Episode 6 Young Vets

Britain is a nation in love with its animals.

How are you doing?

We own 27 million pets...

..and 900 million farm animals.

Very frisky one.

All of them need vets.

Over the course of their final year, ten students at the prestigious

Royal Veterinary College in Hertfordshire

are taking what they've learned in the classroom...

Do it.

..and putting it to the test in practices, farms...

This is all new territory for me.

..and state-of-the-art animal hospitals.

It's a whirlwind of back-to-back work placements.

Sounds like an unhappy monkey!

Nice and quick, good.

And they can't afford to fail a single one.

I need to do my job properly. I need to do better.

You're going in.

It's the most challenging stretch...

Whoa!

..of a very long journey...

I have a serious problem with my hand shaking.

..to become...

Well done. Gassy!

..fully qualified young vets.

Saved a life today, which is good!

COWS MOO

It's winter at the Royal Veterinary College

and the students are just weeks away from the Christmas break.

Our young vets have to master a lot of skills in order to hit

the ground running in veterinary practice.

One of the most important is surgery.

And - as the students are finding out -

I just broke something in the dog. SHE LAUGHS

Every vet needs to be able to do surgery and, in an emergency,

they may need to do surgery on a wide variety of different animals.

And it's interesting because no-one expects to

walk into their local GP practice and have a major surgical procedure,

but client expectation is exactly that for the veterinary profession.

Hundreds of operations - from orthopaedics to brain surgery -

take place every year at the Queen Mother Hospital for Animals.

And every student must complete two intensive weeks

training in surgery here - because the minute they qualify,

they're expected to be able to operate.

This is a placement Charlie Tewson knows is crucial.

So small animal surgery is pretty fundamental for a vet.

As a vet, you have to be a jack-of-all-trades, you have

to do everything, so we have to be able to do the medicine,

but then it's also fundamental for a vet to... Even smaller

practice vets will have to do routine surgeries

like spays and castrates.

And then most vets will be expected to go that extra bit further.

Charlie's first patient, Georgie, is a six-year-old King Charles spaniel.

She's come in because she's having trouble with her breathing.

she's gorgeous, she loves a cuddle, she loves the grandchildren.

She loves a walk but unfortunately, with her breathing, we've not

been able to do much of that.

She's the world to us, so we're very apprehensive,

but I'm sure they'll look after her.

Hi there, I'm Charlie. I'm the student who's been

assigned to you. If you'd like to follow me...

So today you're in because she's having funny breathing, basically.

It started getting worse last year,

and I was out when it got a little bit too warm.

Then she gets excited, she's deaf, and was barking at another dog...

OK, so she's deaf. She's deaf.

She's gone deaf over the last couple of years.

Her breathing became really distressed.

She gets very stressed if I'm not around,

I just went to the loo and she got herself in a state,

so she's going to need a lot of TLC. Aw!

OK, that can be arranged.

She's very affectionate, she loves cuddles. Aw!

Good girl. Is she normally OK with her temperature being taken?

LAUGHING: OK.

Keeping a close eye on Charlie while he's on Georgie's case

is vet Lynda Rutherford.

described to you, could be an upper respiratory tract problem?

Lynda's concerned that Georgie could be suffering from laryngeal

collapse - a serious condition which is obstructing her airway.

But fortunately Lynda does have a few treatment options to suggest.

Often one of the surgical procedures that we'll do that actually

does make quite a big difference to your airway flow,

So we remove a little triangle part, and then suture -

do little stitches - to pull them outwards.

Yeah, that makes a big difference.

She snores in my ear every night and I don't care cause I love her.

I just want to be able to take her for walks

and her to have quality of life. Sure, all right.

Are you going to come give me cuddles?

Come on, come and give Mummy cuddles.

Come on, come on, darling.

Up you get. Ooh, you big girl. Come on.

We love you. Yes, we love you.

OK, come on then.

There we go.

Go on, darling, they'll look after you. Go on! Go on, darling.

Come on then. We're nice too!

Dogs have a huge variety of different personalities,

but some of them do get incredibly attached to their owners.

Even in comfortable circumstances

they get a bit of separation anxiety.

DOG HOWLS

It's sometimes quite heart-wrenching to watch.

Before they operate on Georgie's nostrils, Linda and Charlie

need to double-check that her larynx is the source of the problem.

So she's prepared for a CT scan.

Really red, isn't it, the larynx.

But Georgie's airway is so swollen, even passing a tube down her

throat is proving tricky for the anaesthesia team.

I've given you the smallest one, I think, so let's see how we go.

So this here is her larynx. Her larynx is swollen.

The CT confirms Lynda's hunch that Georgie's larynx is badly inflamed.

And to make matters worse, she has pneumonia.

So that's the area that has got pneumonia.

While Georgie's under anaesthetic,

they go ahead with the minor operation to widen her nostrils.

Literally, her nostrils are too narrow.

If you clench your nostrils even half

and try and breathe through your nose,

then you really have to push.

So even a small increase in the nostril size

will result in a large increase in how much they can breathe.

So that's the tissue that we removed,

and it's like a pyramid, rather than just a triangle.

