Australian and New Zealand College of Veterinary Scientists

Proceedings of the Avian Health Chapter presentations from ANZCVS Science Week 2019 are available via the following link:

/anzcvs-dev-media/27249/avian_proceedings_sw2019.pdf

Sitting Membership examinations is a significant time, emotional and financial investment for candidates.  Ideally, candidates would have good examination technique, so that the knowledge that they’ve acquired can be clearly displayed. 

Most commonly, however, candidates sitting Membership examinations have been out of academic institutions for some time.  The candidates are often anxious about the examination process, and can feel underprepared to demonstrate their prowess.   

The Avian Chapter has felt for some time that candidates would benefit from better training of examination technique, and deeper understanding of the College Examination process.  In 2018, after funding from College Council, the Avian Chapter ran a pilot program to try to meet these goals. 

The program was offered to all Avian Membership candidates, and seven people enrolled for the preparation program.  The program was run in 3 sections, starting with a seminar demystifying the Membership Guidelines for the subject.  The middle section was a webinar that covered appropriate examination technique, which can be viewed below. The final segment provided feedback and assistance with practice examination questions.    

Feedback so far has been positive, with most candidates feeling more prepared and less nervous about the assessment process.  Moving forward, the plan is to offer this framework to other Chapters. 

The Powerpoint presentations from the Avian Health stream at College Science Week are now available to all members to view and download in the 'Chapter Repository' tab

The AGM of the Avian Health Chapter was held in November in 2017 and saw Bob Doneley elected as President. Patricia Macwhirter and Mike Cannon continue as Chair of the CEC and Secretary/Treasurer respectively.

The Chapter is having a strong presence at College Science Week this year, with over 10 candidates applying for Membership and a full day of avian lectures at Science Week. Organised by Karen Dobson, the theme of the day is "Emergency and Critical Care" 

We will be reviewing our Membership and Fellowship guidelines this year. If anyone has any comments or suggestions, Pat Macwhirter (patvet@bigpond.com) would love to hear from you. 

An exciting new development is the roll out of a Membership Training Program. Developed by Deb Monks and Mike Cannon, this program will be delivered by Skype and webinars. Candidates applying for Membership will be able to enrol in the program, which is designed to help them with their exam techniques. The result will be candidates being comfortable with the examination process, helping them with their preparation and reducing their stress levels. 

We are developing an examination 'bank' - a store of exam questions for future Membership exams. These questions have been contributed by many of you, and I would ask that if you haven't done so already, please send me some questions. The purpose of this is to make life easier for our examiners. There is a tremendous amount of work that goes into writing and marking both written and oral exams, and anything we can do to help is much appreciated by the examiners. 

Speaking of examiners, have you given any thought to being one? It is a rewarding position but one that allows you to give back to your profession in a strong and meaningful way. Typically a new examiner serves one year as junior examiner, and then as the senior examiner the following year. If you would like to participate, please let Pat Macwhirter know.