animal vs. veterinary experience

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JustJack8

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Hey everyone! First time posting!! I know this is might be a little pre-mature, but with the VMCAs opening soon I have been trying to get my animal and veterinary calculations all set. I have been working at a small animal hospital in the kennel (live in NY, can't work as a tech w/o certification), but some of my responsibilities include assisting veterinarians and veterinary technicians, which I believe would count as veterinary experience. There's a little bit of grey area between animal experience and veterinary experience, and I was wondering if anyone else has encountered this problem? I was thinking about estimating the time spent with vets and vet techs and multiplying it by the total hours to split between animal and vet experience. I will probably email this question to the schools I plan on applying to, but has anyone else been in this position?

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Looking at the accepted applicants thread, people listed working/volunteering/job-shadowing at a clinic as veterinary experience.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm sure that all time spent in a veterinary clinic under the supervision of a vet is considered veterinary experience. Doing research with a DVM also counts. Volunteering at a shelter is animal experience, but if you were to shadow a vet who was there doing spay/neuter, that would count as veterinary experience.

There is no way I would be able to look back upon my clinic experience and try to figure out the amount of time I worked with the employees/patients/clients and the amount of time I spent cleaning, ect.
 
I was in the same situation (working as a kennel attendant in a small animal hospital, but also getting to help out the techs & doctors, observe surgeries, etc as necessary or when i wasn't busy)
On my application, I just listed all of my hours working there for veterinary experience, and then under "description of duties", i put what i did - cleaned kennels, taking out garbages, vacuuming/mopping the clinic, as well as helping the techs & doctors with restraint, examinations, x-rays, etc.
 
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I emailed a VMCAS rep about this a few years ago and they said anything that is supervised by a Veterinarian is considered Veterinary experience. If you worked with animals, i.e. pet sitting, research, working at stables etc. is considered animal experience and cannot be categorized as vet experience unless there was a veterinarian present. When I was first starting at the Vet clinic I work at now, I was a receptionist but I still listed it as "Vet" experience since I was working closely with the vets in the practice and just listed my duties. It's a little foggy but it sounds like your experience should be listed as Veterinary experience not animal.
 
Basically, if there was a vet in charge, it was vet experience. Your stuff sounds like vet experience since it did take place at a hospital.
 
unless you had 2 very distinct jobs like 'help out at clinic' and 'clean kennels for boarding business' then put it all under vet, detail it on the description.
 
I know this doesn't really apply to the OP, but for others who may have this same question I believe that research under a "health professional" can be classified as vet experience according to VMCAS... so anything under a PhD or something would work too. Correct me if I'm wrong!
 
I know this doesn't really apply to the OP, but for others who may have this same question I believe that research under a "health professional" can be classified as vet experience according to VMCAS... so anything under a PhD or something would work too. Correct me if I'm wrong!

I was told by a VMCAS rep it had to be supervised specifically by a vet and research experience with any other professional is considered animal, if animals were involved. Mind you, this was 2 years ago so things might have changed.
 
I know this doesn't really apply to the OP, but for others who may have this same question I believe that research under a "health professional" can be classified as vet experience according to VMCAS... so anything under a PhD or something would work too. Correct me if I'm wrong!


The VMCAS states that research conducted under a health professional...DVM or PhD can be counted as veterinary experience, even if animals were not involved in the research.

Whether schools will also count it as veterinary research is a different story (CSU decided to count my PhD research as animal experience ...even though I've never touched an animal during it....because it was under a PhD...all my other schools counted it as veterinary research. so go figure.)
 
I know this doesn't really apply to the OP, but for others who may have this same question I believe that research under a "health professional" can be classified as vet experience according to VMCAS... so anything under a PhD or something would work too. Correct me if I'm wrong!

I think this may vary by school or even by who you talk to. VMCAS did say my PhD-supervised research with rats did count as vet experience. And CSU even said it did during the application workshop.

However, when I got my application review from CSU, they said this experience was considered animal experience, not vet.
 
Hm that's weird. Dang VMCAS rep, I listed all experience not under the supervision of a vet as animal experience! Oh well doesn't matter now I guess
 
Hi All,

I have a couple of silly questions regarding this if anyone knows the answer.

1) I am currently a PhD student studying protein biophysics. My department is part of an umbrella "biomedicial graduate studies" branch of the medical school. I don't work with animals, but do biomedical research that is very very much basic biophysics. Its not as clean and dry as say neuroscience, or even cell biology looking at a relevant disease mechanism. But it is still part of the biomedical department. Would you guys still consider that as a form of animal experience?

2) I shadowed a human pathologist over a summer many many moons ago, watched autopsies, hung out with the PA's that did all the grossing, sat down with the path and learned about histology, and did rotations through heme, bloodbank, cytology, clinical chemistry, etc - would that count as any experience.

3) my undergrad research was in behavioral neuroscience and i did work with rats. All of our work was approved by IACUC and everything was overseen by the vet - particularly our surgeries and testing had to be approved for each handler. It is in the gray area between animal and vet since it is was supervised with a vet. any ideas or opinions?

4) when i was a teenager i used to dog/cat sit for people in my neighborhood. It was so long ago i don't even have any of the contact information of any of my neighbors, but so i am not sure i would be able to put down any specific references for that. would you count that as animal experience?

Thanks, and sorry for all of the questions, it is just rather difficult to wrap my head around.
 
Hi All,

I have a couple of silly questions regarding this if anyone knows the answer.

1) I am currently a PhD student studying protein biophysics. My department is part of an umbrella "biomedicial graduate studies" branch of the medical school. I don't work with animals, but do biomedical research that is very very much basic biophysics. Its not as clean and dry as say neuroscience, or even cell biology looking at a relevant disease mechanism. But it is still part of the biomedical department. Would you guys still consider that as a form of animal experience?

2) I shadowed a human pathologist over a summer many many moons ago, watched autopsies, hung out with the PA's that did all the grossing, sat down with the path and learned about histology, and did rotations through heme, bloodbank, cytology, clinical chemistry, etc - would that count as any experience.

3) my undergrad research was in behavioral neuroscience and i did work with rats. All of our work was approved by IACUC and everything was overseen by the vet - particularly our surgeries and testing had to be approved for each handler. It is in the gray area between animal and vet since it is was supervised with a vet. any ideas or opinions?

4) when i was a teenager i used to dog/cat sit for people in my neighborhood. It was so long ago i don't even have any of the contact information of any of my neighbors, but so i am not sure i would be able to put down any specific references for that. would you count that as animal experience?

Thanks, and sorry for all of the questions, it is just rather difficult to wrap my head around.

1) Probably not because you didn't directly work with animal models. I would put it under research experience.

2) Very cool! I'm a veterinary pathologist ;) Maybe we can convert you to the dark side :D Again, not veterinary, but definitely good experience to mention.

3) If the PI was a vet and you worked directly with animal models, you can probably put it under veterinary. If this was just the chief lab animal vet overseeing, it is research IMO.

4) Eh.....maybe. I think its a bit of a stretch

As an aside, you absolutely can get into vet school with more research experience than vet experience if you spin it right. I had thousands and thousands of research hours and maybe only a couple hundred veterinary hours and got in on my first try. With the whole One-Health thing, you could also spin human medical experience to your advantage (as long as you clearly state why you want to go vet and not med). For me, it was the fact that animal models are the basic foundation for SO much human medicine, I wanted to get right down to the nitty gritty.
 
This year's application (VMCAS 2015) has tweaked the experience sections a bit for clarity:

  • ALL Research, no matter who the research was for, or what type, is to be placed in the research section
  • Veterinary Experience is experience that was supervised by a veterinarian.. no more "health professional" supervision will be considered Veterinary Experience, only veterinarians
  • All other experiences with animals is considered Animal Experience.
Thanks guys!

TW
 
Hi All,

I have a couple of silly questions regarding this if anyone knows the answer.

1) I am currently a PhD student studying protein biophysics. My department is part of an umbrella "biomedicial graduate studies" branch of the medical school. I don't work with animals, but do biomedical research that is very very much basic biophysics. Its not as clean and dry as say neuroscience, or even cell biology looking at a relevant disease mechanism. But it is still part of the biomedical department. Would you guys still consider that as a form of animal experience?

2) I shadowed a human pathologist over a summer many many moons ago, watched autopsies, hung out with the PA's that did all the grossing, sat down with the path and learned about histology, and did rotations through heme, bloodbank, cytology, clinical chemistry, etc - would that count as any experience.

3) my undergrad research was in behavioral neuroscience and i did work with rats. All of our work was approved by IACUC and everything was overseen by the vet - particularly our surgeries and testing had to be approved for each handler. It is in the gray area between animal and vet since it is was supervised with a vet. any ideas or opinions?

4) when i was a teenager i used to dog/cat sit for people in my neighborhood. It was so long ago i don't even have any of the contact information of any of my neighbors, but so i am not sure i would be able to put down any specific references for that. would you count that as animal experience?

Thanks, and sorry for all of the questions, it is just rather difficult to wrap my head around.


Hi Solvation Entergy:

1. Research
2. The only place to add this is under Community experience.. since it doesn't fit with any other type. You might also consider adding this to your explanation statement rather than an experience.
3. Research
4. Likely not relevant to your application at this time.

VMCAS Staff (tw)
 
Hi All,

I have a couple of silly questions regarding this if anyone knows the answer.

1) I am currently a PhD student studying protein biophysics. My department is part of an umbrella "biomedicial graduate studies" branch of the medical school. I don't work with animals, but do biomedical research that is very very much basic biophysics. Its not as clean and dry as say neuroscience, or even cell biology looking at a relevant disease mechanism. But it is still part of the biomedical department. Would you guys still consider that as a form of animal experience?

I'm pretty sure they now have a separate category for "research experience" that is separate from both vet and animal experience, sounds like this would fit under there.

2) I shadowed a human pathologist over a summer many many moons ago, watched autopsies, hung out with the PA's that did all the grossing, sat down with the path and learned about histology, and did rotations through heme, bloodbank, cytology, clinical chemistry, etc - would that count as any experience.

This is a tricky one, it's definitely experience but I don't know how I'd categorize it. Sounds like a good question to email VMCAS about.

3) my undergrad research was in behavioral neuroscience and i did work with rats. All of our work was approved by IACUC and everything was overseen by the vet - particularly our surgeries and testing had to be approved for each handler. It is in the gray area between animal and vet since it is was supervised with a vet. any ideas or opinions?

This is another good question. Personally I'd probably try to split the hours between vet (time you actually spent in the room with the vet) and research (the rest of it).

4) when i was a teenager i used to dog/cat sit for people in my neighborhood. It was so long ago i don't even have any of the contact information of any of my neighbors, but so i am not sure i would be able to put down any specific references for that. would you count that as animal experience?

Thanks, and sorry for all of the questions, it is just rather difficult to wrap my head around.

Definitely I'd count that for animal experience. I also know schools have different opinions on this one but I'd also include pet ownership. The adcom at MN said to do it, because it does show you have more animal experience than someone who's never had a pet (plus schools can look at the application and they can choose what to include or not, but they can't include it if you don't give it to them).
 
This year's application (VMCAS 2015) has tweaked the experience sections a bit for clarity:

  • ALL Research, no matter who the research was for, or what type, is to be placed in the research section
  • Veterinary Experience is experience that was supervised by a veterinarian.. no more "health professional" supervision will be considered Veterinary Experience, only veterinarians
  • All other experiences with animals is considered Animal Experience.
Thanks guys!

TW

Interesting. What if someone shadowed a laboratory animal veterinarian and therefore worked only in research settings? Or worked with a clinical veterinarian on a research project involving case studies and therefore interacted with the involved animals/owners, etc?
 
Interesting. What if someone shadowed a laboratory animal veterinarian and therefore worked only in research settings? Or worked with a clinical veterinarian on a research project involving case studies and therefore interacted with the involved animals/owners, etc?

Are these experiences that you've had?
 
What if someone shadowed a laboratory animal veterinarian and therefore worked only in research settings?
  • This is veterinary experience because the "setting" doesn't count as experience, the "shadowing" does.
worked with a clinical veterinarian on a research project involving case studies and therefore interacted with the involved animals/owners, etc?
  • This is research experience because your are "working.. on a research project".. it doesn't matter who / what is involved.
Hope this helps

VMCAS Staff (tw)
 
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