The first three years are very much lecture based with limited access to animals, well at least live ones, as anatomical dissection still features quite largely. By the end of the third year most people are desperate to get on with the clinical, hands on stuff. There is little time left for holiday jobs to help pay off debts run up over the year. The fourth and final years are when all the previous years' lectures are put to the test. The final year is the best as you finally get to do what for many is a childhood dream of treating animals and undertaking surgery.
Final exams are by no means the end of the education.
There is always something to learn and keeping up to date is a mission in itself.