When working in a veterinary clinic, you must work according to the clinic protocol or policy at all times. That being said it is also important that you have a good working knowledge of the ideal way to do things even if your clinic does it a different way. We are assessing your knowledge, not your clinic protocol. It is ok to say :
Our clinic policy is to only TPR inpatients once per day however ideally it should be done at least twice per day as a patient’s status can change quickly. The TPR should be more often for ill geriatrics or critical care patients and their status can change rapidly, and they may even need hourly observations done. I performed a TPR on Molly and recorded my finding on the hospitalisation chart.
When discussing how you performed a certain action or task, you must demonstrate your knowledge of how this task should be performed according to the information you have been taught within your Learner’s Guide. You should discuss the variations in your clinic policy compared to the Learner’s Guide, however be aware that if your clinic does something differently to the learner’s guide, this does not mean your clinic is doing it wrong! There is often more than one way to perform a task or treat a disease. Your Learner’s Guide will take you through the logic of why something should be done a particular way, and if the same logic applies to the way you do a task with the same end result, then often you won’t need to discuss a variance to the learners guide. However if you apply that logic and your method does not achieve the same end goal, then perhaps reviewing your clinic policy with your workplace supervisor will allow you to explore whether your clinic can improve its current procedure or policy.
Think about explaining the tasks you perform in a way that anyone without industry knowledge would understand. This way you can be sure you have covered the points in detail.
You can use an appendix, footnote or an additional comment to highlight this if you prefer (so it doesn’t interrupt your flow of text) or you can just leave it as part of your text.
Taking our text above, it could then become:
Our clinic policy is to only TPR inpatients once per dayA, so I performed a TRP on Molly in the morning and recorded my findings on the hospitalisation chart.
Then as a foot note on that page have the following (demonstrating your knowledge on :
A. Ideally TPR on inpatients should be done at least twice per day as a patient’s status can change quickly. The TPR should be more often for ill geriatrics or critical care patients and their status can change rapidly, and they may even need hourly observations done’.
Remember discussing a difference in your clinic policy to the learner’s guide does not need to be a long essay. It might be as simple as stating ‘ideally gloves should have been worn when...’ or ‘a parvocidal disinfectant agent, such as F10, should have been used to clean this area rather than standard floor cleaner as standard floor cleaner will not kill viruses’.