As vet’s, we remember all too well the hours of work experience required to show our commitment and passion for the profession. Without the support of our local vet practices we wouldn’t have been able to gain the experience needed for university application therefore we all feel strongly about offering students the opportunity to see practice at Hollybank.

More often than not our students return to us over a number of years. It is lovely to follow them through the process and see their hard work pay off at the end. We currently have a number of students in differing years of their veterinary degree who come back to see practice with us regularly. Most recently, Charlotte who also lives locally has been accepted to study veterinary medicine at Liverpool university. She has in fact just started her course and we are very excited for her!

Charlotte has kindly written a piece about why she wanted to become a vet and how important it is to carry out such work experience. We hope Charlotte’s experience encourages other aspiring vets and vet nurses to find the placements that they need.

“Owning a variety of pets means I have been on many trips to the vets from a young age. It immediately intrigued me on these visits the way in which the vets were able to diagnose the problems without the animals verbally telling them the issues in the same way in which I would tell my doctor. It was at this point I realised vets have to use other methods to find the animals’ problems in order to apply their knowledge to create a treatment plan. It was as the vets explained to us their diagnoses that I was also interested in the reasons why my pets’ bodies were malfunctioning and how the treatment would work in solving these problems. All of this is in addition to the clichéd but true fact that I love interacting with animals and want to help prevent and ease their suffering. So, it was at a young age that I decided I wanted to be a veterinary surgeon.

When applying to vet school it is important to have a wide range of work experience under your belt so when I was 15 I started looking for a placement at a vet’s practice so that I could see what the job involved and whether it was what I definitely wanted to do. Having a dog, Evie, and a cat, Tigger, who are regulars at Hollybank, it was a good start to apply here as I knew it was an excellent vets to do work experience at and I already knew the team. It was in the summer of 2014 that I spent my first week of placement here and I absolutely loved it, so much so that for the past two years I have been watching practice here every Thursday evening, and spending a week whenever possible.

I love watching practice at Hollybank as there is such a wide variety of cases to see and things to do. I can say I am a lot better at cleaning since working here, much to my Mum’s pleasure, as it is always a priority for the practice to be clean and hygienic. I also spend a lot of time watching consults between the vets and clients, which made it apparent that working as a vet involves dealing as much with the humans that come with the pets as well as the animals themselves. These consults have also provided me with the information of a lot of different illnesses and their accompanying treatments, which I always find interesting to hear about. In addition to this I also enjoy watching the operations carried out by Richard and the team, one of my favourites so far being a caesarean on a Bulldog, partly due to the puppies being very cute. I also try to help the vets and nurses when needed, such as by tidying up between consults, helping to clean or helping to hold animals. However, it appears that my main role at the practice is keeping everyone well fed with cakes!

Hollybank is my favourite veterinary practice to work at as there is always something exciting going on for me to do, the practice is very welcoming and clean, and all the veterinary surgeons, nurses and receptionists are very friendly and are always willing to help and explain things to me. My work experience at Hollybank has confirmed my ambition of becoming a vet as I thoroughly enjoy working here, and despite the hard work involved in being a vet I am still fascinated by the job and the range of skills it requires. I am very grateful to Richard and all at Hollybank for giving me this amazing opportunity and helping me with all they have done.”

Please see our ‘work experience’ page if you are considering applying to do work experience