Hopefully the combination of the surgery and some antibiotics

will be enough to improve Georgie's breathing.

Yeah, we're quite happy with that. It's just a matter of monitoring

and hoping that she continues to improve.

But the vets can't let her go home until they're satisfied she's

fully recovered - so it's a night away from her owners for Georgie.

DOG WHINES

DOGS BARK

Lucy this week - one of the neuro nurses -

taught me how to laugh to a dog.

Oh, yeah! Dog laughing. SHE PANTS

She gets right up in their faces and goes...

SHE PANTS

And they'll be like...

SHE PANTS

THEY LAUGH

It's just magic. They are magic, neuro nurses.

Dr Doolittle!

Right, let's go.

It's an early start for student Judy Puddifoot this morning.

She's on her way to the college's Equine Referral Hospital.

So this morning I am starting my equine surgery rotation,

which is what it says on the tin, operating on horses.

This placement is compulsory for all students,

but not all students have Judy's deep-seated fear of horses.

Ugh, all right, here goes.

I've not been sleeping well, to be honest,

for the last couple of weeks, just panicking about doing this.

They're big and scary, OK.

They're dangerous at both ends and uncomfortable in the middle,

so what can I do?

I'd rather not be in a small enclosed space with one.

HORSE WHINNIES

We've got a CT every day this week, so we'll get a lot of head

and sinus anatomy which we'll talk through as we go along.

Judy's being supervised by of one of the college's most senior

equine surgeons, Tom Witte.

Feel free to ask questions all the way through.

So, Judy, you've got the 10.00 case.

So it's straight in at the deep end for Judy.

Her 10.00 is a one-eyed horse called Wallace,

who's been brought in from a local riding school by his owner Trudy.

He has to escort all the baby horses that have just been broken in,

so he's sort of grandad horse to all the babies.

He's very special, he's a very good lad.

So fingers crossed he'll be back in one piece!

Poor Wallace has been referred here by his local vet

with a bad case of sinusitis.

He had his eye removed four years ago, and a tooth two years ago,

so this is his third visit. Hopefully the last!

Wallace! Hello, I know you can't see me...

Because he's only got one eye, obviously on one side,

he's not got that vision, he's going to be a bit more scatty,

a bit more jumpy. So I was a little bit more wary of a one-eyed horse!

Let's have a look at your snotty snotties! Ew!

How are you getting on then?

Judy's first test is to assess Wallace's condition.

Smells from somewhere, doesn't it?

Yeah, I looked here, but there is a bit of a smell actually, yeah.

Yeah, there's definitely a smell.

Infected horse snot smells disgusting.

I cannot compare it to anything else

because it's quite a unique smell in the natural world.

Steady, come on now, behave.

To find out what's causing Wallace's sinusitis, he needs a CT scan.

Wallace, what are you doing?

But first, they have to get him in there.

He's a heavy lad!

Good God, he did not want to go in, did he?

Tom thinks Wallace's infection could be caused by a bad tooth.

But unfortunately, he can't tell this from the scan.

What I'd like to do is look inside the sinus and see what we have in

there first, cos we can actually look at the tooth from the inside.

Come on, come on! Good lad.

So Tom decides the only option is to operate.

This will be the first time Judy has ever assisted on equine surgery.

Wallace is about to undergo a sinoscopy, which is

a procedure where we make a small hole into the sinus.

That allows us to pop a camera in and have a look around.

First thing we'll have to do once we get in there is flush away all the

puss that's accumulated, and then we'll be able to get a look round,

and decide whether he needs to have a tooth removed at that stage.

Yeah, it'll be quite nice to see a bucket-load of puss come out,

I should imagine!

Wallace is heavily sedated to make sure he doesn't feel any pain.

You should be able to just lift that bone straight out. Coming?

OK.

As you do, drilled a hole in a horse's head, and popped a bone out.

Weird, but there you go!

Where would you like it?

Pop it on the table and we'll give this a bit of a clean.

What can you say? Speechless.

OK, you can see the pool of fluid that we've seen

there in the dorsal conchal sinus.

Now they're in there, they can suck out the infected pus.

So as soon as you get thickening of the lining of the sinus,

that can block the drainage.

And there's plenty of it.

Smells pretty bad, doesn't it?

But after draining almost a litre of pus,

Wallace develops a heavy nose bleed, so Tom calls a halt for today.

Because he's had a little bit of bleeding, we're putting

a gauze swab into the sinus to stop the bleeding overnight.

Then we'll come back tomorrow and pull the swab out,

and decide whether we actually need to flush him at all,

a flush tube if we think we need to, yep? I see...

You just kept wondering how he felt with a massive towel in his head.

You know how you say, "Oh, my head is full of cotton wool,"

he literally was.

SHE LAUGHS Crazy.

You've got some nice big boogers, Wallace.

I'm getting them out.

I do like surgery, doesn't matter if it's horse, hamster or dog's surgery,

it's great, and he was so good. Wasn't he good! Amazing.

Wallace is sent to recover overnight, in the hope that in the

morning they can finally locate the source of his snotty infection.

DOG BARKS

At the Queen Mother Hospital,

Charlie's patient Georgie came in yesterday with breathing problems,

and had a minor operation to widen her nostrils.

