What is the Bristol vet school course like?
Hi
I would like to know from any current vet students at Bristol if the veterinary science course is more practical based or more theory based? I have a reading-writing learning style and so I would prefer a university that doesn't rely so heavily on practicals to teach students.
I would like to know from any current vet students at Bristol if the veterinary science course is more practical based or more theory based? I have a reading-writing learning style and so I would prefer a university that doesn't rely so heavily on practicals to teach students.
@ALEreapp @Euapp will know more about Bristol specifically to answer your question.
While I understand because my method of learning is also mostly writing and I perhaps didn’t get so much from prosection practicals as much as others, I just want to warn that vet med is a practical course and there are some things you cannot be taught without it being a practical. You can’t learn how to handle animals, exactly how to do clinical skills like suturing, blood taking, injections, neutering, working with surgical equipment like scalpels etc without it being practical. If you are intending to be a vet after the degree, your job will be mostly practical with writing only being in clinical notes really. So it makes sense that all vet schools have “a lot” of practicals, there should be materials around the practical you can make notes on before and after but you should still try within the practical itself. Sometimes you’ll retain more than you think, particularly as school practicals are quite different to vet school ones which you haven’t experienced yet. Plus in our exams (at Liverpool not Bristol) we sometimes get the same specimens as in the practicals, so seeing them before can be helpful and it’s also a good time to speak to the lecturers one on one to clarify any questions - I listened to a lecturer giving a small group a talk in a practical and a week later I had her in my OSPE got asked the same question, I remembered what she said and got it right and I wouldn’t have known the exact answer just from notes probably. Plus there’s also the whole element that applying to vet school is super competitive, obviously you choose your initial options but getting an offer at a school that suits you exactly isn’t guaranteed so you can only be so picky. Generally vet schools will try to be as practical as they can due to the nature of the course, but all will have a load of lectures with notes too.
While I understand because my method of learning is also mostly writing and I perhaps didn’t get so much from prosection practicals as much as others, I just want to warn that vet med is a practical course and there are some things you cannot be taught without it being a practical. You can’t learn how to handle animals, exactly how to do clinical skills like suturing, blood taking, injections, neutering, working with surgical equipment like scalpels etc without it being practical. If you are intending to be a vet after the degree, your job will be mostly practical with writing only being in clinical notes really. So it makes sense that all vet schools have “a lot” of practicals, there should be materials around the practical you can make notes on before and after but you should still try within the practical itself. Sometimes you’ll retain more than you think, particularly as school practicals are quite different to vet school ones which you haven’t experienced yet. Plus in our exams (at Liverpool not Bristol) we sometimes get the same specimens as in the practicals, so seeing them before can be helpful and it’s also a good time to speak to the lecturers one on one to clarify any questions - I listened to a lecturer giving a small group a talk in a practical and a week later I had her in my OSPE got asked the same question, I remembered what she said and got it right and I wouldn’t have known the exact answer just from notes probably. Plus there’s also the whole element that applying to vet school is super competitive, obviously you choose your initial options but getting an offer at a school that suits you exactly isn’t guaranteed so you can only be so picky. Generally vet schools will try to be as practical as they can due to the nature of the course, but all will have a load of lectures with notes too.
I echo a lot of what @RambleAmple has said about certain things you just can’t learn without being practical. That being said we aren’t doing practicals everyday… atm we do animal handling on a Thursday (need to learn these skills for osces in order to do EMS) but you also have booklets for every clinical skill so you can read those and then we do anatomy practicals every Friday (again you aren’t learning anatomy without these practicals, it’s so helpful in echoing structures when you can see them on a cadaver) then every couple of weeks we have histology practicals which again are just a necessary evil really.
From seeing other first years at other vet schools we are defo doing less practical stuff in these first few weeks than they have been but ig it all evens out because they will have to do the tedious stuff at some point when we are doing the clinical practicals they are currently doing…
All of our practicals come with a handout and often pictures of the cadavers on so we can apply the things we see and have a revision material for it. We also do a lot of CBL which is case based learning so you apply your lectures to cases and we do around 4 sessions of that a week which is a chunky part of our timetable, that’s all about brainstorming and researching rather than hands on clinical work!
From seeing other first years at other vet schools we are defo doing less practical stuff in these first few weeks than they have been but ig it all evens out because they will have to do the tedious stuff at some point when we are doing the clinical practicals they are currently doing…
All of our practicals come with a handout and often pictures of the cadavers on so we can apply the things we see and have a revision material for it. We also do a lot of CBL which is case based learning so you apply your lectures to cases and we do around 4 sessions of that a week which is a chunky part of our timetable, that’s all about brainstorming and researching rather than hands on clinical work!
