Seeing Practice
How to apply for an externship.
Apply for externship
To apply for an externship (to “see practice”): Please email nursing@aleh.ie
Please include:
1) Your name
2) The dates you wish to visit – please check these against the available dates. (See below – Information for veterinary students wanting to apply for an externship – for available dates).
3) Alternative dates if your first choice is no longer available
4) The college you are studying at and how far along in the course you are
5) If there is another student you are applying with
6) One or two sentences (no more!) stating what you hope to get out of the externship
Information for veterinary students wanting to apply for an externship ("see practice").
Information for students considering applying for an externship (seeing practice) at Anglesey Lodge Equine Hospital
Thank you for your interest in seeing practice at Anglesey Lodge. Most of our students visit during the breeding season, when we are at our busiest. We accept three to four students at a time during peak breeding season, and one to two students out of the season. The breeding season runs from approximately 1st February to 31st July.
Availability for 2020, as of 23rd July 2020:
**WE ARE NOT ACCEPTING STUDENTS AT THE MOMENT DUE TO THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC. WE WILL REASSESS THE SITUATION IN SEPTEMBER 2020 AND WILL POST ANY UPDATES ACCORDINGLY. HOWEVER, STUDENTS SHOULD STILL SEND APPLICATIONS FOR THE 2021 POSITIONS TO nursing@aleh.ie**
We ask that students visit for a minimum of 2 and a maximum of 6 weeks.
Students on an Erasmus program are allowed to visit for a longer period – up to 7 months. However, we ask that they apply as if for an internship – with a CV, letters of reference and a cover letter. Students wishing to stay longer than 6 weeks will be asked to interview either on the telephone or via Skype.
Please do not ask to see practice with us if you will not be available during the weekends of your visit. We are happy to give you time off during the week to see something of Ireland or to recuperate, but we require that students are available at the weekends
We are a busy private practice, with a philosophy that everyone mucks in to get the work done. We will ask you to help out on some weekend days, evenings or night shifts, but would make sure that you don’t work longer than 12 hours and get time to sleep and eat! Please do not ask to see practice with us if you are not free to help at the weekends. We also want students to see some of Ireland, so if you help out at the weekend, we would be happy to give you a couple of free days during the week in lieu. We have a 24-hour nursing team – you would never be by yourself. We have 8 vets in the practice, 2 of whom are permanently in the hospital. Students are expected to help out in all aspects of the hospital. This will mostly involve monitoring and treating the In-Patients – some of these will be on hourly treatments. Our head nurse will allocate you one or more patients to look after, and you are expected to ensure that they receive all the treatments and care they require. Most of the animals have ranges set for heart rate, etc. and you will be involved in the discussion of change of treatment if your animal goes outside the range set by the attending vet.
You will also be assisting the vets with out patient appointments at the clinic, ie. scoping, scanning, etc.
There will be opportunities to go out with a stud vet in the morning, and see that aspect of the practice also.
There is no accomodation available at the clinic, but we will assist you if possible to find rented accomodation locally. There is no public transport to the clinic and many students have opted to hire a vehicle for ease of travel and independence. Directions to the practice are given here. There are very many local Bed & Breakfasts or Hotels – these can be found at Discover Ireland or www.kildare.ie (choose one that it on the Curragh, in Kildare or in Newbridge).
Dublin airport is the closest airport (about 40 miles away). There are direct flights to Dublin from many airports. Cheap flights from the UK and many European cities are available from many airlines, including Aer Lingus and Ryanair. Direct flights from the USA are available from many airlines, including Aer Lingus, Continental, Delta, United, American and US Airways.
A map of all cities served direct from Dublin Airport (click on the city to see the airline) is available here.
There is a bus direct from Dublin airport to Newbridge, Kildare and Monasterevin: http://www.dublincoach.ie/
The bus company also has an iPhone App: http://itunes.apple.com/ie/app/dublin-coach/id337279180?mt=8
We will organise a lift from there to where you are staying.
Dublin and Dun Laoghaire ports are about an hour away from the practice (except at Rush Hour, when they can be 3 hours away!). Larne and Belfast ports are about 3 to 4 hours by car from the practice. Directions to the practice are given here. Several ferry companies sail to Ireland, including Irish Ferries, P&O and Stena.
