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Category: Student blogs

  • Crossing the finish line

    Crossing the finish line

    Finishing vet school feels like the end of a race I’ve been running for more than a decade. I don’t remember when exactly I started running it, or if there was ever even a conscious starting point, but it’s incredibly surreal to get to the end of such a long journey – and I’m still suffering with a heavy dose of denial.

    When will it feel real? When I don my cap and gown? When I first sign my name as “Dr”? Or when I walk in for my first day at work?

    The past few months have been both a whirlwind and an anticlimax all at once. There is nothing like stepping out of those final exams, feeling like the gazelles and giraffes blinking at the rising sun in the first scene in The Lion King – except far less magnificent and far more bedraggled because we truly had forgotten what sunlight was.

    Time to go

    Packing up my last ever student digs was also an emotional experience that felt more akin to dismantling an entire chapter of my life than simply packing boxes.

    Flatmates
    Eleanor Goad (centre) with her “comrades-in-arms”.

    I remembered standing in my bedroom two years earlier thinking how weird it would be to leave this house one day a real, qualified vet. I’d like to go back to past me and let her know she was wrong – it is so, SO much weirder!

    When one door closes…

    Image © elightshow / depositphotos.com

    It’s hard to be sad, however, when the end of university life opens far more doors than it closes.

    If I’m honest, I’ve always felt quietly smug for knowing what I wanted to do with my life since I could draw my first rudimentary cow. Up until this point I’ve been guided down a predetermined path of hurdles in order to achieve a particular goal. Now, rather abruptly, there’s nobody telling me where to go or what to do with my time.

    Where do I work? Where do I live? Do I specialise, or just get my feet on firm ground first? It seems very strange to me that a decision I made so early in life has since dictated every decision I have ever made up to this point, and I’m only now gaining true autonomy in my mid-20s.

    Brand new me

    Looking back, I’m a very different person to who I was six years ago (and yes, I did go out of my way to make the course unnecessarily long), but there are about as many things I’m grateful for in that time:

    My peers

    Not that I should really call them that because, after vet school, they’re more like my comrades-in-arms.

    There are a couple of friends in particular who got me through this intense roller coaster of a course, and from late night study sessions to a constant supply of baked goods, I will be eternally grateful to them for keeping me sane (as much as was possible).

    READ: You’ve got a friend in me

    Family

    I know how grateful I’ve been to have a place to go for home cooked Sunday dinners; comfort on the other end of the telephone at all hours of the day or night.

    • Mum: thank you for the monthly post cards.
    • Dad: thank you for the six-hour round trips to bring me home for those aforementioned Sunday dinners.

    READ: Thank you for everything so far

    Interns and residents

    Obviously, it goes without saying that I’m immensely grateful to all of the university staff for the work they do, but some amazing interns and residents at Langford got me through this last year of rotations. They represent a bridge between where you’ll soon be and the “god tier” level of an attending that seems completely unobtainable – which does wonders for the ol’ impostor syndrome.

    Quizlet

    Praise be. (Need I say more?)

    My poor cat

    For putting up with the constant, uninvited clinical exams.

    Me

    Or, at least, the younger version of myself who didn’t get too scared to put her running shoes on: we did it!

  • The revision roller coaster

    The revision roller coaster

    At this stage of the year, it’s hard for me to write about anything but revision. So, for those of you reading this as a means to escape, I can only apologise. At the same time, if your idea of time off from studying is reading my work-related articles, then I think we need to have a little sit down and a talk about healthy revision outlets…

    With my last ever university exams (yeah, like, ever!) rearing their heads, I’m finding my own is a bit of a jumble.

    The last several weeks before the big day can often feel, at least for me, like a bit of a roller coaster ride. There are ups and downs; terrifying “grip the handlebar” kind of moments; and occasional points where you reach the top, clear the clouds and see everything below you with level-headed clarity – and then the whole thing starts again from the beginning.

    Happy birthday to me?

    First of all there’s the build-up. Personally, I think the build-up to exams can be worse than actually taking the things.

    As somebody with a birthday plonked squarely in early May, this has led to the anniversary of my birth becoming somewhat bittersweet over my past 20 (yes, 20) years of education. I’ve even had friends and classmates willing me not to age, just to fend off the dreaded exams.

    If you’re lucky, it will have been a good year since your last exams, so it’s almost easy to tell yourself it can’t really be as bad as you remember it, and sure, you’re here to tell the tale!

