UCD School of Veterinary Medicine has entered a partnership agreement with Village Vets to provide
clinical placement rotations for its final year students. This allows all final year students to gain access to
a structured first opinion veterinary practice program as part of their academic curriculum.
Village Vets is a family owned Veterinary practice based in Dublin & Meath. They employ 230 Vets,
Veterinary Nurses and animal care assistants over 14 clinics that provide veterinary care to over 80,000
domestic pets in 2021.
The school of Veterinary Medicine in UCD provides specialist veterinary referral services alongside its
teaching hospital. Each year, UCD accepts undergraduate and postgraduate students to study Veterinary
Medicine and Veterinary Nursing. Students experience cutting edge diagnostics and procedures as part
of their training in UCD’s referral Veterinary Hospital. However, structured exposure to more
commonplace, day-to-day veterinary care is often best achieved through work place rotations in primary
practice.
Rory Breathnach, Associate Professor and Clinical Director at the School of Veterinary Medicine said:
“Our primary purpose is to maximize the student learning experience and produce highly competent,
all-round veterinarians who have the Day 1 skill sets to address all the common challenges encountered
in primary practice, with the added knowledge of when and how to seek referral to more experienced
colleagues when faced with the more complex case. This combined teaching approach, encompassing
both referral hospital and primary care settings, permits a strategically important blend that fulfils
societal needs for high quality animal care.”
With more than 100 students studying Veterinary Medicine in UCD each year, there is a strong demand
for graduates of the course. Alongside Ireland’s strong performance in the agri-food export sector, there
has also been a surge in pet ownership during the pandemic. These factors have led to an increase in the
demand for veterinary services across the sector with employment prospects remaining strong
throughout the last twelve months and into the future.
According to Charles Cosgrave, owner and MD of Village Vets, ‘This relationship with UCD School of
Veterinary Medicine is very exciting for us. Being acknowledged as a high quality provider of veterinary
care by a leading veterinary teaching college is a great honour. Working with final year students allows us
to demonstrate how we apply high quality veterinary care and diagnostics in a working environment. We
also get to share ideas with these students and learn new teachings from them while working with a
world renowned veterinary institution’.
As part of this new partnership, both UCD and Village Vets were audited by the American Veterinary
Medicine Association (AVMA) as part of the cyclical accreditation process. Accreditation by the AVMA
allows degree recognition for students who study Veterinary at UCD. This allows students who qualify
from the UCD School of Veterinary Medicine to work in North America without the need for any further
exams, and is a pivotal factor in attracting overseas graduate students to study veterinary medicine in
UCD each year. There are only seven veterinary teaching programmes in Europe recognised by AVMA
