Recommendations for equine PCEMS placement?

BronsonNutter

BronsonNutter

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I’m in the first year of my veterinary degree, and we have to do so many weeks of ‘PCEMS’ – pre-clinical extra mural studies (I still have no idea quite what mural means in this sense… Thought it was a kind of painting but I may be wrong :p) - over the uni holidays, so many weeks of which must be equine. I think it’s three weeks minimum, but we can always do more if we want/have time. Which hopefully I will!

Anyway, I wanted to see if anyone had any recommendations as to where/who to go to for this. I’m not quite sure of the minimum requirements yet in terms of number of animals, but it’s unlikely that I’ll be able to go back to my friends as quite a few of her rides live off site :(

I’d prefer to go to somewhere that I’d be allowed to do a lot of jobs, possibly ride (even if it’s just on the youngsters or hacking out) and maybe go to a few of the events or shows if it’s a competition yard. I like hard work – hate feeling like a spare part! Not too fussed about where it is as long as they let me stay over and bring my horse, but the furthest tips of Scotland and Cornwall might be a bit far for the parents to take Wibs :cool:

So yeah, any recommendations please? Not much on offer here I’m afraid, just mini Weetabix because I really need to go shopping but it keeps raining :(



(Also if anyone in the Notts/South Yorks area knows of any pig or poultry farms nearby, please let me know! I have dairy, beef, lambing and small animals all sorted as to where I’m going, just lacking these three?)
 
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I'm just doing mine (AHEMS at RVC ;) ) at a riding school/RDA/driving centre I know the owners of over this xmas as the only better options for learning about the things we're meant to would be to stay away at a stud somewhere and after my lambing and with the threat of dairy and pigs both of which I'll likely have to stay at I wanted to go somewhere I knew even if it's still staying away :o I decided it was pretty unrealistic of them to house the horse too so havn't asked :p I survived a month lambing with no horsey time so 2 weeks should be ok!
 
I did mine at a busy TB stud over Easter, where they had 4 stallions standing at stud, their own mares and also mares that came in to foal. I don't know about your previous experience, but I felt husbandry wise I really wasn't going to learn anything new (about husbandry!) at a competition or livery yard as had worked on both when younger, but I had little handling experience with foals and had previously only seen one foaling!!

As a result I now feel a lot more confident handling foals, am a lot more confident about the normalities of foaling - when something is about to drop (!) etc and the actual foaling process, and just feel as if I'm a bit more "in the know" about stud work. The vet also came every morning to scan mares etc and I could stand by him in the stocks for 2 hours a day watching him - obviously I know the PCEMS period is for animal handling than anything else, but vaguely knowing my way round an ultrasound has been invaluable now I'm in clinical years. I lived in so did some "sitting up" some nights too (god bless CCTV ;)). Normal day - see a few coverings, stand with vet, turn out mares and foals, mucking out (booo!!), dealing with any foals that had problems (had a few poorlies to nurse), more coverings, and hopefully a few foalings (mainly at night of course ;)) etc etc.

I don't mean to sound like a high and mighty old fart, but I really wouldn't even think about riding in terms of choosing a placement. Yes would be nice spending a few weeks improving your riding and going to a few shows (I know this isn't exactly what you're saying - but thats what a few friends thought they could do :rolleyes:), but your training to be a vet not a pro rider....... (though on my placement they let me ride their personal horses on the night - though was pretty nakered most day!! But something I see as a bonus)

As I said I am now in clinical years, and still hell bent on being an equine vet (yes yes I know I shouldn't be!) and compared to my other equiney friends I feel as result of those few weeks I am leaps and bounds ahead of them in terms of understanding a bit about stud work - some of my friends still haven't seen a foaling :o!!

So maybe look at what previous experience you've had, and what you think needs work - after all this you're now going to tell me your parents run a stud or something haha :) my placement was very very hard work, I had to do a lot of ****** work as well as seeing the "good stuff" (I was lucky in seeing a reasonably rare foal condition too - well, "lucky") and the people were pretty hard task masters! Had to graft very hard to get respect, but in the end they even ended up paying me as were so grateful for my hard work (again - not to be expected and I never asked about it when booking placements, but I actually ended up getting paid by some placements as they thought I worked so hard :D bonus!!!). I just phoned a load of studs I'd googled and asked if they did placements with accom - many large studs would have some form of grooms accom.

Re. horse - would never have dreampt to ask to bring her to the stud - but I'm sure if you did do more of a competition yard placement some would regard it as a working pupilship placement so guess some would let you?! But again if just for a few weeks you have to think about whether they quaranteen new horses....