    So what’s all the fuss about? Besides, it’s months away, right… right?

    Then the realisation hits you that those months have melted away into a measly finger-countable number of weeks. This is the feeling akin to the hard “thunk” of that metal seat belt bar strapping you in before the roller coaster ride. You’re locked in now, and the only way is onwards.

    Image © Anna / Adobe Stock

    Highs and lows

    Like with any good roller coaster, the journey of revision is marked by a series of highs and lows. You can sometimes spend a day or two feeling really very good about yourself, quite smug actually, especially in the early swathes of revision while your brain juices are still flowing nicely.

    “Wow”, you think to yourself. “I remember everything I read today. It may have taken 13 years of exam practice, but I think I’m getting the hang of this revision malarkey after all”.

    Then a day comes when you wake up and it feels as though everything you once knew has fallen out of your ears overnight. Your brain feels like a clogged artery and the juices just can’t quite make their way round the bends. Paragraphs, facts and figures can start to swim together. Do horses lay eggs? Do chickens neigh?

    It can feel like five years’ worth of content is trying to make it’s way to the forefront of your mind all at once, with no polite or mannerly order.

    Image © Jacob Lund / Adobe Stock

    Stay in control

    The important thing, I find, in order not to let the roller coaster get the better of you, is to make everything else in your life as smooth a ride as possible. Obviously, this is easier said than done, I’m no fool. Life will always throw things at you, especially when you feel like you already have enough on your plate, but start by controlling the things you can.

    Remember the basics:

    • Sleep.
    • Eat.
    • Hydrate.
    • Practice self-care.

    Treat yourself to that leftover easter chocolate, keep making plans with friends as something to look forward to, and let yourself clock off for a couple of hours before bed.

    It all matters

    It has been scientifically proven that increased levels of stress actually reduce our ability to take in new information – which is, ironically, something on this year’s syllabus – as do lack of sleep, under-eating, dehydration and depression.

    Trying to revise under any of these conditions is like fighting with one arm behind your back, so never forget that what you do outside of your revision schedule is just as important as what’s in it.

  • Cutting edge (Goad in Goa, pt 2)

    Cutting edge (Goad in Goa, pt 2)

    My recent trip to India comprised two weeks of intense sun, gorgeous beaches and delicious food that truly tested the constitution of my stomach. The majority of my time, however, was spent doing what I had gone all the way out there to do: surgery – lots and lots of surgery!

    After 10 weeks of my clinical EMS was shut down by the pandemic, I had felt the desire to both travel and gain extra experience wherever possible, and so a surgical course based in Goa sounded like the perfect solution.

    Spays for days

    Image courtesy Animal Rescue Centre, South Goa.

    For my friend and I, the holy grail of all surgeries was the dreaded bitch spay. At the end of our placement – after what we presumed would initially be just watching, then maybe some helping, probably followed by a whole lot of cat castrating (the gateway surgery for newbies) – it was our hope that we would maybe (maayyybe) even be allowed to attempt a bitch spay for ourselves.

    It didn’t ever occur to me that I would be executing my first bitch spay, from start to finish, by day three. Nor did I ever imagine that I would leave having done a total of 10… essentially one per day (although on some days we did two each).

    Ironically, cat castrates were few and far between – even dog castrates for that matter – and of the 25 total surgeries I performed in those weeks, 16 were spays.

    Left in the dark

    The main thing I took away from the trip (aside from sore fingers) was a newfound appreciation for the fundamentals of surgery.

    As was initially advertised to us, the clinic we found ourselves working in was charity based, and so lacked many of the facilities I think I’d learned (without even realising) to take for granted back home. Instruments were sterilised in an autoclave, there was no inhalant anaesthesia available, and no patient monitoring beyond CRT, pulse and breathing rate.

    Plus, since there was no surgical lighting, and only one table was directly beneath the light, it meant a really deep-chested bitch spay on the other end of the room felt like operating in the dark.

    How does it feel?

    With no surgical lighting and only one head-torch to share between the two of us, the vet monitoring us joked towards the end of the placement that I could perform surgery by braille.

    Although I wouldn’t recommend this approach to anyone, it gave me an incredible appreciation for the feel of normal versus abnormal anatomy – and that’s something no amount of revision or surgical observance could ever have given me.

    Anaesthesia was purely parenteral, with top-ups being given as needed. We were all quite surprised by how well this worked for the majority of surgeries, with only a few hiccups along the way (and by hiccups I mean that, on one occasion, my patient turned around to look at me while I still had my fingers inside its abdomen).

