Tag: graduates

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • Interview questions

    Interview questions

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    Whenever I meet veterinary students, I am often asked: “What questions should I ask in my job interview?” For the past eight years, I have sat on the interviewer side of the table and have been asked some great questions. Here are some I think – as long as it is relevant to your career…

  • Who runs the world?

    Who runs the world?

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    Toward the end of my first year at university, a friend of mine stumbled upon a funny online student-made list of “things NOT to expect at vet school”. From memory, I think it included things we all related to such as Christmas holidays (curse you, exams), summer holidays (why, EMS, why?) and “a coolness status…

  • Balancing health with a busy schedule

    Balancing health with a busy schedule

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    When it comes to a course as busy and hectic as veterinary medicine, it can be easy to let certain things slide – especially around exam time. There’s the occasional group event, the odd party and, of course, the big one – a healthy lifestyle. I know from experience that when the grind really sets…

  • Lack of diversity in the veterinary profession is everyone’s problem

    Lack of diversity in the veterinary profession is everyone’s problem

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    It is heartening to see the need for diversity in the profession getting some airtime and column inches of late. Discussion of the issue is long overdue, but has this led to progress? Let’s be frank. Look around you – in your vet school class, your workplace, your boardroom and your practice. I’m going to…

  • Online vet grad bashing

    Online vet grad bashing

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    I’m generally a big fan of the various vet-related Facebook groups – they provide a less formal way to keep in touch with veterinary news, while offering a wealth of information from numerous different types of people across the profession. In minutes, a post looking for opinions can offer a “thousand ways to skin a…

  • A vet’s role in an environmental crisis

    A vet’s role in an environmental crisis

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    Climate change and mass extinction have been hot topics over recent weeks. But, if we’re being perfectly candid, these subjects should have reached the headlines a long time ago – which is perhaps why so many people have taken to the streets of London in protest. Though I share the plight of the people who…