Episode 3 Junior Vets

Coming up... Homeless hound Jessie faces life-changing surgery.

Kira the mare has a heart problem that needs investigating.

And Gandalf the falcon has urgent surgery on his lumpy foot.

When pets are poorly, wildlife gets wounded or farm animals feel unwell,

they need top vet help.

The really lucky ones come here,

to Edinburgh University's amazing super-high-tech vet school.

And now, six kids chosen from one thousand

have become the first ever children allowed to enrol here...

I'm all ready.

..and work alongside the school's top vets.

Who wants to take this cow's urine?

They're facing an intense training programme...

-Have you done that anaesthetic before?

-What is this? What's that?

..and are being pushed to the limit at animal hospitals, vet practices,

wildlife parks and working farms.

I'm Paul Manktelow.

It took me five hard years to train to be a vet,

but this lot have only weeks to show me what they're made of.

My junior vets have hardly been around animals before.

That's so cool.

Now they're facing real heavy duty vet work.

SHEEP BLEAT

It's like everything's just so...bonkers.

-That is amazing.

-That's cool.

Have they got the stomach to succeed?

I feel like a real vet.

And can they stay calm under extreme pressure?

SHE LAUGHS

Six raw recruits.

But I can only choose...

..one winner.

The first ever junior vet to win the prestigious head vet title is...

Day three, and my junior vets are taking real vet work

in their stride.

Welcome back to vet school.

Your working pairs are...

Lauren and Amblessed.

Will and Saira.

Sam and Morgan.

Let's get down to business.

Today my junior vets will be facing up to a hard day's work

helping top professionals here at vet school and at a safari park.

I'll be getting regular progress reports,

and I'll only reward the very best junior vets

with today's vital vet work award,

which counts towards my final decision - who to name as head vet.

So how's the competition shaping up?

Junior vet, Morgan, is performing well,

but hasn't managed any wins yet.

He's shown he has a keen eye...

-Look at that.

-..and a steady hand.

But he does need to prove to me he can concentrate

across a full working day if he wants to win a vital vet work award.

Saira, on the other hand, can't stop winning,

even though she's got very little animal experience.

But can her impressive performance continue today?

She arrived at vet school with a long-term fear of dogs,

and her new-found confidence is about to be put to the test.

This is Jessie, a three-year-old Staffie cross.

She's a stray, and was found wandering the streets of Edinburgh

all on her own.

Today, she faces an important operation.

She's going to be spayed,

which will prevent her having unwanted puppies,

and will hopefully help her find a new home.

Soft tissue surgeon Ana Marques

will be working with junior vets Will and Saira.

This is a big day for Saira.

Her anxiety about dogs goes very deep,

and she is nervous about meeting Jessie.

I don't really like dogs,

because I've had a bad experience with them before in the past,

and I think I've built a fear of them inside,

coming up and crawling in your face.

I think the key thing is when you're approaching a dog,

you stay really calm.

If you're nervous, they'll feel nervous,

-so that's the key thing today, all right?

-Yeah.

Hopefully, Saira's ready to face her fears and say hello to Jessie.

-Hi, Ana.

-Hi, Paul. Good morning.

Would you like to meet Jessie?

Yeah.

Come on, darling.

Jessie couldn't be friendlier. She's keen to meet the whole team.

Good girl.

And Saira is staying put and staying calm.

She just wanted to play, really, but I still was a little bit unsure.

How are you feeling, Saira?

-OK now.

-Are you OK, yeah? You feel better now.

-Yeah.

-She's nice and friendly, isn't she? Yeah.

With Saira and Jessie now best of friends,

the junior vets head for the small animal theatre

to get Jessie ready for her operation.

First, she's anaesthetised, so she's unconscious during the op.

Will, do you want to tie that tube in for us?

Will then connects a tube

that will pump anaesthetic gas and oxygen into her lungs

throughout her surgery.

Saira has to attach the devices,

which will allow the team to check on Jessie's heart rate

and health during the operation.

I was really worried for Jessie,

because I thought that if it went wrong, she might not make it.

The other thing we can do is pass down -

this is called an oesophageal stethoscope.

