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Vets look after many different kinds of animals and try to treat them of their illness, but what else does the job involve?

It can take just as long to become a veterinary surgeon as it can to become a docotor, as after school you need to attend four years of college and then four years of veterinary school to begin with. Getting a placement at an animal hospital can help with credit, but it wont make your time any shorter actually in college. There are only 28 schools that have veterinary places in the US, so trying to get in can be difficult. You will learn about the different illnesses and also the numerous amounts of different animal species you may have to treat. As a vet you will have to study quite a lot of animal anatomy -rodents, birds, canines felines and others. This is without even including the fact that you may want to consider specialising in a particular speices. The final vet test is the same as the bar test in law, as you cant be a vet without passing that test. Think carefully over which state to do the state exam in, as many of them wont give you the right to practice in the other states.

Vets also have to keep as up to date as they possibly can on all the new methods and techinques to best serve their patients. What may surpise people is that vets also have to take an oath, exactly like doctors, pledging to do their best to help all animals. Yes, the hours are long, but the worse thing about being a vet may be having to put down an animal that you cannot save. So if that fact horrifies you, this may not be the job you looking for.

So, if this sound like a career you really feel you have the passion to do, you may want to think about becoming a veterinary surgeon.

My best friend’s cat died last week. Needless to say she was more than a little upset, but then he wasn’t just her cat he was family. He was her companion, her confidant and her friend. She only found out he was ill about a month ago when she took him to the vets in Sussex and they found a lump in his stomach, she would have done anything and paid any amount of money to save him but unfortunately they had found it too late.

In the end the decision was out of my friend’s control, but for a lot of people when their pets fall ill or are injured they are faced with a horrible decision. Obviously there is no such thing as NHS for pets, and for those who don’t have pet insurance it’s an extremely expensive business (my friend paid almost £90 for a blood test that didn’t even help to identify the problem). Of course most people would do anything to help their pets and money is no issue when it comes to helping such an important member of the family.

And for those who can afford it there is no end of veterinary help available, from basic medicines and physiotherapy for pets to specific animal cardiology and ophthalmology facilities. If it's possible for the illness to be treated it will be treated, and there is every chance that the pet will make a full recovery. But what happens when a pet is suddenly injured or taken ill and their owner can’t afford to pay for the (often huge) bill? It’s hardly fair that the life of one animal takes priority over another because of the size of their owners’ bank account.

One young cat owner from Brighton took on this problem in a new way when his cat Mumble was seriously hurt in the street and needed urgent treatment to survive. Rory O’Connor had no pet insurance, and Mumble’s treatment at a veterinary hospital in Sussex was estimated at around £1000, much more than he could afford, but he couldn’t bear to just watch her suffer. So in what he described as a ‘last ditch effort’ Rory started a group on Facebook called 'Save Mumble', inviting all his friends to spread the word about Mumble’s unfortunate plight and asking everyone to make donations of £1. At first he thought he’d have no chance but his plea touched the hearts of thousands of facebook users. His friends told all their friends about it, and within a short couple of weeks he had raised enough cash to pay the bill for Mumble’s treatment in full. She made a full and fast recovery, all thanks to the overwhelming support of friends and the power of social networking!