And don't worry about feeling like a spare part - most people love a bit of free labour ;)
 
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PS think we had to have min 25 horses on the yard. We had to do 2 weeks each species then a further 4 weeks "extra" for whatever we wanted. I ended up doing 3 weeks on the stud, then 2 weeks having a "doss" placement on a friends yard as extra ;) - think its just about the balance as you do want some form of holiday :)
 
Thankyou :) Hadn't thought of stud work - something I've never done (foaling around - unfortunately my parents both work for the NHS - excellent if I'd wanted to be a doctor, not so much for veterinary :p) so would be interesting. But I need to lamb over easter, and will probably be doing that the easter of second year too as it's pretty much the only opportunity for paid work! So would there be many studs still covering and foaling in july time? I know racing studs probably won't be, but for 'normal' horses is this likely?

I did wonder about racing yards - do they make good EMS placements and is there enough to do? Or even somewhere like Heros or Greatwood where they'll probably have quite a few at different stages of injury rehabilitation? Not sure if they'd take on vet students though...


ETA: taking my horse with me wouldn't be the end of the world, but I spend enough time away from him when I'm at uni :( Don't want to miss him all summer too!
 
alesea said:
You could try JanetGeorge on here- I had a great time doing EMS at her stud a few years back!
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:D Trying to place which one you were now! I usually have at LEAST 4 vet students each year - and TRY to give them a broad experience! Around Easter (depending on when Easter is next year) is usually a BIT early for us for (much) foaling but we'll be starting on teasing/covering - sometimes AI'ing empty/maiden/visiting mares. Usually a few castrations by then if it's not too muddy (we do them knocked out in the field so good to watch as compared to standing castration.) We'd also have some breakers on the go - which usually means some dentistry, and maybe rehab/physio.

I've had a couple of vet students who'd literally never been on a horse (we soon fixed that :D) and my vet is a fantastic teacher and VERY good at explaining everything - and even letting students have a go at VERY minor stuff (jabs, listening to hearts, feeling teeth etc) as well as lots of staring at u/s screen! And there's a mobile home on the yard - so I can wake students up for foalings!! (Lots of dog handling experience too as most of my staff bring their dogs to work!:D)

ETA - just spotted you'd be looking in July. After the lousy covering season we had this year, that would be a GOOD time for foaling for us - as well as still covering - and lots of babies around!
 
I did my PCEMS on a racing yard as I didn't fancy the usual riding school option. I really enjoyed it and even got to do a bit of riding out which was a bonus.

Without wanting to sound harsh, I think you need to bring your expectations down a peg or two. Never forget that people are doing you a favour by letting you come and work with them (this applies to both preclinical and clinical EMS). You may think you know a lot about horse care but you never stop learning and there is more than one way to cook an egg - so go with an open mind, you never know, you might actually learn something from it.

I managed to earn a small amount of money on a fair few of my PCEMS placements which I was very grateful for - but always bear in mind that having an extra person hanging around can often be more of a hindrance than a help to those who have jobs to do. I would say you'd be very lucky to find somewhere to let you bring your horse, especially as there are so many vet students out there now there's a lot of competition for placements (and jobs once you qualify!)
 
I wouldn't recommend doing it at a riding school if you are quite horsey as all my friends at vet school had a terrible time being very bored and not learning anything!!

I did mine at WFPs yard and it was really great :) To me the whole point of going on EMS is learning something new. I am very much a happy hacker and so the experience of seeing how you manage competition horses was invaluable.

It is definitely worth trying the big eventing yards although you may have to do a trial. I had to go down for a day's interview. I ended up doing 4 weeks there over the summer and absolutely loved it :)

Good luck finding your placements
 
L&J, thanks, but I'd like to hope that seeing as I have done quite a bit of grooming work for an eventer I'd not be a 'hinderance'! But there are other areas (like racing, studs etc) which I have very little knowledge of, so I guess it depends if I end up doing what I 'know' or what I don't :)

M&Z, that sounds really interesting! What kind of things did you get to do whilst you were there? Thanks :)
 
Honestly, an extra person (even if they do have previous experience of that line of work) can still be a hindrance if you are very busy, as often it takes longer to explain to somebody how to do a job than it does to do it yourself!

If you haven't worked somewhere before naturally you don't know where things are, or how things are done exactly in that place etc, it isn't always possible to fit seamlessly into the existing team, no matter how helpful you think you can be it may be that the people you are working for don't see it that way. I'm not meaning to be harsh, I'm just trying to give you a perspective from the other side of the coin.

As a vet in practice, students can be a pain in the proverbial. Some are very knowledgeable and helpful but others don't know when to keep their mouth shut and keep out of the way! When you're very busy and have a job to get done unfortunately students have to take second place sometimes.

I'd recommend a racing yard if you can find one, I found it very interesting and even got to do a little bit of riding.
 
Don't worry L&J - I know what you mean :) Had my lecture on EMS today, and it turns out that equine has to be split into two different placements anyway, so I might try and do one at a racing yard with stud attached (was thinking, and there are a few) next easter, and go to an eventing yard this summer. Think that's a nice balance :D
 
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