Curious about your education

[fantasty]

Hi. Just wandering in from allo. (Actually, went to the vet yesterday and was interested in his training - nice guy so I'm not here flaming or anything).

But, could you briefly describe schooling and post-graduate training? How similar is it to med school? (I tried the search function but I'm asking a stupid general question. I gleened from the AAVMC site that vet school is similar in structure to med school (two years basic science, two years clinical). I was kind of interested in where your basic career choices occur - do you do a residency? When do you decide small animal vs. farm animal vs. environmental / exotics, etc?

Just curious Best wishes.

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[Bill59]

In N. America, veterinary school is 4 years. This is usually 2-3 years of classroom/laboratory and 1-2 years in hospitals.

Veterinary school requires at least 3 years of undergraduate courses.

Some, but not all, veterinarians do post-graduate work, such as an internship (1 yr) and residency (usually 3 yr). A residency is one of the requirements to becoming board-certified in a specialty, such as ophthalmology, neurology, or cardiology. But most veterinarians in general practice are not board-certified specialists.

Some schools have "tracking" where each student chooses to emphasize a certain area, such as small animal (dogs, cats) or large animal (horses, food animals). Usually the decision on which track to follow is made right before the clinical years.

Other schools have no tracking; all students take the same basic curriculum (other than certain electives).

But regardless of any tracking, the degree is the same: DVM (or VMD) and your license to practice is the same. That is, a DVM that tracked small animal can still do equine in practice.