Veterinary Evidence student awards 2024 winner reflects on writing a Knowledge Summary about feline analgesia

Isobel Lawrence won third place in the Veterinary Evidence Student Awards 2024 for her Knowledge Summary ‘Methadone or buprenorphine: which is the better analgesic for feline ovariohysterectomy?’ A student at the University of Liverpool at the time, Isobel is now a qualified veterinary surgeon working in Yorkshire. We caught up with Isobel to ask her about her experience as an entrant to the awards. 

What is your background as a veterinarian and what motivated you to submit to the Veterinary Evidence student awards?

Hi, I’m Izzy, I am a newly qualified veterinary surgeon working in first opinion small animal practice in Yorkshire. I wrote my knowledge summary when I was in my fifth and final year of my degree at the University of Liverpool. Our Association of Veterinary Students representative shared the competition on Facebook, and at the time I was deep into my equine rotation block and craving some non-horse related content. I was also really keen to get something published so I decided to go for it.

How did you choose your topic and how did you find the process of turning it into an answerable Clinical Query (PICO)?

I knew I wanted to do something feline related because I think there is a big gap in the evidence base when it comes to specific feline medicine, especially feline analgesia. On my extramural studies I had seen a range of peri-operative analgesic protocols used for routine feline neuters and I was interested to see if there was evidence to choose one over another, especially going into small animal practice, where not a week goes by without spaying a cat. Specifically, I narrowed it down to the opioid choice in cat spays. There was a bit of trial and error in choosing a PICO question that was specific enough to produce a focused search strategy yet still return some papers to appraise.

Our Knowledge Summary templates are intended to help the author answer their question in a structured, systematic way. How did you find using our template?

The research paper that I had produced in third year was very different in structure to the knowledge summary, so I relied heavily on the template when writing. It was super easy to follow and provided a good way of planning your workflow so that I could meet the submission deadline. It was also really useful to look at other knowledge summaries as a guide on the level of detail needed in each section and to understand how the finished summary should look.

Critically appraising papers found in your literature search is key to considering whether they deserve inclusion in a Knowledge Summary. During appraisal, did you find yourself reading the papers in full or were you able to rely on the abstracts alone?

As a vet in practice I am very guilty of just looking at the abstract to get a quick snapshot of the paper, but when appraising papers for inclusion I tried to at least read the introduction, methods and conclusion to ensure the paper met my inclusion criteria, especially because all the papers had different methods which meant I had to ensure they were similar enough to be able to directly compare their conclusions.

Conversely, how did you find writing your own abstract (or Clinical Bottom Line)? Was it difficult to grade the strength of evidence?

I found it quite tricky to grade the strength of evidence because I think there is definitely some subjectivity to it. I looked at some examples and how they graded their evidence to try and gauge the strength of mine in comparison. I found the rest of the clinical bottom line fairly straightforward; it was just a case of trying to summarise the key points in a concise way which took a bit of tweaking.

What was your experience of the peer-review process?

I found the peer-review process really interesting having never published anything before. The feedback was all really constructive. Gaining the perspective of three different people was interesting because on most things they agreed, but in some sections there was some conflicting advice. I had to make a decision on who to go with and how I wanted the section to be interpreted. The editing process was really simple and easy to manage thanks to William’s [Smith, Assistant Editor at Veterinary Evidence] clear suggestions for how to make the summary flow better.

What have you learnt from the process of researching and writing a Knowledge Summary? Has this changed the way you think about evidence-based veterinary medicine?

I definitely have a newfound respect for scientific writers, knowing how much time and effort went into producing this. I feel much more confident in reading and quickly appraising papers, to make decisions about how to use them in my own cases. I also think knowledge summaries are super important to both summarise the existing evidence to make clinicians lives a lot easier and identify gaps for future research.

Would you write another Knowledge Summary in future?

Definitely once I have settled into clinical practice. I found the process really rewarding, and there are definitely topics I would like to write about in the future.

To learn more about the other 2024 winners, you can listen to their podcast with Veterinary Evidence Editor-in-Chief Peter Cockcroft: www.rcvsknowledge.podbean.com/e/veterinary-evidence-student-awards-winners-2024/