    The EMS placement’s main advertising pull had been as an opportunity to gain “incredible surgical experience”, says Eleanor.

    Expect the unexpected

    No matter how much they teach you, or how well you learn the steps, there will always be a surgery – usually a bitch spay – that throws you a curveball (unfortunately, our patients haven’t read the textbook and are under no obligation to behave).

    Whether it’s a ginormous blood vessel masquerading in a portion of facia, or a large glob of fat obscuring your view, every spay (even every castrate) has the potential to be entirely different to the previous one; surgery is not an endeavour for people who can’t roll with the punches or adapt their plan to a new situation.

    I’ve heard the phrase, “no plan ever survives first contact with the enemy”, but I think my own proverb would read: “No surgical plan ever survives first contact with the patient.”

    Well taught

    One of the best instruments a vet can have at their disposal is support. My friend and I could not have asked for a better teacher, and the skills taught to us will undoubtedly be invaluable to us during the next stage of our careers.

    I wouldn’t say that surgical programmes like this are for the faint hearted, but it provided me with experience that I simply would not have been able to gain had I not stepped out of my comfort zone.

  • Tales of an Indian winter

    Tales of an Indian winter

    It had been an ambition of mine since the beginning of vet school to do some type of work abroad, whether it be preclinical or clinical, a paid position or volunteer work.

    A big reason I undertook an intercalated MSc was for the option it presented for a three-month research period in Western Australia. Sadly, COVID-19 put a stop to that and my research never wandered further than my desk – but, if anything, the pandemic made me feel even more passionate about travelling for my EMS.

    Gone to Goa

    Weekends spent “lolling on the beach” were well-deserved, says Eleanor.

    A friend and I both settled on a small rescue centre in Goa, India, for the placement (neither of us feeling quite brave enough to go it alone) and despite planning it almost a year in advance, the date caught up with us quite quickly. Before we knew it, we were there.

    Let the record show that the motivation for this trip was not to escape from the harsh English January weather, nor to fill up on delicious curries, although the temperature did make a welcome change and I’m unsure a takeaway will ever cut it again.

    The whole reason for the placement was to gain the kind of surgical experience that just isn’t readily available to students in the UK.

    Understandably, vet practices can take a while to warm up to students enough to trust them to carve into somebody’s beloved animals, but this makes for generation after generation of new grads who feel completely out of depth with a scalpel in their hands.

    Great(er than our) expectations

    The placement’s main advertising pull had been as an opportunity to gain incredible surgical experience, but we had gone into it with some trepidation that it wasn’t going to be nearly as busy and hands-on as we’d hoped. It turned out to surpass our expectations and go right out the other side…

    Weekends spent lolling on the beach were well-deserved after numerous 11-hour shifts with numb fingers and thumbs from uncooperative clamps and needle holders.

    The surgical side of the trip deserves an article of its own – but suffice it to say that, between the two of us, my friend and I neutered almost 50 dogs and cats, including 15 unassisted but supervised dog spays. It was an incredible rewarding feeling when each surgery finished, knowing we were doing even just a small bit in the effort to reduce India’s stray population.

    Eleanor found her EMS placement in Goa “incredible rewarding”.

    Learning valuable lessons

    Let it be said, I am not the most confident of travellers, and 18 hours of travel across three planes and four airports are not for the faint of heart, but neither is India – and while I have entirely fallen in love with the country, its beauty and its animals, there was a lot of disorganisation that made my poor little control-freak brain spin.

    I think that learning to take each day as it comes, and constantly adapting to new situations or pressures has taught me a lot of valuable skills in a very short space of time.

    In particular, the vet who taught and supervised us was invaluable in making the placement such a success. She gave us an incredible amount of patience and taught me skills in both surgery and how to face a stressful situation that I will carry with me throughout my career.

  • Baby, it’s cold outside

    Baby, it’s cold outside

    I’ve written at length about the dangers of heat and the sometimes unforeseen risks of walking your dogs during the hazy summer days, but now the cold has well and truly crept in, it is time to consider how we keep our puppies happy and healthy this winter.

    Toxins

    With the recent snow, we’re used to feeling grit and salt crunching beneath our feet when walking outside – but have you stopped to consider the effect that has on tiny paws?

    Irritation from salt can lead to dryness, irritation and cracking of the skin on dog’s footpads, and ingestion of the salt from excessive licking of those paws can lead to toxic levels of sodium in the blood, which can lead to dehydration and even kidney damage.

    Image by Harald Matern from Pixabay

    Another hazardous toxin incredibly prevalent at this time of year is antifreeze. This product contains the chemical ethylene glycol, which can lead to potentially fatal kidney injury if ingested. Clinical signs range from excessive drinking to vomiting and even seizures. So, if you’re concerned your animal may have been exposed, don’t risk waiting – take them straight to your vet.

    Cold snap

    The cold is perhaps the most obvious danger to our beloved pets at this time of year, but it can be easy to think that their fur coats make them adapted for this kind of weather. The fact is that, aside from certain breeds like huskies, we have actually been breeding the hardiness out of our dogs for more than one hundred years.

    Many breeds – especially those imported from descendants in hotter climates – are not cut out for harsh cold. According to the RSPCA, dogs shouldn’t be kept at any lower than 10°C for long periods of time, and studies have found that walking smaller, older or younger dogs (the latter of which naturally run at a higher temperature) can also be dangerous if the thermometer starts to creep towards freezing. You wouldn’t take your granny out in -1°C in just her cardigan, so maybe don’t take your geriatric pets for a walk either.

    Of course, animals still need exercise, stimulation and the opportunity to visit nature’s toilet, but it’s important to be sensible and prioritise walks during the warmest times of the day, and to layer up if your pet will tolerate it.

    Photo by Pavel Danilyuk from Pexels.

    Festive feast

    Finally, overfeeding is something I think many of us actually aspire to in the lead up to Christmas – but while it may seem mean to leave our pets out of the festive fun (because they do have very large, cute “feed me” eyes), abstaining from feeding them human treats can actually be the kinder thing.

    This isn’t just because of the dangers of chocolate and sultanas (which I’ve gotten up on my soapbox about many a time), but because even a tiny portion of human food can sometimes double the daily calories for our pets.

    Depending on whether you have a chihuahua or an active collie, your animal’s dietary needs likely range from around 150 to 600 calories a day. If the average sausage is around 200 calories, you can see how things can quickly add up. Obesity is one of the leading causes of disease in our animals, and it’s so easily preventable.

    Spread the love

    I would love to urge everybody to spread a little extra festive love towards their furry friends this festive season and keep them healthy and safe.

    Merry Christmas!

  • Is puppy yoga flexibly ethical?

    Is puppy yoga flexibly ethical?

    Is puppy yoga the new cat café?

    Is it a new passing trend or here to stay?

    Either way, as a student with a passion for both fitness and animals, I was initially intrigued. But I can’t help but have concerns for whether this practice is beneficial for all members of the class.

    Five freedoms

    Usually applied to the context of captive animals, the five freedoms can really be utilised to evaluate the welfare of any animal outside of its natural habitat (which, technically, every dog is).

    These being freedom from pain and disease, stress, discomfort and hunger, as well as freedom to express normal behaviour.

    My main concerns when it comes to puppy yoga would be stress, hunger and disease.

    If classes run back to back, younger animals that require more frequent feeds may miss out on vital mealtimes, and there’s always the worry some puppies included in these classes are too young to be removed from their mothers. Ideally, no puppy should be removed from the dam or weaned before eight weeks of age. In larger breeds, puppies can appear older than they really are, and some breeders or yoga studios may be motivated by profits to use pups that are slightly shy of this age limit.

    The danger here is that puppies don’t typically receive vaccinations until they’re eight weeks old, and if puppies from different litters are introduced when their mother-derived immunity is lowering, diseases can be transmitted very quickly. Most vets wouldn’t advise mixing a puppy with other dogs until at least two weeks after its second vaccines (at around 12 weeks old) to allow adequate immunity to develop.

    In regard to stress, anything new or novel can be stressful to a puppy (or any animal for that matter). Loud noises, strange smells and lots of new people all at once can also be very overwhelming and scary to puppies that are yet to be properly socialised.

    Socialisation

    The socialisation window for puppies is from when they are roughly one to three months old. During this time, the animal’s perceptions of the outside world and its stimuli are being shaped by its experiences, and once that window closes, it can be more difficult for biases towards certain stimuli to be changed.

    Since the majority of puppies used in yoga sessions are between two to four months old, on paper, the practice sounds like an excellent opportunity for animal lovers to exercise and unwind surrounded by adorable puppies, with the added benefit of those puppies being socialised to grow up more well-rounded and well-behaved pets.

