Animal vs. Veterinary Experience

[Willowhand]

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Just curious to see if anyone knows whether either animal or veterinary experience carries more weight than the other. I have thousands of hours of animal experience in large animal, equine, small animal, and wildlife, but only a little over a hundred hours of veterinary experience (most of which is small animal). Will this put me at a large disadvantage in terms of experience? Also, I'm interested in wildlife and large animal medicine, but I wonder whether it would be wise to say this when I haven't actually worked under a vet in those areas -though I have spent a good amount of time working with them as the general caretaker of the animals. I'll be shadowing a LA vet sometimes this summer, but it will still leave me with what appears to be a smaller-than-average amount of veterinary experience. Any thoughts?

 

[ckd816]

Animal experience is definitely valuable, but I'd say that veterinary experience is more important to have. It gives you better insight to exactly what vets do and also helps you establish relationships with vets that can write recommendations for you eventually.

If you have to choose one over the other, I'd go for the veterinary experience. Maybe try finding an exotics vet in your area... it's at least a little closer to the wildlife/LA medicine you're looking into if you can't find that type of vet to work with.