hey guys, congrats and welcome to vet science! This degree will probably be the hardest thing you will have done in your life so far, but believe me, when you deliver your first animal, and are holding a squirming, wet, screeching baby animal in your hands, it is so worth it!
Just some tips... \in general, Dont buy textbooks until after lectures have started, and when you are looking for textbooks, be quick on the e-mail because lots of e-mails go around offerring 2nd hand textbooks for sale. Also look online for textbooks because in some cases it is cheaper to order them from overseas than to buy them at the medsoc bookshop. Most of the books are american or european anyway.
When you go to the medsoc bookshop, buy everything you need at once - the lines are long, especially early in semester. You will need
a vet dissection kit,
a bunch of scalpel blades ( the more you buy, the less you have to go back and buy more...)
gloves ( although dishwashing gloves are just as good, and you can wash and reuse them).
Subject handbooks (i think the first year ones are all green covered)
A stethoscope ( get a cheap one, really, it doesnt matter)
In terms of textbooks, the ones you need for 1st and 2nd year are..
Cunningham - Textbook of veterinary Physiology ( it has a red cover, Saunders)
Dyce, Sack and Wensing - Textbook of Veterinary Anatomy (Black cover, Saunders)
Dellman and Eurell - Textbook of Veterinary Histology (Purple cover, Lippincott, williams and wilkins)
Alberts et al - Essential Cell Biology (White cover, Garland).
I also recommend Evans - Millers Anatomy of the dog ( big red book, Saunders, costs about $300).
You might also need a chem text book, but i'm not sure which one.
If you are short on cash, dont get the cell biology one, but the others you will use for both 1st and 2nd year, so you may as well get them in 1st year to get full use out of them. They are all available in the library, so if you are really short on cash, you can use them there, but remember that there are ver few copies for over 100 students, so you might have a fight on your hands.
If you are really enthisiastic (or your parents are paying...), also get
Bacha and Bacha - Colour atlas of veterinary histology (Blue cover, Lippincott, williams and wilkins)
Budras et al - Anatomy of the dog, an illustrated text ( Greeny / grey cover, Schlutersche)
If you are buying 2nd hand books, the editions dont matter that much... anatomy doesnt really change over time.
If i think of anything else, i will post it, but i will be away until uni goes back (on a vet trip to africa! hurrah!) so if you have questions, ask kimmeh, she know everything!
Enjoy the rest of your hols, and good luck to all those trying to transfer into vet, it is possible! (i did it, as did a few of my friends).