    Unfortunately, however, socialisation is not an exact science, and while it is incredibly beneficial to introduce puppies to lots of different things during their socialisation window, it does not mean flooding them with lots of stimulus all at once.

    This is the really tricky part, because what counts as “overwhelming” to one puppy may be completely manageable to the next. Some animals may find a room full of new people and smells incredibly exciting, while others need to be introduced to new people one at a time, with plenty of opportunity to withdraw from the experience if needed.

    It can also be impossible to predict what type of puppy you have until you place it in that situation. While a lot of behavioural aspects in our pets can be traced back to environment and genetics, every animal is unique, and just because a litter comes from docile, friendly and outgoing parents, doesn’t mean the offspring will share the same traits.

    Ensuring every puppy’s experience of a yoga session will be adequate from a welfare perspective would take a very knowledgeable and conscientious screening process that some businesses may not know how to or be able to provide.

    Yoga “pants”

    I feel that puppy yoga is probably far from a black and white picture, with the level of puppy welfare and attention to their needs varying from practice to practice. For this reason, I think it’s definitely a good idea to do your research before booking a session – whether you’re a vet or not – to make sure you’re happy with where the puppies come from, if the establishment is aware of vaccine records (and so forth), and if the puppies are given adequate opportunity to rest and retreat from engaging with the customers if they wish.

    In the same way that in the veterinary profession we are now seeing the outcomes of puppies raised during the pandemic lockdowns, we may soon see the influence of puppy yoga in the next generation of pets.

    At the end of the day, it’s up to the individual consumer to decide if the practice is for them, or if ethical puppy yoga is a bit of a stretch…

     

  • Are rabbits really ‘exotic’?

    Are rabbits really ‘exotic’?

    According to PDSA [PDSA Animal Wellbeing (PAW) Report 2022], rabbits are the third most popular pet in the UK behind dogs and cats. With an estimated 1.1 million pet rabbits in the country, that’s about about a tenth of the population of pet dogs and cats, which hover around the 9 to 10 million mark.

    So, if the pet ratio of dogs/cats:rabbits is 10:1, why isn’t this reflected in our teaching? Despite rabbit populations being endemic to the UK for more than a thousand years, they always seem to get lumped with guinea pigs and the cold-blooded pets like lizards and corn snakes when it comes to textbooks or university curriculums.

    I can confidently say my education on rabbit physiology and medicine has been dramatically less than 10% of what I’ve received for small animal medicine. Perhaps this is why many vets, especially new or recent graduates, feel more confident handing off any rabbit patients to the resident “expert” of the practice or even referring to an exotics specialist, rather than seeing it themselves.

    Accessibility

    It’s a sad truth that the less convenient education and health care are to access, the less people will reach for them. By extension, the less veterinary practices that advertise care for rabbits (and other exotics), the less rabbits are likely to be registered at a practice and receive regular preventive care.

    For example, as a native to the land of Kent, I only know of two or three practices that would call themselves “exotic specialists” and I know that, for a lot of rabbit owners, traveling half way across the county to visit one of these few practices would not be practical or plausible. Perhaps this is why, according to PDSA reports, at least 11% of pet rabbits receive no preventive health care, including vaccinations.

    rabbit
    Rabbits are a social species that has evolved to live in groups, not alone.

    Education

    The value of a veterinary consultation is not simply to talk through clinical signs or address a flea outbreak in the home, it’s a chance for owners to discuss management issues or to ask for general advice. When rabbits aren’t brought in for routine consultations, then discussions about their diet, husbandry and behavioural needs don’t get to be had.

    Some vets are already worried that the development of an annual rabbit haemorrhagic disease (RHD) booster rather than biannual is going to dramatically reduce rabbit welfare by halving the number of times these pets receive a clinical exam.

    Welfare

    Of course, like all “exotics”, there’s the argument to be made as to whether these animals are suitable pets in the first place. Personally, I feel that this is a moot point for the time being.

    The fact that more than 50% of pet rabbits are housed by themselves with no companionship speaks volumes about the lack of knowledge the general public possesses on how to care for these animals. However, with more than a million of them currently out there, they’re not going away anytime soon.

    The best we can do as professionals is educate our clients so welfare can be maximised as much as possible… and that starts with educating ourselves. I hope that in the near future the landscape of the veterinary degree can shift to better reflect the current demand for exotic vets – or at least rabbit vets.

