Episode 4 Junior Vets

Coming up on Junior Vets -

Benji has a painful wee problem that needs help...

..Tina the calf has surgery in a barn,

and Gary the axolotl arrives at the vet school hospital

with a mysterious lump.

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 1,000,

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 are facing real heavy duty vet work.

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?

THEY LAUGH

Six raw recruits...

..but I can only choose...

one winner.

The first ever Junior Vet

to win the prestigious Head Vet title...

is...

Day four. The race for the Head Vet title is warming up,

And I'm seeing real potential in every single one of the contenders.

Junior vets, welcome back.

So Sam and Amblessed...

..Saira and Morgan...

..Will and Lauren.

Let's get down to business.

Each day my junior vets are sent out to work, in pairs,

with a top vet, where they deal with real animals

with real problems that need fixing.

I'll be keeping tabs on their every move.

Only those who I decide have given their all to helping animals

are in with a chance of winning one of my Vital Vet Work awards.

Current front runner Saira has won two Vital Vet Work awards

and a Vet Skills credit.

She is closely followed by Amblessed, Will and Sam.

Only Morgan and Lauren are yet to win

one of these Vital Vet Work awards.

That's surprising,

because Lauren had clocked up lots of experience

helping out at her local veterinary practice

before she even came to vet school.

And although she worked very hard during Stella's surgery

and in the training zone,

she hasn't yet managed to convince me she should win

one of my precious Vital Vet Work awards.

Unlike city girl Amblessed,

who got an award for a top job on the vet school farm.

Amblessed's brilliant focus means she's been the star performer

in the training zone too.

And she's happy to work with all kinds of animals,

which is just as well.

The vet school's small animal hospital

doesn't just fix furry and purry pets.

This mysterious alien-like creature is called...

Gary.

And today, Gary needs help

from exotics vet Emma and junior vets Sam and Amblessed.

Does anyone know what it is?

A water lizard?

It was so cool.

It was just like a little pink thing in the water.

It's called an axolotl. It's actually an amphibian.

Axolotls are rare Mexican creatures.

In the wild, they are almost completely extinct.

They're amazing animals.

If they lose a limb, they just grow one back!

Gary is a very precious pet

and his owner is worried about his health.

He looks like he's been just shaved and his gills look really weird.

You can see, like... I don't know what it is,

but it's like all lines all over him,

whether it's like veins or blood vessels or something.

It's that growth on Gary's tail that's causing the concern.

The problem with Gary is there's a bit of a swelling.

It looks a bit red, doesn't it?

-Yeah.

-Can you see?

-Yeah, I can see.

Gary's growth could be a simple infection,

or it could be something more serious like a tumour.

A sample of the growth needs testing.

Will we be doing this in water or will we take him out?

What we will do is take him out.

But we'll have to keep him really moist and wet.

And that is going to be one of your jobs.

Because if he dries out, that's really bad news for him.

Gary will only survive out of his tank for a short amount of time

and that's only if he's anaesthetised and kept moist.

Everything's prepped for the procedure

so Gary can now leave his tank.

Sam is in charge of checking Gary's breathing and heart-rate

-while he's unconscious.

-You record the rates.

-Oh, yeah, I can hear that now.

-Yeah?

1...2...3...

And Amblessed must keep Gary moist at all times.

If he dried out, he would die.

That was great, brilliant.

Gary is safely unconscious.

The team are now ready to take the all-important skin sample

that will reveal just how poorly he is.

You see, it's really quite swollen.

-Yeah, it is, isn't it?

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

Later, an internal examination sheds new light on Gary's problem.

So we're going to have a little look at the back end.

On a busy dairy farm in South Lanarkshire,

Tina the four-month-old calf has a serious condition

and needs an operation. To help her,

junior vets Lauren and Will have left vet school

and are teaming up with farm vet Tim Caldwell for the day.

This is Tina, our little black and white heifer calf.

As you can see, she's got a hernia underneath her,

a big pocket that shouldn't be there.

The aim of today is to repair that.

Internal organs are normally held in place by muscle, fat and skin.

If one slips out of position,

they can form a lump that's called a hernia.

Tina needs surgery to put the hernia back in place.

First, Will keeps her steady...

Just when I'm pulling, it pulls her head up. Is that OK?

Yeah, that's fine.

..so Tim can give her a sedative.

And it's not an easy job.

Tina weighs nearly 200 kilograms.

Hold on tight, Will.

I was quite nervous around the cow because it was quite a big animal

and you didn't really know what it was going to do.

We need to work fast to get Tina through surgery.

I can't believe I'm doing this because it's like a cow upside down.

And that in itself is a bit...

Strange.

Yeah.

This isn't a natural position for a heavy animal to be in,

and can put a lot of stress on Tina's body.

If you kneel on that and put your hands on there for a second, Will?

