Kristina Naden - New Diploma in Veterinary Nursing Q & A

Ever wondered how the New Zealand veterinary nursing curriculum is evolving to better prepare future professionals? 

Kristina Naden, RVN, BVN, NZCATT, MRurSci student - Senior Lecturer in Veterinary Nursing at Otago Polytechnic - gives an exclusive preview of the upcoming Diploma in Veterinary Nursing launching in New Zealand in February 2025. 

Kristina chats about how this new qualification is a game-changing revamp for New Zealand veterinary nursing professionals.   

Get ready to explore Kristina's passion for continuous learning and her in-depth research on the health and disease status of dogs in Tonga, along with her commitment to advancing veterinary education

Kristina shines a light on the (very!) significant updates to the Diploma in Veterinary Nursing, supported by a strong community of practice under Te Pūkenga.

In this episode Kristina chats with Julie about:

• veterinary nursing as a second career for her (at 03:39);
• why she chose veterinary nursing vs veterinarian studies (05:51);
• what her transition from clinical practice into teaching was like (10:11);
• some of the changes she's seen in the veterinary nursing curriculum in her time (13:24);
• what the new Dip VN looks like and how it will integrate into NZs veterinary clinics (18:07).

Part 2 - episode 206

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Transcript

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Julie South 0:04

Welcome to Veterinary Voices episode 205 . I'm your ,J ulie South . With listeners in 1,400 cities around the world , veterinary Voices celebrates all that's great about working in New Zealand's veterinary industry . You can find back copies at veterinaryvoicesnz . Veterinary Voices is brought to you by VetStaff , new Zealand's only recruitment agency specialising in helping veterinary professionals find jobs they're excited about going to on Monday mornings in Kiwi vet clinics , vet clinics vetstaffconz .

Julie South 0:50

Today I have the pleasure of sharing the chat I had with Senior Lecturer in Veterinary Nursing at the School of Animal Health at Otago Polytechnic , Kristina Naden . Have you heard that starting in February 2025 , so next year there's a new veterinary nursing qualification rolling out in New Zealand ? It's the Diploma in Veterinary Nursing , which is what Christina and I are talking about in this two-part chat . In case you're wondering if this episode is just for veterinary nurses , what we talk about is also important for practice managers and veterinarians in clinic as well , so stay tuned . Kristina Naden has been lecturing in veterinary nursing since 2009 . She holds a bachelor's degree in veterinary nursing from Auckland's Unitec . She's currently doing her master's when we recorded this episode in mid-September . When we recorded this episode in mid-September , Kristina was hoping to have heard that her Masters had been upgraded to a PhD Whoa .

Julie South 1:52

Veterinary nursing is a second career for

Kristina Naden 1:54

Christina

Julie South 1:55

, after her first career choice in website development and HTML coding . As a veterinary nurse , christina originally started working in mixed practice and then moved into surgical nursing in a referral clinic . As you'll hear , she loves learning . Christina studied some more and is also trained as an equine dental technician . She's run her own successful business in equine dentistry until her body couldn't handle the physical demands placed on it . It was while working with horses that Christina started teaching , eventually transitioning to that full-time . As well as being a student herself . She loves teaching and seeing her students progress and connect the dots Along the way .

Julie South 2:43

Christina Kristina discovered her passion for research . As well as her PhD research , she also has a couple of other research projects underway . She's currently researching and studying the health and disease status of dogs in Tonga . And , for something completely different , she's involved in the engagement of allied veterinary professionals with continuing professional development . Christina describes herself as having a curious mind and a love for writing , qualities that serve her well in her research commitments and undertakings . In her spare time which I really don't know how she has any it can't be much . You can usually find Christina doing something with her three horses or catching up on farm work at home . We join the conversation here , where Christina kicks off with how her career in veterinary nursing started

Why veterinary nursing as a second career choice for you?

Julie South 3:39

. Nursing is a second career for you , isn't it ?