  • Decision paralysis: how to choose

    Decision paralysis: how to choose

    From the moment you decide to become a vet, the road before you – from the start to the end of your course – is paved with decisions.

    From where to go, to what to look for in a job (although vet students do get to put off the dreaded entrance into the “real world” for a couple more years than the average student), the next choice to be made is always around the corner.

    Where to study

    When it comes to picking the right veterinary degree, my opinion (which is by no means gospel) is that it’s:

    • 10% course content
    • 90% location, location, location

    For students having a tough time choosing where to attend vet school (although, understandably, most are happy to go anywhere they receive an offer), it can be important to look above and beyond the curriculum. After all, the veterinary course in the UK is heavily standardised and, as much as every school wants you to believe that theirs has something special that nobody else’s does (and maybe they do), at the end of the day, you will leave each university with the same qualifications.

    I’m not studying where I am today because I fell in love with Bristol vet school, I fell in love with Bristol itself.

    Clockwise from top left: Bristol Cathedral © SakhanPhotography / Adobe Stock; Bristol’s colourful houses by shauking / Pixabay; sheep © Gill / Adobe Stock; promotional image for Hot Fuzz © Universal Studios / Focus Features.

    I still remember getting off the coach with my dad for an open day and having the biggest smile on my face from the moment I stepped on to the cobbled streets. To this day, I’ve no idea why – perhaps it’s the multi-coloured Balamory-esque buildings, or the accents and calls of “my lover” that made me feel like I’d stumbled into a remake of Hot Fuzz, or maybe it’s the fact there are sheep and cows roaming just a stone’s throw away from the clinical campus.

    Whatever it was, it wasn’t the labs, the course brochures or the lecture theatres…

    For some, staying closer to home is what’s important; maybe for childcare, financial or emotional support. For others, moving away from what is familiar and stepping out of your comfort zone can play a vital part in learning independence and gaining a wider perspective.

    What to study

    Selective/elective weeks, while only making up a small component of your final year, are a rare opportunity to tailor your education in what is otherwise a very nationally homogenised learning infrastructure.

    Work experience is another excellent outlet through which vet students can customise their teaching opportunities and prioritise what is most important to them. Practices where we feel most immediately at home are the ones that reflect our values around the profession, and the teams and individuals we bounce off easily are often indicative of the type of professional that you would/aspire to be.

    Where to work

    With the average retention of a veterinary professional standing depressingly at just seven short years, there’s been a massive drive from the ground up to improve the quality of the profession, and to make the career more mentally and emotionally sustainable.

    We’re taught about developing resilience and mindfulness from the first year of vet school, and in the past half-decade, four-day weeks have become the standard for a lot of vets up and down the country.

    With vets in such high demand, new graduates currently have a plethora of jobs to choose from. Considerations over commute times, staff retention, caseloads, OOH work, and weekend rotas (let alone salaries) are now luxuries that are becoming more and more affordable.

    I would personally love to see a day when vet students can take modules in their final year – and with mixed practices decreasing in number, there may eventually be separate institutions for small animal and large animal vets.

    As somebody soon to be entering the job market, I can tell you that decision paralysis is most certainly real, but I still believe that the more choices we are able to make, and the more control we have over our careers, will make us better and happier professionals.

  • Fuelling your career

    Fuelling your career

    The cost of living has risen sharply in the past year. Food, bills, and fuel costs seem suddenly extortionate and yet student loans haven’t budged an inch – meaning students are paying more for food, bills and other essentials than ever before, with relatively less financial aid.

    Vet students in particular are no strangers to stretching the pound – we’re in it for the long haul after all, so five to six years of rent, utilities and food, with little to no income is something most of us have to accept as par for the course.

    The tricky thing is that while food bills can be lowered by steering free of Deliveroo and “Taste the Difference”, and opting for the simpler things in life, and a couple of extra jumpers helps lower heating costs in the winter, there’s really no way of getting around the current fuel crisis.

    You’ll go far

    The reality of EMS in the current climate is that many students are still trying to replace pre-clinical and clinical placements that were cancelled during the pandemic, and a lot of veterinary conglomerates have contractual obligations to a specific university.

    With the number of vet schools on the rise, “freelance” placements are going to become thinner on the ground, and if (like me) you live close to one of these vet schools, you may need to travel farther afield for your EMS placements.