But this morning she's suddenly become critically ill

and has been rushed into surgery.

I just happened to be passing and thought I'd check in on her,

and was like, that's...

she's breathing worse than she should be.

And because I'd been with her all week,

I had sort of seen how bad she was breathing before the surgery.

So I then called someone more senior and said, "OK, can we check this?"

Now we're going to do a little procedure where we put a tube

and that will bypass her larynx,

You're happy if we go? Yep!

Charlie has never scrubbed in

on this kind of emergency surgery before,

It's just one of those complications that one in every so hundred

animals can develop, and it's pretty unfortunate.

You've got the tube ready?

INDISTINCT CONVERSATION

That tube is going directly into her trachea, which is her windpipe.

Normally they realise and move, but the nurses do have to keep a really

close eye on her. And unfortunately, if the tube got blocked, well,

ultimately they can die from having this problem.

So it's really serious.

Why don't we make a little chin rest? Hi, sweetie!

As Georgie's breathing through a tube,

it's hoped the swelling in her larynx will now calm down.

This emergency procedure may have saved Georgie's life,

but the next few days will be critical.

It was actually my girlfriend who had a practice.

They brought a rabbit in, and she's like, "OK, so what's wrong with it?"

"Uh, it's got a carrot stuck in its mouth."

Rabbit's there, here's the carrot and it's like, "Ahhhhh!"

THEY LAUGH

"So how long has it been in there?"

"Two or three days. It hasn't eaten."

"OK." And so she just reaches and pulls this piece of carrot

out of its mouth, and the rabbit's just like...

HE GASPS

Aww, poor rabbit. Poor rabbit.

SHEEP BLEAT

Student Jo Hardy is based in her home county of Kent this week.

Good girl!

She's taking the opportunity to spend some quality time with

her horses.

Aw, I just love being around the horses.

It was so nice when I had her at uni with me.

It meant I could finish lectures and go and ride,

and see her every day. She was like my baby there.

But as soon as I got rotations at uni

there was just no way I could keep her.

I was way too busy. I don't have enough hours in the day as it is.

Tilly, come on!

Becoming a vet takes tenacity.

And a competitive streak comes in handy too.

This is my go-karting trophy. I beat lots of people to win it.

This is when I won a dressage competition.

This is when my team got to regionals.

This big one is because I used to do a little bit of modelling,

and won one of the designer awards.

This is when I got to regionals as an individual.

I like to compete, I like to win at things.

SHE LAUGHS

Getting into vet school was the hardest thing I've ever done.

Yeah, you have to do the most ridiculous amounts of work

experience, and then on top of that, get really good grades.

And then once I actually got in... people don't tell you how hard it is.

It's like trying to get into vet school every year around.

So just getting into second year was as hard as getting into first year,

and then getting into third year was as hard as getting into second year.

And, ugh, it's a tough degree.

The next morning Jo heads off to this week's placement -

which, thankfully, is just down the road.

Today we're going to Putlands, which is

a local mixed practice for me.

I think we're going to a farm this morning.

Quite often vet students do end up being employed by places that

they've seen practice, cos they know them.

So, yeah, I'd quite like to make a good impression,

and I'm a little bit worried that I don't.

Is there anything I can help with?

Yeah, the three blue things in there.

Jo's straight out on a visit to a farm with practice owner

Eryl Davies, to do pregnancy checks on a herd of heifers.

But Eryl begins the day with a warning about the very real

dangers of working with cattle that weigh around half a tonne apiece.

I was helping to get them in because we didn't have an extra gate.

I was the gate and one little heifer turned round,

kicked me on the side there, and I fell over onto concrete.

And I don't remember this,

but apparently two of the cows trampled me.

Took a good six months for me to heal enough to play sport again.

There you are, such is life! Yeah, they can be dangerous animals.

You make sure you've got insurance to cover you from day one.

COWS MOO

We're pregnancy diagnosing some cows,

and the very young ones that are too small to have calves,

we're injecting prostaglandin which induces abortion.

But hopefully there won't be too many of them today!

Hut-hut! Go on, ya!

Dairy cows are used to human contact because they're milked every day,

but these young heifers are reared for beef -

so they're rarely handled, let alone given an internal examination.

Today, this lot are fighting back.

COWS MOO

The dairy farms, they can just come through the parlour,

and then they can be separated as they're coming

out of the parlour.

The beef farms, they're all sort of herded in from

the fields and then sorted out in the yard, and they're much wilder.

METAL RATTLING

Very frisky one.

To do the examinations, vet Eryl has to get right into the crush

with half a tonne of cow.

It's not a job for the faint-hearted.

Eryl has given his glamorous assistant

the job of administering the hormone injections,

from the relative safety of the outside of the crush.

Nearly got a face full there!

But today, even the film crew get a proper scare.

CAMERA MAN: Which number's this one, Eryl?

The very last!

HE LAUGHS

How's everyone feeling about that?

Let me tell you know when I've finished.

THEY ALL LAUGH

Yeah, she's heavy...heavy in calf.

A relief.

Oh, it is a physical job, yes, no doubt about it.

