The Department of Veterinary Medicine at Cambridge is at the forefront of veterinary science and education and is a centre of excellence for teaching and research. We are a large, multidisciplinary department whose scientific activities are fully integrated into those of the whole University.  Our mission is to improve the prevention and treatment of diseases of animals by defining and applying best clinical practice, by understanding and developing the science underpinning best practice, and by embedding an education programme in the veterinary sciences that delivers the best veterinary practitioners, academics and research scientists.

We educate people in the veterinary sciences so that they develop into leading clinicians and researchers. The pre-clinical, undergraduate education of veterinary students is delivered in a carefully integrated manner in basic science departments in the university and the three clinical years are spent in the department. Our relatively small size (60-70 students per year) means that we still deliver much of our teaching to small groups of clinical students. We operate a lecture free final year. The Department operates small animal and equine hospitals and equine and farm animal clinical services in order to provide clinical teaching material, as well as using the state of the art 200 cow university dairy herd and sheep flock at nearby Madingley.

We maintain and develop research excellence in basic and applied biomedical and veterinary sciences and embed our clinical veterinary training in this strong scientific foundation. There are 30-40 post-graduate students in the Department and we also offer post-graduate clinical training scholarship programmes for interns and residents in the clinical areas.