    This means not only has the cost of living increased for students in general, but the cost of education for veterinary students is also on the up.

    Automotive breakdown

    For the average engine, the cost of a mile’s journey in June was 16p (according to the RAC Fuel and Mileage calculator), whereas placements can range from within walking distance to over an hour’s drive away. If a student has a daily commute of just 13 miles (roughly a 15 to 20 minute drive) each way, for two weeks – even if they let their car run right down to the red – they’d still be spending more than £40 on fuel.

    For longer commutes, or ones where vets expect students to follow in their own cars on callouts, it’s easy to see how the costs can get out of control.

    Covering costs

    Veterinary students are required to fulfil a minimum 26 weeks of work experience during their clinical years. For those unable to find placements near their university or home accommodation, or unable to find affordable accommodation near the placement itself, commuting is a necessity to gain the experience and accreditation needed for their degree.

    For a long time the veterinary industry has been striving to improve its inclusivity and accessibility, but with fuel prices hitting an all-time high this year, travel bursaries may be a real necessity in ensuring the degree is not made unaffordable.

  • DO look a gift horse in the mouth

    DO look a gift horse in the mouth

    If you don’t come from a “horsey background” (like me) then the equine side of the vet course can feel a little overwhelming.

    From a different number of ribs and guttural pouches to the inability to vomit, horses have an abundance of clinical differences to our smaller patients, and so (quite rightly) often need to be studied in their own right, much the same as with farm animal medicine.

    Clinical aspects aside, the world of equine also comes with a wealth of nomenclature that seemed to me, at first, like a second language. A disease called “glanders and farcy” was a particular favourite equine term of mine, as it sounds deceptively quaint despite in fact being an incredibly serious and often fatal notifiable disease.

    For these reasons, in all honesty, I was a little apprehensive of my first equine clinical placement – most likely not helped by a distinct lack of large animal clinical EMS up until that point (thank you COVID-19).

    As it turns out however, the two-week placement became one of my favourite so far. So, for those of you with it still to come, here are a few things I wish I’d known going in…

    Time to smell the hay

    Small animal medicine can sometimes be fast paced, and patients can come and go in a blur. With 15-minute consults and a lot to pack in within that time, there sometimes just aren’t the opportunities for students to ask questions or for advice.

    On the other hand, equine and large animal medicine placements are often a little less patient intensive, affording students the opportunity to really dive into each individual case, rather than losing track of how many they’ve already seen that morning.

    The drive between clients can also provide time for asking questions, filing in your case logs for the last animal, and reading up on the next.

    Communication, communication, communication

    Depending on the client, of course, a lot of call outs will involve a certain amount of time standing around the horse with the client waiting patiently at the reigns.

    Dentals, in particular, can take a surprisingly long time and while in small animal practice the vet can typically just stick the radio on, plonk on a stool and get to it, that might seem rather rude with the animals owner standing right next to you. Being able to hold a conversation with the client, whether its about their animal or just the nice weather we’ve been having, is a skill that can sometimes be sidelined in favour of clinical competencies.

    Making conversation can also be extra difficult if you’re trying to be clinically competent at the same time – and this is where multitasking comes in, as vets will often have to engage with the client for more than an hour while performing tasks on the animal that a smallies vet would probably take a dog out the back to do.

    As a student, spending long periods of time with a vet and a single client is a great opportunity to practice client engagement and communication. If in doubt, and you’re left alone with the owner while the vet runs back to their car, try asking about their animal (how long they’ve had it, if it’s their first, and so on). We all love gushing over our pets, and it goes a long way to show enthusiasm instead of the vet coming back only to find the two of you staring in silence at the grass.

    “Jugulars like drain pipes”. Image © charlymorlock / Adobe Stock

    Bigger can be better

    When you’re not feeling 100% on your catheter placement or blood sampling, it helps to have something big to aim for. This is where horses come in…

    It’s almost like they’ve gone out of their way to be the perfect injection-giving training wheels, with jugulars like drain pipes and large obvious muscle bellies for you to grab in one hand and pop a needle in with the other. Once you’ve mastered the horse IV and IM, it’s only a matter of sizing down.

    My main takeaway from this placement was a reminder not to shy away from practising things that don’t come naturally, or aren’t your favourite thing in the world. There’s no point practising the things you know you’re best at, for the sake of feeling good about succeeding in something you already knew how to do.

    You’ll feel much better after that initial leap out of your comfort zone, when you succeed in something you couldn’t do before.