So it goes down her food pipe, and lies just next to her heart

in the middle of her chest so that we can have a listen to this,

and hear her heart beating through this.

Saira's given the job of putting the special internal stethoscope

down Jessie's throat and inside her chest.

Right, so if you want to pass it down.

-If you just go from there...

-So there?

-Yeah.

That's good.

What happens if you aim it wrong?

It just won't go, that's all.

Before the operation can go ahead,

Saira must check that the scope is positioned correctly.

-Yeah.

-Do you hear it beating? Yeah?

So that's in the right place. That's perfect.

Do you want to listen, Will?

So we're really happy - good heart rate, nice pulses,

and she's well oxygenated. So we're sorted.

Jessie's heart is fine, and she's ready for surgery.

But are both my junior vets ready to help her?

Later, things get tense as Jessie's op gets under way

with only one junior vet present.

What I'm going to do, Will,

is ask you to cut between these two clumps here.

At the Blair Drummond Safari Park,

Gandalf the saker falcon is grounded.

He's usually a star performer at the park's flying displays.

But today, he needs urgent veterinary attention.

That's so cool!

Junior vets Sam and Morgan have arrived

to help local vet Colin Scott get Gandalf back in action.

Gandalf.

Poor Gandalf has a painful-looking growth on his foot,

and it needs removing.

When did you spot that?

I think we noticed it a couple of months ago,

and as time goes on, it'll start to get bigger.

And it will interfere with the way his feet move.

Falcons use their feet to pick up and keep a firm hold on their food.

If the growth is not removed, Gandalf might struggle to eat.

The only solution is surgery.

So here's the lump here.

Imagine having one of them in between your fingers.

I've never been this close to a bird before.

-What do you think of him?

-I thought he'd be flying about in your hand,

but he seems calm.

-It's because he's got that on.

-Because of the hood, exactly.

When you come face to face with a falcon, it's really strange,

because people say that they're dangerous, but Gandalf wasn't,

he was calm.

-How are you finding it, Sam?

-This is amazing, this.

It's such a great experience.

Just to have, like, a bird on your hand.

Surgery is a big deal for a bird.

It could also mean another big ordeal for Sam.

He had to sit out his last operation after feeling a bit sick,

so how will he cope today?

I was really, really excited, because I wanted to prove to myself

that I could do an operation,

and I was really determined to get through it.

Sam, back in the operating theatre. How are you feeling?

I think I'm going to feel a bit more confident this time.

I'm more comfortable with everything,

so I think I'll do a good job.

Excellent. Morgan, you've got a really important job today.

You're monitoring the anaesthetic.

-Now, are you going to be able to stay focused?

-Yeah.

OK, guys, let's get started. First, Gandalf needs anaesthetic gas

so he's unconscious throughout his op.

Morgan needs to concentrate, because he'll be monitoring Gandalf

while he's anaesthetised during surgery.

Not enough gas, and Gandalf could wake up in the middle of the op.

Too much gas, and he wouldn't wake up at all.

Later, Gandalf's under the knife.

But will Sam make it through the surgery this time?

What does it look like?

Like a pea.

At the vet school's horse hospital,

a poorly pony has been brought in for treatment.

Kira is 21 - a ripe old age for a pony.

She has recently lost all her energy,

and doesn't want to be ridden any more.

Kira has a long-term condition called a heart murmur.

Her owner, Louise is worried it's making her feel tired and unwell.

Lauren and Amblessed are teaming up with equine expert John Keen.

John suspects Kira's heart murmur may have got worse,

and he wants my junior vets to help him investigate.

First of all, do you want to see if you can feel the heart there,

just gently pop that there, and have a wee feel.

At first, I was a quite nervous,

because I know some horses can be quite twitchy and scared of humans,

so they might kick, but Kira was quite a calm horse,

so that reassured me.

Do you want to have a go, Lauren, as well?

I thought, personally, there wasn't something quite right there,

because it was very irregular - the heartbeat was very irregular.

Did you hear anything else when you were listening to that?

-It went, "Huhh-boom."

-Did you hear the "huhh," so it went, "Huhh-boom"?

So that's the murmur that you're hearing there.

