Young Vets - Season 1

The Young Vets have been studying for four years at the Royal Veterinary College and it's finally time to put their textbooks to one side and get hands-on with real animals. They have just two weeks to master and pass each essential area of practical veterinary knowledge and the first day of their placements has each of them feeling like a total beginner.

It's late summer at the Royal Veterinary College and the students have just 11 months to go before they qualify. They're under a lot of pressure as they need to master every discipline of veterinary medicine - whether it's first-opinion general practice or complex surgery. The students learn to diagnose and not make assumptions.

The Young Vets learn not to underestimate the amazing ability of animals to recover from illness, while getting to grips with the serious business of surgery. But for some of the students, the intense pressureis starting to take its toll.

The Young Vets are gradually getting into the swing of the final year and gaining confidence with live animals. This time they knuckle down to some really smelly jobs and learn that not all cases end happily ever after.

It is late autumn and the students are starting to learn some tough lessons about what being a vet really means. In this episode they realise that not all cases have easy answers and get a taste of what itmeans to deliver bad news to owners.

It is the middle of winter at the Royal Veterinary College and the exhausted students are just weeks away from their well-earned Christmas break. They will all need to be able to perform simple surgery on day one as qualified vets - and in this episode they find out it is definitely as hard as it looks!

It is early January at the Royal Veterinary College, and the young vets have just three more months of clinical placements before they face their all-important final exams. That also means only three moremonths to master all the skills they need to go into practice as fully qualified vets. At the same time they are learning how hard it can be to lose a patient they have grown fond of.

It's February and our young vets only have a few months left before their student days come to an end. They'll soon be the ones making decisions about their patients, with no-one to fall back on. They learnthat these decisions about what's best for patients and their owners can be very difficult indeed.

Elly Berry is living the dream working with a farm vet in rural Devon. She soon learns that, whatever the weather, animals come first as she delivers a ewe of two lambs in an emergency caesarean in a barn, an experience which convinces her that this is definitely the life for her.

It's mid-March and, with just one more practical placement to pass, our students are trying to cram in as much vital experience as they can. Amazingly, even at this late stage, they're all tackling proceduresthey've never attempted before. But it could all be a complete waste of time if they don't pass those all-important final exams!