CONFERENCE REPORT

 

Life-long learning in laboratory animal science and ethics for veterinary and para-veterinary professionals in South Africa

 

 

AJ Mohr^{I, II, III}; JK Chipangura^I; TA Fourie^IV; K Jardine^V; DI Lewis^VI

^ICentre for Animal Research, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Cape Town, South Africa
^IIDepartment of Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Cape Town, South Africa
^IIIScientific Veterinary Consulting Inc., South Africa
^IVLAS Veterinary Consultancy, South Africa
^VWits Research Animal Facility, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa
^VISchool of Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Biological Sciences, University of Leeds, United Kingdom

Correspondence

 

 

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ABSTRACT

Veterinary and para-veterinary professionals working in the animal research sector are critical to ensure scientific quality and the humane care and use of animals. However, there are few focused education and training opportunities available for these professionals in South Africa.
A survey of veterinarians working in animal research, undertaken by the South African Association for Laboratory Animal Science, identified the need for more advanced education and training opportunities beyond the routine Day 1 Skills currently provided for in undergraduate education. These could be broadly categorised into knowledge and skills relating to species-specific husbandry, procedures and clinical approaches, research-related biosecurity and biosafety, and study-specific ethical and animal welfare considerations.
A subsequent workshop, attended by 85 veterinary and para-veterinary professionals in the animal research sector, identified 53 life-long learning needs, each with an associated learning outcome, for this professional community. These were grouped into five overarching themes: Personal development (9); Leadership and management skills (12); Education and training skills (5); Welfare, ethics and clinical skills (20); and Regulations and quality-assurance (7). Of the 53 learning outcomes, 14 were knowledge-based, ten were competencies, and 29 both knowledge and competence.
These life-long learning opportunities, if available and implemented, will address important needs of veterinary and para-veterinary professionals in the animal research sector in South Africa. This would empower these professionals, assist in improving animal and human wellbeing, support high-quality ethical science, and maintain public confidence in the sector, thus enabling a more satisfactory career environment.

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Introduction

Animals are used for many scientific purposes, including the development of medicines and vaccines, enhancement of human and animal health and wellbeing, conservation biology, regulatory testing, and education and training. Veterinary and para-veterinary professionals are critical to the humane care and use of animals in these scientific environments. Veterinary and para-veterinary professionals in the animal research sector include veterinarians, veterinary nurses, laboratory animal technologists and animal health technicians, often in technical and management positions. They are employed, or retained, by any institution or organisation that uses animals for scientific purposes. Laboratory animals are defined here as animals that are kept or used for scientific purposes in a research animal facility or study site, including non-human vertebrates (i.e. fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals) and invertebrates, encompassing domestic, feral, purpose-bred, farm, and free-living animals.

Their role and involvement in humane animal research extends far beyond the provision of routine veterinary services and animal care (before, during and after experimental procedures), encompassing a much broader animal welfare remit, ethical, scientific and management responsibilities. This includes advising on study design, performing the ethical review of protocols, providing education, training and ensuring the practical competency of staff and researchers involved in animal care and use, engaging in research themselves, and ensuring effective and efficient animal facility management compliant with regulatory requirements (FELASA/ECLAM/ESLAV Joint Working Group on Veterinary Care 2008; Fourie 2022; National Research Council of the National Academies 2011; Poirier 2015).

These varied and extensive roles are increasingly being enshrined, across the world, into legislation, national and international standards, and the requirements of Professional, Statutory and Regulatory Bodies. For example, in South Africa, the South African National Standard for the Care and Use of Animals for Scientific Purposes (SANS 10386:2021) (South African Bureau of Standards 2021) requires institutional animal ethics committees to include a veterinarian with expertise in animal research in its membership to review animal welfare considerations and refinements from a veterinary clinical perspective. The South African Veterinary Council (SAVC; Rule 32 of the Rules Relating to the Practicing of Veterinary Professions, GNR 1082 of 9 Nov 2015) requires a registered veterinarian to act as facility principal, to provide weekly oversight of animal health and welfare, surgical and technical support, and to ensure regulatory compliance and maintenance of minimum standards. The SAVC requires all non-registered persons who perform veterinary or para-veterinary procedures, to be certified as competent by a veterinarian and authorised by the Council. This in turn requires effective partnerships with all involved parties, to ensure that standards are upheld.

The appropriate education and training of veterinary and para-veterinary professionals is essential to ensure they are competent in all their tasks in the animal research environment, and as a moral imperative, that they are knowledgeable and able to protect the welfare of the sentient animals in their care. As professionals, they promote quality-assurance mechanisms in order to reduce confounding variables in research projects and thus promoting high-quality science.

However, there are currently few education and training opportunities available in South Africa that are specifically tailored to the needs of veterinary and para-veterinary professionals in this sector. For example, undergraduate programmes for the training of veterinarians contain limited coverage of the ethics, care and use of animals for scientific purposes. While employers may provide variable on-the-job training for veterinary and para-veterinary professionals in the research sector, most new veterinary and para-veterinary professionals rely on colleagues already in the animal research field for continued advice and support. Additionally, animal care and welfare science is a continually evolving field, thus the need exists to provide life-long learning opportunities, which share global good practice. There is therefore a need for additional education and training, and the harmonisation of its provision in the community, on an ongoing basis.

The aim therefore was to determine the education and training needs of veterinary and para-veterinary professionals in the animal research sector in South Africa, and to use this information to identify, within the community, the required life-long learning and continuing professional development (CPD) opportunities.

 

Materials and methods

The South African Association for Laboratory Animal Science (SAALAS) Designated Veterinarian Working Group created a survey to ascertain the education and training needs of animal research veterinarians in South Africa in 2017. Ethical approval was obtained from the Human Research Ethics Committee of the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Cape Town (HREC Ref 867/2016) and the online survey distributed to all veterinarians known to be employed in the sector in South Africa. Survey responses were received from 25 veterinarians working in the animal research sector, broadly representative of academia and industry.

A follow-up national workshop was held as part of the SAALAS Conference in 2022 to ascertain the life-long learning needs of veterinary and para-veterinary professionals in the animal research sector. Eighty-five persons contributed to the education and training workshop, with participants drawn from the veterinary and para-veterinary professional community. Following a brief introduction to the task, participants were divided into multiple small breakout groups, working within these groups to identify the group's life-long learning needs. Each group recorded their needs, which were subsequently shared with other groups in a plenary session. Following the workshop, the authors collated all identified needs (i.e. learning opportunities), grouped them into themes, and created accessible learning outcomes (i.e. starting with a verb that enables it be assessed objectively) for each learning opportunity in accordance with Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives (Bloom et al. 1956).

 

Results

The 25 survey respondents indicated that the undergraduate training which they had received in certain topics, was insufficient to prepare them for the competencies required in the animal research sector. Table I summarises the most commonly identified Day 1 Skills, i.e. the essential skills required to start working in the sector, beyond that which was obtained in undergraduate education; the more advanced training needs; and the CPD needs. Additional shortcomings identified included study design, methodology and statistics; quality management; and objectively assessing the competency of personnel in veterinary procedures.

The 85 participants identified 53 life-long learning (developmental) opportunities, each with an associated learning outcome (LO), for the veterinary and para-veterinary professional community (Table II). These were grouped into five overarching themes: Personal development (9 LOs); Leadership and management (12); Education and training (5); Welfare, ethics and clinical skills (20); and Regulations and quality-assurance (7). Of the 53 learning outcomes, 14 were knowledge-based, ten were competencies, and 29 both knowledge and competence.

 

Discussion

The initial survey identified the need for specific educational opportunities for veterinarians working in the animal research sector in South Africa, including skills considered essential to starting working in this field, further advanced training, and CPD needs.

The subsequent workshop addressed the education and training needs of veterinary and para-veterinary professionals in more detail, identifying five overarching themes for life-long learning:

Personal development highlights personal skills and attributes required to work effectively in the animal research sector. It is noteworthy that emphasis was placed on understanding, from an ethical perspective, one's involvement in a sector where animal suffering is often inherent, and maintaining personal wellbeing in the face of a frequently stressful working environment where veterinary and para-veterinary professionals are often the gate-keepers of animal welfare and care standards. Linked to this is the management of compassion fatigue, and the importance of support networks.

Leadership and management skills are critically important, since veterinary and para-veterinary professionals who enter the animal research sector are often required to - or rapidly promoted to positions where they will - manage or direct units, facilities, people, budgets, systems, processes, projects and procedures. It is thus often one's ability to competently adapt to these leadership roles, and to accept these high levels of responsibility, that determines success and job satisfaction in the sector.

Education and training skills are essential since veterinary and para-veterinary professionals are often in charge of educating staff and research personnel in animal care and clinical procedures, including the requirement to formally assess the practical competence of personnel in procedures.

Welfare, ethics and clinical skills are closely related in the animal research sector. Veterinary and para-veterinary professionals are often required to play an advisory role in terms of animal welfare and clinical procedures during the design of research protocols, to formally evaluate these aspects (in combination with study design) during the Animal Ethics Committee's review of the protocol, and to ensure the implementation of the animal welfare standards and clinical competencies during study execution. A significant challenge is the often diverse array of animal species involved, which may include domesticated and/or wild invertebrates, fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals, and the requirement to understand each species' needs and related clinical aspects and procedures.

Regulations and quality-assurance are important to ensure regulatory compliance, alignment with relevant laws and national standards, as well as quality-assurance systems that may be required to formally document adherence to industry-specific standards of good practice.

The SAALAS conferences and workshops have traditionally been and continue to be, the major face-to-face opportunity for veterinary and para-veterinary professionals in the animal research sector to receive relevant continuing education in South Africa. Although existing post-graduate qualifications and courses in laboratory animal science and ethics can address some of these life-long learning needs, additional or alternative learning opportunities are essential to adequately meet the needs of veterinary and para-veterinary professionals in the sector, in order to effectively deal with the diverse demands of their careers and to achieve job satisfaction. Many professionals already benefit from the use of available open-access (e.g. NC3Rs^a, Norecopa^b, WikiVet^c, or ETRIS^d) or subscription (e.g. AALAS^e) resources. Access to a calendar of freely available webinars from around the world would similarly be helpful.

Several of the developmental opportunities (Table II) are inherently experiential in nature, requiring more than (only) education and training to yield competence. Such experiential learning is especially evident for several of the learning outcomes pertaining to the themes of Personal development, and Leadership and management skills, e.g. those relating to mental wellbeing, empathy, developing resilience, preventing burnout, critically assessing evidence, developing support networks, mentoring skills, directing processes, and insight into paradigms. Such "life-long learning" often refers to learning that occurs outside of formal educational institutes, and may be defined as the ongoing, voluntary, and self-motivated pursuit of knowledge (and skills) for either personal or professional reasons.

The creation of e-learning resources by institutions or associations (e.g. SAALAS) and sharing amongst the community is another option, including consideration of re-purposing open-access resources available elsewhere in the world to optimally suit the African context. Whatever approaches are agreed by the community, will require initial resourcing and mechanisms for sustainability and future development. The latter could come, for example, from a commitment by a collection of institutions or organisations to develop pooled educational resources, in return for free access to the resource collection (a model adopted in Scandinavia by NCLASET, http://nclaset.org). Such initiatives should be overseen by an appropriate body to ensure fairness, quality control, and a central repository. Such a model could also extend beyond borders in collaboration with countries across Africa, and lower- and middle-income countries globally.

The need for additional learning opportunities for veterinary and para-veterinary professionals in the laboratory animal science sector, beyond that historically included in undergraduate programmes for the training of these professionals, raises the opportunity for the stakeholder community to engage with relevant educational institutions and professional bodies, to ensure the curricular inclusion of an appropriate depth of coverage of the ethics, care and use of animals for scientific purposes.

In conclusion, there is a defined need among veterinary and para-veterinary professionals in the laboratory animal science sector, for additional education and training and the harmonisation of its provision. In addition, the life-long learning needs of these professionals include several experiential skills relating especially to personal development, leadership and management skills. A community of practice such as SAALAS creates an environment which supports such learning, including the provision of peer mentorship for experiential skills.

Acknowledgements

We express our gratitude to the members of the SAALAS Designated Veterinarians Working Group who contributed to the design of the 2017 survey; to the veterinarians who participated in the survey; and the attendees of the Education and Training Workshop at the 2022 SAALAS Conference.

Conflict of interest

Author AJM was vice-president and member of the Executive Committee of SAALAS at the time of the SAALAS conference. Author JKC declares they have no conflicts of interest that are directly or indirectly related to the research. Author TAF was president and member of the Executive Committee of SAALAS at the time of the SAALAS 2022 conference, as well as chairperson of the SAALAS Designated Veterinarians Working Group. Author KJ declares they have no conflicts of interest that are directly or indirectly related to the research. Author DIL declares they have no conflicts of interest that are directly or indirectly related to the research.

Funding source

This work was supported by a UK Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council Strategic Training Award for Research Skills (grant number BB/T017287/1). The study sponsors were not involved in the study design, collection, analysis or interpretation of data; the writing of the manuscript; or the decision to submit the manuscript for publication.

Ethical approval

The authors declare that this submission is in accordance with the principles laid down by the Responsible Research Publication Position Statements as developed at the 2nd World Conference on Research Integrity in Singapore, 2010.

This article does not contain any studies with animal subjects. The Human Research Ethics Committee of the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Cape Town approved the online survey of veterinarians carried out in 2016/2017 HREC Ref 867/2016.

ORCID

AJ Mohr https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4618-3733

JK Chipangura https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9341-1252

TA Fourie https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3822-1813

K Jardine https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2189-917X

Dl Lewis https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3014-3427

 

References

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Correspondence:
email:ScientificVeterinaryConsulting@gmail.com

 

 

a. https://www.nc3rs.org.uk
b. https://norecopa.no
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