The team's concerned Kira's heart murmur

has turned into a serious heart problem.

They'll need to look inside her chest

with a device called an ultrasound scanner.

First, Amblessed attaches some sensors.

Then Lauren clips Kira's hair...

..so Amblessed can place a probe close to Kira's heart.

She needs the steadiest of hands.

Then...

it slowly reveals live pictures of Kira's beating heart.

-That is amazing.

-That's cool.

And it also shows the problem with one of her heart valves.

-Is that a valve there?

-And that's a valve there.

So we've got two valves that we can see in this image here.

The leaky valve is allowing blood to flow in the wrong direction

in Kira's heart.

-Amblessed takes a closer look.

-So which is the one that we're...

So we're particularly interested in this one here on the left.

Kira's heart could well be the cause of her tiredness.

John and the team must now investigate this theory.

I think the next stage is to exercise her,

look at the heart rhythm during exercise.

And later, Kira's heart is put to a high-tech test

as the team move closer to solving her problem.

Keep an eye on that ECG.

My junior vets are completing an intensive training programme

here at vet school.

And it's here in the training zone where they pick up the skills

that will help them in real vet work situations.

For impressive training zone performances,

I give out vet skills credits,

which, along with the all-important vital vet work awards,

will help me decide who will eventually be named head vet.

And in this training zone session,

my junior vets are facing a particularly messy challenge.

If you'd like to lift the lid and reveal today's challenge.

Ohhh...

That is disgusting.

Yep, it's poo.

All vets need to know what an animal's normal poo, or faeces,

looks like.

The colour, smell and texture of poo gives up vital clues to a vet.

Abnormal poo can mean an animal is unwell.

So in today's test, my junior vets, working in pairs,

have got five piles of poo from a local zoo

that they need to match to specific animals.

And on hand to help is top horse vet John Keen.

You need to look at the faeces, you need to examine the faeces,

and really feel the faeces, and see what's in there.

OK, junior vets, can you start your challenge now.

Delving in dung like this can be harmful to humans,

so it's definitely not something you should try yourself.

It looks like rabbit poo, but clumped together.

The teams need to use their brains as well as their hands.

And thinking about an animal's diet will help my junior vets.

Look at the hairs. Look...can you see the white hair?

I think cos it's, like, more grassy, it looks more like an elephant.

Elephants are vegetarian.

Good thinking, Sam and Lauren.

Elephants can eat over 130 kilograms of vegetation every single day!

And the other junior vets

are thinking about the animals' diet, too...

If they both eat grass, the insides look kind of the same.

..and matching them up to the five pongy piles.

-Look at all the grass in that.

-So shall we say that's deer?

-Probably, yeah.

-Yeah.

Wrong Morgan and Will... That's zebra poo.

It's wet, so I think it's the otter.

Correct!

Otters have moist, sticky poos.

-But there's a problem.

-Are you not bothered by the smell?

The dollops of dung are getting right up Morgan's nose.

If he doesn't focus fast, his team are going to lose this task.

-I'm going to be sick.

-Sure you don't want a feel?

No, I don't. That's the smelly one.

MORGAN COUGHS

Junior vets, you have 20 seconds left,

this is the last chance to change your minds.

That's probably the deer, because if you open it up it's really grassy.

Right again, Amblessed!

Deer poo it is.

It's been one smell of a vet school challenge.

But which pair have made the best dung detectives?

Full marks for Saira and Amblessed,

and Sam and Lauren.

It's an easy call.

All four win vet skill credits. Well done.

You can see how YOU get on as a virtual vet

in the Junior Vets game on the CBBC website.

And don't forget to look for the special game code

at the end of today's show.

Back at Blair Drummond Safari Park,

Sam and Morgan are preparing to operate on Gandalf,

a nine-year-old saker falcon with a worrying lump on his foot.

Last time wannabe surgeon Sam went into an operation,

it all got a little bit too much for him.

So this op is going to be a big test.

I was really excited and I just really wanted to just get stuck in.

The lump could make it difficult for Gandalf to hold his food firmly.

That's a big problem for a bird of prey, so it needs to be removed.