Hope this gives you some information – please ask if you have any other questions. The best way to arrange to see practice is to email nursing@aleh.ie directly. Alternatively, please call Mary Wade (Head Nurse) on +353 (0)45-521373
If you would like to come over, please confirm the dates (if the flights/ferry don’t quite work out on those exact dates, its no problem) so that we can make sure we have a spread of students across the season
Please also note that if you confirm these dates, we will be turning other students down for that time. Please only confirm if you definitely intend to come.
Thanks again for your interest!
Information for students who have already arranged to visit Anglesey Lodge.
Student Visit
Important Notice:
Students who have already booked in for the 2020 period should contact nursing@aleh.ie as soon as possible to rearrange their booking due to the Covid-19 pandemic. We will do our very best to accomodate these visits in 2021.
Information for students who have already arranged to see practice:
The practice is located next to the Curragh Racecourse. Full directions and Google Map of the location are here
The work-day starts at 8.00am. Unless you have made other arrangements, we will expect you at 8am on the Monday of the week you have arranged to visit.
During the season, students may be asked to work some late shifts and some night shifts. Every shift has at least one nurse present at all times.
Please wear appropriate clothing for working around horses, and to give a professional impression. We recommend sturdy work-boots and trainers are not allowed. Clean jeans and a polo shirt or shirt are fine. Male students do not need to wear a tie. If you wish to see surgery, please bring scrubs and a pair of clean trainers. Please bring a stethoscope and an electronic (not glass) thermometer with you.
A typical work day is as follows:
8am to 10am: Assist with in-patients checks, treatments, bandage changes and procedures. If you are assigned a horse or foal, it is your responsibility to make sure that the treatments are done throughout the day, no matter what else you are asked to do. If you cannot do a treatment, you must let a nurse know.
8.30-9am: First surgery of the day is started
9-10am: First out-patient appointments
10.30-10.45am: Coffee/Tea Break
1-2pm: Lunch. We try and have lunch at this time – if the hospital is busy we will stagger our lunches. Please ask before you go on lunch. There is a kitchen with a microwave, but we do not have any vending machines. You are welcome to go to the local shops – the closest shop is Centra in Kildare.
5pm: Nurses and students assigned to the late shift start work.
5.30-6pm: We try and finish things up by this time, but during the season this is often more a hope than a given.
10pm: The night shift starts, and the late shift hands over to them and then finish work. 10pm is a major treatment time, and the shift starts by checking and treating all the inpatients.
8am: The night shift hands over to the day shift, and then finish work.
Please bear in mind the following during your visit:
Client confidentiality: This is extremely important. You must not discuss any case that you see in the hospital with anyone who is not a member of the hospital staff. If you wish to present a case that you have seen at the hospital at your own university, this is of course possible, but please ask permission and ask a vet for assistance in anonymising any case materials such as photographs, ultrasound images and radiographs.
Client communication: Please do not discuss any medical or surgical details of the case with any client, unless expressly asked to do so by the vet in charge of the case. If a client asks you how their animal is progressing, please refer them to a member of staff.
Biosecurity: Please make sure that you completely follow the rules for isolated and barrier-nursed animals. We will go through these with you on your first day. No neonatal foal is to be handled or treated without wearing gloves. Please use the disinfection mats in the foal area between every case
Information for veterinary surgeons wishing to visit during the breeding season.
Visiting Vets
Information for veterinary surgeons wishing to visit Anglesey Lodge Equine Hospital
We welcome visiting veterinarians during the breeding season, from 1st February to 30 June.
Veterinarians that have visited us include ECEIM residents, ACVIM and ACVECC residents, ACVS & ECVS residents and other interested veterinarians.
In 2021, in order to maximise the experience for the visiting veterinarians, we are only accepting two veterinarians at a time. Also, we ask that vets visit for a minimum of 2 weeks and a maximum of 6 weeks. Visiting vets are expected to participate in all aspects of the practice, including routine internal medicine cases and out of hours work. Many of the most critical and exciting cases present at night or at the weekend, and visiting vets will be expected to attend these.
Visiting vets are not required to register with the Veterinary Council of Ireland. This also means, however, that they will not have primary responsibility for any cases, nor will they be performing acts of veterinary medicine or surgery. Despite that, we believe that receiving mentored exposure to our caseload provides a valuable learning experience.
Further information about the location of the practice is here.Further information on caseload profile, accommodation options and public transport to the hospital are located on the pages for visiting students, here