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Meh.
I think it's GREAT to get your hands on animals early - your physical exam skills are so much better if you start early and consistently work on it all through vet school. So wellness care, and intro surgical skills, and things like that are all awesome.
But for working with actually sick patients? Early clinical exposure doesn't seem very advantageous to me. You don't really have the knowledge to take a good history, do a decent exam, figure out a reasonable problem list, decide which problems are high yield, make a differential list, explain the pathophys behind the problems on your problem list, explain why you prioritized it the way you did, decide which diagnostics make the most sense and give the most bang for your buck, explain how they work and what you hope to find with each one, interpret the results, and then decide on treatment.
You just don't.
So it's not a really super efficient investment of time. I used to think it would be better to get people hands-on with sick animals more quickly, but looking backwards ... it's better to spend the first few years really hammering on the boring book knowledge so that when you get to clinics it can be an efficient learning time.
It's not that you can't learn something with early (real) case exposure. It's just that it's not as efficient.
PBL, though, is different. There, they've selected very specific cases with very specific learning goals. And the cases are worked in such a way as to advance the underlying knowledge base. It's not like treating an actual patient.
