Interview questions you have heard of?

My boss was telling me about her interviews and mentioned two questions that she was asked:

-What would you tell an owner about thier animal's death if the death was caused by you or your staff?

-What would you do about a fellow veterinarian who was conducting illegal activites?

Check out the interview feedback page. You'll find more example interview questions than you've ever wanted 🙂

Ok, try not to panic. I'm uploading my three big interview questions files. These are pulled from the web, from other students I've talked to, etc. Some are school-specific, some are specific to certain people (any question that asks, "so how'd you get interested in XYZ," etc. So some may not apply to you.

Also, one of the files is entirely behavioral interview questions, but the other files may have some behavioral questions mixed in. I used these questions to prep. The best thing, I think, was having family members ask me these questions and I had to answer them out loud. It really helped me get my thoughts together, but kept me from writing out answers that I'd try to remember later.

Anyway, good luck, happy reading, there are a ton of questions, and you will encounter some of these in your interviews, so I think they're really useful to scan ahead of time. Have fun!

Thanks VAgirl!

sumstorm said:

My boss was telling me about her interviews and mentioned two questions that she was asked:

-What would you tell an owner about thier animal's death if the death was caused by you or your staff?

-What would you do about a fellow veterinarian who was conducting illegal activites?

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I think these would be pretty easy questions to answer if you had a clear set of core values you try to live by. Doing the right thing is not always the easy choice. The client situation, you have to tell them the truth, I think you must take responsibility for your staff and be accountable for their actions. If you lied to this client, you comprimised your integrity and your character will always be in question. Also if the client finds out you lied, your creditability, professionalism and competancy are also suspect and you just lost their business for good. If you tell the truth, depending on the circumstances, I think you still can communicate some positive attributes about yourself and the practice you work for. As far as the colleague conducting illegal activities goes, depending on the situation, you will have to make a decision based on the particulars. On an interview, I don't think you can ever go wrong with the truth or the moral high road. Just be prepared to defend your argument intelligently.
I wish you all the best.

dpcdoc said:

I think these would be pretty easy questions to answer if you had a clear set of core values you try to live by. Doing the right thing is not always the easy choice. The client situation, you have to tell them the truth, I think you must take responsibility for your staff and be accountable for their actions. If you lied to this client, you comprimised your integrity and your character will always be in question. Also if the client finds out you lied, your creditability, professionalism and competancy are also suspect and you just lost their business for good. If you tell the truth, depending on the circumstances, I think you still can communicate some positive attributes about yourself and the practice you work for. As far as the colleague conducting illegal activities goes, depending on the situation, you will have to make a decision based on the particulars. On an interview, I don't think you can ever go wrong with the truth or the moral high road. Just be prepared to defend your argument intelligently.
I wish you all the best.

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But in reality we all know vets and doctors never admit they made a mistake. They'll say "This procedure usually works blah blah, for whatever reason Sparky didn't respond to the treatment. This is a very unusual occurrence." And then they'll have a colleague cover for them...

I know a vet who's client, a blocked cat, died because it was left overnight unattended with an IV and caused a blood clot to form. It made the newspaper. Apparently, the vet couldn't get a hold of the client and performed an autopsy to see what went wrong. According to the client, they never called her and told her that her cat had died when she went in to pick it up. She then took it to a cat specialist to get a second opinion on why it died. They opened up the cat and found that it's entire urinary tract had been removed. The vet had to take some time off and the owner, in response to why it's urinary tract had been removed simpy stated "In order to get an accurate cause of death, the cat must be observed no later than 24 hours after it's death." or something like that. I think I still have the article somewhere.

scarcelyheard said:

I know a vet who's client, a blocked cat, died because it was left overnight unattended with an IV and caused a blood clot to form. It made the newspaper. Apparently, the vet couldn't get a hold of the client and performed an autopsy to see what went wrong. According to the client, they never called her and told her that her cat had died when she went in to pick it up. She then took it to a cat specialist to get a second opinion on why it died. They opened up the cat and found that it's entire urinary tract had been removed. The vet had to take some time off and the owner, in response to why it's urinary tract had been removed simpy stated "In order to get an accurate cause of death, the cat must be observed no later than 24 hours after it's death." or something like that. I think I still have the article somewhere.

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This is the kind of thing Im talking about

Found it:

Mother, daughter want explanation for cat’s death, organ removal

Lisa took her cat to the veterinarian earlier this month because there was blood in his urine. Five days later she picked up his body, minus some internal organs and any explanation of why he died. She and her mom want to know why the cat died, why organs were removed and why they weren’t told. They say they’ll take their complaint about the veterinarian to the Veterinary Medical Association. "She had time to take out his organs," she said of the vet. "But she didn’t have time to call us back."

Her daughter Lisa took the three-year-old male cat to the veterinary hospital on Dec. 13. She said her cat was given a catheter and put on an IV. They were told they would likely be able to pick the cat up on the following Monday. "We were so excited all day Sunday to come get him the next morning," she said. "But he was already dead."

When Lisa called the veterinary hospital on Monday morning, she was told that the cat had died on Sunday afternoon and that a biopsy of his kidney had been taken to determine the cause of death. "They . . . said they just took a tissue sample." "They had no idea we were taking her cat to have an autopsy done" by another veterinarian.

The owner, who has been involved in rescuing stray cats for just over four years, brought her cat's body to the Atlantic Cat Hospital to find out why he died. But the vet couldn’t do that because the cat’s bladder, kidneys and ureters, the "pipes that connect the kidneys and bladder," had been removed entirely. The vet said on Thursday the organ removal was unusual.

The veterinarian who was responsible for the organ removal was on vacation Thursday and unavailable for comment. One college, who works with her at the veterinary hospital, said that the quick removal of organs is necessary if the cause of death is going to be determined. "When an animal dies, you have a small window of opportunity to take samples that don’t start to show decomposition," he said. "If we want a good diagnosis, . . . you have to get them out quickly. "It’s not routine to take samples before you’ve talked to the owners about it, but if we can’t get in touch with the owners and we want to know what happened, we’d get the samples out fairly fast."

The owners had a meeting with the doctors and said it was not productive. "They just sat there stone-faced all she did was stare at the table."

At the meeting, they were told that her had been put on an IV drip and left alone on Saturday night. "When an animal’s sick and on a free-flowing IV, they shouldn’t be left alone," said a nurse at the hospital. "Anything can happen, blood clots and things like that."

The owner, who has spoken out on animal rights issue before, would like to see the vet punished for her handling of this case but thinks it’s unlikely that will happen.

airrick16 said:

But in reality we all know vets and doctors never admit they made a mistake. They'll usually this procedure works blah blah, for whatever reason "Sparky" didn't respond to the treatment. This is a very unusual occurrance, and then they'll have a colleague cover for them.

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I've not found that to be true at all. When a mistake is made in the places where I've worked, the supervising vet talks to the owners and explains the mistake that happened and what, if anything, can be done or has been done to fix it and what steps the hospital is taking so that the mistake is not repeated in the future.

Sure there are exceptions to this as people dont like to admit that they make errors, but it's a bit backwards to go into vet school with the expectation that your colleagues will cover up for the mistakes you make.

It's also true that a lot of the time, people don't listen or there are communication issues. That story with the cat sounds like bad communication. The owners should have been called immediately and told that there was a problem and the cat had died and the vet has done X, Y, and Z to figure out why...which for all we know could have happened and the owners just didn't process it. I know we have had people that don't hear what they have been told, and repeat something completely different when going to the media. The media also can put a hell of a slant to things.

This is also a clinic though that allows techs to do cat neuters, have improper surgical procedures (not wearing masks or hats, using the same instruments on multiple animals, and I witnessed a doctor talk to aother client for 20 minutes while a dog was under and waiting to be spayed), and now that I think about it, lies to clients (client asked if the vet could do the cat neuter, vet says yes, tech ignores note on cage and does the neuter, vet shrugs it off).

I volunteer with a super awesome vet who records every little thing she does so that if something does go wrong, she can point to the chart and say "Here is what we did, here is where things started to go wrong, so we gave this amount of this..." Sure, it takes more time and effort, but if something did go wrong, I'd be sooo much easier to dig up that chart and explain what happened then to jumble your way through it.

scarcelyheard said:

This is also a clinic though that allows techs to do cat neuters, have improper surgical procedures (not wearing masks or hats, using the same instruments on multiple animals, and I witnessed a doctor talk to aother client for 20 minutes while a dog was under and waiting to be spayed), and now that I think about it, lies to clients (client asked if the vet could do the cat neuter, vet says yes, tech ignores note on cage and does the neuter, vet shrugs it off).

I volunteer with a super awesome vet who records every little thing she does so that if something does go wrong, she can point to the chart and say "Here is what we did, here is where things started to go wrong, so we gave this amount of this..." Sure, it takes more time and effort, but if something did go wrong, I'd be sooo much easier to dig up that chart and explain what happened then to jumble your way through it.

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So speaking of interview questions, a hypothetical one from me would be, "if you have knowledge that these things are happening, why haven't you turned them in yet?"

why was this thread bumped from 2008?

Someone did a search and didn't look at the date?

airrick16 said:

But in reality we all know vets and doctors never admit they made a mistake. They'll say "This procedure usually works blah blah, for whatever reason Sparky didn't respond to the treatment. This is a very unusual occurrence." And then they'll have a colleague cover for them...

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Not true of ALL vets nor doctors. I have no problems telling the truth in this situation.

Pointer1330 said:

So speaking of interview questions, a hypothetical one from me would be, "if you have knowledge that these things are happening, why haven't you turned them in yet?"

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Probably because it was my first experience volunteering and I never realized how wrong everything was until I started volunteering with a very good vet. Also, they don't give their clients any meds that kind of knock them out prior to surgery... they put a gas mask on dogs and hold them down while they struggle and they put the cats in a box that they hook up to gas. My mom is a nurse, and I didn't realize that they shouldn't be doing this until I spoke to her. My mom was furious. How do you go about reporting something like that? It's been three years since I've been there.

scarcelyheard said:

Also, they don't give their clients any meds that kind of knock them out prior to surgery... they put a gas mask on dogs and hold them down while they struggle and they put the cats in a box that they hook up to gas.

