Veterinary Medicine

Studying to become a vet is challenging wherever you do it, but we believe that the Cambridge system is ultimately more diverse and rewarding. St Catharine's is committed to Veterinary Medicine and works hard to make sure that its veterinary students reach their full potential, and also that they enjoy their time here. If you are interested in finding out more, you may wish to come to a St Catharine's, whole-University or Vet School open day. You may also wish to have a look at the Veterinary School admissions webpage, which has many more details about the Cambridge veterinary experience.

Reassurance for potential applicants who cannot gain work experience due to the coronavirus pandemic 

We at St Catharine's realise that some of you may be having trouble gaining work experience prior to your application for Veterinary Medicine, but our message to you is do not worry.

If you read these webpages you will find that we usually recommend applicants gain a total of ten working days' experience shadowing a vet or vets conducting any sort of veterinary work. This is (1) to allow you to confirm that you do wish to work in a veterinary environment, and (2) it also allows us to ask at interview what you've seen during your work experience and what you learnt from it. However, we do not require you to gain work experience, and every year we receive applications from candidates who could not secure work experience for logistical or insurance reasons, or who decided to apply for Veterinary Medicine quite late, so they could not gain experience before the UCAS application deadline.

Clearly, we would view the current pandemic as a valid reason not to have gained work experience. Lack of work experience for this reason will not affect your chances of being called for interview or made an offer to study Veterinary Medicine at Cambridge. So try to get work experience if possible, but please do not worry if you cannot. Certainly, do not put yourself or anyone else at risk to gain work experience.

Why Cambridge?

When you apply for vet school, you can choose up to four UK vet courses of the eight available. All vet schools recommend that you carefully review what each has to offer, so you can make the right decision for you. So, what are the advantages of the Cambridge course?

1. A strong practical focus. The Cambridge course progressively guides you towards your clinical goals. From their first week, our students learn handling and management skills in all the major domestic species, and subsequently with amphibians, reptiles, birds and ‘exotic’ mammals. In the early years this is supplemented by integrated sessions in clinical examination, thoracic auscultation, abdominal palpation, orthopaedic evaluation, echocardiography and neurological examination. Our students have the use of superb facilities – bespoke consultation and examination facilities, imaging and surgical suites, a linear accelerator for radiotherapy, clinical pathology and post mortem labs, and our Clinical Skills Lab is available 24 hours a day for students in all years.

2. The best science. The key to being a skilled vet is combining practical skills with excellent grounding in the science underlying practice. Cambridge gives you the unique opportunity to study to become a vet at the world’s premier science university – also consistently ranked as one of the best-funded and most productive UK universities. You will be fully immersed in our environment of cutting-edge biomedicine, and experience shows that this makes our graduates better equipped to deal with the high pace of change in veterinary medicine, and poised for a wide variety of flexible and challenging careers. Most importantly, all our non-graduate vet students study a single subject to a high level to gain a full Cambridge BA science degree. The unique opportunities provided by a Cambridge veterinary education are invaluable in our graduates’ future career progression and flexibility. Indeed, external feedback confirms that our graduates are better equipped to deal with unexpected clinical situations and the high pace of change in veterinary medicine.

3. Treating you as an individual. Ours is the smallest UK vet school, training around 70 students each year, and this is central to our students’ experience. Right from the start, you will be in very small dissection, animal handling, and lab practical groups. You will also benefit from Cambridge’s unique ‘supervision’ small group teaching system – which gives you regular opportunities to consolidate your learning and follow up on your interests. Later in the course, the small class size become even more valuable. Our clinical rotation groups are tiny, which ensures a high caseload, and thus more experience and confidence by the time you qualify.

4. The full 'Cambridge experience'. Most students say that, apart from the vet course itself, college life is the main reason they are glad they trained here. For at least the first three years you would live in college accommodation alongside 100-150 other students studying the whole range of subjects offered by the University. Colleges, and Catz in particular, are often students’ main social hub, as well as providing many of the facilities they use – for study, sport, music, and fun.

5. It's surprisingly inexpensive. A recent survey by the Association of Veterinary Students and the British Veterinary Association showed that, per term, Cambridge is the least expensive UK vet school to attend. Our students live in competitively-priced college accommodation for three-to-six years of their course and the University is inexpensive in other ways, too. There is an array of financial support available. The generous Cambridge Bursary supports students from low-income households, and there are also many sources of funding to prevent financial hardship, and also support student study, travel and recreation for all - see for example, this page about St Catharine's funds. Cambridge is also the only vet school which provides funding to support its students during their Clinical Extramural Studies.