Original post by ALEreapp
I echo a lot of what @RambleAmple has said about certain things you just can’t learn without being practical. That being said we aren’t doing practicals everyday… atm we do animal handling on a Thursday (need to learn these skills for osces in order to do EMS) but you also have booklets for every clinical skill so you can read those and then we do anatomy practicals every Friday (again you aren’t learning anatomy without these practicals, it’s so helpful in echoing structures when you can see them on a cadaver) then every couple of weeks we have histology practicals which again are just a necessary evil really.
From seeing other first years at other vet schools we are defo doing less practical stuff in these first few weeks than they have been but ig it all evens out because they will have to do the tedious stuff at some point when we are doing the clinical practicals they are currently doing…
All of our practicals come with a handout and often pictures of the cadavers on so we can apply the things we see and have a revision material for it. We also do a lot of CBL which is case based learning so you apply your lectures to cases and we do around 4 sessions of that a week which is a chunky part of our timetable, that’s all about brainstorming and researching rather than hands on clinical work!
From seeing other first years at other vet schools we are defo doing less practical stuff in these first few weeks than they have been but ig it all evens out because they will have to do the tedious stuff at some point when we are doing the clinical practicals they are currently doing…
All of our practicals come with a handout and often pictures of the cadavers on so we can apply the things we see and have a revision material for it. We also do a lot of CBL which is case based learning so you apply your lectures to cases and we do around 4 sessions of that a week which is a chunky part of our timetable, that’s all about brainstorming and researching rather than hands on clinical work!
Yeah histology practicals aren't fun lmao, there are definitely some practicals that you just have to get through rather than enjoy but at least it's not masses amounts of your time. I think it'll be the case at most vet schools that the first year practicals are less hands on/fun and as you go up through the years they're more 'appealing', at least at Liverpool that seems to be the case as we're doing less prosections now and more physical things like doing anaesthetic blocks or actual dissections and necropsies etc. It'll all even out, the vet schools know what works for them otherwise they'd change it!
My first reply to this refused to send so I’m afraid this is going to be an abreviated version. As @RambleAmple and @ALEreapp have said all schools will have a mix of practical and hands on. There’s no getting around it although I do understand your need to have structured notes etc on which to base your learning, and I think I’m pretty safe in saying that whatever the learning style adopted by the schools, all will provide this.
Bristol has more than some and less than others in terms of practical sessions and I don’t think the change from modular to spiral learning will affect this. For the first 2 years you will have dissections and handling on a weekly basis with the compulsory EMS during the vacations ( which I think is now reduced to 10 weeks). OSCE’s have to be passed in order to progress to the next year, so being at ease handling and manipulating core species is essential.
From third year onwards most sessions are at the vet campus at Langford with clinical classes etc ( so hands on) Good luck to all left handers, you seem to have been forgotten when they set things up!!
Being better at learning from writing rather than doing is going to be complicated. Whilst there is obviously a heavy reliance on theory and reading the end goal is to be able to apply it and hence the CBL approach. Bristol assesses via short answer questions, MCQ’s and group project work. There are very few essays. If you prefer this style of learning you would do well to consider Cambridge as most of the other schools with the exception of an occasional research document to analyse or present do not assess in this way.
Hope this has helped.
My DD is a third year so on the modular system. ALEreapp as a first year with the new spiral system will know more about the lecture style being used as of September 2023.
Bristol has more than some and less than others in terms of practical sessions and I don’t think the change from modular to spiral learning will affect this. For the first 2 years you will have dissections and handling on a weekly basis with the compulsory EMS during the vacations ( which I think is now reduced to 10 weeks). OSCE’s have to be passed in order to progress to the next year, so being at ease handling and manipulating core species is essential.
From third year onwards most sessions are at the vet campus at Langford with clinical classes etc ( so hands on) Good luck to all left handers, you seem to have been forgotten when they set things up!!
Being better at learning from writing rather than doing is going to be complicated. Whilst there is obviously a heavy reliance on theory and reading the end goal is to be able to apply it and hence the CBL approach. Bristol assesses via short answer questions, MCQ’s and group project work. There are very few essays. If you prefer this style of learning you would do well to consider Cambridge as most of the other schools with the exception of an occasional research document to analyse or present do not assess in this way.
Hope this has helped.
My DD is a third year so on the modular system. ALEreapp as a first year with the new spiral system will know more about the lecture style being used as of September 2023.
(edited 6 months ago)
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