(upbeat music)
- Being a vet is definitely more
than playing with animals.
Using theoretical science and applying it
in a vocational way is
actually very satisfying.
The course is a six year course
if you're an undergraduate
applying from sixth form.
First and second year is basic science
which is done downtown
away from the vet school.
In the third year,
everybody who's eligible
will take a different
subject, ranging from Zoology
to English, something
that they're interested in
completely working in veterinary science.
Fourth and fifth year are
your basic clinical sciences.
You start to get underpinning knowledge
for veterinary science
and then you'll move
into your final sixth year
which is lecture free,
rotating around QVSH Hospital.
Away from that you've got to do
significant period of
extramural studies,
so you're out working in vet
practices, gaining skills.
- It is the smallest of the vet schools,
but we see that as very much a positive.
It means that we get
the opportunity to spend
more time with the students
on a one-to-one basis.
That goes for the first three years
where you've got the supervision system.
-  You do get a
lot of small group teaching
which is really good for your
learning and development.
- Once a week, you're
literally spending an hour
with somebody from your
three main subjects.
- The last five years we have had
the Clinical Skills Centre
in which is now,
the foundation of our training.
- There's various equipment around
that allows us to practice
putting in cannulas.
We've got suture stations
so they can practice
doing suturing and knot tying.
And there's some wonderful equipment here
where we can actually control
what they see on the screen
for the anaesthetic as if there
was a real patient there.
- In my final year, I've
been involved in treating
of a cheetah from a
local wildlife sanctuary
and I've been involved
with people's pet pigs,
thoroughbred horses that won races.
There's such a wide array of animals
that you'll be involved in treating.
- These are some of the horses
that we use for teaching.
Throughout the course they will be working
with our teaching horses and
doing horse handling skills
and general horse management skills.
We have great facilities,
diagnostic capabilities,
as well, which means that
the students will see
a variety of advanced different
techniques and procedures.
- We're at the epicentre of
a huge research environment,
but we also have an
onsite referral hospital
with internationally renowned specialists
who are giving our students
a fantastic training
in the practical aspects
of Veterinary Medicine.
What we're really looking for at interview
is a real passion for the subject.
- I think it's really important to have
a really inquisitive mind.
- We do need people who
are academically able
to rise to that challenge,
but in the same way have
a real passion for it.
- In my mind, I wasn't Cambridge material,
I was never gonna get in.
I only applied because my parents said,
"Well, what's the harm in
sending off an application?"
And yet I'm here, three months, hopefully,
from graduating as a qualified vet.
- The strong problem solving ability
and flexibility that our students have
mean that they're equipped
for a diverse range
of different careers.
- There are so many opportunities.
We meet so many people that have done
so many different things
with their vet degree,
whether that's European specialism,
whether that's research, teaching,
government work.
- I know students who've gone
on to exotic animal medicine,
zoological medicine, and also
highly successful careers
as general practitioners as well.
- Final year rotations is definitely
the most positive thing of the course.
You're basically practicing being
a vet every day for a year.
It's what you've worked
for, for some people,
since they were 10 years old.
And you'll find at that
peak just about to do it,
start to get the freedom to
start to make clinical choices
to be involved in case management.
It's hard work, it's long hours,
but it is very rewarding.
