Tag: exams

  • Raking it in?

    Raking it in?

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    The assumption is often made that many people get into the veterinary industry for the money. In fact, it’s always been a widely held public view that vets are raking it in. This is, perhaps, due to a combination of the recognised difficulty of the job, seemingly extortionate vets’ bills and a propensity for Range…

  • Impostor syndrome: a pandemic among vet students

    Impostor syndrome: a pandemic among vet students

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    The nature of the vet course is inherently competitive, with the odds stacked against you from the very beginning. During our A-levels we are told that only 1 out of every 5 to 10 applicants make it to vet school, and that you’re lucky to get a single interview or offer (any more than that…

  • Lymphocytes, part 1: Bridget Jones

    Lymphocytes, part 1: Bridget Jones

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    My job is full of beauty and wonder, but I must admit that, at first glance, lymphocytes aren’t much to look at. They come in all manner of varieties, but a standard-issue small lymphocyte is basically a tiny black dot with an almost indistinguishable small amount of cell juice (cytoplasm) around it. A small lymphocyte…

  • Mixed new grads

    Mixed new grads

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    As a student, I remember sitting in the passenger seat of a farm vet’s car on the way to a cow caesarean, desperately trying to remember anything he might ask me about calvings. Instead, he quizzed me on the top 10 small animal emergencies. I think he was trying to reassure me that not many…

  • Accessibility to veterinary medicine, part 3: postgraduates

    Accessibility to veterinary medicine, part 3: postgraduates

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    There are many reasons that someone may decide to embark on a veterinary course as a postgraduate. Whether that be because his or her A-level or equivalent grades weren’t reached at the time to enter at undergraduate level, or a change in career direction later in life (who genuinely knows what they want to do…

  • Covideo killed the radio star

    Covideo killed the radio star

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    While I try and keep these blogs as supportive, informative and educational as possible (I promise I do!), sometimes a little fun is required. During lockdown I marvelled as my clinical colleagues stepped up to continue providing for our patients, and I know this has been hard – shifts extended, clients more stress than usual,…

  • Starting to take on students again

    Starting to take on students again

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    While this year’s new graduates have been dealt a particularly bad hand, students who aren’t as far through the veterinary course are also affected in a number of ways. Those in clinical years have had their clinical EMS requirements reduced by up to half – and while this takes the pressure off individuals to secure…

  • The person behind the grades

    The person behind the grades

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    This year has thrown a lot of annual landmarks into disarray, and A-levels were no exception; my heart went out to all the students this month whose results days did not go entirely to planned. It has been three years since I went, heart in mouth, to receive my own dreaded envelope. Even when I’d…

  • How are new grads coping with COVID?

    How are new grads coping with COVID?

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    As we all know, in March 2020 the world came to a grinding halt… and ever since the veterinary profession has been adapting accordingly. For those who have worked throughout, it has been a whirlwind of changing goalposts and new protocols, with advice seemingly changing on a daily basis. For veterinary students who have not…

  • Practice in practices makes perfect, in practice…

    Practice in practices makes perfect, in practice…

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    In a world currently filled with sacrifice and compromise, the cancellation of a week’s EMS over the Easter holidays did not, at first glance, seem like a hardship. Of course I had been looking forward to my first ever farm-practice placement – especially as only a week or so before I had tried my hand…