Will's straight in there, but Lauren's holding back on this one.

That's not like her.

When we were told that we were going to operate on Tina in a barn,

on the floor amongst all this hay and straw,

it was absolutely surreal.

Now Tina's on her back,

you can see that the hernia has fallen back into her abdomen

Wow, that's really weird.

The junior vets need to get to work to make Tina better.

Yep. You need to hold onto it

and push it down nice and flat and steady.

First they trim the hair from the hernia area,

then clean and sterilise Tina's belly.

It is an outside barn,

but Tim has made sure Tina is carefully prepped

and it's safe to operate.

So obviously, you have seen some surgery at the vet school.

-How is this different?

-It's so different.

It's really not very sterile.

Especially the setting isn't very clean.

Clean hands, clean gloves,

everything's completely sparkling clean. It's nothing like it.

And later, the team need to pick up pace and fix Tina's hernia.

-So is this the muscle?

-Yes, just the muscle layer there,

that's when you've got a finger underneath it.

At a vet surgery in County Durham,

Benji the springer spaniel needs an urgent check-up.

His owner is worried about his health

after spotting blood in his wee and vet Jason

has enlisted the help of junior vets Saira and Morgan.

And that blood could be coming from anywhere, from his kidneys,

and obviously your kidneys are connected to your bladder

and then beyond that there is an organ called the prostate,

which is quite a common problem in male dogs.

They'll be using special equipment to check Benji's internal organs.

We're going to ultrasound Benji

to see if he's got any problems with his bladder.

And Jason has a big surprise for one of my junior vets.

Morgan, this is going to be your case, OK?

This is the first time Morgan has taken charge of a case,

and it carries a lot of responsibility.

I was nervous, because I had never done this stuff before.

First, they need to clip a patch on his tummy.

It tickles.

He obviously enjoyed that!

Right, Saira, do you want to turn the light out?

Now a probe is covered in gel

so that the team can see clear images of Benji's internal organs.

So what do you think that structure is there?

Would it be the bladder?

That's correct, good man.

So there's no signs of tumours on it and there was no stones.

Benji's bladder is fine. Next they look for his prostate,

a reproductive gland near his bladder.

What would it look like?

It's like a little white structure. Right.

-Is that it there?

-No. Go the other way.

-Would it be that there?

-Yep, and can you see it there?

-Yeah.

-Little circle and there's a little bit of fluid in it as well.

-Yes.

-So it is enlarged. So it's about five centimetres.

So that's big.

What would be the normal size for a prostate?

Two centimetres. Not as big as that.

Also, it should be all one colour and all smooth and it's not.

It's got little cysts in it as well.

So it's an abnormal prostate as well.

Poor Benji's prostate is swollen and looks an odd shape.

Jason's concerned and wants the team to carry out further tests.

I'd like you both to try and get a urine sample off Benji.

How exactly do we take a urine sample?

What you're going to do is take the dog out for a walk

and I'll give you a dish and when he goes to pee,

-you're going to catch it.

-OK.

And whatever you do, don't drop it.

This is a job for Morgan.

MORGAN LAUGHS

He needs to jump in and catch some of Benji's pee.

Are you ready, Morgan? Come on.

Come on, stay close, stay close to me.

Which is not quite as easy as it may sound!

It's going. It's going. Quick, get in there.

Hold it there.

He's a strong dog. He's hard to keep hold of.

It was really hard to catch the wee

because every time you put the bowl under, he'd stop and walk off.

I think he was almost too excited to be able to do one.

If they don't get a sample,

they won't be able to work out exactly what is wrong with Benji.

No-one said it was going to be easy.

Later, the junior vets have a call to make to Benji's owner.

I'm ringing to tell you about Benji.

My junior vets are completing an intensive training programme

here at Vet School. And it's in the training zone

where they learn essential skills that will help them

with veterinary work in the real world.

If I like what I see, I'll give out Vet Skill credits.

Along with the all important Vital Vet Work awards,

they'll help me decide who will eventually be named head vet.

And in this session,

my junior vets will learn how to take a blood sample.

They're not qualified to take blood from real animals...

..so they'll be using these plastic dogs instead.

I've asked exotics animal vet Emma Keeble to demonstrate.

First, Emma makes a fake vein bulge by pressing down.

Place your thumb at the base of the neck and what will happen is,

the vein will come up and you will be able to see it.

Then she inserts the syringe...

Straight away, we've got a little bleb of blood

and that tells you that you're in the right place.

..and with one hand only,

draws out an exact 1ml sample of the red liquid.

-Junior vets, happy with the demonstration?

-Yep.

-Ready to go?

-Yep.

You can start the challenge now.

I can't find it.

I can't do it. That is the vein, that is the vein.

And Morgan's struggling too.

Is that going in, yeah?

It's difficult with one hand.

