information

daveo55

im in 3rd year and i was just wondering could anyone give me info in the area of vets like what can i except and what place would be best to go to college to study iy? :rolleyes:

DrIndy

veterinary surgery is something that I always was interested in but ended up doing human medicine and landed in my job.

There is only one college in ireland to study this to the best of my knowledge and thats UCD. There are other colleges in the UK to consider too when you apply.

I hope someone can step in and help out with more advice than I can. A very good thing to do is to write to a Vet and ask if you can see what they do, but remember that there is a HUGE difference between a small animal vet in a city who mostly does cats and dogs and a large animal vet who deals with horses, cattle and sheep......

Schlemm

First of all, make sure you have the right leaving cert subjects at the right levels...You'd want to check with the college about this, they may require a certain standard in higher leaving cert Chemistry (it's an easy enough subject too). UCD is the only place in Ireland to study vetmed; the next nearest place is England, but some people will go as far as other vet colleges in Europe (dunno for certain...but I think it's either Budapest or the Ukraine that a lot of Irish students go) to study.

As DrIndy said, there is a huge difference in practice depending on what field you go into. You could be calving cows in the middle of night on the side of a cliff, inspecting meat in an abbatoir, working in a small animal practice in the suburbs or sitting behind a desk in the department...then of course you can specialise in certain fields if you're really interested in something specific. That's one of the great things about the job - there's a huge amount of variation and many vets will work in more than 1 area in the course of their careers.

In terms of the course itself, it's fairly science-based at the begining and then it starts getting more specific but it's very interesting. You cover both farm animals and small animals in the course. The course requires a fair amount of experience outside the normal timetable,- farm and companion animal experience in 1st and 2nd year and you see practice with other vets in the other years. The timetable is hectic enough and you do need to dedicate yourself a fair bit, but that said, if you are interested in the work, you'll enjoy it and the social side of veterinary is brilliant too.

For now though you should get as much experience as you can...visit farms, vets, meat factories, zoos, whatever. Be sure to check up on the entrance requirements and the points. It's a brilliant course and career and best of luck if you decide to persue it!

daveo55

DrIndy wrote:

veterinary surgery is something that I always was interested in but ended up doing human medicine and landed in my job.

There is only one college in ireland to study this to the best of my knowledge and thats UCD. There are other colleges in the UK to consider too when you apply.

I hope someone can step in and help out with more advice than I can. A very good thing to do is to write to a Vet and ask if you can see what they do, but remember that there is a HUGE difference between a small animal vet in a city who mostly does cats and dogs and a large animal vet who deals with horses, cattle and sheep......

thanks i will try writing:D
what human med like?

daveo55

Schlemm wrote:

First of all, make sure you have the right leaving cert subjects at the right levels...You'd want to check with the college about this, they may require a certain standard in higher leaving cert Chemistry (it's an easy enough subject too). UCD is the only place in Ireland to study vetmed; the next nearest place is England, but some people will go as far as other vet colleges in Europe (dunno for certain...but I think it's either Budapest or the Ukraine that a lot of Irish students go) to study.

As DrIndy said, there is a huge difference in practice depending on what field you go into. You could be calving cows in the middle of night on the side of a cliff, inspecting meat in an abbatoir, working in a small animal practice in the suburbs or sitting behind a desk in the department...then of course you can specialise in certain fields if you're really interested in something specific. That's one of the great things about the job - there's a huge amount of variation and many vets will work in more than 1 area in the course of their careers.

In terms of the course itself, it's fairly science-based at the begining and then it starts getting more specific but it's very interesting. You cover both farm animals and small animals in the course. The course requires a fair amount of experience outside the normal timetable,- farm and companion animal experience in 1st and 2nd year and you see practice with other vets in the other years. The timetable is hectic enough and you do need to dedicate yourself a fair bit, but that said, if you are interested in the work, you'll enjoy it and the social side of veterinary is brilliant too.

For now though you should get as much experience as you can...visit farms, vets, meat factories, zoos, whatever. Be sure to check up on the entrance requirements and the points. It's a brilliant course and career and best of luck if you decide to persue it!

thanks.i live on farm so thats handy enough jelp out in that side of the job so thats mainly why im interested i would really engough working with house pets to as i love dogs and cats have plenty of em:D .ya i have checked the points 4 last yr it was 560 i think so hopefully it will lower a bit so thanks a lot for the long reply it was most appriciated

Faith

daveo55 wrote:

thanks.i live on farm so thats handy enough jelp out in that side of the job so thats mainly why im interested i would really engough working with house pets to as i love dogs and cats have plenty of em:D .ya i have checked the points 4 last yr it was 560 i think so hopefully it will lower a bit so thanks a lot for the long reply it was most appriciated

Don't bank on it getting lower. If you're only in 3rd year, you still have your entire leaving cert course ahead of you, so you can start studying hard early on! There's a very good vet course here in the University of Edinburgh, and it's a great city to study in too.