6. Great career opportunities. Almost all Cambridge vet graduates go into veterinary practice when they graduate, and many stay for the rest of their careers - in farm, equine, small animal and exotics practice, in the UK and across the world. Those who decide to do further training, or study for qualification as a veterinary specialist find that the unparalleled scientific and clinical training they received at Cambridge puts them in an excellent position to further their career. Cambridge vets are also well placed to exploit all the opportunities their science BA and veterinary VetMB degrees offer them, be they in scientific and clinical research or teaching, industrial research, government and management.

7. A great university city. Cambridge is a beautiful, exciting place to spend your university years. Importantly, Cambridge Vet School is only a ten-minute cycle ride from the very centre of the city, including St Catharine's – far closer than the other UK vet schools. This means you can easily access the Vet School in your ‘pre-clinical’ years, yet not be isolated from all the city has to offer in your ‘clinical’ years.

Course structure

Years 1-2: The College consolidates and amplifies student learning by the provision of 'supervisions' - teaching sessions for small groups of two to four students. We also endeavour to highlight areas of clinical relevance in the veterinary course. During this time, students receive their lecture and practical teaching in the University departments - either as a vet-only group (when studying anatomy, physiology, neurobiology, animal management and 'preparing for the veterinary profession'), or alongside natural scientists (studying reproductive biology) or medical students (for physiology, biochemistry, pathology, pharmacology).

Year 3: The broad skills of the college fellowship support students as they specialize in one subject for their 'Part II' in which they pursue a subject of their choosing for a whole year. This year gives Cambridge veterinary students an unparalleled and exciting opportunity to work with researchers at the cutting edge of their field, and they often also carry out an in-depth research project of their own. Most vet students study a biological subject in this third year - ranging from palaeontology to developmental neuroscience to the history and philosophy of science - but non-scientific subjects may occasionally be chosen, such as Management Studies. At the end of the third year, vet students receive a full Cambridge BA degree equivalent to that awarded to Natural Scientists - and having such a qualification from the world's premier science university can prove invaluable in their later career. This is why the Cambridge course is one year longer than the other UK veterinary schools, and you should bear in mind that this is the most distinctive feature of the Cambridge course. Catz vet students do not have to choose their third year subject until near the end of their second year.

Years 4-6: St Catharine's actively fosters a sense of continuity as the vet students progress to their fourth, fifth and sixth year clinical studies (including an all-clinical final year) at the Vet School on Madingley Road, which is ten minutes by bicycle from St Catharine's, despite the college's central location. During this time, the course gradually transforms from a lecture/practical system to a final year which is entirely taken up by rotations in various clinical fields (e.g. small animal orthopaedics, farm animal medicine, equine surgery). As a result, the Cambridge veterinary course is one of the most 'practical' in the UK. We provide ample opportunities for clincial and pre-clinical students to mingle at St Catharine's, and the college's undergraduate and graduate 'tutorial' systems ensure that vet students receive excellent pastoral care throughout their six years here. At the end of the six years, students are awarded the degree of Vet MB and thereby membership of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (and the ability to work as a vet in the UK, EU and most of the Commonwealth). If you want to work in the US, this is probably the best time to sit AVMA and state board exams.

The six-year course

One of the major differences between the veterinary course at Cambridge and those at other UK veterinary schools is that it takes one year longer to complete. We believe that the extra year is a major reason to apply to the course here, and more than justifies the extra time required to complete the Cambridge course.

The 'extra' year at Cambridge is the third year (see above), when vet students study a single subject to an extremely high level and receive a Cambridge BA in that subject (for historical reasons, Cambridge does not award BSc degrees and all science students get BAs). This degree is a full Cambridge science degree, identical to that awarded to Natural Scientists.

Aside from the satisfaction and enjoyment of being awarded a science degree from the world's top university, having the Cambridge BA degree can be extremely useful later on in your career. Many people applying to vet courses do not realise that they may spend much of their career in research, in teaching, in academia more generally, in industry, running companies, writing books and generally enjoying a very wide variety of career choices. The Cambridge BA is a recognised mark of scientific excellence around the world, and that 'extra' year can often prove to be worth its weight in gold later on in your career.

Six years at vet school means an extra year of fees and living costs. However, this is mitigated by the fact that Cambridge is a relatively inexpensive place to be a vet student - see the following link for details: 

There is much more information available on the Vet School admissions page (written by the St Catharine's Director of Studies!)

Another useful resource is the Vet Schools Council's Admissions processes and entry requirements for UK veterinary schools (edited by the St Catharine's Director of Studies!)