4th Year Rotation Advice

[frostyram]

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Hello,
I am a 2nd year student (going into my 3rd in the fall). At my school, we head into clinics early within our third year. We recently had a conversation with administration about starting the process of organizing what we want to do for our electives. I’m really torn about what I want to do. I am interested in wildlife and haven’t really had the chance to do much in wildlife med but realistically after I graduate I will probably just work in large animal. That being said, I’m unsure whether I want to tailor my electives towards wildlife or towards LA. These past 2 years in school, I haven’t travelled anywhere or had a vacation, though I really want to. I was thinking about traveling out to BC to extern with large animal vets there or a wildlife vet out there or even go out to NZ/australia. Does anyone have any recommendations or insights on what I should focus on for my electives?

**Also forgot to add that I don’t plan on moving back to my home state after I finish school. Should I focus on doing externships in places I might want to work when I move?

 

[MixedAnimals77]

Hi!
US mixed vet here deep in the midst of calving season🫠.
idk how your year is set up but travelling especially to somewhere like Aus/NZ might prove very difficult to "fit" into a rotation block to account for travel time and getting your necessary hours-not including the jet lag. Typically I had 8-24 hours to get to the next rotation. Not to discourage travelling to BC (unless you're canadian) while good experience things like drug use and availability is going to be somewhat different than if you plan to work in the states. Exotics isn't the same as wildlife but I do see quite a bite of exotics and I did an externship at our local zoo before clinical year mainly because of interest and it helped solidify a mammal is a mammal and there's alot of comparative things from the major 4 that apply across many species. I am pretty much the only one in our area that will touch an exotic minus snakes and we refer true wildlife that need help to the department of wildlife for our state. If realistically you're going into LA post graduation my recommendation would be to do quite a few LA rotations and maybe 1 wildlife but would urge getting that LA experience over the wildlife for several reasons.
1) getting "mentorship" in LA is HARD for many reasons. Not that we shouldn't do it and not that there aren't good places but it's just the reality of LA med-middle of the night calls, no one around to help, outcalls in the middle of nowhere, maybe no cell service just you and the animal...
2) getting those hands-on experiences and case repetition is SO important in LA, the resource just aren't the same as SA
3) learning limits especially in things like calving season to save you and the producer time and money
4) not that this should matter but it is definately still a stigma- if you are a woman you need to be confident in your LA medicine because unfortunately there is still a fairly large population that believe it's a man's game and gaining their trust can be difficult
5) repetition is the key to some of the things in LA like pregging-boring but if you can do it and be accurate and comfortable those are some of the easiest ways to start to wedge into client trust as you start out
6) the government-bangs, trich testing, HC, etc it's hard to get some of the experience in school becauce of how things are set up with the US gov but learning how to properly fill out, perform, and sending in the appropriate papers in a timely manner
Always happy to answer any other questions you might have, but just my 2 cents. Idk of many other LA folks lurking around here but will tag the wildlife ones for their perspectives @pp9 @WildZoo

 

[pp9]

Hello,
I am a 2nd year student (going into my 3rd in the fall). At my school, we head into clinics early within our third year. We recently had a conversation with administration about starting the process of organizing what we want to do for our electives. I’m really torn about what I want to do. I am interested in wildlife and haven’t really had the chance to do much in wildlife med but realistically after I graduate I will probably just work in large animal. That being said, I’m unsure whether I want to tailor my electives towards wildlife or towards LA. These past 2 years in school, I haven’t travelled anywhere or had a vacation, though I really want to. I was thinking about traveling out to BC to extern with large animal vets there or a wildlife vet out there or even go out to NZ/australia. Does anyone have any recommendations or insights on what I should focus on for my electives?

**Also forgot to add that I don’t plan on moving back to my home state after I finish school. Should I focus on doing externships in places I might want to work when I move?

I looked at your post history and saw that we've sort of had the career talk regarding wildlife med already. I'll just reiterate that with little to no experience in wildlife med, I don't see how you can have an interest in it beyond 'that sounds cool!' I don't say that to gatekeep or condescend - if you need to know for sure whether it's for you or not before you commit to large animal, schedule those externships. Ideally at a busy wildlife clinic, although it seems you are kind of cutting it down to the wire given how close you are to starting clinics...you might find that most places are already booked through your graduation, so I'd get on it.

I don't think you need to focus on externing in your potential future place of living unless you wanted an excuse to check out the area more.