Country practitioners are as much concerned with preventive medicine in flocks and herds as with the treatment of individual animals. They are advisers on animal health, and are knowledgeable in genetic and nutritional problems as well as in the spread and control of disease. Veterinary surgeons must be familiar with computerised records on health and production and be able to interpret them in the formulation and appraisal of disease control programmes. They must have a good understanding of business economics. Urban practitioners are more likely to find that individual sick pet animals are their patients, but even so there is scope for preventive medicine and advisory work.
Treatment is often highly sophisticated, and there are a number of private veterinary hospitals.
Veterinary Scientists Veterinary scientists are to be found in natural science laboratories, in medical schools of universities and in medical research institutes as well as in those institutions which deal expressly with animal health and disease at home and abroad. Veterinary graduates are employed as research scientists by the Biotechnology and Biological Services Research Council, the Animal Health Trust, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, and industrial research organisations. All have research centres where a wide range of problems are investigated. In addition, the VFS is involved in matters concerned with consumer protection, especially in relation to meat hygiene and diseases communicable between people and animals. Veterinary Investigation Centres are sited throughout England and Wales.