Vet Medicine 2020

[3catsandadog]

Hi a new thread with DC applying to Vet Med next year or for anyone with DC already studying who could pass on some words of wisdom!

My DD is looking to apply to Cambridge, Surrey, Nottingham and Bristol.
She has a fair amount of work experience arranged already and we will do the open day circuit next year.

Thought I would post as the thread has gone very quiet. We have booked on all the 4 open days now for the unis my DD is considering and she has 3 more weeks of work experience in the Summer.

Are there any more updates from 2020 vet applicants?

2 more weeks work experience lined up and v lucky to get on an Insight into Bristol weeks vet course. In middle of mocks at moment and it's tough as she's so hard on herself. We have 6 open days booked as DD not sure. RVC this Saturday

Hope open day goes well our first one is Bristol on the 15th June

We will be there too 😁. And Nottingham, Cambridge, Liverpool, Surrey abs Keele. Decision making not DDs strong point.

Wow a lot of options we are only doing Cambridge, Bristol, Surrey and Nottingham :)

I had an interesting thought about the relevance of work experience. DD is nearly at the end of 2nd yr vet in Edinburgh. In the preclinical phase they have to do EMS ( extra mural studies ) in the holidays totalling 12 weeks and focussing on animal husbandry covering a variety of species. ( cat,dog,pig,sheep,horses,cows etc) Although I think the university have a database of attachments she essentially fell back onto her work experience placements using all those networks to get the required weeks. The other benefit is she was able to do a lot of these weeks close to home allowing her to live at home and not have extra living expenses.I guess the message is that the work experience contacts you are all making now can be really helpful. She has also been fortunate enough to be paid for lambing over 4 of the last 5 years. Long hard work for minimum wage but she enjoyed it.

I would agree with Ollie too. Keep hold of your work experience contacts. It’s so much nicer to be able to live at home and do lambing locally rather than living on a isolated hillside in Wales in a caravan for two weeks. Dd - 1st year Bristol did 10/11 hour days lambing with her local contacts. Her friends were working from 5am to 11pm with sole responsibility, no prior experience and living with strangers in various parts of Wales. A very stressful time for many of them. Dd has also booked in Stables, calving and small animal vets this summer with known employers from prior experience. As Ollie has stated the 12 weeks is spread over the first two years. Lambing is compulsory the first year and then I think Chickens & something else the second year?

Thank you for the advice as it's really helpful. Although I did have a little chuckle at being able to do lambing from home - no sheep here in commuting distance so mine will have to take any farm offered. DD spending half term at a cattle vets which should be interesting for her - it's 30 miles away so just as well I have the week off for taxi services. Getting animal experience when you live in towns and know no one in farming is tough but she's managed to get some and hopefully enough for applications.
Did 6 open days with eldest for medicine and it was really helpful listening to the admissions talks about what they want to see. RVC and Surrey are less than an hour away - one advantage of being less rural 😁

Thank you for the advice it is really helpful. We are in a fortunate position to have lots of sheep near us and my DD did have a week's lambing and even delivered a couple. She loved the farm life would definitely like to go back to the same place in the future. I think it is impossible for most applicants to have every single kind of work experience but hopefully, she will have enough variety but no zoo or abattoir.

Don’t worry about no zoo or abattoir experience . These are rare and in our experience not essential.
You also made me chuckle mumsneedwine as I realise a flock of pregnant sheep in a big city is unlikely!
The other implication which only dawned on us after dd started vet school was the financial one. All the required holiday work experience (EMS) means that they cant take on a job and often have travel and sometimes living costs.

I'm a vet with 20 years experience. The current drop out rate amongst new grads in the first 5 years is ridiculous (40%) The new vet schools don't even seem to have a hospital attached so I have no idea how they will attract staff of any calibre or how they propose to teach students in the clinical years. Relying on local practices where the vets will be trying to run a business, not focussed on teaching students, is not a good solution - the quality of EMS provided by practices is variable to put it politely. I have wavered over the years about staying or going and am now working part time and in a good place, and as an experienced vet and long-time employee of the same practice I can to some extent call the shots. I'm still not sure if I had my time over I would make the same decisions, it's hard to see other friends earning way more and working much more sensible hours. Hours are long, anti-social and not family friendly and it's a total myth that vets are well paid - average salary for an experienced full time vet is £42k (that's 10 hr shifts, evenings, weekends, on call) If I was saddling myself with £45k++ of debt before I even started with poor career prospects as there is no progression then I would seriously think twice. The new grads all think they are going to be a 'specialist' straight out of uni - but there are only so many places for specialists because most owners just don't want to pay for that level of care. There is less opportunity that ever to 'set your plate up' and run your own business because the big corporates have completely taken over and there are few independent practices any more. I'm very cynical, but the universities seem more concerned about £9k bums on seats than whether they are preparing students for the realities of the job.
We have so many work experience students - they come in 9-4 and are shielded from euthanasias, stroppy clients, boring paperwork, late evening surgeries, weekends, nights on call. Think very very carefully about whether this is what you actually want.
Sorry to be negative!

