Discrimination and client communication: how can the profession do better?

The 14th and 15th August saw Courageous Conversations, the UK's first veterinary diversity and inclusion conference hosted by the University of Surrey, take place online. Attendees were both staff and students from all UK vet schools as well as representatives from BVA, RCVS, SPVS and VMG. The volunteer groups British Veterinary Ethnicity and Diversity Society (BVEDS), British Veterinary LGBT+ (BVLGBT+) and British Veterinary Chronic Illness Society (BVCIS) finally had an opportunity to have interested parties together in one ‘virtual’ room to talk about the problems marginalised groups face within the veterinary profession both from our colleagues as well as the wider public.

The second day of the conference was the student-focused day. This was an appropriate forum to report on some research we have conducted at the University of Surrey looking into the types of discrimination that students have experienced or witnessed while undertaking their clinical EMS, followed by a workshop to brainstorm some solutions. The research was similar to the BVA's Discrimination Survey and the BVA Spring 2019 Voices Survey described in their report on discrimination in the veterinary profession (BVA, 2019) where 29% and 24% of respondents respectively reported experiencing or witnessing discriminatory behaviour.