And the older I get, the more I feel it. The more I know it!

The cows were really frisky and I think maybe I'm a bit gung-ho

about it like, "Yeah, I can stop them."

But actually, they were just going to run through you.

No matter whether it was me or Eryl, or one of the farmers there,

whoever was there to try and stop them running, they were going

to keep on running. So they were quite difficult to work with.

Turn round, you're looking pretty good now.

CAMERA MAN: So would you have her back?

I would, yes. Yes, no doubt.

She's keen, enthusiastic and gets on with people,

that's the most important thing, you know, to communicate.

And yes, she's a great communicator.

No cameras while I'm in the gents, please!

It's 7.00am in the college's equine hospital.

Wallace the one-eyed horse is recovering from his nose bleed.

Aye-aye!

And Judy is recovering from her horse phobia.

How are you feeling about working with horses now?

Yeah, not too bad, not too bad. Wally!

I think it is, you know, like falling off a horse cos...

Yeah, like I say, he's a good boy, so it makes it nice and easy.

SHE LAUGHS

Wally, what are you like!

He was a very good patient for someone who's nervous around horses.

He actually really helped me to become

more confident around them because he was so calm.

No more pus-y snot! That's a good sign.

Let's give you a once over, mate.

It's time for Wallace to head back to theatre in the hope that they

can find out whether a rotten tooth is the cause of his sinusitis.

The consequences of taking a tooth out of a horse's head...

there can be complications associated with the procedure,

and associated with the medium to long term

with drift of the teeth either side.

So if we can avoid taking a tooth out, we try and do that.

The first task of the day is to remove the gauze from poor

Wallace's sinuses...

You might feel it's just a little bit...

All three metres of it.

Can I do it with my hands now? Yeah, you can. Yeah. OK.

When you pulled it out, it was like a magic trick.

You just kept going and kept going and kept going.

except it was pulling gauze out of a horse!

Good boy. Good boy.

Good. OK. You can throw that in there.

Then we'll take a look, have a drive around inside.

There you go... Ah, yes.

You can see the infraorbital canal, and the bottom part of it was hidden

when we first went in there yesterday.

How can you put into words, I've just stood in front of a horse

with a hole in its head and put a camera inside it.

How can you put how amazing that is into words?

You can't, it's fantastic!

So we've certainly got enough drainage.

Looks good. I'm pleased with the work we did yesterday.

it looks like he doesn't need to have a tooth removed after all.

there's no evidence that any of them are infected, so all looks good.

Now it's Judy's turn under the spotlight as Tom gives her

the job of stitching up Wallace's head.

Do I go behind this one now or in front? Just in front.

And go from deep here to... Cos remember, this was on this side.

This is over here. As long as it's...

You'll get the feel for what, because epidermis tissue

feels easy to bust the needle, dermis feels much tougher.

So that looks quite good to me.

Put it all the way through.

You're still pretty though, Wallace, don't worry.

I hope Wallace appreciates my handiwork, but like I say,

we'll take the mirror out of his stable and then he'll never know.

Model patient.

She seemed to handle the closure very well,

so actually quite impressed with the suturing skills at the end there.

This is why we come into veterinary medicine,

cos we can do cool stuff like this every day!

Brilliant, just brilliant.

By the way, apologies, I've been calling him Wally,

cos we've bonded. Oh, that's what we call him all time.

The following day, owner Trudy is very relieved

to be getting her beloved Wallace back.

Here he is!

Quite strange to have a big empty stable and him not there.

Hopefully he'll be all sorted now, and we'll get you better.

Come on, big lad. Come on, Wallace!

Wallace will be in my heart forever.

I really liked looking after him, actually.

He's got me down the road to recovery from my horse phobia,

he's helped me a lot. I'll never forget Wallace.

DOG BARKS

In the Queen Mother Hospital,

it's three days since Charlie's patient Georgie

came in with a swollen larynx, and had an emergency tracheotomy.

After a rest in intensive care, the swelling's gone down,

and Georgie's tube is removed.

So what's strange is that you don't actually surgically close this hole

that you've made in their throat.

The best thing to do is to leave it open so that it naturally heals,

rather than you trying to shut it.

And because you've had that time to get the inflammation in her larynx,

in her throat, to subside because she wasn't breathing

this turbulent air through it, it meant that she could breath.

Hey, Georgie!

Awww.

You can see that's she's just a lot brighter than

she was yesterday. So really happy with her today.

She's got a bit more personality again.

There was a point when we were seriously worried about her.

This is a really satisfying case.

It makes you feel really warm and fluffy inside.

That's part of the reason why I'm in this business.

It's just, it's really nice to have a win every so often.

Charlie's not the only one who's delighted with Georgie's recovery.

Missed her like crazy, just can't wait to see her again.

We've had texts and everything from people, "How is she?"

And people saying, "Oh, we'll say a prayer for her."

Hello, my darling! Hello, my baby!

INDISTINCT SPEECH

Such a good girl!

And to be reunited was really nice.

You could see that Georgie instantly recognised her.

I've missed you so much.

Yeah, there was a lot of love in that room!

Come on, baby, say bye-bye!

