Board certifications

[Emio]

these have me completely confuzzled.

so there are the board "exams" in your fourth year to license you as a vet, right? and then if you want to specialize, you do more schooling and take another board test?

can anyone clear up what type of "schooling" is involved in order to get said certifications, and how long it typically takes?

thanks

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[tiddlywinks]

Typically you do a 1-year internship, and then a residency that lasts 2-3 years. There are other requirements as well, such as publishing a certain number of papers in journals. Then the speciality organization/college gives you an exam and if you pass, grants you certification. The whole list of specialty boards is here: http://www.avma.org/press/profession/specialties.asp

I work with 2 DACVECCs, 1 DACVR, and 1 DACVS Lots of letters after their names.. fancy

 

[4theanimals]

Well Emio it partly depends on what your interested in boarding in. There are different organizations for different board certifications. i.e. For behavior it requires an internship, residency, published research, three peer reviewed case reports and an exam. ABVP offers species certification. i.e. Feline Clinical Practice. You need 6 years of experience or a year of practice and a 2year residency then an exam. Then the ACVS certifies surgeons....Basically, you need to do some research on whatever your interested in as the qualifications/requirements vary widely. The website provided by Tiddlywinks is a great place to start.

 

[MissBehavior]

So this is slightly off topic, but...

Do you think it's possible to complete a residency after practicing for several years (assuming you completed a formal internship)? For instance, say you haven't yet decided on a specialty right after vet school, or you have to return to your home state for a few years to fulfill a WICHE requirement or some other contract. Of course, you'd have to be comfortable taking a significant pay cut for 2-3 years, so if it does happen, I'm sure it's pretty rare. I can't imagine residencies being flat-out denied to someone more experienced, but does anyone know for sure?

 

[Bill59]

Yes, it's possible to get a residency after several years of general practice. Most residencies have a requirement of a 1-year rotating internship or "equivalent experience", although they rarely have a formal definition of "equivalent experience."

The reality is that in some of the more competitive clinical residencies, few people match without an internship. For example, a lot of surgery residents actually have 2 internships, a rotating one and a surgical internship. On the other hand, a lot of pathology residencies don't require an internship at all.

Also, there seems to be a somewhat vague "optimum" number of years in general practice for a residency. The more experience the better up to a point, beyond which they start to worry about 'teachability'. In other words, once you've been in practice for a while, they worry you are set in your ways, so to speak, and won't be trainable.

But the details of all this really depend a lot on the type of residency and how competitive they are as well as the specific training program.

It's not so much being "flat out denied" it's a matter of if you have 5 applicants for each slot 1 is going to get it the others aren't.

 

[Emio]

Well Emio it partly depends on what your interested in boarding in. There are different organizations for different board certifications. i.e. For behavior it requires an internship, residency, published research, three peer reviewed case reports and an exam.

bugger!

The whole list of specialty boards is here: http://www.avma.org/press/profession/specialties.asp

I work with 2 DACVECCs, 1 DACVR, and 1 DACVS Lots of letters after their names.. fancy

who woulda thunk that website would actually be useful? i like the idea of lots of letters... even if it means research. *gasp* lol, thanks for all the input, guys!