PETS: The Clinical Skills Lab of the Department of Veterinary Medicine at JLU

In the Clinical Skills Lab – PETS (Practical Experience of Technical Skills) at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine of JLU, students learn and practice veterinary skills. The essence of skills labs is practical work on simulators and models – in other words, continuous hands-on experience. This is also done in accordance with the 3Rs principle, which prioritizes animal welfare.

At the Department of Veterinary Medicine at JLU, the Skills Lab is integrated or firmly anchored at various points in the course of study and is undergoing continuous development, both in terms of content in the existing compulsory courses and through the new range of elective courses (Fig.).

In addition to the elective courses established through QuiS, the Skills Lab – PETS offers open practice sessions for students from the 2nd to the 11th semester. With the support of QuiS, the offerings have been expanded to 68 stations for self-directed learning. These rooms can be used for individual skills development and booked weekly to learn or review specific skills at one's own pace, or to prepare for exams and internships.

Photo: Marcus Heine

Furthermore, the Skills Lab was further consolidated within the rotation (practical year in the 9th and 10th semesters), and the didactic concept of problem-based learning was established. In this course, students rotate through the Skills Lab in small groups of 3 to 4 people. Adapted to their advanced level of training, students not only work on individual practice stations but also, with the help of our student tutors acting as role players, develop complex case studies for various situations (pet owners/colleagues). At this stage of training, the focus is no longer solely on learning isolated practical skills but also on assessing the patient's current state of health, considering different differential diagnoses, and initiating and carrying out further diagnostic measures in a structured manner to ensure optimal patient care.

The integral integration of the Skills Lab into the curriculum, combined with opportunities for independent practice and various elective courses, ensures a high degree of sustainability in learning: Certain course content is repeated and revisited, while other content is added and further developed (spiral curriculum). It is always adapted to the knowledge level of the respective semester and focuses on the required learning objectives.