Georgie says thank you too, in her own special way...

What a disgrace!

She really wanted to go. Can you apologise?

DOG BARKS

Student Matt Wilkinson is also spending a crucial

fortnight in small animal surgery.

I mean, I'm interested in eyes, I'm interested in hearts.

I really like surgery, so who knows,

I might go down a specialisation route.

The first test of his enthusiasm for surgery is a Yorkshire terrier

who's come in with a sneezing problem.

This is Buster.

When he breathes he sounds like one of those squidgy pigs.

It's my mum and dad's dog.

They've had him since he was 12-weeks-old and he's six now.

Hi, nice to meet you. I'm Matt, one of the students.

I'll take you in...

Little Buster's obviously a much-loved pet -

he's brought the whole family along.

Matt checks Buster over...

Goodness me, you are so wriggly!

..and reports back to supervising vets Gert and Vincent.

The main complaint today is basically a lot of noise

when he's breathing.

This sneezing attack-type thing happens about

three to four times a day.

Occasionally he has bleeding from the nose during those attacks.

That's all right, ready to go in?

It's quite audible as soon as you walk in the room! OK.

I think because of the sneezing, and the blood from his nose,

it would be very good to at least make sure

there's nothing wrong in that area.

Gert wants to keep him in overnight for a series of tests.

Is there anything specific that you would like us to know

about taking care of him?

THEY LAUGH

That's a very scary thought so I will do my best, absolutely!

OK, Matt if you wouldn't mind taking him to the wards.

I'll just carry him. Come on, you.

Not nice saying goodbye? No.

I was trying not to look at her,

cos I knew she'd break down and that cracks me off.

Upset. That says it all.

Buster's booked in to have some tests in the morning.

As the Christmas break gets nearer,

the whole hospital's starting to get in the holiday mood.

I can't wait.

I just feel like I just need a break at the moment,

so it's come at a good time!

Though senior clinician Ian Self is determined not to get carried away.

Christmas-time obviously is a very sombre occasion

where we remember every patient

who's been through the hospital in the year.

We also try and remember all the students who've been through,

and how well they've done, but we try and play it down.

It's not a big deal to most of us.

This evening there's a Christmas party

which will be attended by nearly a thousand students.

Christmas Ball is...arguably the best event of the year.

It's my favourite, certainly.

It's just incredible. I always have a really good time.

But before they can all go to the ball, there's still work to be done.

Matt's patient from yesterday - Buster the sneezing Yorkie -

has just had a CT scan in the hope it'll uncover the mystery cause

of his nose bleeds and sneezing episodes.

It looks like there is an abnormality on the left side

of the nose, which could explain why he's sneezing with some blood loss.

We started thinking, hang on,

there might be something else going on here, best investigate!

To get a closer look, they give him a rhinoscopy,

which involves putting a tiny camera up Buster's nose.

Let's focus on the abnormal side.

So when we go in here...

Some swelling on the tissues here,

some mucus, there's definitely some abnormal tissue here.

Guys, on the left-hand side, you see that over there?

Yeah.

Potentially it's a foreign body or something.

Can I have the smallest forceps?

Inside it's very swollen -

but Gert thinks he's spotted something

that definitely shouldn't be there.

Could this be what's making Buster sneeze?

THEY CHEER

Hooray!

Fabulous.

Bit of grass. Or a grass seed, anyway.

It smells.

I don't want to smell it!

THEY LAUGH

What do you know.

I think I'm going to live another day.

He's probably not going to kill me now, is he?

I guess you could say it was a bit of a eureka moment

when you pulled it out, because you're like

"Hey, this is the grass seed that's been causing the problem!"

DOG WHINES

Minus one large grass seed,

Buster's now ready to be reunited with his family.

Hello! What's that?

Oh, my God. So that was in his left nostril.

Good grief! It's quite big compared to his nostril size, isn't it?

So, yeah. Can I keep that?

Yeah. Happy Christmas! It's yours!

Early Christmas present, yeah.

Amazing, isn't it? Amazing.

THEY LAUGH

As the day draws to a close at the Queen Mother Hospital, it's

time for the students to gear up for the long-awaited Christmas Ball.

SING-SONG: Getting out of here, going to run to the ball.

It's our last Christmas Ball, and it's always...

There's usually not much I remember.

I think I'd quite like to remember this year.

It's really nice just to look like a female every now and again.

That tightens it? Yeah.

All right, which side is it? You'll have to pull me into it.

Come off of it.

Tonight they're escaping the watchful eye of the teaching staff

to party into the wee small hours.

No, that's so lame!

SHE SHRIEKS

Christmas Ball is a big event.

It's the one which everyone looks forward to.

Christmas Ball is amazing.

It is really good to have a blow out.

Everyone loves feeling Christmassy,

and it just gets you kind of in the festive spirit.

And you're with all your friends. And yeah, it's great.

I did stay until the bitter end, very early in the morning.

The next morning, bleary eyed and definitely the worse for wear,

Matt and Danni stagger in for a 7.00am start.

We're going to start with a little test, so I hope you didn't

party too much last night, cos we really need them.

How are you, guys?