Kristina Naden 3:46

yeah , so I started originally when I left school . I , probably , like a lot of people , I had no idea what I wanted to do . She ended up studying travel course because my mum was like , oh , you should be a travel agent because you like , and I and I was like , yeah , that's a great idea . And I only did it because I wanted to travel essentially , and then realized that that wasn't going to be a job for me . So I ended up doing website development stuff actually so doing working in media for 10 years or something like that . So I set up some websites for a few businesses here and overseas and was a technical writer actually as well , which sounds so . I used to write help manuals for image editing software , which sounds potentially quite , really dull , but we was quite fun because we'd get like a beta version of something similar to photoshop and we would get to play with it and figure out how to do things with it and then write about it . So that's kind of probably where the first sort of my teaching kind of stuff happened . I reckon you know starting to that those sort of help manuals is really it's a form of teaching . So I did websites for , yeah , 10 years or so and then just , I don't know , I didn't feel like I was really being , didn't feel very productive or something . So I was sick of spending time in meetings and looking at a computer . And so , yeah , I decided to retrain .

Kristina Naden 5:03

And then was tossing up vet or vet nursing and chose vet nursing . So I did , I retrained gosh . When was that ? Gosh ? It's almost coming up 20 years ago . Yeah , it was one of those nerdy adult students who used to their hand up and sit in the front of the class and stuff and did the retraining , worked in practice for a little bit , and then I also trained as an equine dental technician . So I did that for a little bit and it was great . I had my own business doing that and had good , good client base . And then my body just went . No , it was too hard , so kind of couldn't feel my hands and we used to get lots of pain down my arms from nerve pain and stuff like that . So , but then at the same time I've been doing that , I'd started doing some part-time teaching , so that just became full-time . So that's sort of how I probably wasn't necessarily in the plan of things , you know , to end up being an academic , but it seems to suit me

Why did you choose Veterinary Nursing vs Veterinarian as a study option?

Kristina Naden 5:51

quite well .

Julie South 5:52

You said that you well , what I heard was you ummed between veterinary nursing and veterinarian . So why did you choose the nursing path in ? So why did you choose the nursing path ?

Kristina Naden 6:05

I think because there were two things probably . Firstly is I didn't think I'd actually cope with the stress of being a vet . Having been in clinics and talked to people , I think at that time I was like that feels quite a stressful job and I didn't . I'm the sort of person I'll make a decision and then maybe think about , you know , it'll wake me up at three o'clock in the morning and I thought I just I didn't . I'm the sort of person I'll make a decision and then maybe think about , you know , it'll wake me up at three o'clock in the morning and I thought I just I didn't know that I would be good at that sort of stressful side of things . And the other part of it was that I like the not to say the vets don't care , but the caring or the nursing sort of one-on-one care that you get , that you get to follow a patient through from the whole time .

Kristina Naden 6:46

Having said that , I was a surgical nurse at a referral clinic and I loved surgery . I just loved scrubbing in and being part of surgery and I love anatomy and physiology . So that kind of was my like . Oh , now I get to see the insides of an animal , which is , you know , a lot of people don't get to do and see that stuff and I loved that part of it . But I also I loved being the surgical nurse as opposed to the surgical vet and that kind of doing that .

Kristina Naden 7:10

I was like , yeah , that was that was I'd made the right decision back then , you know , that was what I should have done . So and it was neat , you know , seeing patients coming in and in one sort of state and going home in a much better state . So it's funny because people always go , oh , but you know , you see so many euthanasias and I'm thinking it's actually a really , really small part of the job . You know , we do like to have the patients you know healthier when they leave and , you know , coming back to see us again for future things , which was really neat . I love that sort of relationship you got to build up with the clients seeing how the animal , seeing them six months down the track after a fairly major illness or surgery or something like that , and seeing the dog bouncing and happy and coming in to visit you , that was really cool . I love that part .

Julie South 7:56

Pretty much every single nurse that I have spoken with who has also had veterinarian on the career list has chosen nursing because of the ongoing patient care and patient contact that nursing gives them over time . Veterinarian .

Kristina Naden 8:21

I think if I had gone down the path of being a vet , I would have wanted to probably go and specialise as a surgical vet , if anything . But then I was . You know that's still that's a pretty stressful , full-on job . And you know , I've worked with some pretty cool surgical specialist vets and they make it look easy and I know it's not they make it look so easy .