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Nothing wrong with boxing down a nasty cat to knock it out. Would you/and or cat like to get hurt while trying to give a premed cocktail/knockout? But I see your point.

ImaJerseyGirl said:

Nothing wrong with boxing down a nasty cat to knock it out. Would you/and or cat like to get hurt while trying to give a premed cocktail/knockout? But I see your point.

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My mom was saying that she's seen people be put under that way and they gasp for breath. She said that if our cat ever goes for surgery, they'll be giving her that cocktail.

This was the first place that I volunteered. I was nervous to ask the doctors. I casually asked the vet one day why he wasn't wearing a mask and he told me it was because very few diseases can be transmitted from humans to dogs and cats. He said that vets only wear masks because people expect them to. They think that because doctors wear masks in hospitals, that vets have to wear masks too. I kinda assumed that using the same instruments (and now that I think about it, not changing their gloves between surgery!) was no big deal.

I didn't even realize that they were doing things wrong until a year later, when I started volunteering with a vet pretty much fresh from vet school who does everything to perfection...mask, hat, cocktails prior to surgery, and keeping tract of what the animal was given, how much, and when. She also recorded how much anesthesia and oxygen was given to the animal, paid attention to heart rate, and took blood pressure every five minutes. At the other clinic, they just gassed the animal, threw them on the table, did the surgery, and put them in the kennel to recover.

scarcelyheard said:

they put the cats in a box that they hook up to gas.

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They had to do this for a cat at a vet clinic I was shadowing at...the poor thing was frightened out of his mind, and if he hadn't been put under like this he would have done some real damage to himself...he ended up knocking out a tooth before they resorted to this.

Yah we anesthetize some cats through a box as well. Those that are especially bitchy get their entire kennel wrapped in a trash bag and then the anesthetic hose is put in with the bag closed around it.

You people are so lucky. EVERY cat and dog gets the cocktail before the gas. Even the ones that try to eat your face.

Never seen these cat boxes before... I guess the only crazy cats I've ever encountered were feral, and they come in traps so it's super easy to give them a quick IM injection. But I think generally in the large shelter I was at, there was always at least one person who could manhandle most crazies somewhere in the facility (and we were all pretty used to it too). That... and if the shelter animals were that nasty, they generally wouldn't make it to spay/neuter anyway... but some of the public low cost spay/neuter cases were the cases from hell i tell you!

viscious dogs were always fun to deal with in the spay/neuter clinic. we would have to control pole... or if we couldn't even handle that, the animal control officer would be called in with a dart gun. those were always kind of exciting. talk about an adrenaline rush!

Minnerbelle said:

Never seen these cat boxes before... I guess the only crazy cats I've ever encountered were feral, and they come in traps so it's super easy to give them a quick IM injection. But I think generally in the large shelter I was at, there was always at least one person who could manhandle most crazies somewhere in the facility (and we were all pretty used to it too). That... and if the shelter animals were that nasty, they generally wouldn't make it to spay/neuter anyway... but some of the public low cost spay/neuter cases were the cases from hell i tell you!

viscious dogs were always fun to deal with in the spay/neuter clinic. we would have to control pole... or if we couldn't even handle that, the animal control officer would be called in with a dart gun. those were always kind of exciting. talk about an adrenaline rush!

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I am such a fan of the cat box. My dad's cat (he used to be my cat until he decided to hate me) has to be boxed down. We initially gave him an IM injection and he had an adverse reaction to it so now he always gets boxed down. It's a pain in the ***** because he is the most vicious cat at the vets office that I have ever met. At the first place I worked we had a makeshift cat box made out of a storage bin, it was nice because you could fit the entire carrier in. Now, we only have a small one at my current place of employment and it took 5 technicians, 3 poles, and a lot of effort to get him in the box last time. His vaccines are coming up due in April, lucky me!

lalzi22 said:

You people are so lucky. EVERY cat and dog gets the cocktail before the gas. Even the ones that try to eat your face.

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At this clinic, EVERY animal gets gassed. Is that even fair? They're already the most expensive clinic in the area, so I'm assuming cocktails will drive up their prices... and I've already heard them complaining that when they have 10+ animals on surgery day that they never have enough time to do anything... well, only book a certain number of animals or hire more staff... and you're a six doctor clinic... if the 5 techs and 4 doctors can't handle the 10+ animals, hire more staff on for those mornings? Just doesn't seem right.

HopefulAg said:

Yah we anesthetize some cats through a box as well. Those that are especially bitchy get their entire kennel wrapped in a trash bag and then the anesthetic hose is put in with the bag closed around it.

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I hate being the one taking the cage out of the bag once the cat is out. Trying not to allow the anesthesia to escape too much is really hard and that stuff smells like crap. We had a really fractious cat that we put in the box. Everytime someone would walk past the box the cat would attempt to attack them through the box. Once the cat started to fall asleep, its face was shoved in one of the corners with its tongue sticking straight out and its eyes wide open and rolled up slightly..it was kind of funny. But, these cats are rare, thankfully.