Does your vet school care about you?

[YorkieDad]

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I had a conversation recently with someone who graduated from vet school about a decade ago. He said the overall feeling is that its like a factory, that in clinicals the clinicians didn’t care at all about him or take the time to mentor him. That he was bitten by a canine patient, the owner threatened to sue, and instead of being supported by the institution through this experience he was made to feel it was his fault. He went on to describe students actively sabotaging each other in clinicals, residents and interns being given preference for any procedures and that students in clinics were basically seen as slaves. He thought that faculty in the didactic portion cared little about their students.

He graduated over a decade ago, so I have no idea if this institution is still this way. My reason for bringing it up is that I don’t wish to have this experience, so I’m curious what those of you who are in vet school now can say in regards to this topic about your particular institutions. The info is helpful to me in choosing where I apply and eventually attend. And if its useful to me I bet others would find it useful too.

 

[SocialStigma]

I did not have that experience in vet school, and I doubt it is school-specific. Every school will have some faculty that love teaching students, and some faculty that only do it because they have to. Clinicians are often focused on mentoring the residents/interns, which means that as a student, unless you show initiative and try to actively participate, you may get lost in the shuffle. My classmates and I got along for the most part and everyone tried to help each other out on clinics. Residents and interns will always get priority for procedures, as they should. They are either already on (in the case of residents) or potentially planning on heading down (for interns) the path to specializing and it is more important that they see and perform the procedure than a vet student who may never see/do the procedure again.

 

[Stroganoff]

He went on to describe students actively sabotaging each other in clinicals,

Is there a forced bell curve and thus a scarcity of Passes/Honors/whatever? I don't see an incentive for sabotage and cutthroat behavior.

 

[Minnerbelle]

I think a lot of vet school is that it gives back to you what you put into it.

If you are a student worthy of attention, clinicians take notice and give you that attention. You don’t have to be a super flashy brown noser. But the disengaged student who just exists isn’t worth anyone’s time. Work hard and do your assigned work well and maybe even a little beyond, and clinicians will be invested in you. No one wants to give extra to the straggler in the group. If you are a straggler, ask for help, and many clinicians are more than willing if you put in the effort.

Sure there are some awful clinicians out there. But most are there because they like to teach and mentor. I felt like if I showed genuine interest, clinicians generally reciprocated and provided the personal attention that I felt was appropriate.

Esp by the time we got to clinics, I felt like my classmates were generally very supportive and helpful with one another. There were a few exceptions (as in selfish/lazy) but I don’t think I ever felt sabotaged. You can expect to see some pointless ego/narcissism first year. But by the time you get to clinics, students are so beaten down that it fizzles out.

I do agree that most clinicians kind of sucked at the didactic teaching... but like the didactic portion of vet school for the most part is a means to an end. Not necessarily there to entertain you.

Yes, interns/residents get priority for procedures (and personal mentoring) AS THEY SHOULD, but that doesn’t mean students don’t get a chance. A big part of it is how much you want it. Be ready and know what you’re doing. If you know a particular procedure might be taking place, or there’s a procedure you’d like to partake in, read about it and learn ahead of time. The more knowledgeable you are about it when discussing it, the clinician will be likely to let you partake in more of it. If you can show that you know the procedure and are ready to do it, the more they’ll feel that you deserve to do it.