Kristina Naden 8:43

And it's like when , when you , when I've been teaching students and and oh , we , you know I've done fun sort of fun-ish classes , you know like , oh , let's do some suturing practice and things , and and you , you show them and they're like , okay , this is how you do it . And then they do it and they , they're all fingers and thumbs and they're like , oh , and where do you put your hands ? And you sort of suddenly realize that it's it those , I guess , being comfortable using instruments and those just the muscle memory that you create . So , yeah , you see some amazing vets , but you know it's years that's gone behind . What they're doing , that making it look like you know they're just tiny shoelaces , when they're actually doing some pretty complex things , thousands and thousands of hours .

Kristina Naden 9:22

Yeah , yeah , yeah . And that's just not even in the surgery . You know that they've been prepping the night before , reading up on procedures and talking to colleagues and all that kind of stuff , and you know I just was like wow , I felt quite lucky to get to see some of the procedures I was involved in and participate in some of those . It was pretty neat . So I do miss that part of it not being in practice actually , but I do . I've volunteered in clinics in Tonga with South Pacific Animal Welfare in the past and so I've sort of been able to get my fix , I suppose , of clinical practice there . And I'm off there soon , next month , mainly to do a research project . But we're doing it in conjunction with one of the clinics that South Pacific Animal Welfare run and so I'll sort of hopefully get to maybe put my hand up and lend a hand and things like that . So , yeah , that's kind of neat to be able to do that stuff still

What was the transition like from clinical practice to teaching?

Kristina Naden 10:11

, you said at the beginning that you , my words , enjoy sharing .

Julie South 10:18

What was it like first up being a tutor ? What sort of adaptations did you have to make yourself ?

Kristina Naden 10:27

I still remember my first class and I was petrified , to be honest , and it's funny . I remember when I was at high school being involved in speech competitions and that actual , the standing up and talking in front of people never that actual thing , the public speaking things never really stressed me out too much . I know for some people it's , you know , fate , worse than death , but it's always kind of been okay and my theory is , you know , if you know what you're talking about , it's much easier it's when you don't know your stuff . And I think the very first class it was a really straightforward class on , you know , admitting patients for surgery and I had this massive imposter syndrome probably going on , which at that time I didn't really know what that was , I guess , but thinking God , who am I to stand up here and tell people how to do this stuff , even though it was something I'd done . How many times . So it was , yeah , and I remember thinking , gosh , that class was probably actually quite boring for people .

Kristina Naden 11:24

But I learned that students like to hear stories , you know , they like to hear our personal experiences and that we're a human and I think it's really important also that they hear those and they hear about the mistakes we've made and what we've learned from those , because it makes it okay to make mistakes for them .

Kristina Naden 11:41

So I think being able to mix in that here's the information you need to know , here's the theory , here's all the practical stuff you need to know with the and this is what I've done . You know , this is my experience with this . We had this dog come in and it was . You know , the anesthetic was really difficult and this is what I learned from it . And yes , sometimes anesthetics are really simple and straightforward , but sometimes they're a little bit scary and a little bit rough , and this is what I've done in the past and you know this is how it worked for me . So I think learning to , I guess , have personality in the way you teach is really important , and I think it's I don't know more interesting for students as well , and they hopefully get more out of it .

Julie South 12:29

I just want to interrupt this chat for a very brief moment to share something important for clinics that are doing their own recruitment . Wherever you are in the world , check out vet clinic jobscom . You probably already know and agree that traditional recruitment methods just aren't cutting it anymore , which means a different approach is necessary . It also means that you need to differentiate and showcase what makes your clinic a great place to work . Vetclinicjobscom is all about boosting your clinic's employer brand , which is not to be confused with your clinic's client brand . And more Vet Clinic Jobs is affordable , so give your recruitment marketing the oomph it needs through vetclinicjobscom . Now let's get back to today's show . What changes have you seen in the curriculum while you've been tutoring ?

Kristina Naden 13:31

I think there's been more of an introduction in the interpersonal skills and I remember being in a meeting once with an advisory board and someone in the meeting said it was a vet who owned a number of clinics . And they said , look was a vet who owned a number of clinics . And they said , look , I hire on personality , I hire on how that person's going to fit with my team and I can teach them stuff . Everyone learns the same thing . But I want a personality . Who's going to come into my team , which could be , you know , if you've got a team of three or four nurses and you're hiring one and they don't fit , or it's not a good team fit , it can make a massive difference to the way that that clinic functions . And you know , if there's personality clashes and sometimes that sort of stuff is , you know you can work on it and that sort of thing . But if it's a real clash then it's difficult . And I think that's sort of been recognised in the way that the curriculum's changed . We've tried to include more information , I guess , on how to work together as a team , how to communicate with a range of different people , because you'll have clients who have some medical knowledge and some background with that and you'll have clients who I remember a story , one client , the vet , said to them oh look , we've taken some radiographs and your dog's got a fractured tibia . And they went oh , thank God it's not broken , because their knowledge , you know the terminology of a fracture is that's different to being broken . So , as a nurse , you know it's being able to communicate with people who have all sorts of different levels of knowledge and also different backgrounds , you know , to healthcare for animals and being able to work with them to get the best outcome for their patient .

