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This 80-page handbook provides seven lesson plans, four assessment tools, fifteen supporting materials such as marking rubrics, and a bibliography to support training in communication for veterinary care.  The handbook enables a lecturer to teach skills and insights into empathy – essentially emotional intelligence – for professional veterinary practice, with particular attention to the owner-pet bond.

Teaching a professional skills module for veterinary students?  This handbook is meant for you.  If you are trying to teach professional skills in any field, such as engineering, this handbook can reveal useful insights, though the examples provided will not be directly applicable.

The handbook’s lesson plans are presented succinctly.  They include a one-paragraph review of the literature to justify the need for the lesson as well as a list of steps required to complete the activity.  Detailed resources may be found at the back of the handbook.  This format keeps the lesson plan to a single page, presenting it as an outline to help selection and stimulate thought.

The lesson plans are not provided with an estimate of how long each activity can take.  Nor are there strategies for demonstrating to colleagues why one should include each lesson in the curriculum, though one can follow up with the project principals for these insights.

It will take some effort to integrate these communication activities into science-based subjects, for those who have insufficient ‘space’ in their professional skills modules, or who indeed have no such module.  That said, the teaching strategies are well conceived, with lots of student group discussion and background theory to help the lecturer to understand, and relay to the students, key aspects of the nature of humans and their pets.

Those who are familiar with facilitating discussions will find adopting these materials to be easier than those who lack such experience.  If you are not yet comfortable with facilitative teaching, then you might want to have a colleague who specialises in communication at your side during development and implementation of lessons (e.g., someone from psychology or doctor-patient communication training).  Note that some exercises call for people to role-play clients; so check on resources needed before launching into an element of this curriculum. The bottom line – good stuff, but you may need a coach by your side (or on the phone).