Vet Work Experience During the Pandemic

Basically, I'm an external student, looking to apply for vet med for 2022 start. Because I'm not studying with a school, I'm really out of the loop with what everyone's doing for work experience this year. I don't have any work experience as I made the final decision to become a vet last March and then the lockdown happened, and have been trying to book some last year and this year. I phoned up/emailed every vet surgery in my area and have been booked in for one week at an equine hospital is 2022 and been put on a waiting list for work experience by two other places for this year, but every other surgery told me they weren't offering placements unless I was a uni student 😪. I have completed the online work experience by Nottingham University, but I don't really know what else I can do/ or what everyone else is doing in terms of work experience haha. I've signed up to newsletters and have kept up to date with current news in the vet world, but I feel like that's not enough. If anyone is in college/sixth form, what are your teachers telling you to do or what are you doing? Pls help me, I'm very stressed about this 😂😭 I feel really pessimistic about getting into uni now😪. Thanks!!

Hiya, I’m a 2021 applicant (I’ve gotten offers for Surrey, Bristol and Notts and am on hold for RVC so be free to ask any questions about them)
I’d recommend contacting all farms/ stables near you as I am still able to volunteer at my farm and it’s work experience! Try out places like animal shelters?
It’s really tricky re the clinical experience but like you most 2022 applicants will be in the same postillon and I’m sure universities will adapt their conditional to reflect this, but I’d retry again with the vets once Covid is a bit more in control as they may change their stance.
I personally did loads of online courses on infectious diseases, animal welfare and behaviour, entered essay competitions for vetmed and did a research project which all reflects my interest and passion for the course. Though they don’t count towards work experience they did show my keen interest and eagerness/ willingness towards the profession and would of made my personal statement strong.
Below I’ve attached a link to an online work experience done by a company called medic mentors (it’s free). They are a great company that support vet applicants (might want to sign up?)
https://medicmentor.co.uk/veterinary-virtual-live-work-experience/
Also try and sign up to the vet summer schools (Sutton trust) as they tend to also count towards work experience. Can you try and make your equine work experience be 2 weeks instead?

Ps don’t worry about not having a school backing you, I know lots of applicants (me included) who although they are at school have not gotten any support as their schools are clueless about the vet world/ application process. So if I can do it all on my own so can you!

You’re doing all the right things so please don’t worry (I know that’s easier said than done).
Best of luck with your application and if you have any questions (e.g. about personal statements or the vet schools/ how to prep for interviews) feel free to ask me

I would suspect for actual clinical veterinary placements it may be heading towards August before non-clinical vet students and applicants will be allowed back into practice. I am a clinical student and lucky enough to have managed to get a fair number of weeks of clinical EMS lined up for this easter and summer but I know many others who have not managed to find any. It is a sad reality most veterinary practices will be prioritising clinical and especially final year clinical students for EMS (as these are great recruitment opportunities also) at present. There are some online courses which count as clinical EMS and whilst they do not count I would look at vet instagrammers (as in qualified vets not the student ones) as they often post up cases and talk about their days which will help give an insight into practice.

Congrats on your offers! Yes I’ll definitely have a phone around stables and shelters in my area. I’m just waiting for lockdown to end before I phone up vets for clinical experience as I feel like they’ll be more likely to say yes then.

That’s a good idea too, I’ll definitely have a look at online courses; I bet there are loads of good free ones out there! It’s just annoying that none of them count as official experience, but it should set you apart from other applicants for sure! At the end of the day, it’s a way of gaining knowledge. And thanks for the link, I’ll sign up to that!

Will two weeks at a single hospital count? Sorry if that’s a stupid question haha. I’ll email them and ask if I can have two weeks of experience.

Thats so unfair how other students aren’t getting the support for the application process. Knowing exactly the right things to get in at this time is hard enough as it is!

Thanks! I’ll have a think if there’s anything else I’m unsure on ☺️

You’re probably right! I’m hoping that practices will open up to non-EMS students towards the end of the year. Ooh do you happen to know which online courses are for EMS? I might have a look at those and some instagrammers too. Thanks for the advice!

Hiya, I’m a 2021 applicant (I’ve gotten offers for Surrey, Bristol and Notts and am on hold for RVC so be free to ask any questions about them)
I’d recommend contacting all farms/ stables near you as I am still able to volunteer at my farm and it’s work experience! Try out places like animal shelters?
It’s really tricky re the clinical experience but like you most 2022 applicants will be in the same postillon and I’m sure universities will adapt their conditional to reflect this, but I’d retry again with the vets once Covid is a bit more in control as they may change their stance.
I personally did loads of online courses on infectious diseases, animal welfare and behaviour, entered essay competitions for vetmed and did a research project which all reflects my interest and passion for the course. Though they don’t count towards work experience they did show my keen interest and eagerness/ willingness towards the profession and would of made my personal statement strong.
Below I’ve attached a link to an online work experience done by a company called medic mentors (it’s free). They are a great company that support vet applicants (might want to sign up?)
https://medicmentor.co.uk/veterinary-virtual-live-work-experience/
Also try and sign up to the vet summer schools (Sutton trust) as they tend to also count towards work experience. Can you try and make your equine work experience be 2 weeks instead?

