If you're enamoured with TV's Animal Hospital and think that the life of a vet is the one for you, think again. The reality is a lot less glamorous than you'd think. "Don't base your decision to become a vet on what you see on TV," warns Dr Michael Monaghan, dean of UCD's faculty of veterinary medicine.

A lot of the work is routine and the number of exciting cases you will see is relatively small. Before you even consider applying for vetinary medicine, he says, you should be sure to spend some time working or observing in a vet's practice.

It's definitely not a job for the squeamish or for people who can't bear to get their hands dirty. Sick animals will defecate, urinate and vomit at the most inconvenient times and in the most inconvenient places.

The major downside of the profession is the fact that vets are required to work incredibly long hours. You can be on call up to 24 hours a day and you'll be expected to work weekends. "The lifestyle would kill a horse," says one observer.

If you're the type who will happily claim to get on better with animals than humans, you'd also want to reconsider any wish you may have to be a vet. "You need an empathy with animals, but you must not discount the fact that animals have owners," Monaghan points out. "Your primary relationship is with the client."

Good inter-personal skills are essential, a vet confirms. "You may be dealing with a situation where the prognosis is hopeless. It can be hard to have to explain this to a farmer or a pet owner."

The Veterinary Council says that 2,024 vets are registered in Ireland. The number of women in the profession is increasing. The council's most recent figures show that there are now 315 female vets in Ireland - up from 173 five years ago.

Virtually all graduates go directly into practice from college - into either small-animal (pets) practice or large-animal (farm) practice. Some 85 per cent of practices deal with large animals. Increasingly, though, large-animal practices are also offering smallanimal clinics. Eventually some vets specialise in treating horses and a number of the larger stud farms now employ their own vets.

Almost all first-year veterinary students say that they intend to go into practice, according to Monaghan, but a number eventually find themselves working in the Department of Agriculture which currently employs 350 vets.

In the Department, veterinary graduates with post-graduate research experience can become research officers. Graduates with at least five years' experience of veterinary practice are appointed as veterinary inspectors who are employed checking standards in meat and dairy factories and at ports.

Last year the Irish Veterinary Union surveyed members who had joined the Department since 1990 and discovered that the vast majority chose jobs in the public sector for reasons of lifestyle.

Most graduates go abroad to work for a time, particularly to Britain.

In the veterinary world the term specialist is a no-no. However, an increasing number of vets are acquiring specialisms. The biggest disinsentive to the growth of specialisms in small-animal medicine, though, is the fact that the market here is relatively small.

You may think that a desire to train as a vet implies a love for country life. Suprisingly, though, rural practices often have difficulty in attracting new recruits. "There are swathes of the countryside where the veterinary service is in decline," says Pat Brady, general secretary of the Irish Veterinary Union. This, he says, is partly due to the fact that fewer people are willing to live in remote areas and partly because farmers are more educated and better trained than they were in the past and have less need for the vet.