Fresh as a daisy. A little bit pale.

THEY LAUGH

Vet Gert has lined up an unexpected test for them

that definitely requires a steady hand and a sharp eye -

both of which seem to be in short supply this morning.

The day after Christmas Ball was quite painful,

and we were all struggling.

If you practice again, do it like this. OK.

When you're really tired from a night out, you don't want to

be doing a really fiddly thing in front of one of

the senior clinicians, while being tested.

Oh, yeah, I've got to thread it.

THEY LAUGH

This should be funny.

God, I'm really shaky today.

Oh, it's come out.

I don't think I managed to hide how I was feeling very well.

I think my hands did most of the talking that morning.

PEOPLE CHATTER

I've hit a wall.

I hit a wall probably at about 9.00,

but still got like, how many more hours, like...

..seven more hours of this day. So...just got to keep, keep going.

Whenever anyone asks me, why did you not want to be a doctor, there's

only one answer I give every time. I could put my finger up a dog's bum,

but I couldn't put my finger up an old man's bum.

That's a good way to put it, yeah. That's the only way I think of it.

"And cough..." No, I can't, not that. Exactly!

For Catherine Needham it's been a long road to get this

far in her vet training.

Way back to about five years old or so,

I can remember wanting to be a vet.

Maya and Possum?

But after almost seven years of hard work, the end is in sight.

It's going to mean a heck of a lot.

I've taken a really long route to get here.

I've done another degree.

I had a couple of years out between the two degrees.

It's been a long, hard slog while I've been at vet school.

So it's going to be accumulation of a lot of hard work

and it's going to mean that I've finally got to where I intended

to get all along, and I'm actually doing the job that I want to do.

Today she's starting a two-week placement at a

general vet practice in Potters Bar - where all her

Day 1 vet skills are going to be tested - including surgery.

It's always difficult at new places where you don't know, there's

always kind of those few days where you're working out what you can do.

I'm a lot more confident than I was in third year,

because I feel that I know a bit more of what's going on.

Hello!

Her first patient this morning is a four-month-old

Cockapoo puppy called Teddy.

His owner thinks he might have swallowed a sharp piece of plastic.

He was in the garden and spotted a plant pot.

Teddy had been in the garden, been chewing a plant pot

which the owner saw and obviously stopped him chewing it.

She pieced back together the pieces of plastic from the pot,

and there was a piece of plastic missing.

Catherine's working under the watchful eye of

practice manager Russell Welch.

Did you see him swallow it at all or...?

I saw it in his mouth. OK. That sort of size.

I turned my back to get one of my boys,

because I was trying to pull it out of his mouth,

and then it had gone. Then it wasn't on the ground anywhere.

So I'm pretty sure he swallowed it but I can't be absolutely certain.

Has he tried to retch at all?

No. Absolutely nothing. He's been absolutely fine.

Right, so what we're going to feel for,

is to see if he's got anything stuck down his oesophagus.

If he had something in his oesophagus,

he'd probably still be retching, trying to cough or vomit it out. OK?

And then we'll have a good feel in his tummy.

Teddy was an incredibly cute dog. Obviously you want

the best for all your patients, but when they're so cute like that

then they particularly kind of tug at the heartstrings a little bit.

Vet Russell can't take any chances and needs to find

the piece of plant pot before it can do any lasting damage.

The problem you've got is it's a flat piece of plastic.

So it depends on how it may or may not be lying inside the stomach.

It would be silly to ignore it,

especially if it's something that sharp.

For a small dog like him,

something like that's unlikely to pass without causing danger.

There's probably a high risk of something that hard and that sharp

essentially perforating the intestines.

I feel so terrible about it. I watch him like a hawk,

but as soon as he knows I'll try and get it out,

he'll try and swallow it.

It can be difficult if there's children there,

you don't want to start mentioning surgery.

Children are going to be very attached to their dog,

and be worried if you're taking it into the back.

They're going to be worried about,

what are you doing with it, where's the dog going?

So that can be quite upsetting.

OK, if you take him through

and I'll get the forms and all the paperwork done.

Right, come on.

The first step is to give Teddy an X-ray.

So there's a lot of food in this dog's stomach.

You can see all of that there.

That's going to make finding that very, very difficult.

There's faeces in there, gas in the small intestine,

there's a lot of food in there.

Having drawn a blank,

Russell uses a camera to search inside Teddy's stomach.

Anyone sees anything, shout, OK?

You can see the dog pellets,

see how they're round a hole in the middle.

Bit of grass, he's been eating!

Quite a lot of what dogs swallow are things that they think could

be food, but often, particularly at a puppy age,

they'll just chew things.

Whether that's a sock, whether that's a kid's toy or whatever,

they'll just chew things and swallow bits of it.

And that causes a problem.

Nah, I think we're fighting a losing battle out here.

There's too much food in there.

As Teddy could be in serious danger

if the missing bit of pot tears his intestine, they'll need to operate.

But unfortunately, they can't open him up straightaway.

Well, at the moment, his stomach is so full of food that

the risk of doing surgery is that he could end up with some of that

over-spilling into the abdomen and then you've got risk of infection.

