Lessons from Penguins: Human Factors and Wellbeing for Sustainable Veterinary Teams
Join us for this webinar where we will explore human factors and systems thinking and how these relate to wellbeing and optimisation of veterinary teams. We will be joined by Megan Davis, Emma Cathcart and Liz Barton, all of which have extensive experience in human factors and systems thinking.
Key outcomes:
- Understand and define what humans factors and systems thinking are and how they relate to the veterinary profession
- Recognise how human factors and systems thinking are linked to wellbeing
- Develop practical ways to implement human factors and systems thinking into everyday practice
Speakers:
Megan Davis: After graduating from The Royal Veterinary College in 2012, Megan spent 6 years in full time clinical practice. After experiencing a period of burnout in practice, Megan moved into a role in veterinary education in 2018 at the University of Surrey developing the innovative distributed final year teaching model. In 2023, she moved to Linnaeus to an educational role managing undergraduate student placements. Megan is now self-employed, doing a mix of locum work, running a home euthanasia service, and freelance and consultancy work in Human Factors and Veterinary Education.
Megan is studying for her Master’s in Patient Safety and Clinical Human Factors at the University of Edinburgh, due to finish in summer 2026. Through her training in this area, she has developed a particular interest in Systems Thinking and Human Centered Design.
Emma Cathcart: Emma graduated as a vet from the University of Glasgow in 2009 and worked in small animal practice in central Scotland and Australia for around 7 years. Then, after returning to the UK with a young family, she made a transition into academia when she joined the team at the University of Surrey. Here she developed a particular interest in helping veterinary students explore factors affecting performance and outcomes in practice. From here she did a Masters degree in Patient Safety and Human Factors with the University of Edinburgh, alongside work and home life. This led to her current role at the VDS where she is their risk analyst. Here, Emma works on growing VetSafe and developing insights to help teams optimise opportunities for learning and improvement in all areas of their practices. Emma is a member of the VDS Green team who have achieved Green IIE Accreditation and who have committed to a net zero plan but 2040. As part of this role, Emma strives to combine her passion for systems thinking and human-focused design on positively impacting sustainability outcomes for teams.
Liz Barton: Liz graduated in 2004, and has worked in a variety of clinical settings from mixed practice in the Lake District to an internship at a referral centre. She started developing wellbeing resources for veterinary teams as a passion project while working part-time after starting a family. WellVet was launched in 2018 to improve access and engagement with mind, body and soul for wellbeing support. The skills and network built alongside this created a number of opportunities for Liz and she has been brave and fortunate enough to be involved in a variety of projects. This led to career diversification, including everything from event management to website creation and forum moderation. She has written extensively on wellbeing, women’s health and parenting in the veterinary profession. This led to career diversification into PR and marketing and most recently, she joined VetCT as Head of Communications, where she has truly found her home with a company whose goal is to support veterinary teams by providing round the clock clinical support from specialists.