You want to be respectful of your peers and be fair and not hog all the glory. But you shouldn’t be shy to raise your hand and say “me!” when a group is asked, “who wants this procedure.” You decide afterwards the fairest way to decide on who is in. But if you’re the one kid who never even shows interest, NO ONE is going to seek you out and give it to you. Though... im not really one to talk because I’m personally not one who likes to compete for opportunities, so I took the approach of finding procedures I didn’t have to fight over. That made it much less stressful for me because I haaate advocating for myself within a group like that. So I rarely was the one doing flashy things within my core rotation group. I got around that by doing electives in depts that had few students (therefore, they were mine!). Also if I wanted to have the opportunity to do lac repairs and unblock cats and put in feeding tubes and stuff in the ER, I went as far as staying late past my shift to do so. Esp later in the year after the novelty of these things have worn off on the interns who have had multiple opportunities to do them already, I would offer to do some of their scut work in exchange for the opportunity and they were glad to pawn it off. For example, I would offer to get the discharges, RXs, SOAPs all done so the intern wouldn’t have to (on a case not attached to any student), if they let me do the procedure for that patient. If there were opportunities to cut for TNR type stuff on my days off, I jumped on it. A lot of my classmates were so tired from clinics that they didn’t want to spend an extra day, so that was my opportunity to cut without as much competition. It was these kinds of days when a cystotomy or an enucleation would come in, that the clinician would just give it to me.

 

[JustPaws]

Currently a first-year so only didactic experience, but I would say yes, our faculty cares about us and is actively involved in helping us to succeed.

 

[Lupin21]

Agree with above. Not my experience and I've been in two different classes thanks to some PhD work in between.

 

[Lab Vet]

I graduated from NCSU in 2018. Yes, my veterinary school absolutely cared about me- as a human being (first and foremost), and secondly as a burgeoning veterinary professional. I had very tight relationships with faculty/staff. These people were crucial to my development/success, and supported me from day one in the curriculum. I agree with @Minnerbelle that your experience with veterinary school will be unique to you. You get what you give 🙂

 

[WhtsThFrequency]

Graduated about a decade ago - not my experience, and not the experience of any of our other classes before and after us as far as I know. Our faculty were wonderfully engaged and cared about us as people, not just students. They were wonderful mentors.

However, if you expected everyone to fawn over and spoon feed you.....tough. That's not how it works, and you can't expect people to fall all over themselves to try and mentor you. They are human beings with responsibilities too. And of course you're going to feel like a slave in fourth year - fourth year is HARD. You're expected to invest a ton of time and effort. You're not shadowing anymore, you're not sitting in class, you're working like it's a full time job. That's a difficult transition for people who have never had a full time, intense job before (which would describe many people in professional education who entered right after undergrad).And yep, you can feel like a slave. Seek out help and mentorship, don't piss and moan and play poor me in the corner about it.

OP, I would remember that you're only hearing one side of the story when it comes to this vet, and that side may well be tinged with some resentment.

 

[WhtsThFrequency]

Is there a forced bell curve and thus a scarcity of Passes/Honors/whatever? I don't see an incentive for sabotage and cutthroat behavior.

There isn't (unless things have changed drastically in the last decade). We don't have Honors or different levels of passing at most schools. You either pass or fail, and failure is pretty uncommon.

 

[DVMDream]

You also have to remember that while a big priority of the school is to teach and train you the other large priority is to take care of patients. You may get "shoved" to the side for certain cases/instances because some situations are time sensitive and can't allow you to jump in and take your sweet time to learn how to do said thing. It isn't meant to be rude to you, it is because they still have living, breathing pets that need to be given care.

There are definitely some clinicians that are more excited/engaged in the teaching students aspect than others. There are some that are more strict regarding certain things than other are. There are some that have much higher expectations than others. I actually tended to get along better with the clinicians that were deemed "difficult" or "rude" to some.

Put on a good attitude (even if you don't want to), put in an extreme amount of effort, show you have researched your case/cases, show you know what a surgery is about if you are told that surgery will be performed on a patient the following day, care about your patients, show up on time to be able to do treatments for your hospitalized patient/patients and be in the rounds room on time for rounds, etc. It is normal, basic, straightforward things that if you work hard, put in the effort, show you have done some reading/research prior, and when you don't know something state you will find the answer and get back to them you will do just fine. WhtsThFrequency stated it above that clinical year of vet school is like working a full time job, sometimes it feels like even more than that.

I never once thought no one cared. I did realize some clinicians I just didn't "click" with so it seemed as if they didn't care but that isn't the case, we just didn't click. That is life. It happens. It can happen anywhere. Work with each other for the 2-3 weeks you have with them and move on.

Also, residents and interns will get priority for things over the students. You are highly unlikely to be doing much more in a TPLO surgery than scrubbed in watching and maybe handing over instruments. The surgery resident is going to actually get to do things. The intern might get to close. You get to do post-op care which is still insanely important. Possibly just as much as the procedure. This is how it works in human medicine too. You don't get a front ticket to performing any medical procedure because the resident needs to do x number of y procedure before they can be boarded and the intern is potentially going on to residency before you would be so they get the next ticket. Then finally you would get your turn but even then it isn't likely they will let you do a complex procedure. Learn via observation you can still learn a lot this way.

 

[battie]

I know for a fact my school cares for me and my fellow students. I'm a second year who has had to ask a lot of my administration over the last three years. There are other students who have had to do the same in every year. If you put forth the effort to be a decent human being, they will care. If you ask for help, they will help you. But you have to ask for help first. There's 350-500 students per vet school. They don't have a magic ball to tell them that student A is struggling besides grades or if a classmate/faculty/staff has a gut feeling or has noticed something is not right. They can only do so much and need to be met halfway. As others have said, that's life.

 

[LyraGardenia]

I'm not in clinics quite yet, so can't really comment on that aspect, but I do agree that of course residents and interns should be given preference for certain procedures, I think it's important to have realistic expectations for clinics in that regard. As far as faculty in the didactic years, most have been really helpful and genuinely want us to understand the material and succeed, and some really go above and beyond. Others are more difficult to get along with, but I can only think of one or two who actually seem disinterested in teaching students. My class is also very helpful of each other for the most part, we have a few lazy or selfish people too, but I haven't heard of any instances of people actively sabotaging each other.

However, whether the school actually cares about our well-being is a bit more difficult to say. There's a lot of talk about the importance of self-care, but that tends to come in the form of "here, have some coffee and muffins!" rather than anything that might actually make our lives easier. Of course vet school is always going to be stressful and difficult, but there have been a few instances where changes were made for the worse, and the response from the administration to student feedback was basically "meh, too bad." As far as students who are struggling (whether due to classes themselves or other life issues), unfortunately I've heard of some pretty disappointing things that were said to my friends/classmates. I don't want to go into too much detail here (and I don't know all the details myself), but I think that's an area where our administration could definitely use some improvement. As for professors, some are really good about suggesting alternate study strategies or taking the time to explain the material in different ways, whereas others... well, there was one memorable email we got this past Thanksgiving break where a clinician suggested that students worried about passing her class should spend their entire break "underground" studying rather than spending time with family. 🙄 We have two therapists for the vet school, but I've heard that they're not the greatest at helping students dealing with things beyond just school stress.

I don't mean to discourage anyone from applying to or attending K-State, but I do think these things are important for vet students to talk about. I think it's unfortunate that there's little incentive for schools to try to do better in regards to treating their students like human beings since there's such an excess of eager applicants, it's generally very difficult to transfer schools once you've started somewhere, and the cost makes it difficult to justify quitting.

 

[CalliopeDVM]

He went on to describe students actively sabotaging each other in clinicals, residents and interns being given preference for any procedures and that students in clinics were basically seen as slaves. He thought that faculty in the didactic portion cared little about their students.

That was not my experience.....well, except the part about being treated like slaves. The interns treated students like slaves and they, in turn, were treated like slaves by the residents. Yes, interns and residents did more procedures than students, and I don't blame them -- ask how many med students get to do procedures on hospital patients, LOL. I graduated in 2000, but my experience was very different that what you describe.

There was a definite absence of students sabotaging each other - if it happened (and I can't remember it ever happening) it was the rare exception. There was really no need, because we all knew that unless we badly messed up we were all going to graduate, and there were no benefits to being ranked above anyone else in the class. There were little interpersonal contests among some students about who stayed in the library later or who did better between the two of them, but they were personal bets among friends, and no one cared enough about the contest to sabotage anyone else. No one stole study materials or planted false info, or anything like that.

