Veterinary Education collaborations welcomed in Jilin, China

Veterinary Education collaborations welcomed in Jilin, China

Earlier this month, the JMICAWE team travelled to the city of Changchun in Jilin province to deliver a 2 day workshop on animal welfare, animal behaviour, and veterinary skills to veterinary lecturers and students from 13 vet schools across China.

Comprehensive veterinary knowledge of subjects such as animal behaviour and pain recognition are essential to the good welfare of our animal patients, but are often not taught in Chinese vet schools; additionally the overuse of live animals in veterinary training may cause emotional conflicts in students who naturally want to ‘help’ animals.

Building on the success of the workshop, Jilin University is keen to develop training courses in the wider nursing and pain management of animal patients, and students from the course were delighted to learn of international standards in veterinary education.

Heather Bacon, of the JMICAWE, who received a follow up email from a student at the workshop, said she was delighted with the response “Animal welfare in China is sometimes seen as being a contentious issue, but significant improvements in animal welfare can be made simply through improving standards in veterinary education, and the skills of vets in practice, and it is this practical approach to improving welfare through improved veterinary care, that the JMICAWE focuses on”

And the student email?  Well you can read for yourself the importance of these topics to veterinary students in China!

“I sincerely hope the collaboration between the university of Edinburgh and Jilin University could improve the welfare of animals beginning from Jilin University. I remembered Hayley said it would be ground-breaking to start using non-animal models in teaching, and it could even earn the university itself a reputation (although I think it should not be the reputation that we are after, it should be the true affections for animals that drive us to care the welfare of animal). But it does not harm because I have always believed in the saying that ‘fake it till you make it’. 

I am sure a lot of students are feeling the same way I do.

Thanks for sowing the seed into our hearts. It will grow.”