Just come out a little bit more.

Perfect.

'Saira's found it...

Oh, no.

'..and now lost it.'

I thought it might be a little bit tricky. Sorry, dog.

Amblessed has her angles all wrong

and has pushed her needle in way too far.

I think you've gone straight through the vein there.

Going straight through the vein on a real dog could cause a blood clot.

Will needs to take his time and focus.

Be a bit more patient with it.

You're just like, "Oh, no, that bit isn't working."

"Oh, no, that bit isn't working."

This single-handed challenge is so difficult,

but Sam is really concentrating.

It is hard to do it one-handed.

It is, isn't it?

Finally, every junior vet has a sample...

of some sort.

Perfection.

Perfect.

But who was the most accurate

and managed to hit the precise 1ml target?

It was Sam.

Super one-handed syringing skills and, crucially,

he was deadly accurate with his sample size.

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.

My junior vets are working away from vet school on a dairy farm

and Tina the heifer calf is about to undergo a big operation.

She's got a lump hanging out of her tummy, called a hernia.

For a young cow, this is a life-threatening illness.

She's now anaesthetised, so it's important for us

to get the operation finished as quickly as possible.

Cutting into a lump like this is never going to be pretty.

Brace yourself, junior vets.

What we're actually doing here is removing a little bit

of the spare skin over the top,

-because the skin's stretched as the hernia's been forming.

-Yeah.

So we'll remove a little bit of that and what we do now is

separate some of what we call the underlying tissue so we can

poke it all back through, cos it's all coming out still all attached.

It was quite a lot of blood

and there was fluid going everywhere

and it was quite hard to try and stay focused on the actual animal

when so much was going on around you.

So do you think there's more blood or less blood

-from surgeries you've seen before?

-More blood.

-A bit more blood?

-Yeah.

Bigger animal, though, isn't it?

Yeah.

Tim cuts away the extra skin

and fixes the hernia back into Tina's belly.

So this is where we start to close the hole.

Now the tiny neat wound is stitched.

So is this the muscle?

-Yes that's just the muscle layer there.

-Right.

-That's why I've got my finger underneath it.

-Yep.

That suture material's massive, isn't it?

Because it's a bigger animal,

-it needs to be stronger.

-A bit stronger.

Especially with all that weight pushing down on it.

How long will it take for these stitches to dissolve?

These ones in the skin will have fallen out within three weeks.

Tim puts a cow-sized plaster on her wound.

And then it's time to wait for Tina to wake up.

And we don't have to wait long.

Today's been a real eye opener for Will and Lauren.

They've come through surgery in a barn with flying colours.

Will and Lauren did very well today.

They've been put into a situation which they're very unfamiliar with

and then seen some surgery that is probably very different

to what they've met before.

That was really cool. We operated on a cow.

How cool is that, like?

It's not a cat or a dog... it was a cow.

Just so cool.

And less than an hour after the operation,

Tina's awake and back on her feet.

Excellent work, junior vets.

In County Durham, Benji's owner has noticed blood in his dog's wee.

The vet team suspect Benji has a prostate gland problem,

which could need surgery.

The junior vets need to collect a pan of pee to complete tests.

This job has been handed to Morgan

but it's not pee he's collecting... it's plant life!

You've got a lot of bush in there.

Still with no sample, the junior vets try some classic pee spots

that might encourage Benji to go.

The car wheel...

He's thinking about it.

..the classic lamppost...

No?

Back to the bush?

And then...

He's going, he's going. Good lad.

There he goes.

Great bowl skills, Morgan.

MORGAN LAUGHS

Job done for Benji,

but Saira and Morgan's work has only just begun.

-All of it?

-Yeah.

Jason wants to check Benji hasn't got a urinary infection.

Finding crystals in the urine sample would confirm this and be bad news.

Spinning the wee at high speeds will concentrate any crystals present.

I think that's it finished.

And make them easier to see when a red dye is added.

Right, now I want you to put a drop on there.

That will do. That's it.

Morgan checks the slide under the microscope.

What are we looking for?

We're having a look for any little crystals.

Like little squares.

He spots something in the sample... but is it troublesome crystals?

There's a lot of things in there.

Jason checks...and confirms there is something in the wee

that shouldn't be there. But it's not crystals.

There are little black bits, but that's something to do with

Morgan catching a bit of the bushes outside in there, I think.

That's better news.

It's just bits of the bush, so Jason asks my junior vets

to call Benji's owner and explain what they've discovered.

Hi, Mr Robshaw, this is Saira from Westway Vets.

I'm one of the junior vets today.

I was a little scared I might mess up

what I had to say or I'd completely go wordless.

I'm ringing to tell you about Benji. It's good news.

He has an inflamed prostate

and a simple castration should be the cure of it.

Phew.

