What year do you get to work with animals?

I'm a first year at UW-Madison and we learn physical exam/restraint skills, on both small and large animals, starting first year. I can't answer all of your questions, but we do surgeries (spays/neuters) during our third year.

At UTK, we start wit Physical Diagnosis our first semester of the first year. Second year, we have 2 weeks of clinical exposure, plus we start surgery.

Oh, and we can volunteer, beginning first semester, to help with Feral Fixin', as well as be part of the large animal emergency team. I was called in twice on emergency team and got to help with a cow surgery as well as help assess and care for an equine colic patient.

At Massey in New Zealand, we start slow, but do work with animals from the first semester of the professional program.

1st year -
Animal handling and restraint (dogs, cats, sheep, cows, horses) - 5 sessions of 3 hours each

2nd year -
Basic physical exams & neuro exams on dogs
IV caths, fine needle aspirates, etc on models/non-living animals

3rd year -
Physical exams (dogs, horses, cows, rabbits, guinea pigs, rats, mice)
Anesthesia (dog, sheep)
Spay/neuter (dog or cat)


Haven't gotten to 4th or 5th year yet

It may sound like we do a fair amount of hands-on, but it doesn't really feel like we get to do "real vetty stuff" until the second semester of second year.

laurafinn said:

At Massey in New Zealand, we start slow, but do work with animals from the first semester of the professional program.

1st year -
Animal handling and restraint (dogs, cats, sheep, cows, horses) - 5 sessions of 3 hours each

2nd year -
Basic physical exams & neuro exams on dogs
IV caths, fine needle aspirates, etc on models/non-living animals

3rd year -
Physical exams (dogs, horses, cows, rabbits, guinea pigs, rats, mice)
Anesthesia (dog, sheep)
Spay/neuter (dog or cat)


Haven't gotten to 4th or 5th year yet

It may sound like we do a fair amount of hands-on, but it doesn't really feel like we get to do "real vetty stuff" until the second semester of second year.

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Hmmmm, what you miss here is that overwhelmingly, our prac teaching is cows. The small mammals was one lab. Dogs was 3x 2hr labs where we learned very little, with 5+ people per dog. Again, with anaesthesia, it was one lab and 3 people per dog. The practical teaching is piss-poor.

First year, first semester:
-palpations on dogs
-blood draws, condition scoring, injections, hoof trimming, basic chute operations, etc on food animal
-various selectives; everything from practical experience at a hospital to lab animal med procedures to exotics surgery (performing, not observing), to non-animal courses
First year, second semester:
-palpations on cows/horses
-debudding, castration, nerve blocks, etc on food animals
-various selectives again
Second year starts surgery and clinical skills
Don't know really more than that.
As for business, we were required to have 2 business classes coming in (but that was dropped for next year.) We have a required 2 week selective on business that isn't very thrilling. We have lots of selective options and our VBMA club has a lot of excellent lectures and opportunities available.

First Year:
Pretty much NO ANIMAL experience first year - We got to see and touch a cow one day last semester. I think we will do a neuro exam later on this semester.

Second Year:

We will spay 9 dogs. Its pretty cool. As I understand it, we will be in groups of 3, one will do the surgery, another will do anesthesia, and the third, I have no idea, assist perhaps. But after the first semester second year, we each will have spayed 3 (and worked with 6 others).

Third Year:

We get to pretend to be vets - pretty much all clinical, more spays and neuters, necropsy's, and I assume everything that goes along with it.

Fourth year:

Lot of extern ships, with some required rotations

Overall I am pretty happy with our curriculum (although taking Path before we finish Anatomy and Phys is a bit annoying. You have no idea how many times we've had to say "But I don't know what a normal cecum looks like, how am I supposed to know that this one is discolored?" But they are doing a great job working with us in that respect.

P.S. Pathology is by far my favorite vet school class so far!