So this is the lump here, in between his toes.

You can actually see I can move it about.

It's like a wee pea.

So what we're going to do is just run the scalpel over the top

to get through to the tissue below, and then try and dissect it out,

and then we'll put a couple of stitches in

just to hold it in place.

As this is Morgan's first ever op, I help him sterilise Gandalf's foot.

Start on this lump, which is where he's going to operate.

And then you work your way around...

..and get further and further away from it.

Give it a good scrub.

Top job, Morgan.

Now he needs to move on

to monitoring Gandalf's heart and breathing,

while Colin and Sam can get to work

removing the nasty lump from the falcon's foot.

So Sam and Morgan are really having to pick up the pace now.

Bird anaesthetics are really risky,

and the longer they take, the greater the risk of death.

Look away if you're squeamish, here comes the grisly lump!

What does it look like?

It's just like a...

I don't know really.

Just a piece of...like a pea.

And it's out.

Sam's stayed the course and steps in to carefully clean the wound.

it's vital he does a perfect job.

An infection would put Gandalf's life in danger.

Morgan's all focus now.

He's carefully monitoring Gandalf's heart rate

for any sign of a problem.

-You happy with your patient?

-Yeah.

That's perfect. The team quickly work to sew up the foot wound.

And Sam finishes off the final stitching.

Just leave a couple of millimetres from the end of the knot.

OK, excellent well done.

It's now safe for Morgan to turn off the anaesthetic gas.

And in minutes, Gandalf's eyes slowly open.

His eye opening already.

Gandalf's made it!

And so did Sam.

I'm so proud of him for overcoming his squeamishness.

Nice work, Junior Vet!

My last experience in the operating theatre I had a shaky time

but this experience was much better.

It were amazing,

because I've never been up close to a bird of prey before.

With that experience it boosted my confidence up.

Morgan and Sam did very well. I'm very impressed with them.

Hopefully they got the idea of importance of working as a team

so I'm certainly very impressed with them.

And Gandalf's now back on his feet -

ready to return to his starring role in the park's flying displays.

At the vet school's horse hospital, Junior Vets Amblessed and

Lauren are investigating Kira's constant tiredness.

She doesn't seem to enjoy being ridden and they've discovered

she has a heart murmur caused by a leaky valve.

Vet John Keen wants Lauren and Amblessed to test Kira's

heart while she's exercising so they can see just how bad it is.

If the heart problem is serious, it could mean her riding days are over.

Keep an eye on the ECG.

We put sensors under the saddle and it sent images through the computer

so you see like, her heartbeat when she was doing different

types of movement like walking or doing a trot or a gallop.

The more she runs, the harder her valves will have to work, and

the faster her heart will beat.

If the Junior Vets see over 240

beats per minute or Kira's heart beats are irregular, it would

mean her illness is worse than John initially thought.

Within ten minutes, the test is complete.

The team have their results.

Amblessed volunteers to deliver their findings

to nervous owner Louise.

The test shows that her heart's all right even though

she has the murmur there's no drastic problems.

-So does this mean she can still be ridden then?

-Yeah.

Exercise is normal she's not reacted badly to the exercise

so she should be all right.

Kira's heart problem is not life threatening.

Generally, there doesn't appear to be anything seriously wrong with

Kira. I don't think the problem is going to progress,

so we can give her heart a clean bill of health.

Her tiredness could be just a bit of old age creeping in.

Amblessed and Lauren took this job in their stride and I'm impressed

with how well they worked together.

I was very happy when we found out that the heart murmur wasn't

affecting her at all. So I was very happy about that especially as

it was such a serious condition.

I think I coped quite well with the challenge today

because I really wanted to work with horses.

And now Kira can take life at her own pace for the rest of her days.

Back in the Small Animal Hospital homeless dog Jessie is in for

a neutering operation that will stop her having unwanted pups and

could help her find a new home.

Will and Saira have just arrived in theatre

and are getting ready for surgery.

Turn!

This is quite tricky, as they mustn't touch the specially

cleaned gowns or gloves with their hands.

That's it. Get a good grip on both sides.

This is Saira's first ever surgery.

