were taken back to the VBF council who are now in the midst of implementing them… one of the outcomes is the website below http://www.vetlife.org.uk/ which aims to be a portal to sources of help for any problem faced by vets, vet students and vet nurses. It will soon have a specific student section contributed to by the AVS, so watch this space! For specific problems here are links to the other support organisations which
make up the "new VBF" (also reachable through the vetlife portal) The major problem we face as we work on these issues is their perceived stigma
amongst vet students, but we need to look after each other so we hope as more
help becomes available that we will see a much healthier and happier student
body! |