At Vets Now we offer vets a number of routes into emergency and critical care.
One of the most popular is our rotating internship programme which is aimed at new and recent veterinary graduates who are keen to expand their skills, knowledge and experience in all aspects of small animal practice.
The programme serves as an excellent foundation for those wishing to pursue specific discipline specialist training in the future, or those keen to experience frontline work in emergency medicine.
In this interview, Eleanor Holland, who did an internship in our emergency and specialty hospital in Glasgow, gives her opinion on life at Vets Now.
Interested in our internships?
Call our talent team on 01383 841181 to discuss your options or send one of our talent partners an email by clicking here.
Find out moreTell me about your background? I graduated from the University of Edinburgh in July and joined Vets Now not long after. I chose Vets Now because I wanted to work somewhere that had a high caseload, partly because I come from the countryside where everything is quieter. It was also clear that a lot of thought had been put into it. For me, the programme offers vets a good balance between teaching and practical experience.
When did working as a vet become an ambition? I always knew I wanted to be a vet. It started when I was growing up and my cat became diabetic. We were in and out of the vets a lot, which got me thinking about it as a career. I did work experience at the vets and just fell in love with it.
Tell me about the Vets Now internship? I did the rotating internship, which involved five-week blocks in each of the clinical services, such as ECC, soft tissue surgery and internal medicine. We also did a two-week externship which involved working in another hospital to learn something different. The internship provided me with great practical emergency experience. Another big plus was working closely with the hospital’s specialists. Assisting them was a fantastic experience because it provided me with first-hand knowledge that I just wouldn’t have got anywhere else.
What did you enjoy most about the internship? One of the reasons the Vets Now internship stands out from other rotating internships is the practical surgical experience you are exposed to. The cases interns are involved with out of hours, you just wouldn’t get elsewhere. I also think the balance between working in out of hours ECC and working with the specialists is great.
Where do you see yourself in five years? I’d be keen to do a surgical internship in Canada or Australia before coming back to the UK to do a residency.
Did you enjoy working in emergency and critical care? Yes, I think I was lucky in Glasgow because there was always a big team on-hand to support me and the staff were all so helpful. It’s never as scary as you might think and the nurses I worked alongside were really experienced.
What makes Vets Now a good company to work for? There’s a really good atmosphere at Vets Now, everyone is always looking out for each other and it does genuinely feel like a big family. It’s also great there are so many wider opportunities within the business, and that resources are in place for vets if ever anyone needs help. That’s the kind of support network you don’t really get anywhere else.
What advice would you give to someone thinking of becoming a vet? It’s not a career for you if you’re not 100% into it because it is very challenging. But for those who are committed, I’d advise getting exposure to as many different sides of the profession as possible and see and experience as much as you can.
If you would like to discuss our internship opportunities, call our talent team on 01383 841181 or for more information email [email protected]. For more information about our current opportunities, click here.