She's a little nervous and is really struggling with her gloves.

I tried to get them on quite a few times, put them down, put them on.

But, I was thinking I wouldn't be able to operate or anything

and I just really wanted to get stuck in and help because it

was my first operation and I was really looking forward to it.

Surgeon Ana Marques decides she must get things underway with

will as her only assistant.

I had to start the operation before Saira was ready

because with the dog being under anaesthetic,

we didn't want to end up harming it more than we had to.

So we're going to start with a skin incision.

Ana starts by making a cut with the scalpel on Jessie's tummy.

They need to remove the organs that would make puppies.

-And do I pull it out?

-Yeah, just pull it out a little bit.

Good job, Will. Beautiful.

Will is really hands on here.

Meanwhile, Saira is still struggling to get her hands in her gloves!

Saira cannot join the surgery team until her hands are safely covered.

I think cos Will was there and he was,

like, already helping to operate, I think that kind of calmed me

down a bit because I knew that someone was there to at least

start and then I could join him afterwards and help him out.

Ana and Will now need to clamp Jessie's blood supply so the

uterus and ovaries can be taken out without too much bleeding.

If the op is successful, Jessie's stray days could soon be over.

Where would you like Saira?

At last, Saira is here to help Jessie as well!

Will, I'm going to ask you to cut between these two clamps here.

Will calmly makes the crucial cut.

Perfect, one more...

So if you want to change positions with Saira.

And it's straight in at the deep end for Saira

as she helps finish off the job.

For a first attempt at surgery, this is amazing stuff.

-It feels like it's going to rip.

-I know. OK, perfect.

You can relax a little bit.

So next we're going to check that it's not going to bleed?

The team use a hot tool called a thermocautery which will

stop bleeding from blood vessels.

So far so good.

I'm quite happy with the way things are going, it's going quite well.

With Jessie's reproductive system safely removed.

The Junior Vets help clean up,

before the wound is sewn back up again.

That's perfect.

We're just finishing the final line of suture

so that cut is closed and she'll be back to normal.

And then, Will, you can just help support it on to the trolley.

It's been an intense day's work but my Junior Vets have taken

really good care of Jessie.

Jessie is still unconscious so my Junior Vets carefully lift

her into the recovery kennel.

She needs a few hours to come round.

And when the Junior Vets check on her...

she's a bit groggy but well on the road to recovery.

That was truly incredible.

Both Junior Vets eventually got fully involved and Saira's

dog fears are finally fixed.

I think I did quite a good job helping the people around me

to make sure that Jessie was safe.

Well, the operation for me was absolutely amazing

because to be at my age and do...

and be in an operating theatre,

I just feel really cool.

I hope that Jessie finds a new good owner that will actually look

after her not abandon her.

I could always take her in.

Every one of my Junior Vets has experienced things today

that they've never had to deal with before.

And their efforts have left me with a tough decision to make.

But who has stood out enough to win a Vital Vet Work award?

Lauren and Amblessed worked so hard with pony Kira and her owner

Louise to uncover why Kira was suffering from exhaustion.

Will blew me away with how hands on he got in the op that took

stray dog Jessie a step nearer to finding a new home.

And Sam made a determined return

to surgery helping Gandalf the falcon through his foot op.

But who went that extra mile to get my precious Vital Vet Work award?

Up until now you've been judged as pairs,

but from now on you may be singled out for special praise.

As is the case today.

Will.

Congratulations. You are today's top Junior Vet.

All my junior vets have overcome early wobbles and applied

themselves to some seriously difficult tasks today.

But it was Will who stood out as a super vet in the making.

He was confident, caring with his patient Jessie,

and technically brilliant.

He fully deserves his Vital Vet Work badge for his performance.

I feel really proud of myself and I think that on the task

I did quite well.

So I think I kind of deserve it. So I'm happy.

Think you can cut it as a top vet and make animals better?

Head over to the CBBC website now

and use today's game code - CHEW835

to unlock a special case in your very own waiting room.

Next time on Junior Vets...

Benji has a painful wee problem.

Tina the calf needs surgery down on the farm.

And a strange creature with a worrying looking lump arrives

at the vet school.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd