Does it ever bother you when...

[blkjkvet]

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I've been shadowing a mixed-practice vet for sometime now, and when I go on farm calls whether it's for herd health, DA surgeries, etc., the farmers are always great about asking why I'm along. Most farmers seem to have a pretty good idea of what is involved and are excited at the possibility of having another LA vet in the area, and I joke that it's either vet school or becoming a farmer... they usually get a kick out of that.

I do find that some people have no clue and others have some idea of what it takes, but I hear a lot of people ask, why go through all that school, just become a vet tech (my mother included in that one...). No offense to vet techs here, but I WANT to do surgeries and be able to diagnose, I don't want to be the "go to" gal when I have the drive and motivation to become a vet.

When someone asks about how easy/hard it is to become a vet, it's hard to sum up the fact that you need tons of experience working with animals, great grades, good GRE test score, along with the ad com deciding that they will accept you and 4 intense years of vet school in a short time - or you just say it requires a lot of work to get accepted.

 

[redsteven]

I think telling people that it's far more competitive than most other grad schools... primarily because there are only 28 Vet schools in the US.... is enough to get the idea across that it's hard to get in. If you want to throw in some other stats like the average number of hours of vet experience a successful applicant has you can throw that in as well.

I also don't think it's really our job to try to shoot people down who think that they can be a vet when we all know they really can't. I think in that case it's better for them to just get the chance to grow up and come to that realization on their own, or even just "grow out of it".

 

[Truth74]

I talked to my G-ma, who said that I should send a resume in to the President, because he needs a vet to take care of his dog. 🙄

I explained that I am not a veterinarian, yet, and I didn't think they'd take someone fresh out of school for that job, anyway.
I then quietly reminded her that my interest is in more of the LA direction.
Her response... "Well, the way that first lady is going, they might get some cows out there. Planting a garden... My goodness!"

I just smiled and reminded her that I have a garden. I don't know where the aversion to gardening came from. It's a great stress reducer.