Ps don’t worry about not having a school backing you, I know lots of applicants (me included) who although they are at school have not gotten any support as their schools are clueless about the vet world/ application process. So if I can do it all on my own so can you!

You’re doing all the right things so please don’t worry (I know that’s easier said than done).
Best of luck with your application and if you have any questions (e.g. about personal statements or the vet schools/ how to prep for interviews) feel free to ask me

Hello, congratulations on your offers and good luck with RVC !
I'm a year 10 student and my school supported work experience has been cancelled - I will be looking for some organized by myself as soon as lockdown restrictions are lifted, please could you give me a list of all your work experience/ what you recommend? I have done a few online courses including the University of Nottingham Virtual Work Experience and I will also sign up for the Medic Mentors (thank you for the recommendation!) and I'm due to do some farm work in the coming weeks. If anyone else has any advice that would be much appreciated too, thank you!

Thank you
I think the first thing is to not worry it’s good your only in year 10 as it means you still have plenty of time to get work experience and hopefully covid won’t be as much of an issue for you in the summer of year 11 going into year 12 so you’ll be able to get lots!

I think I have included all my work experience below, mind this years been a bit of a funny year due to covid so the vet schools reduced their amounts required to accommodate us and I’m sure come your year they will require their standard amount. Also do note I had a lot cancelled (which I will also list).
Work experience
- 4 weeks clinical work experience (9:30-6:30 = 180 hours ) - 2 weeks at an orthopaedics vets, 1 week at a farms vet and 1 week at a small animals practice.

*I think usually vet schools (or at least the ones I applied to) require 70 hours of clinical work experience which is 2 weeks. I will warn you that places like RVC only except work experience that has been done within 18 months, so traditionally 2 weeks of my clinical wouldn’t have counted as I did them in year 10, but they changed this for us due to covid.*

- A year and a half at a farm (volunteered every weekend as well as during the week in the holidays)
Could you try and extend your farm experience/ try and make it a regular thing ? As that sort of animal handling experience is really good to have!
- 50 hours volunteering with a cat charity abroad in Fuerteventura (in no means do you need to go abroad I just happened to stumble across this experience).
- 40 hours at a laboratory
So this is all the work experience I managed to gain before lockdown struck.
Here’s all that got cancelled
- 2 weeks volunteering at RSPCA
- 2 weeks at an equine riding club
- 1 week clinical experience
- 2 weeks at a zoo

I would highly recommend trying to get some lambing experience. Unfortunately there weren’t any farms that did lambing near me that I could access but it’s a great one to have under your belt! I’d also recommend if you can visiting an abattoir.
Other things you could do are:
- Hydrotherapy for dogs
- Animal shelters
- Kennels
- Any animal charity
- Pet groomers
I’m sure other people will have some great suggestions as well, this is only what I can think of off the top of my head!

Here’s a link to the site I did the majority of my online courses on https://www.coursera.org/ might want to check it out?
Most of them ranged from 6-12 weeks long (mind I tended to get them all done in 2-3 days during each holiday as I get a bit hooked 😂)

I think I mentioned before but if you can try and get onto one of the vet school Sutton trust summer schools that tends to count as work experience + is a great opportunity!
Here’s the links:
https://summerschools.suttontrust.com/course/university-of-edinburgh/veterinary-medicine/ = Edinburgh
https://summerschools.suttontrust.com/university-partners/royal-veterinary-college/ = RVC
https://summerschools.suttontrust.com/course/university-of-cambridge/veterinary-medicine-2/ = Cambridge
https://summerschools.suttontrust.com/ (just their general website)

I’d also recommend signing up to RVC’s teen vet club —> https://www.rvc.ac.uk/study/rvc-is-open-for-all/widening-participation/newsletters/teen-vet-club
There is always some great opportunities on there!

Finally I’d recommend signing up to the vet practice magazine. They are strictly for vet students/ vet practices and don’t usually let non-vets sign up for them but I just emailed and told them I had been reading them at one of my placements and really enjoyed it and so was wondering if I could get them and she signed me up with no problem so maybe do the same?
https://veterinary-practice.com/

Finally, try and see if your schools science department offer the bronze/silver/gold crest award as they’re great opportunities to do research projects and could potentially make you a stronger candidate. If your school doesn’t and after some looking into you really want to do it just ask them as it’s aimed at schools and it’s easy for teachers to sign you up (or you can enter privately but may need one of them to assess your project).
https://www.crestawards.org/

Okay that is everything I can think of off the top of my head, I will let you know if I can think of anything more. If you have any questions at all feel free to ask me/ PM me and I will try my best to answer them
Best of luck with your application in a few years time!

There are some nice residentials for DofE gold that are animal based - sadly they come with a price tag but my daughter loved hers.