Six overseas veterinary surgeons welcomed to the Register after passing examinations

RCVS President Dr Bradley Viner, has welcomed six veterinary surgeons to the UK Register after they passed the Statutory Examination for Membership of the College.

All six registrants (pictured right with Bradley) had attained their veterinary qualifications from institutions outside the UK that we do not recognise and therefore had to pass the examination in order to become members of the RCVS and be eligible to practise in the UK.

This year’s successful registrants were:

• Daniel Antonio Castillo Castagneto, Universidad Mayor, Chile
• Farah Maria de Souza, Pondicherry University, India
• Jose Fernando Granada Castaño, University of Caldas, Colombia
• Julia Ivanova, Saint Petersburg State Academy of Veterinary Medicine, Russia
• Sung Dong Lee, Kyungpook National University, South Korea
• Hamid Navid Khomami, Shiraz University, Iran

To pass their statutory examinations, each candidate had to meet our English language competence requirements, and take written, clinical, oral and practical examinations which, this year, were held at the University of Cambridge. This year a total of 30 candidates entered for the exams.

Joined by family and friends, they attended a special ceremony at our offices in Belgravia House on Wednesday 5 August where they were formally welcomed to the Register by Bradley and our CEO Nick Stace.

They also made their professional declarations in which they promised to pursue their work with integrity, accept their responsibilities to the public, clients, the profession and the RCVS and ensure the health and welfare of animals in their care.

Before taking the registrants through their professional declarations, Dr Viner said: “The words of the declaration have been carefully crafted and they carry great significance as they are key to what it means to be a veterinary surgeon in the UK. Combined with the Code of Professional Conduct and its supporting guidance, they represent the standard of behaviour we expect from veterinary surgeons.”

After taking their declarations and being presented with their certificates of membership, the President then imparted three pieces of advice to the registrants. The first was to do no harm and to only do good for the animals in their care and to always think of the patient and its welfare first; the second was to ‘revel in the routine’ and treat every case as unique; and third was to learn to live with uncertainty and learn from mistakes.

On the role of the College he added: “Think of it as a force for good. It is what makes us professionals and the standards that it lays down and the Code aren’t there to catch you out, but to help you and to support you to make the difficult decisions that you will be faced with during your career.”

Commenting on the experience, Farah Maria de Souza said: “I feel very excited about joining the Register and practising as a veterinary surgeon in the UK. This was the second time I had undertaken the examination so I was very glad to pass as I had been studying for it for three months beforehand.

“I am looking forward to working in the UK because I wish to get more skills and develop myself professionally and I, eventually, hope to take these skills home to practise in India.”

Pictures of the ceremony and the registrants are available to download from our Flickr site.