Did the faculty and teaching vets care about me? I don't know if they cared about me as a person, but they definitely cared about me as a student and they made every effort to help every student graduate. I had to rush to my grandmother in the hospital the night before an exam, so I warned them I might not do very well because I'd been up all night at the hospital; accommodations were made for me to rewrite it if I failed, which I thought was more than accommodating (I didn't - I got 70-something percent. Lower than I would have, but acceptable). About 10 students in our class failed Pathology in 3rd year, and they were given the opportunity to take a concentrated course over the summer so that they could join their classmates in 4th year and not have to repeat the entire year. Did they mentor me? No, but they did teach me and were responsive to my requests for help to ensure I learned what they were teaching. Some even took part in some class activities (played on the hockey team, attended the holiday pot luck), and I can only think of one who was difficult to get help from.

I think that's more than adequate, even though it might not be what every student wishes for. Do they care about me now, after I've graduated? Only in that they want me to donate, LOL.

 

[that redhead]

Everyone else has said it better than I could, but just chiming in to agree that I felt like my school cared about me as a human and as a student. AVC has smaller class sizes than most other schools (just around 60 in my class) so I felt like professors knew me and wanted me to succeed, at least at varying levels.

Clinics are tough. Residents and interns do get favored, but rightly so. There are always opportunities for students who have a good attitude and a strong work ethic. I did not feel like slave labor, but the days (or nights) are long and often very involved. It is simply exhausting on certain rotations but that’s part of learning, as the real world can mimic that at times.

I wouldn’t worry about this singular person who seems to have had a bad experience. Vet school isn’t always fun, there is often hard work and long hours but it will get you where you need to go 🙂

 

[Blueangel7]

I am a first year and I can tell you my school definitely cares about us and want us to succeed. We have 3 therapists on staff who are just amazing at helping with any situation. I personally had to go see them about some relationship issues I was facing and it helped tremendously. The school hosts multiple events throughout the year to help de-stress and take our minds off of school. Some examples that we can currently sign up for over the next few weeks is Laser Tag, Escapes Rooms and doing the Challenge Ropes Course. Professors stay after class and into all hours of the night to help students who are struggling. All of the 1st year professors have an open door policy so that all we have to do is email them that we are struggling and they make sure we are seen and have talked about what it is we are struggling with with 2-3 days. They send follow-up emails afterwards to make sure we are understanding the material.

I cannot say how the Classes above me interact, but my class is very close. We will send each other study material and notes to anyone who needs them. We have also hosted multiple events to get closer as a class and it really has increased the moral for our class. We have organized bar crawls (in coveralls in support for our large animal focus this semester), river parties, games nights, etc. How your class interacts will depend on the people you are with. Something that stuck with me during my interview was one of the administrators saying: "There are 115 diplomas waiting with your names on them and we (including all the faculty) are going to help you get there and receive that diploma." We have listening sessions every semester to talk with the administrators on things we are concerned about and they update us with what they are doing to help fix this or rectify the situation. There are also anonymous boxes that the administrators read multiple times a week so if we are concerned about something, we can slip a piece of paper into the box and the situation is looked at and handled. Mental Health is a big issue in veterinary school and I for one think my school does an amazing job helping any student who is struggling or needs help. Professors will go out of their way to help students. For example: I missed 2 days of class for a wedding and the professors worked with me to make sure I would get all the material I needed that would be missed in class, made sure I could make up any assignments missed, and worked around my schedule to take the make-up exam. If the faculty did not care about us, would they rearrange their schedules to help us out like this or stay until midnight in the library helping students? Again, I can only look at this from a 1st years point of view and have no idea how clinics will be. The only experience I have had down in the clinics is when I was watching a PU surgery on a male cat and was asked if I wanted to join in the surgery and observe inside the surgical suite.

