Abstract
The importance of animal welfare and ethics (AWE) within the veterinary education should reflect community concerns and expectations about AWE, and the professional demands of veterinary accreditation on the first day of practice (or ‘Day One’ competences). Currently, much interest and debate surrounds the treatment of production animals, particularly around live export. To explore the attitudes to AWE of veterinary students in Australia and New Zealand, a survey was undertaken to (i) understand what students consider important AWE topics for initial production animal competence; and (ii) ascertain how these priorities correlated with gender, area of intended practice and stage-of-study. The results from 575 veterinary students showed that all students ranked strategies to address painful husbandry procedures as the most important issues on their first day in production animal practice. Additionally, it was found that the importance students assigned to an understanding of human–animal interactions declined as they progressed through the veterinary course. In contrast, the importance of an understanding of euthanasia issues for production animals increased for male students as they progressed through the course, and remained consistently high in females. Females also gave higher ranking to the importance of understanding production animal stress associated with transport, and ranked strategies to address painful husbandry procedures more important than did males. These findings should help the development of AWE teaching resources that address students’ attitudes and competence and that can be delivered when students are most receptive.
Highlights
There is a widely recognized need to ensure that the animal welfare knowledge of newly graduated veterinarians reflects the growing interest and demands of contemporary society in relation to animal welfare and ethics (AWE) [1,2]
All students enrolled in veterinary science or veterinary medicine courses at all universities in Australia and New Zealand during October 2014 were invited to participate in the survey
The following list of production AWE topics were considered of most importance by consensus within the authors and presented for the students’ consideration: (i) Ethics of sustainable production; (ii) Human–animal interactions and impacts on animals; (iii) Intensive versus extensive production systems; (iv) Slaughter and pre-slaughter inspections; (v) Social, economic, and cultural drivers of welfare outcomes; (vi) Strategies to address painful husbandry procedures; (vii) Distress associated with road, sea, and air transport; and (viii) Euthanasia
Summary
There is a widely recognized need to ensure that the animal welfare knowledge of newly graduated veterinarians reflects the growing interest and demands of contemporary society in relation to animal welfare and ethics (AWE) [1,2]. The welfare of production animals is one of the cornerstones of public interest in animal welfare, with common concerns about farm animal welfare including issues such as restriction of movement, invasive husbandry practices that may cause pain, long-distance transport, and challenges that may be induced by the production environment [5]. Previous research has indicated that veterinary students’ attitudes toward production animals’ cognitive abilities and sensitivity to pain may be less developed than their attitudes towards companion animals, that their empathy and concern for animal welfare in general may decline during the veterinary course, and that the attitudes of male and female students may differ markedly [6,7]. Veterinary students at two universities in the United. Drawing data from students at a single veterinary college in the United
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