Inquiry

How might arts-based learning create spaces where veterinary students strengthen professional skills while reconnecting with creativity, care and themselves?

Vet Awareness Week (2025)
Caring for Carers

Research Question: How might creative practice support embodied learning, professional communication and wellbeing within veterinary education?

care as a relational practice—for oneself, for others, and for the more-than-human world not care Not care as in nursing or healthcare.

Before designing the workshops, I spent time within the veterinary school observing how students learned through their hands. I visited surgical practice rooms, examined the instruments they used and spoke with third- and fourth-year veterinary students about the practical skills they were developing. They demonstrated how they worked with surgical simulators representing calves, horses, dogs, cats and birds, allowing me to better understand the tactile nature of their learning. Watching them work revealed that veterinary education depends not only upon scientific knowledge but upon touch, precision, repetition and careful observation. These embodied ways of knowing became the foundation for designing the creative workshops.

Motivation

When I learned that veterinarians experience disproportionately high rates of psychological distress, burnout and suicide despite undertaking years of intensive professional training, I was deeply affected. These are the people who dedicate their lives to caring for our companion animals, livestock and wildlife, often supporting families through moments of joy, uncertainty and grief while carrying significant emotional responsibility themselves.

I felt compelled to respond in the way I knew best: through art.

Rather than seeing creativity as something separate from scientific education, I wondered whether arts-based learning could contribute to veterinary education by supporting the very skills students already rely upon. Could creative practice become another way of communicating, observing, making and caring? Could it also create moments of reflection within a profession that rarely slows down?

The workshops formed part of Vet Awareness Week at the University of Melbourne's Werribee campus and invited third- and fourth-year veterinary students to engage with creative practice as both a professional resource and a personal outlet.

Beginning with Their Practice

Before designing the workshops, I spent time within the veterinary school observing how students learned through their hands.

I visited the surgical practice rooms, examined the instruments they used and spoke with third- and fourth-year veterinary students about the practical skills they were developing. They demonstrated how they worked with surgical simulators representing calves, horses, dogs, cats and birds,  allowing me to better understand the tactile nature of their learning.

Watching them work revealed something I had not fully appreciated beforehand.

Veterinary education depends not only upon scientific knowledge but upon touch.

Students continually learn through their hands. They develop tactile sensitivity, precision, careful observation and the ability to make decisions through subtle physical feedback. Their hands become instruments of communication, diagnosis and care.

Rather than designing art workshops independently of this practice, I chose to design with these embodied ways of knowing already in mind.

Designing for Dexterity

The workshops were intentionally designed to complement the manual skills already central to veterinary education.

Drawing, painting and collage encouraged observation, visual communication and controlled hand movements. Textile practices, including embroidery and hand stitching, developed repetitive fine motor movements closely aligned with suturing techniques practised throughout veterinary training.

One workshop invited participants to create jewellery using tiny beads manipulated with surgical-grade stainless steel tweezers that had belonged to my father, an engineer whose own work demanded extraordinary precision. Picking up each individual bead required concentration, patience and steady hand control. Although playful, the activity quietly reinforced many of the same fine motor skills students were simultaneously developing within their clinical training.

Rather than attempting to simulate surgery, these creative activities provided opportunities to continue refining dexterity through enjoyable, low-pressure forms of making.

Participants repeatedly commented that they had never considered creative practice as relevant to veterinary medicine. Many expressed appreciation for discovering artistic activities they could continue independently at home, not only to maintain their manual skills but also to create moments of reflection outside the demands of university and clinical placements.

Drawing as Communication

Veterinary professionals regularly communicate complex diagnoses, treatment plans and surgical procedures to animal owners. These conversations often involve technical language, uncertainty and emotion.

Drawing offers another language.

Throughout the workshops, participants explored how simple visual representations could communicate anatomical structures, procedures and clinical concepts in ways that were immediate and accessible. Rather than producing polished illustrations, drawing became a practical tool for explanation, conversation and shared understanding.

The workshops demonstrated that visual communication can complement scientific knowledge by helping translate complexity into clarity.

Trust Through the Hands

As I observed students working throughout the workshops, I became increasingly aware that much of veterinary practice depends upon trust developed through the hands.

Artists understand this relationship.

So do surgeons.

So do veterinarians.

Hands learn through repetition, attention and experience. They become increasingly responsive to subtle textures, pressure and movement. Whether holding a paintbrush, threading a needle, manipulating tweezers or performing a surgical procedure, knowledge is not only intellectual but embodied.

The creative activities invited participants to continue cultivating this embodied intelligence through making.

Artistic practice did not replace their professional learning.

It worked alongside it.

Creativity as Care

Alongside developing professional skills, the workshops also created something less tangible but equally important.

Time.

Within demanding degrees characterised by long hours, assessment pressures and emotional intensity, participants were invited to make without being assessed.

There was no correct answer.

No diagnosis.

No patient.

No expectation of perfection.

Participants simply made.

Many shared how meaningful it felt to be recognised as people rather than only future professionals. Several spoke openly about the pressures they anticipated entering the profession and their concerns about maintaining their own wellbeing throughout their careers.

The workshops did not attempt to solve these challenges.

Instead, they offered a creative space where participants felt noticed, supported and encouraged to continue making beyond university.

Reflection

Designing these workshops began with empathy.

When I learned about the wellbeing challenges experienced throughout the veterinary profession, I felt compelled to respond through my own practice as an artist and educator. Yet before making any assumptions about what students might need, I chose to begin by learning from them.

Observing veterinary education firsthand transformed my understanding of the profession. I realised that veterinary students already possess deeply embodied ways of knowing. Their learning is grounded in touch, precision, repetition, observation and trust in their hands. Rather than introducing creativity as something entirely new, I sought to design artistic experiences that resonated with the tactile knowledge they were already developing.

Reflecting on the project afterwards, I realised these workshops were never simply about teaching drawing, painting or embroidery. They became opportunities to reveal the connections between artistic and veterinary practice. Both rely upon careful observation. Both require skilled hands. Both demand patience, concentration and sustained attention. Above all, both are fundamentally practices of care.

The experience also reinforced my belief that arts-based learning has an important place beyond traditional creative disciplines. Creativity is not only a means of producing artwork but a way of thinking, communicating, reflecting and engaging professionally. By working with rather than outside existing disciplinary practices, arts-based learning can enrich professional education in meaningful and unexpected ways.

Vet Awareness Week suggests that creative practice can contribute to veterinary education by strengthening visual communication, supporting embodied learning and creating opportunities for reflection within an emotionally demanding profession. Rather than positioning art as therapy, the project explored how creative practice might become one of many resources that supports confidence, professional capability and sustainable ways of caring for both others and oneself.

Sometimes professional knowledge is often carried through the hands.