There's always Australia. Mine quite fancies moving there one day. My DD has been v lucky as vets have shown her everything, including the v boring bits. She's cleaned cages and done paperwork and been out on the road for 13 hours. And was unlucky to see euthanasia as we lost our dog this year - at a vet she did work experience with so they were fab at talking her through it all.
It's a tough profession but the thought or working at a desk job fills my DD with dread. And we've never had money so she won't miss it 😁

Unfortunately vets in Australia are paid even worse than those in the uk! Apparently they can’t afford to pay back their loans. My Dd has dual citizenship there.

I hear what you’re saying patchworkjack. Most of dds course are female and many will not possibly want to work nights or full time in the future. Dd has always wanted to do this since the age of 3 and there was no dissuading her - we tried!
She hated working in hospitals.
Fortunately she seems to love it and be good at it so far.

Interesting re the drop out rate of new grads for vet med. This actually mirrors what is happening in the medical profession with similar percentage not taking up training posts of any description in the uk after F1 and F2 years.
Vet is certainly a tough profession .

New to the thread but son at Surrey and loving it! Also like other Vet Med courses girls outnumber boys by a big margin 7:1. Some people have dropped out already- workload is very intense and they have to work continually- even in holidays as they have to do compulsory EMS.

Yes, being a vet is certainly a vocation. I too hear patchworkjack and like teta have a dd who wanted to do it from the age of 3. I also have tried to dissuade her. I notice that the selection process at her interviews did seem to try to identify whether the potential students had realistic expectations.

Not only are they saddling themselves with debt, but we as parents are going to have to contribute some £30k (after tax), and dd will have little spare time to earn any of her own money.

I have pointed out to my dd that among my university friends, the only one who has managed to live dd's dream (owns land and a horse) is the one who did maths and became an accountant!

Ha Coldfingered,
That’s absolutely right! I wanted to be a vet all through school, did all the sciences etc, saw the light just before Univ where I did accountancy, became a Chartered Accountant. Now 20 years later, I work PT ( and get paid equivalent to many of my FT friends), have 3 horses, walk the dog, enjoy life and have a menagerie of pets and animals that I enjoy!

A member of my immediate family is a very experienced small animal vet, and they would agree with every single word of Patchworksack’s post.

The profession has changed so much in the last decade that it is almost unrecognisable. Corporates are aggressively hoovering up practices all over the country. They are fighting for market share, all competing aggressively to become the Tesco of veterinary medicine.

The reality for new graduates is that they will easily find a job, but will have a huge debt burden and will almost certainly find themselves working for a big corporate rather than a traditional practice with partnership prospects.

As can't dissuade DD we went to RVC this morning. What an amazing place with fantastic facilities. Really inspired DD and she's keen to go see the Camden bit now. They were so honest about the application process and what you actually need, not the scary hype you get told sometimes.

And does anybody go into Vet med for the money ? Surely people know that, like medicine, the hours are pants, life/work balance is tough but job satisfaction is huge. I used to watch James Herriot and doesn't seem things were much different then ?

Doryandnemo Please can I send my DD to live with you for a week after A-levels this summer? I still have a few months to convince her to change her mind, and accountancy sounds ideal

mumsneedwine I love the RVC. We live nearby, and DD was offered a place, but it was too close to home for her liking!

Hello, can I join in? My daughter is looking at Bristol, Liverpool, Nottingham and possibly Harper Keele. We have a busy June with open days but have already done the Harper one. She liked it a lot but is concerned about the disadvantages of being the first cohort. She has lots of work experience already and is going to get some extras over the summer. She is lucky to live on a farm so has a lifetime of experience with animals and has been exposed to the realities of caring for animals since an early age. She will not be put off from applying but I am concerned about the stress of the process from beginning to end and onwards into the job itself. My other daughter didn’t pick an easy route either but is now happily living out her dream career. I am amazed at the determination of my children!

Hi ScottandCharlene - welcome to thread I think there are 4 of us now:)

Thank you 🙂 I think we will need to hold hands over the next few months.

Sure it's going to be a bumpy ride. V glad no UKCAT this time around though - that was hell for eldest. DD off to spend half term with a cow vet which should be interesting. Not sure she's ever been close to a cow. But much like a horse aren't they ??