A simple op for Benji will hopefully cure his prostate problem

and he should be back to full health in no time.

-'Thanks for your help. Bye.'

-Thanks very much. Goodbye.

A slowish start by my junior vets,

but once they got their sample, they were both off.

There's been some seriously good handling and communication.

I enjoyed trying to catch the pee from the dog.

I made the phone call to Benji's owner.

I was a little bit nervous at first, but now, by doing that,

if I have to make another call to an owner,

I think I will be probably more confident in doing so.

Great work. Well done, junior vets.

In the small animal hospital theatre,

Gary the axolotl is unconscious.

As vet Emma and junior vets Sam and Amblessed

are about to take a skin sample from a worrying growth on his tail.

It is harder working with an animal like Gary,

because obviously you can't stroke him to calm him down.

Sam's job is to keep his eyes on the heart monitor.

It looks really good at the moment. There's not any drastic changes.

It seems to be just running smoothly.

His focus on this crucial task has definitely impressed vet Emma.

You sound like you're an expert axolotl anaesthetist.

We might need to employ you at the hospital.

But on close inspection of Gary's tail,

-it doesn't look good.

-You see, it's really quite swollen.

-It is, isn't it?

-Yeah.

If it's an infection, Gary can easily be treated with medicine.

If it's a tumour, it could be incurable.

The growth might be causing him internal problems.

Emma must insert a camera, called an endoscope, up Gary's rear end.

And is this the camera that you're going to be putting in?

Absolutely, yes. So we're going to have

a little look at the back end.

Is that its bottom?

Yep, that is its bottom.

But then Sam gets distracted. He's looking at the endoscope images

when he should be keeping an eye on Gary's heart rate.

I think Sam lost his concentration, because it's not every day

you see an endoscope go up an axolotl's bum.

You could see the black camera

working it's way up the pink body

and I completely forgot about taking the heart rate.

The images show Gary's growth has not spread inside. Good news.

Amblessed now tackles his outside.

-Just roll it over.

-She swabs the lump.

It will be tested for a possible infection later.

That's perfect. So now what we're going to do is,

we're actually going to take a sample from that site.

So we'll need to keep a really close eye on him.

Then they remove a small piece of flesh from Gary's growth.

And we slice off a bit.

This is called a biopsy,

and will be tested to see if it's a cancerous tumour.

There we go.

So is this the sample, then, that will be analysed?

Yep, so that's what's going to be looked at in the laboratory.

With the sample taken,

Gary needs to return to the safety of his tank immediately.

There you are, OK? And he'll hopefully wake up really quickly

because he's in nice fresh water without any anaesthetic.

The junior vets leave Gary alone to recover

and the sample is sent to the lab for testing.

At the end of the day, Amblessed and Sam check up on Gary.

There we are, there's Gary.

-He looks well.

-How are you, Gary? He does, doesn't he?

He looks quite calm and relaxed, doesn't he?

Hopefully, he's going to be OK.

A very unusual case, but my Junior Vets took it in their stride.

Being with Gary today was really cool.

Amblessed was very good, actually.

She just got on with the job that we'd given her

and I could almost leave her to get on with that

and do the procedures that I needed to do.

It was quite a responsibility, but then with any animal,

whatever you're doing, there is quite a big responsibility.

And if you're wondering about Gary's lump,

then the good news is that it was caused by a minor infection,

and was easily treated.

My junior vets have made it through another non-stop day at vet school.

But now, I have to decide who has done enough

to clinch a vital Vet Work award.

Saira and Morgan never gave up as they tried to get a sample

to help them diagnose Benji's worrying health problem.

Sam and Amblessed were calm and collected

as they got to grips with Gary the axolotl

and helped solve his mystery illness.

And Will and Lauren dealt brilliantly with surgery

as Tina the calf had to have her tricky hernia operation

in an open barn.

They've all done really well, so I've got a tough decision to make.

Today, it has been impossible to pick out a stand-alone winner.

So today's top junior vets are...

Will and Lauren...

and...

and...

..Saira and Morgan.

Morgan worked hard to get his precious pee sample

and Saira showed top communication skills,

While Lauren and Will bravely faced up to Tina's gory hernia op

when others might have struggled.

They all deserve their Vital Vet Work awards.

It felt awesome because it's my first time winning. I'm so pumped.

Excellent.

I'm really proud that I managed to help the cow and also win the task.

It was all a bit mad but it was just so good.

I don't care if I win any more, but I won today's so I'm really psyched.

It means everything, this win does, to me,

because I know that it can also go towards me

getting a chance to be Head Vet.

ALL: Yes!

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,

sand373,

to unlock a special case

in your very own waiting room.

Next time on Junior Vets -

homeless Finbar is tested for deadly diseases...

a pony in pain needs top-level surgery...

and a VIP patient requires hi-tech treatment.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd