Building on Foundations: A Collaborative Approach to Teaching Evidence-Based Medicine to Veterinary Students

Background: In a survey of twenty-two AVMA-accredited colleges of veterinary medicine in the US and Canada, authors Shurtz, Fajt, Heyns, Norton & Weingart (2017) found that librarians are an underutilized resource in teaching evidence-based veterinary medicine (EBVM). This program details the collaboration between a veterinary medicine instructor and a librarian to teach a core, one-credit EBVM course to second-year veterinary students.

Description: Students attend face-to-face instruction sessions that include lectures and tutorials. Lectures highlight key components of the EBVM process, while tutorials allow for in-depth activities and discussions.The course structure purposely mirrors the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons' EBVM Toolkit, which is leveraged throughout the course. The main assignment gives students practical experience in EBVM by outlining the process of answering a clinical query and it is formatted according to a journal's (Veterinary Evidence) submission format for a knowledge summary. The librarian establishes a presence by delivering a lecture and tutorial on information organization, databases for veterinary medicine, and strategies for developing searches. The librarian also walks students through an in-class activity and attends all lectures to answer questions and develop a collaborative atmosphere with veterinary instructors and students. Grading is performed jointly by the librarian and veterinary instructor.

Conclusion: To determine if the collaboration between a veterinary medicine instructor and a librarian to teach EBVM was successful, evaluation will be conducted using standardized student course evaluations. The survey will also be used to guide future course modifications.