Ground-breaking documentary for BBC2 follows the ups and downs of RVC vet students in their final year of training

Tue, 12/08/2014 - 12:00

London, UK, 12th July 2014 / Sciad Newswire / Britain is a nation in love with its animals. We own 27 million pets and 900 million farm animals, and they all need vets.  

A new BBC2 documentary series by ITN Productions will follow ten students at the Royal Veterinary College through their final year as they take what they've learnt in the classroom and put it to the test for the first time in practices, farms and state-of-the-art animal hospitals.

It’s a whirlwind of back to back work placements covering every element of veterinary medicine - from farms, horses, small animals and even exotic animals from the local zoo. The students can’t afford to fail a single one if they want to graduate.

It’s the most challenging stretch of a very long journey to become fully qualified vets; full of first time experiences, incredible animal stories, hard work and high emotion.

Throughout the series the vets extraordinary encounters include learning how to carry out caesareans on sheep, help a dog with a broken back to walk again, treat a horse with sinusitis and even help give a Shar Pei a facelift.

Professor David Church, Vice-Principal (Learning and Student Experience) at the Royal Veterinary College, said: "We are extremely proud of what our final-year students have achieved and were excited by the opportunity to show the world some glimpses of not only what is involved in training to become a practicing veterinarian but just how talented our students are."

Mature student Judy Puddifoot said: “You know when I was at school I told my careers advisor that I wanted to be a vet and unfortunately, he said you know "you're not going to be a vet Judy. You're not clever enough really." That kind of negative feeling stayed with me for a long time thinking I can't do it, there's no point I won't even try. Then eventually you think I'm just going to try, I'm just going to shoot for the stars, see what happens, see if I can get there. And I did, and hence why I'm doing it now.”

Fellow 'Young Vet' Charlie Tewson, from Norfolk, said: It's the last rotation, it's the last thing you're going to do, and the next time you set foot in a veterinary practice, it's actually - you're going to be qualified, you're going to be a vet. The onus is going to be on you.

Young Vets will start on Tuesday August 19th on BBC2 and will be broadcast at 7pm on week nights over three consecutive weeks. For background information about the series visit the Royal Veterinary College's Young Vets website to be launched on the first day of transmission - http://youngvets.rvc.ac.uk

Contact:

Hannah Ranson: Communications Management

T: +44 (0)1727 737997

M: 07584037763
E: hannah@communicationsmanagement.co.uk

Notes to Editors

The Royal Veterinary College

The Royal Veterinary College (RVC) is the England's largest and longest established veterinary school and is a constituent College of the University of London. The RVC  offers undergraduate, postgraduate and CPD programmes in veterinary medicine and veterinary nursing and is ranked in the top 10 universities nationally for biosciences.  It is the only veterinary school in the world to hold full accreditation from AVMA, EAEVE, RCVS and AVBC.

A research-led institution, the RVC ranked as the top veterinary school in the Agriculture, Veterinary and Food Science unit of the most recent Research Assessment Exercise with 55% of academics producing 'world class' and 'internationally excellent' research. The College also provides support for the veterinary profession through its three referral hospitals including the Queen Mother Hospital for Animals, Europe's largest small animal hospital, which sees more than 8,000 patients each year. http://www.rvc.ac.uk

ITN Productions

ITN Productions creates multi-platform content for major global brands on broadcast, digital and corporate production. Clients that commission award-winning programmes from ITN Productions include major UK and international broadcasters such as ITV, the BBC, Channel 4, Channel 5, History and Discovery, with television commissions including The Agenda on ITV, Harrow – A Very British School on Sky1, Climbing Great Buildings on BBC2, Mud Men on History and a contract to produce Dispatches for Channel 4. Entertainment content made by ITN Productions includes FYI Daily on ITV2, The Breakfast Fix on 4Music, entertainment bulletins on 5* and 5USA, The Showbiz 411 on YouTube. ITN Productions also creates news content for a wide range of clients such as, MSN, Virgin Media, Telegraph Media Group, The Independent, Metro, Daily Mail, Daily Express and Daily Star, and the Illiffe and MNA publishing groups. ITN News is on Facebook, is the most viewed news channel on YouTube and produces the citizen journalism channel Truthloader. In sport, ITN Productions produces Barclays Premier League in-game clips and highlights for News UK as well as content for SNTV. Corporate clients working with ITN Productions to create content include Proctor & Gamble, Department of Health and Virgin Active. For more information visit www.itnproductions.co.uk.