Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS)

Every October, we celebrate Black History Month in the UK, providing a platform to honour, celebrate, and understand the profound impact of Black heritage and culture. At the RCVS, we are proud to support this important month and focus on this year’s theme - ‘Standing firm in power and pride’. This theme highlights the profound contributions made by Black leaders, activists, or pioneers who have shaped history, while also looking towards a future of continued empowerment, unity, and growth. This Black History Month we invited Black veterinary professionals and students to share how their cultural identity and heritage has shaped them, the Black trailblazers who inspire them and what aspects of Black History they’d like people to know about. You can read their full responses here: https://lnkd.in/euz47YtV

Our Mind Matters Initiative (MMI) recently announced the recipients of its latest mental health research grants – a £5,000 Discovery Grant and a £15,000 Impact Grant – open to researchers at all career stages. The Discovery Grant has been awarded to a research project evaluating the implementation of reasonable adjustments in addressing mental health and neurodivergence for student veterinary nurses during clinical placement. The project is being carried out by Dr Heather Imrie MRCVS, Dr Lauren Cooke MRCVS, Dr Gregory Steele MRCVS and Nicola-Jayne Johnson RVN, at Nottingham Trent University. As part of the research, they will explore the implementation of our new Embracing Reasonable Adjustments for Student Veterinary Nurses guidelines. The Impact Grant has been awarded to Professor Elinor O’Connor from the University of Manchester, and Dr Kevin Teoh, from Birkbeck, University of London. They will use the funding to fuel their project researching organisational interventions to support wellbeing in veterinary workplaces. If you are a mental health researcher, keep an eye out on the application period for the next round of our Mind Matters mental health research grants, opening in early 2026. For more information on the grants or applying, please email [email protected] or visit our Mind Matters website: https://lnkd.in/eNiXb8AW  

Help us shape the future of the RCVS Academy! Whether you've used the Academy before or not, complete our 10-minute survey to share your experiences of CPD, your preferred ways of learning and some topics you’d like us to cover in our future free courses and live sessions. Fill out the survey here: https://ow.ly/61tP50XgcOp With over 35 courses already available on the platform and more being added all the time, your input is vital in ensuring that the Academy continues to provide relevant, practical, and accessible CPD for veterinary professionals. Start learning, by logging into the Academy, using your My Account details: https://ow.ly/otLv50XgcOn If you have any questions, please email [email protected]

Please note: our website will be offline for a short period from 8am today for planned maintenance. In the meantime, you can still contact us via 020 7222 2001 or [email protected]. We're sorry for any inconvenience caused.

Tomorrow, Wednesday 22 October 2025, our website will temporarily be unavailable due to essential maintenance work. Work will be carried out from 8am to 12pm, but may be concluded earlier. Please note, this will only impact our main website, our animal owner site, Find a Vet, and the RCVS Knowledge site. All other platforms will be running as normal. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.

The RCVS Academy is pleased to announce the launch of ‘Suicide awareness fundamentals,’ a new course developed under the RCVS Mind Matters Initiative (MMI). Part of MMI’s ‘Prevent’ workstream, the course focuses on providing veterinary professionals with a fundamental knowledge and understanding of suicide, enabling them to feel more confident and prepared to respond to suicide-related situations with sensitivity and care. Developed in collaboration with Dr Rosie Allister MRCVS – veterinary professionals’ mental health, wellbeing and suicide researcher and Consultant Manager of Vetlife Helpline - this free course consists of six interactive modules, takes around one hour to complete, and is available to all veterinary professionals on the RCVS Academy. The course is part of the ‘Culture and Wellbeing’ category, alongside related courses such as ‘Managing mental health in the workplace’ and ‘Civility fundamentals’. To access, simply log in with your MyAccount details to start learning: academy.rcvs.org.uk. For any questions, reach out to us at [email protected].

The RCVS Academy is pleased to announce the launch of ‘Suicide awareness fundamentals,’ a new course developed under the RCVS Mind Matters Initiative (MMI). Part of MMI’s ‘Prevent’ workstream, the course focuses on providing veterinary professionals with a fundamental knowledge and understanding of suicide, enabling them to feel more confident and prepared to respond to suicide-related situations with sensitivity and care. Developed in collaboration with Dr Rosie Allister MRCVS – veterinary professionals’ mental health, wellbeing and suicide researcher and Consultant Manager of Vetlife Helpline - this free course consists of six interactive modules, takes around one hour to complete, and is available to all veterinary professionals on the RCVS Academy. The course is part of the ‘Culture and Wellbeing’ category, alongside related courses such as ‘Managing mental health in the workplace’ and ‘Civility fundamentals’. To access, simply log in with your MyAccount details to start learning: academy.rcvs.org.uk. For any questions, reach out to us at [email protected].

Please note: in view of the significant outages reported by Amazon Web Services today, we are aware that some bookings for our events made via the Eventbrite platform might have been affected. We are reviewing these carefully to identify any potential problems. In the meantime, if you have any concerns about an event booking you have made with us, please email us directly on [email protected]. We’re sorry for any inconvenience caused.

You can now send in your nominations for our 2026 Honours and Awards, including our new Collaboration Award.     The RCVS Honours and Awards recognise veterinary surgeons, veterinary nurses and laypeople, both in the UK and overseas, who are carrying out exemplary work across the breadth of veterinary endeavour. The new Collaboration Award reflects the ‘stronger together’ theme of our new Strategic Plan, which itself has the power of collaboration to ensure the best outcomes as one of its key values.    In addition to the Collaboration Award, the RCVS awards for which nominations can be made this year are:    • The RCVS Queen’s Medal   • The Veterinary Nursing Golden Jubilee Award   • International Award  • Impact Award   • Inspiration Award   • Honorary Associateship   • Compassion Award   • Student Community Award     Find out more about the awards and send in your nominations by 7 January 2026: https://lnkd.in/eghzAU-T  

Delighted to be at #NewScientistLive this weekend, inspiring the future generation of vets and vet nurses!