1st year we've gone over physical exam, restraint, and some basic husbandry of small animals (mostly dogs, some cat stuff), large animals (cows, horses, sheeps/goats, pigs) and one lab on small mammals. We also have lots of opportunities to shadow 4th years on rotations in the hospital and specialty services.

mochavet said:

Thanks for the responses! It seems like most of you start pretty early in the curriculum with animal experience. That's great! I have one other question for you all. How does your school prepare you for non-vet related stuff such as business/finance, communication skills, teamwork, etc.? Thanks again everyone.

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As for this stuff, we have a class called "Art of Veterinary Medicine". 1st year it's been basic communication, history taking, etc. We have mock client interviews with actors who pretend to be clients, and we have to work through scenarios with them. Then we get feedback about how they're feeling, etc. In 2nd year, I think we go more in-depth into communication in difficult situations, etc. In 3rd year we learn a lot about the business of veterinary medicine. I think we have mock client interviews all along. It's pretty cool.

As far as I know, we don't touch any live animals until third year.

karmapple said:

As far as I know, we don't touch any live animals until third year.

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Same here.

Oh wait, we got to do physical/neuro exams once on our own dogs first year, and then do a little live horse palpation another day, both in anatomy class.

Nothing second year.

I am from Western University and we start pretty much the first week of classes (depending on what case we have that week, clinical skills rotations etc.).
First year is basic skills: blood draws, IV catheters, running the blood work, PE on cats, dogs, cows, horses and possibly goats, sheep and pigs (depending on your rotation and the how the cases fall), and other basic skills (too many too list).
Second year: we are assisting in procedures such as spays and neuters and by the end of our second year we get to do a full procedure on our own (the doctor is there to assist if needed). I just performed most of a dog spay yesterday! Very exciting.... we also do the intubation, and anesthetic monitoring.

Third year: starts our two week clinical rotations... which is all hands on with some PBL (problem based learning)

Fourth year: is our four week clinical rotations.

Throughout first and second year we participate in mock client interviews, communication skills lessons, during our clinical skills rotations we also take histories etc. while talking with a real client. We also have a course called veterinary issues which is an ethical class for the most part.

Hope this helps you some!

At Illinois, we start 8 weeks in clinics the first day of first year. Depending on the rotation, we did physical exams, restraint, blood draw, client interaction, dosage calculations, gait study, surgery prep, anesthesia monitoring, you name it. We did pretty much everything the doctors wanted us to do. Of course we didn't do surgery. Almost all of the experience we got were on live animals. Some were patients at the teaching hospital, and some were owned by the vet school.

Second year, more clinical rotations. See above.

Fall third year, we start junior surgery. Spays and neuters for shelter puppies and kitties.

We go into the final clinical rotations the last 8 weeks of spring semester, third year, and continue through fourth year.

We began dissections in second year. Actual examinations in 3rd year.

animal handling classes on cows, horses, pigs, sheep, all in 2nd term of first year. also ISF (integrated structure and function) classes starting in 1st term, where we match up anatomy with the live animal via palpation of horses, cows, and dogs.

from 1st year on, we have husbandry experience built into the course - 8 weeks at 2 weeks each of lambing, equine, dairy cow, pig, plus 4 weeks of your choice. these are all done on breaks.

starting 3rd year, we start clincial skills classes, and we have to do 26 weeks of clinical externships by the end of 5th year exams (also on breaks), some at first-opinion practices, some at specialists. experience is whatever the practice owner is willing to let us do - so it's down to the rapport you build with your mentor.

the last 4.5 terms (final half of 4th year and all of 5th year) are intramural rotations at the school's large and small animal hospitals plus associated practices.

We start out 1st semester with Intro to Clinical Veterinary Medicine (ICVM)- just a basic overview. We had labs on dog physicals and cat physicals, and a homework assignment where we had to do an additional physical on a dog and cat.

There is also an elective - Wildlife - that takes a field trip over to the TriState Wildlife Rehab center first semester - those folks got to do PEs on pigeons!

3rd quarter we are in ICVM II - along w/ all the classroom stuff, we've had more labs on things like euthanasia, communication, lab animal handling (got to play with bunnies and guinea pigs!), cardiology (got to listen to dogs w/ different heart problems), behavior (got to practice clicker training), blood draws (got to practice on fake legs), catheter placement (again on fake legs), etc.

