Commonwealth Secretary-General launches scholarship opportunity

Students from Commonwealth countries can benefit from a special scholarship programme launched in London by Commonwealth Secretary-General Kamalesh Sharma to coincide with the Queen’s Jubilee and offered by St George’s University in the Caribbean island of Grenada.

Sixty scholarships – one for each year of the Queen as head of the Commonwealth – are being made available. This includes ten scholarships for the Doctor of Veterinary Medicine Programme. In total, these full tuition scholarships have a combined value of US $3.5 million. Preference will be given to developing countries and small states of the Commonwealth, with the objective of helping to reverse the professional ‘brain drain’. As part of the application process, scholarship candidates will need to submit an essay detailing how the award will ultimately benefit the development of his, or her, country. Prospective scholars can apply via the University website.

Now in its 36th year, St George’s University is an international centre of higher education and has drawn its students and faculty from 140 countries. The University has graduated over 12,000 physicians, veterinarians, scientists, public health and business professionals. More than 5,000 students from Commonwealth countries have been accepted to study at St George’s University in recent years.

There is a decline in the veterinary market at the moment, and many vets are training in disciplines outside the traditional remit of treatment in an effort to broaden treatment options and appeal to a wider variety of client.

It could be worth considering certain alternative therapies during training and considering that, even though clients on the whole are declining, there is still a consistent base of people willing to pay for alternative treatments.

Click here for an interesting article on the issue from Veterinary Practice News

Internships will undergo careful analysis in terms of the quality and relevance of the experience they provide for veterinary graduates and students.

Internships can be a key way of gaining vital experience in a practice. However internships can be notorious for their differing quality: some interns are treated to in-depth workings in a company, others are simply there to make coffee and fill quotas. A normalising standard, which this survey will help clarify, would be ideal.

Click here for full details from AVMA.