Third year

I had a fantastic summer and returned to the RVC feeling refreshed and ready for the new year. We are currently learning about microbiology and parasites and I am finding it a lot more interesting than I anticipated! There are so many people in the year now that our practicals are not as hands-on as they would have been in the past. We spend a lot of time just looking at specimens and pictures which were prepared a few years ago. It is still fairly interesting though. The facilities at Hawkshead are amazing, particularly the Clinical Skills centre which is the only one of its kind in the UK. At my first session on Tuesday we learnt to suture, tie knots, prepare blood smears and take a packed cell volume measurement on a blood sample. We are allowed to go in there whenever we have free time (not that often!) and practise whatever we need to.