Yellow Raincoat: Building Resilience in Veterinary Nursing

The Yellow Raincoat is a metaphor for resilience: protection against the everyday “rain” of stressors in veterinary nursing practice.

Veterinary nurses operate in a demanding environment with high responsibility, emotional labour and increasing complexity. While external pressures cannot always be changed, professionals can be better equipped to cope with them. As Nienke Dijkerman, senior lecturer at the Dutch veterinary nursing school Zone College and one of the project organisers, explains: “We cannot stop the rain from falling in veterinary practice, but we can help students put on a yellow raincoat. Resilience and adaptability are essential if we want veterinary nursing students to stay healthy and confident in their profession.”

A growing challenge for resilience in veterinary nursing

Across Europe, veterinary nurse education and practice face high dropout and turnover rates. Students often leave training due to stress during internships, limited supervision, or a gap between education and workplace reality. In practice, veterinary nurses report leaving because of poor workplace atmosphere, insufficient mentoring, or ongoing self-doubt about their performance. Stress has shifted from mainly dealing with difficult clients to concerns about making mistakes and “doing a good job.”

Aligning education with real-world needs

Yellow Raincoat is a small-scale Erasmus project designed to address these challenges at their core. Surveys have shown that key stressors include advising clients on medication, calculating dosages, communication and fear of errors. These findings underline the need to strengthen resilience and soft skills within veterinary nursing alongside technical competence during training.

Practical tools for sustainable employability

The project will deliver a digital platform with learning materials, mentoring tools, and guidance for teachers and internship supervisors. By supporting resilience, adaptability and confidence throughout veterinary nursing education, Yellow Raincoat aims to reduce dropout rates and contribute to long-term, sustainable employability in the international veterinary work field.

DISCLAIMER: Please note that what veterinary nurses can and cannot do legally may differ per country.