Haere mai! Welcome to the information page for the

New Zealand Diploma in Veterinary Nursing : Year One

- On Campus Cohort

This page holds all of the information and the next steps that you need to take prior to the start of your programme. We have also provided you with some additional information which we would suggest you take the time to familiarise yourself with.

 

Key Work Placement Information

Planning work placement in your first year: 

• You will require a minimum of 205 vet clinic placement hours and a minimum of 45 animal facility hours in the first year.
• Due to the lack of availability of clinical placements in Dunedin, you must have your vet clinic placement secured outside of Dunedin (north of Waikouaiti or south of Milton) by 31st January.
• You may complete the required hours in more than one clinic or animal facility.

You are required to complete your clinical placement in extended blocks of time when you are part of the on-campus cohort.  The dates for securing clinical placement in 2026 are below.

Please note, they are attached either side to the learner breaks, so if your vet clinic/facility is unable to take you in the scheduled blocks, you could ask to complete hours during the learner breaks, and then have your learner break in the original clinical placement blocks.

 

Dates for securing clinical placement in 2026:

Block 1: Tuesday 28 April (27 is a public holiday – Anzac day) – Friday 8 May.

Ideally during this time, you will want to complete 45hrs in an animal related facility (unless you are completing those in Dunedin weekly) and 40hrs in a veterinary clinic.

Remember there is not a shortage of animal related facilities to approach in Dunedin, it is only the veterinary clinics that are unavailable to you. Our work placement coordinator Katie Prasad can secure you 20hrs of animal related facility hours if you require them, which will be discussed and arranged once your start the programme next year.

Block 2: 20 July – 31 July

Ideally during this time you will want to complete 80 – 100 hrs in a veterinary clinic

Block 3: 21 September – 25 September and then 12 October – 16 October

Ideally during this time you will want to complete 65 - 85 hrs in a veterinary clinic

 

Learner breaks in 2026:

Term 1: Friday 3 April (Good Friday) – Friday 24 April

Term 2: Monday 29 June – Friday 17 July

Term 3: Monday 28 September – Friday 9 October

 

Please do not approach Dunedin & Mosgiel based clinics, they have asked us to manage their student rosters for them due to the overwhelming number of placement requests they receive. We have a limited number of local placements available to our learners.

If you are needing to apply for a Dunedin based clinical placement, you can apply for one of these spaces by downloading and completing the application form below and submitting to sara.best@op.ac.nz . Applications close 31 October 2025 at 5pm.

 Application for Dunedin based Clinical placement

Our work placement co-ordinator is Katie Prasad, she is also available to support ākonga with their work placements where needed. You can contact her directly at katie.prasad@op.ac.nz 

Print off and read each of the following Work Placement documents.

o  Finding and Keeping Work Placements 

o  Work Placement Confirmation Form 

 

Read the Programme Information sheet

Please read the following programme information which explains more about work placement hours requirements and programme information.

o  Programme Information for new students

 

Vaccinations

Tetanus vaccination is strongly recommended: If you do not have a current tetanus vaccination, please seek advice from your healthcare provider before starting your work placements.

 

Compulsory Uniform, Textbook and Equipment:

Click here to order your uniform: Uniform Shop and click here for the Uniform pricelist. You need:

o  Polo shirt

o  Scrub top

o  Name badge

(Scrub pants are optional)

 

 Equipment:

o  Nurses fob watch (about $6-$12 from Trade Me, Medisave or Medshop)

o  Stethoscope – many options depending on your budget, e.g.

-        Prestige Dual Head Stethoscope https://www.medshop.nz/products/prestige-basic-dual-head-stethoscope

-        Littman Classic III https://www.medshop.nz/products/littmann-classic-iii-stethoscope

Textbook:

o  BSAVA Textbook of Veterinary Nursing 6th Edition   Author: Cooper, B. et al, ISBN: 9781910443392

If the textbook is unavailable at Unibooks, you may find other suppliers online. Note that with some international sellers there can be a 3-week shipping delay.

 

Optional extras:

Saunders Comprehensive Veterinary Dictionary 5th Edition. Author: Virginia Studdert, Clive Gay, Kenneth W Hinchcliff, ISBN: 0702074632

Mosby’s Veterinary PDQ Fourth Edition. Author: Holtgrew-Bohling. ISBN
0323881491

Bandage scissors (ListerMate 5.5” - try Medshop.co.nz or Medisave.co.nz)

Scrub pants (from the Uniform shop above or try Kmart). 

 

Buy Sell and Exchange: 

We have set up two buy/sell/swap Facebook pages to buy and sell used uniforms, equipment and textbooks.

Click here for the Otago Polytechnic page

Click here for the Te Pūkenga page

You can also try the Vet Nurses and Students NZ Facebook page which often has items for sale.

 

Further programme information

Your learning advisor for year one on campus diploma cohort is Sara Best. You can contact her by email sara.best@op.ac.nz.