4th quarter is ICVM III - we spend 2 full days out at NBC learning all kinds of hands on stuff on large animals, along w/ classroom lectures.

For my equine nutrition elective, we are taking a field trip to a competitive trail ride to learn about BCS, feeding, etc and do TPRs.

There are lots of opportunities outside of class as well - every club has tons of wetlabs, there are volunteer opportunities at local dog shows/horse shows, there is New Bolton (large animal) and Ryan (small animal) emergency shadowing, we had a MLK day free clinic for the community, etc.

As for business/communication, we cover a lot of that stuff in the ICVM classes, but we also have the VBMA certificate program. Around 1x per month, there is a required evening lecture (with free dinner!) that you attend on topics like negotiation, exam room skills, understanding debt, etc. It isn't required, and is an extra $300/year, but I'd say around 80-90% of my class is enrolled in it.

Not really sure about 2nd year yet. Sounds like it is pretty heavy on the classroom time though.

I know we start surgery (spays) 1st semster of 3rd year. 2nd semester you either do Large Animal Block followed by Small Animal Block (learn clinical skills like how to do a uterine biopsy, how to collect semen, etc) - or can do early entry into clinics.

At MN

Hand up a cows butt week 2 first year.

We do LA clinical skills/clinic duty first month of semester 1, SA clinical skills (exam, blood draw et.) semester two. First spay spring second year.

Other than that, pretty typical. Year one is well animal, year two is sick animal, year 3 is making sick animal well, year 4 starts April of year 3, and is solid clinics for 12 months. They try to make sure we touch something with a pulse each semester. Also pimp coming to watch anytime in the clinics from day 1, and really do mean it.

Caninerepro said:

At MN

Hand up a cows butt week 2 first year.

We do LA clinical skills/clinic duty first month of semester 1, SA clinical skills (exam, blood draw et.) semester two. First spay spring second year.

Other than that, pretty typical. Year one is well animal, year two is sick animal, year 3 is making sick animal well, year 4 starts April of year 3, and is solid clinics for 12 months. They try to make sure we touch something with a pulse each semester. Also pimp coming to watch anytime in the clinics from day 1, and really do mean it.

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From what I gathered during my interview, it sounds like Minnesota places a lot of emphasis on learning "soft skills," (animal handling, client communication, etc) which I think is super important...and really what determines if you're going to be a successful...at least as a general practitioner. I really liked that about them. I also got the impression that lots of students are able to work in the hospitals, which is pretty awesome.

Have you done the thing yet where you pretend to be the vet calling to tell someone you've just killed their animal, etc? It sounded like it would be super annoying, but also one of those things that you need to practice doing. I should mention that to our ICVM coordinators - would probably be a lot more useful than a powerpoint on communications and a small group exercise.

Ben and Me said:

Have you done the thing yet where you pretend to be the vet calling to tell someone you've just killed their animal, etc? It sounded like it would be super annoying, but also one of those things that you need to practice doing. I should mention that to our ICVM coordinators - would probably be a lot more useful than a powerpoint on communications and a small group exercise.

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No the phone call is second year. Really looking forward to that one!

Yes MN is real big on client communications and the "soft skills". That is actually what I need the most help on, dealing with the average GP client. So all this stuff should be a big help to the specialist that is me.

Specialist, or just special?

mochavet said:

Thanks for the responses! It seems like most of you start pretty early in the curriculum with animal experience. That's great! I have one other question for you all. How does your school prepare you for non-vet related stuff such as business/finance, communication skills, teamwork, etc.? Thanks again everyone.

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We have a faculty member here who really pushes the business aspect. We have two clubs, VBMA and AAHA that are devoted to the business aspect and we also touch on it in professional development. The Dr. in charge of business is trying to have our school lead the field.

We also have a course, Professional Development, that tries to introduce us to other issues we will encounter in the world. Everything from animal abuse, to behavior, to budgeting.

Could someone from Florida chime in pretty please?

I'm sorry I'm not in Florida but at the University of Sydney we handle small and large animals (including pocket pets and poultry) in our first semester first year