So we're going to leave him overnight so his stomach has a bit

of a chance to empty, and then do surgery tomorrow.

All they can do now is wait and hope that little Teddy doesn't

take a turn for the worse overnight.

The next morning, Teddy's prepped for surgery.

This may be a high street general vet practice,

but even here vets perform complex surgery on a regular basis.

He was very bouncy and happy this morning.

You wouldn't know that there was anything potentially wrong with him.

Do you see anything possibly suspicious?

For Teddy's operation, Catherine's going to assist vet Gerry Dunne.

It doesn't appear to have moved into the small intestine, the

problem is it could move in there at any time, day or night.

And if it does, it could perforate.

Especially if it's got sharp edges, so, yeah.

It's quite important to get in there and get it out,

so it doesn't cause problems.

The only option is to open Teddy up

and feel along his intestines for the piece of plastic.

There's nothing in the stomach.

Do you want a feel of the stomach?

We were looking for a hard piece of plastic.

You'd be able to feel that through the intestinal wall or stomach wall

without having to actually make an incision into it.

So you just work your way, all the way through it.

Work your way down, right down to the diaphragm.

There it is. Then down the other side, down the way to the...

But after a careful search,

Catherine and Gerry can't find anything.

And there's only one reason they can think of,

it seems Teddy didn't swallow any plastic after all.

So we were able to feel our way through all of the digestive system,

all of the tracts, and couldn't feel any plastic in there.

Which at least is a relief. Not to worry.

So Operation Plant Pot is called off,

but Catherine gets to show off her surgical skills -

closing Teddy's wound.

Catherine's a natural when it comes to surgery. Is she?

Just her suture technique, she's very efficient

and very precise. She's definitely a natural surgeon.

I always like getting the opportunity to suture up at

The vet did seem quite happy with my suturing.

I could have taken the day off! She's taken over.

Sh, good boy. Good boy.

A few hours on - and sporting a very neat scar -

Teddy's going home to his family.

Yeah, I mean, it's always really good to see them going home happy

and well, and yeah, good outcome, that's always good.

And yeah, it's nice to get a compliment,

and know that I'm doing OK.

Things are getting to the point where the next time I'm doing

things I might be doing them on my own,

so it's really reassuring to get it confirmed that

I am doing the correct things.

Aww, I missed you so much.

I missed you so much!

Ah, we've missed him so much.

DOG BARKS

So before I came to vet school I didn't quite realise how

many girls there would be compared to boys.

So what is it, is it 80% now?

Yeah, it's got to be 80%, yeah. Something like that.

Yeah, slim pickings! Slim pickings! Slim pickings.

Yeah, let's go slim picking. We need more boys!

Please, send men!

for you will come to a place where you will feel like an alpha male

all the time and you will probably have an amazing time.

For Dru Shearn, the Christmas holidays can't come soon enough.

I'm not really the biggest Christmas person. I'm kind of...

I'm not a Grinch, but I haven't had a big

chunk of time off, quite on time, and it's just nice to see my family,

see some friends from home,

and just take a bit of time to just do nothing, really.

But before he can take a break, he has to finish his placement

in the hospital's Cardiology Department.

His next patient, Buddy, is a tiny Jack Russell puppy

with a serious heart condition.

He's too cute, isn't he?

He's absolutely tiny and he's absolutely gorgeous,

but he is here because he's got a congenital heart problem.

I'm on cardiology this week, and we've just been looking after

him and stabilising him in the Intensive Care Unit

until he can go in for surgery.

Because it's not something they can survive with.

So we need to do an intervention and we need to try and go and fix it.

Puppies in the womb have a blood vessel in the heart

which bypasses the lungs.

This should close off at birth once they start to breathe,

but in Buddy's case, it hasn't.

Without complex surgery to tie off this blood vessel,

Buddy won't survive into adulthood.

The surgery itself might not be successful,

so it's kind of 50-50 as to whether he'll make it through.

Hopefully he will, cos he's absolutely adorable,

but I think they're quite concerned about him at the moment.

Unfortunately, this time Dru won't be able to

scrub in during Buddy's surgery.

I injured my finger playing rugby,

which meant that I couldn't really use my hands to do surgery.

So I was kind of gutted about that, but, you know, what can you do?

But it turns out Dru's loss is Matt's gain -

as the rare opportunity to assist in delicate heart surgery

has been handed over to him.

To be given that opportunity to scrub into something that is

so rarely done and on such a small and young puppy,

I mean, that was just, that was amazing for me.

With a heart no bigger than a small strawberry,

Buddy's at high risk in this procedure.

Luckily for Buddy - and luckily for wide-eyed Matt -

performing the operation today is world-renowned surgeon Dan Brockman.

The real concern for this little dog is that he's already having

real difficulty because of this abnormal vessel.

The only hope for him is if we are able to successfully close

this vessel off, and if his circulation returns

to its normal state, we've got everything and very little to lose.

Dan Brockman is a bit of a surgery legend, really,

so to be able to scrub in with him was fantastic.

If we're unfortunate or unlucky and the blood vessel we're

dissecting around ruptures, then that could be really

dangerous in terms of losing him on the operating table.