Kristina Naden 15:11

I've also seen the introduction of things like reflective practice , so learning from what we do . When something happens in clinic and rather than doing the blame thing , oh well , you shouldn't have done that , you shouldn't have done that looking at the situation , who was involved , you know what was going on with the patient , what was you know , what equipment did you have available , what experiences did you have available and how can you learn from that and how can we change our practices going forward . If we need to change , we might not , you know , but that sort of continual learning and a more holistic approach to care for animals as well , so that it's not just about give them a drug and do this . But there's where you position the patient in the clinic and what sort of bedding you use and whether it's a patient that likes to be on its own or it needs other animals around it or people around it or those sort of things . So the more interpersonal stuff I think has taken a bigger role than it has had in the past maybe .

Julie South 16:05

What you just said just now about reflective work . I think that is so important and also I think that when something goes wrong , it's very easy to look for everything that went wrong in that wrong situation . But there would be a lot of stuff that went right as well , and I think it's really important to look for all the good stuff and the stuff that worked as well as what didn't work , because you might find something that didn't work , forget about or overlook what did work in that as well . You take out the whole what didn't work and then you've taken out the good stuff as well at the same time .

Kristina Naden 16:53

I think that's really important and sometimes the stuff that didn't work it's really easy to fix , really simple . It might be in an emergency situation that you can't find the crash kit , like it might be , you know , in an emergency situation that you know you can't find the crash kit . So it's like , oh well , instead of having it there , let's have it here . You know , and I've had that situation where I was patient , was staring at the light , you know , on the table . It was not a healthy patient and needed to get some drugs for it , needed to get some adrenaline and that sort of thing , and had to go into another room to get the crash kit and I was just like , oh , that's , that's not how this should work , you know , so let's just move it into that room . So it's like that's really easy to do .

Kristina Naden 17:32

But yeah , instead of like dwelling on that as being the , you know there were a lot of things in that situation that went right , like the nurse it was a student nurse who was monitoring the anesthetic and she did an amazing job . She picked it up up really quickly and she just was like I remember her saying to me oh , I just I don't feel right about this patient and it doesn't seem right and a few things , and she did an amazing job . But , you know , having the kit there maybe it would have made a difference , maybe it wouldn't have , you know , but that's something that's really simple that you could change . So , just having that , going back and reviewing a situation like that , you can pick up little things

Tell me about the new Diploma in Veterinary Nursing

Kristina Naden 18:07

like that .

Julie South 18:07

Talking of changes , you've got pretty major . Well , to me , on the outside it sounds a pretty major change coming up in 2025 with a new curriculum . Is that correct ?

Kristina Naden 18:19

Yeah , so we've got the new New Zealand Diploma in Veterinary Nursing is that's being rolled out for the first time in February 2025 . That's a new two-year qualification . So that's essentially . At the moment , what we have is two one-year qualifications . So we have the New Zealand Certificate in Animal Technology Veterinary Nursing Assistant , which is quite a mouthful , so we just tend to call it NZCAT . So that's a one-year level five qual , and then that's followed now by a one-year level six qualification , the Diploma in Vet Nursing . So that's been in place for when was that ?

Kristina Naden 18:53

I think the first rollout of the Diploma in Vet Nursing was 2017 . So NZQA qualifications get reviewed every five years . So this is part of that sort of five-year review process . So what it's changed into now is one two-year qualification . So year one of that kicks off . Then they'll transition over into the second year of the diploma in 2026 . All the years are just flying by . It's a bit crazy , but yeah , so that's quite exciting .

Kristina Naden 19:37

So it's been a few years work to get to this point . So , and it's been interesting , it's been developed with a unified approach . So there's been a community of practice that's been set up by these nine providers for veterinary nursing who deliver the diploma in veterinary nursing under Te Pukenga , which is the sort of the mega merger of all the polytechnics which is obviously being restructured at the moment . But we've been . So there's nine providers under Te Pukenga doing the diploma in veterinary nursing and we've all been working together as a community of practice to develop this program , which is kind of neat to work as a group together from all providers .

Kristina Naden 20:12

You know not sort of we're not competing against each other , we're just trying to develop the best possible qualification that we can at this stage . So that's been really cool to develop those relationships with other academic staff and learn from each other . Actually there's been a lot of learning . I think you know different ways of teaching and learning , so how we deliver material , different ways of assessment , things like that , so you can always learn from what people do and some things may work and some things may not , depending on whether you're delivering face-to-face or by distance or blended learning . There's different approaches for all of that . But that's been quite a neat process actually to get to know everyone a bit better and learn from what we all do and how we do it differently .

Julie South 20:52

Was there much that was different .

Kristina Naden 20:55

I mean , the key components are much the same . We still teach husbandry and we still teach medical nursing and surgical nursing and that sort of thing . But the new qualification or the new program is really aimed to embed more of those interpersonal skills , especially in the first course and the last course . So we've got some reflective practice being introduced in the first course just at a very intro level . So getting people to consider a situation and what was good about it , what wasn't so good , can they improve on it ? And also looking a little bit about using evidence-based practice to inform what we do . So that's all about the why . So if we always position a patient a certain way after a certain procedure , it's like , well , why do we do that ? Is the evidence to say that that's actually the best thing to do , or is it just because that's the way we've always done it ? And helping students figure out how to find that evidence . And it's a bit tricky because there's a lot of , you know , really good journals out there , but some of them are not always that easy to approach . And , you know , sometimes you see journal papers that have got more numbers than words in them and those are not always the fun ones to look at , but there's a lot of really good veterinary nursing journals out there , so trying to encourage people to use those to inform their practice . And then those skills are embedded throughout the two-year program . So partly through the way we're teaching and learning and we're doing our teaching and learning , and then also in some of the assessments , students will need to use those skills as well . And then in the very last course at the end of the second year , we revisit those a little bit more as well and go okay , you're about to go out and be an employed veterinary nurse and this is how you can embed your evidence-based practice and use your reflective practice skills more as you go out and graduate . So that's probably the biggest change for the theory courses . The other change is that the practical courses are now standalone .

Kristina Naden 22:49

So the current situation is we have how the sort of structure works is we have a qualification sitting at the top and then underneath that we have programs . And the current situation is that we've got nine providers under Te Pūkenga and they all deliver a slightly different program and some of those will have their practicum hours embedded in some of the theory courses and some have those practicums separate . So this new program has them all separate . So we've got four practicum courses , so two in the first year that are 15 credits each and then two in the second year that are 30 credits each . So those practicums include hours at a clinical placement , some time in doing simulations , so that might be at a block course or might be doing practical stuff in a class where you're learning to restrain a patient or restrain a model , sort of a soft toy or something like that . And those all count towards those practical skills , Because the feedback we got from industry was that they wanted graduates with more practical skills .

Kristina Naden 23:46

So the number of practicum hours has increased to 750 over the two years . But that's not all in clinic . So 480 is a minimum number in clinic , which is exactly the same as it is now in the current qualification . But we've added in a minimum of 45 hours in an animal-related facility , so that could be like a kennels or a cattery or a doggy daycare or somewhere like that , and then also those hours in the simulation time . Or some providers have a veterinary simulation clinic , so those hours could go towards that as well . So we've tried to sort of increase the practical experience for students through the two years .

Julie South 24:29

I hope you've found that interesting . I certainly did Remember to come back next week because Christina clarifies how the 750 practicum hours are incorporated into the new diploma qualification . She also answers my question about how this new qualification stacks up against the Royal College's veterinary nursing qualification and how the New Zealand diploma leads into the bachelor's qualification and more . So make sure you select and click that follow option wherever you're listening to this episode so it automatically lands in your podcast feed next week and you don't miss out . Thank you for sharing the last half an hour or so of your life with Christina and me this week . We both look forward to you joining us again next week . This is Julie South signing off and inviting you to go out there and be the most fantabulous version of you . You can be Until next week . Ka kite anō .