ONLY FEBRUARY/AUGUST 2025 AVAILABLE 

The Clinic

Kent Equine Hospital is an 100% equine, independent practice of 7 veterinary surgeons based in the heart of Kent. Our experienced team provide a host of expertise, across a wide range of disciplines. Our hospital is fully equipped with everything needed to offer care, treatment, and surgery for the horses of Kent and the South-East. Unlike many, we come with a history dating back over 100 years. The clinic has grown and thrived throughout the years, and we take great pride in all we have achieved and all that is yet to come. We have a mixture of pleasure horse and competition horse work and cover a mainly 30-mile radius of Maidstone. We are located on the beautiful Hucking Estate on the North Downs, just off Junction 7 of the M20, with easy access to London and the Coast.

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The ambulatory practice and hospital facilities are fully integrated, so you may work cases up in the field or at the hospital, with support from experienced clinicians. We have a Boarded RCVS and EBVS Specialist in Equine Internal Medicine, Advanced Practitioners in the fields of Equine Internal Medicine and Equine Soft Tissue Surgery, and visiting Advanced Practitioners and Specialists in the fields of Equine Dentistry, Equine Surgery (Soft Tissue and Orthopaedics), Cardiology and Ophthalmology.

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Our new facilities are comprised of an indoor barn of 8 stables, several turnout paddocks, trot-up, lunge pen, 20x40m menage, pharmacy and on-site lab, 2 treatment rooms, including stocks, induction/recovery box and fully equipped theatre (Haico table), with ventilator and all monitoring equipment, conference room and overnight bedroom .  We have a fully integrated endoscopy suite, with gastroscopy, respiratory and dental endoscopes for both hospital and ambulatory use, digital radiography, and ultrasonography with all probes for everything from cardiac, abdominal thoracic, tendon/joints and rectal scanning. We have a vast array of dental equipment and motorised dental equipment.

Our team is more than just employees here, we are a family.

 

Our guiding principles and workplace culture have been designed to promote openness, honesty, support, and encouragement to promote job satisfaction. We work as a unit, learning and developing ourselves both professionally and personally in a safe and friendly environment. We have 4 nurses and an extremely experienced client care team to support us.

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Our clients are at the heart of what we do. We aim to provide a first-class service to our clients and their horses by using our knowledge, skills and up-to date technology and treatments. We provide all our own emergency services and are the only 100% equine independent clinic left in Kent that does this, employing dedicated ambulatory night vets. We feel emergency work is an important part of your early training, exposing you to a vast array of cases. However, you are fully compensated in time off for weekends worked and supported by an ambulatory clinician, hospital clinician and nurse always. You do not participate in the emergency rota until we both feel mutually that you are ready​​.

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Structure of the Intern Scheme

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We base our internship scheme on the recommended list of skills for BEVA approved internships and run two 18 month hospital/ambulatory internships starting in February and August.

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Our 18-month Hospital/Ambulatory Internship scheme was developed to provide a supportive environment where graduates can develop their field skills as well as their diagnostic and patient care skills in the clinic, within a supportive team. There are two posts available every other year, starting in February and August.

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The initial 3-month period is designed to ease the intern into the life of working in a busy hospital environment. You will be allocated a GDP adviser and a fellow intern “buddy”. We will monitor your development and will help you get to grips with the equipment, procedures, and way of working. The focus will not only be on clinical ability but will help you build resilience and give you exposure to the different situations that may occur when working in an equine hospital or out in the field.

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Between the 3–6-month period, you will be given more clinical freedom and control over more complex cases, building your confidence and skill set to become a more rounded veterinary surgeon.

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During the final 12 months you will be classified as a ‘senior intern’ and it will be expected that you are confident and able to deal with most situations. You will act as an advisor to the ‘junior intern’. The senior intern will liaise closely with our clients.

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There will be ample opportunities throughout your internship to focus on your specific areas of interest, but the main focus will be developing you into a safe and extremely competent first opinion ambulatory clinician but with the added diagnostic skills utilised in a hospital setting, anaesthesia, imaging, and emergency/critical care. Overall, this post provides the graduate with training in most aspects of modern equine practice and produces veterinary surgeons whose level of competence and expertise is immediately useful to first opinion equine ambulatory practices and to academic institutions who offer specialist training positions.

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Interns work a 5-day week 8am – 5pm, and alternate between ambulatory and hospital duties. Whilst in the clinic, interns are responsible for all in-patient care, admissions, discharges, anaesthesia and assist the senior clinicians in work up of a wide and varied caseload, but with particular emphasis on lameness and internal medicine. Whilst on ambulatory weeks, the intern develops their face-to-face client skills on zone visits and then attends more complex cases as they progress through their internship. Interns participate in a 1 in 2 hospital rota, with 1 in 12 ambulatory weekends, amounting to a maximum of 1 in 2 weekends on call.  All interns receive a Thursday off before an ambulatory weekend on call and a Friday off after an ambulatory weekend on call. 

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Interns participate and organise a weekly journal club which involves a combination of critical appraisal of recent literature, M and M rounds and training sessions on practical skills with all the team.

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Interns are expected to work hard during their time with us. However, if one intern has been up all night, provision will be made to cover their duties the following morning to ensure adequate rest. This is not a common event, however, we are proud to provide our own emergency cover and only refer cases for fracture repair or advanced imaging.

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Four weeks’ paid holiday (20 days) plus 8 days Bank holidays taken at a time convenient to the team members. In addition, you are able to take your birthday off (if it falls on a week day), and five days funded ‘CPD’ per year, on top of internal CPD.

 

There may be opportunities to join our ambulatory team, at the end of the internship, as part of our graduate training programme working towards certificate training in an area of your interest.​

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Our internships are advertised on an annual basis for two positions, commencing in August and the following February respectively.  Our next available positions are an 18 month hospital/ambulatory internship in February 2025. 

 

The salary for this position is £32,000 pa. Accommodation is not provided currently, but you are required to live within 5 minutes of the practice, and we have many local villagers that rent out to interns. There will be a 3-month probation period, which once passed, the intern is expected to remain for the entire period of 18 months employment term, the agreement applying to both employee and employers.

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These positions are advertised on our website: www.keh.org.uk

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If you are interested in this internship and require further information, please telephone Katie Snalune, Director responsible for administering the internship scheme. Telephone Katie on 01622 737884 between 9am and 5pm. You are also welcome to speak to our current interns by contacting them at the hospital on 01622 737884 between 1 and 2pm.