A dog of that size can bleed to death in a matter of seconds

so it's going to be quite an anxious period of time as we're dissecting

around that vessel to make sure that that hopefully doesn't happen.

Are we ready to make an incision? Yes, boss.

So just slide your other hand underneath the latissimus

so you can feel all the way around the front of the rib.

And we're ready to put the local anaesthetic on.

So that's...26. That's total dose.

Thank you. We're just about to enter the chest.

Just don't breathe for a second.

I did feel pressure, because it's such an important operation

and things can go drastically wrong very quickly,

you really don't want to make any mistakes.

And obviously I'd never done anything like that before.

You know, I might have been standing there looking like I knew what

was going on, looking like I could have done one of those, but on the

inside I was thinking, "Oh, my God, I do not want to screw up here."

This is the area here that we need to develop this dissection.

Half an hour in, Dan's finally through to the heart

and locates the blood vessel he needs to tie off.

Obviously they have to cut through the skin first, and then

various muscles, and then eventually they had to cut into the lungs and

move one of the lung-loads out of the way so they could get to the heart.

All of the layers being incredibly small and incredibly fiddly.

It was astonishing, it was amazing.

To be that close to Buddy's heart was incredible.

You could see it beat, and it was so small,

and it was doing such an important job.

And yet there I was sort of standing there...looking at it.

Can you see the tip of that instrument coming around the back

of the ductus? Can you guys all see that?

The final stage of the surgery is critical.

As Matt holds a nerve out of the way using a silicon string,

Dan ties off the blood vessel.

Just watching him do that surgery was incredible.

Remarkably, in less than an hour, Dan has completed the operation

and it looks like little Buddy's going to make it.

Yeah, bit of a challenge. What's life without a challenge though?

Matt was very good.

I hope he enjoyed the opportunity to be that close to the action,

to see the heart beating that close up, perhaps even touch parts of it.

I still remember to this day the first time I was able to do that.

And if Matt has an interest in surgery at all,

then that might be the thing that just snatches him and

makes him commit to one day perhaps do similar things.

DOG YELPS

Oh, hello! He's awake.

Yeah, that was very cool. I really enjoyed that.

Um, very good. I've scrubbed in on an open heart surgery.

But as Buddy's moved to Intensive Care to recover,

it's clear that the next 48 hours will be crucial.

Right, Kessy, Christmas!

Just a few miles from the college in Rickmansworth,

Judy's finished for the term,

and is attempting to get her beloved dog Kess in the mood for Christmas.

Down in the dumps this year?

just off the scale this year, to be honest, just bouncing off the walls.

Look, Kess, do you want your hat on?

Yeah! No, not really.

Oh, Kess. I'm so sorry, Kess.

I'm so sorry. I promised I'd never do this to you again.

Right, let's get your present, Kess, wait there.

That's a good look, I like that.

So what's Father Christmas bringing Judy Puddifoot this festive season?

I wrote a letter to him,

asking if I could get passes in all my exams next year,

so might be a belated Christmas present, we'll have to see.

Have I been good enough this year?

All the biscuits are gone now, Kess. SHE LAUGHS

So does Kess get more presents than you do?

Yeah, generally. Lots of biscuits for Kess,

and pig's ears, that's her favourite.

Not a very nice present, but there you go.

SHE LAUGHS

Oh, you've got two! Oh, you've got two! Yeah!

Are you looking forward to a bit of a break?

Yes, that'll be nice. It would be nice,

except I've got my research project to do over the Christmas break.

So, yeah, I'll take a couple of days off, definitely.

Ooh, hello. LAUGHING

In the Queen Mother Hospital's Intensive Care Unit,

it's been two days since little Buddy's heart surgery.

Hello, cheeky boy! Do you want to come out and play?

Yeah, he's actually, as little puppies often do,

he's made a really miraculous recovery.

I've had a photograph taken of me holding him

in the palm of my hand just like this so I can illustrate the

But he's just tiny.

TOY SQUEAKS

Get him, get him.

And Dan's not the only vet who's unable to resist Buddy's charms.

Go and see uncle Dru.

He looks amazing, doesn't he? He looks like a different dog.

This is only two days afterwards and he looks really, really good,

so we're really pleased.

Do you want to put this on?

Oh, you are, you can't be serious. LAUGHING

Dru, come here.

Aww, look at the little...

LAUGHTER

So we're spreading Christmas cheer today.

And just 24 hours later, Buddy's well enough to go home.

THEY LAUGH HAPPILY

Guaranteeing his owners a very happy Christmas.

We sort of geared ourselves up for him not coming home,

so it's almost like he's brand-new again.

I'm looking forward to getting him home. And Christmas Day as well.

Put his elf suit on.

Yeah, we've got him an elf...my mum's got him a little elf costume

so I'm going to put him in that...

LAUGHING: ..on Christmas Day. Aren't we?

DOG MOANS

He's so excited. I know. He doesn't know what to do.

Homeowners with tiny budgets...

Experts with big ideas... I'm going to propose something quite radical.

Homeowners with tiny budgets...

It is a lot of money. Every penny counts now.

Can they build their dream home?

I feel very nervous now.