Queen’s Veterinary School Hospital – University of Cambridge, UK

Organisation Background

Cambridge Vet School runs a well-established and successful clinical hospital: “The Queens Veterinary School Hospital” near the centre of the beautiful historical city of Cambridge.

We are a multi-disciplinary referral hospital (Internal Medicine, Soft Tissue Surgery, Orthopaedics, Oncology, Opthalmology, Dermatology, Cardiology, Anaesthesia, Neurology, Diagnostic Imaging, Clinical Pathology and Anatomic Pathology) employing over 50 veterinary surgeons with a successful long-standing residency and internship programme. We also run a successful first-opinion charity medicine clinic.

The Hospital plays a fundamental role in teaching our undergraduate students during their clinical rotations, providing them with exposure to both referral-level and first-opinion veterinary work. We also have a strong research programme with the ultimate aim of improving the health and welfare of our patients.

We pride ourselves on our close-knit veterinary hospital environment with small undergraduate year groups and robust residency and internship training programmes, allowing us to focus on high-quality teaching and research, in addition to providing exceptional clinical care. At the heart of our ethos are a focus on staff and student well-being, job satisfaction and supporting our colleagues to thrive in their chosen field!

Examples include:

• Provision of Higher Education training programmes for staff allowing them to obtain further qualifications in education, e.g. AFHEA/FHEA
• Dynamic flexible working environment with off-clinic provision to support research and teaching roles, or ample study/elective time for residents and interns
• Access to the expertise of the wider University allows One Health and lab-based research collaborations
• First opinion charity medicine service provides routine and emergency healthcare to local eligible animals, whilst also strongly augmenting undergraduate and postgraduate teaching
• Clear career progression pathways in clinical, teaching and research roles
• Sociable hospital with a good work-life balance
• Supportive supervisors and accessible mental health provision for all members of staff
• Renowned clinical research groups, including Brachycephalic Obstructive Airway Syndrome and Feline Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy groups.

Organisation aims & mission

The mission of the Department of Veterinary Medicine is to improve the health and welfare of animals and people in the context of the environment they live in and share through the provision of excellence in education, research, clinical practice and outreach.

Our graduate and post-graduate training programmes prepare the next generation of researchers, clinicians and clinician-scientists, and our clinics deliver state-of-the-art medical and surgical treatments for companion animals, equines and food-producing animals.

The Department is committed to the delivery of a world-class education that is based on scientific scholarship, and makes use of cutting-edge teaching methods that are validated through outcomes assessment.

Our researchers work at the forefront of the biomedical sciences, undertaking cross-disciplinary research to address the pre-eminent One Health challenges. The Department is committed to outreach activities that disseminate the results of our scholarship, attract the best and the brightest students irrespective of background, and inform and shape the future of veterinary medicine.

The wonderful thing about Cambridge is job variety and the people!

We ensure staff have access to resources and dedicated time to develop their area of interest in the fields of clinical veterinary medicine, teaching and research.

No two days are the same: one day you could be teaching vet students about diarrhoea and the next day you are back on clinics performing a bone marrow biopsy on an anaemic cat!

The people at the Vet School are like family – we truly get on well and collaborate on those tricky cases, as well as collaborate on the football field on Friday evenings or, if you prefer, having a glass of wine at the on-site bar!

Location, location, location!

Cambridge Vet School is very fortunate to be based near central Cambridge, which is steeped in culture and is part of one of the oldest Universities in the world!

We are based on the West Cambridge site which is now home to a state-of-the-art shared study space, restaurant and bar to allow networking and social opportunities for staff and friends.

We would like to think we are hiring candidates on their individual merits and this doesn’t necessarily fit an “ideal proforma!”

Successful candidates are not solely based on grades and academic achievement: by far the most important qualities we look for in our candidates are integrity, motivation and a team player……(the football team always needs new players ;))

For interns, we offer a flexible 6 weeks of off clinics time which comprises of 4 weeks holiday and 2 weeks externship. During the year, we are flexible if you need to rearrange timings to attend interviews, visit other hospitals prior to residency applications and arrange to attend conferences of interest.

For residency and clinician applications, we offer generous off clinics allowance to pursue research and study, alongside flexible working arrangements when off clinics.

The Department has devised a sustainability strategy and has recently  set up a Department “green” team.