 

[LyraGardenia]

I am a first year and I can tell you my school definitely cares about us and want us to succeed. We have 3 therapists on staff who are just amazing at helping with any situation. I personally had to go see them about some relationship issues I was facing and it helped tremendously. The school hosts multiple events throughout the year to help de-stress and take our minds off of school. Some examples that we can currently sign up for over the next few weeks is Laser Tag, Escapes Rooms and doing the Challenge Ropes Course. Professors stay after class and into all hours of the night to help students who are struggling. All of the 1st year professors have an open door policy so that all we have to do is email them that we are struggling and they make sure we are seen and have talked about what it is we are struggling with with 2-3 days. They send follow-up emails afterwards to make sure we are understanding the material.

I cannot say how the Classes above me interact, but my class is very close. We will send each other study material and notes to anyone who needs them. We have also hosted multiple events to get closer as a class and it really has increased the moral for our class. We have organized bar crawls (in coveralls in support for our large animal focus this semester), river parties, games nights, etc. How your class interacts will depend on the people you are with. Something that stuck with me during my interview was one of the administrators saying: "There are 115 diplomas waiting with your names on them and we (including all the faculty) are going to help you get there and receive that diploma." We have listening sessions every semester to talk with the administrators on things we are concerned about and they update us with what they are doing to help fix this or rectify the situation. There are also anonymous boxes that the administrators read multiple times a week so if we are concerned about something, we can slip a piece of paper into the box and the situation is looked at and handled. Mental Health is a big issue in veterinary school and I for one think my school does an amazing job helping any student who is struggling or needs help. Professors will go out of their way to help students. For example: I missed 2 days of class for a wedding and the professors worked with me to make sure I would get all the material I needed that would be missed in class, made sure I could make up any assignments missed, and worked around my schedule to take the make-up exam. If the faculty did not care about us, would they rearrange their schedules to help us out like this or stay until midnight in the library helping students? Again, I can only look at this from a 1st years point of view and have no idea how clinics will be. The only experience I have had down in the clinics is when I was watching a PU surgery on a male cat and was asked if I wanted to join in the surgery and observe inside the surgical suite.

That's great that you've had a good experience so far! I hope you don't think that I or my class is just being whiny or ungrateful, if you had asked me two years ago I probably would have had similar things to say. Part of it is definitely that as vet school goes on, it's hard to not get beaten down and cynical, and some of it is issues that have come up directly related to second and third year classes (spring of second year and fall of third year are the WORST). I've been lucky I haven't personally had problems with administration, but I've heard of some very condescending and disrespectful things that were said to classmates of mine who were concerned about failing a class or needing to take a leave of absence, mainly by one particular person. Yes, there are opportunities to give feedback to the administration, but for my class at least I could name multiple instances where concerns were brought up and nothing was done about it. It definitely doesn't help that my class has missed out on a lot of the things that your class and 2021 have gotten (the new anatomy lab, clinical skills in 1st and 2nd year, etc.). Of course I'm happy that they're continually improving things, but I think a lot of my classmates feel like we tend to get pushed to the side and ignored. But again, there are a lot of professors who are amazing people and go above and beyond for us, and they're not who I'm talking about here.

 

[Blueangel7]

That's great that you've had a good experience so far! I hope you don't think that I or my class is just being whiny or ungrateful, if you had asked me two years ago I probably would have had similar things to say. Part of it is definitely that as vet school goes on, it's hard to not get beaten down and cynical, and some of it is issues that have come up directly related to second and third year classes (spring of second year and fall of third year are the WORST). I've been lucky I haven't personally had problems with administration, but I've heard of some very condescending and disrespectful things that were said to classmates of mine who were concerned about failing a class or needing to take a leave of absence, mainly by one particular person. Yes, there are opportunities to give feedback to the administration, but for my class at least I could name multiple instances where concerns were brought up and nothing was done about it. It definitely doesn't help that my class has missed out on a lot of the things that your class and 2021 have gotten (the new anatomy lab, clinical skills in 1st and 2nd year, etc.). Of course I'm happy that they're continually improving things, but I think a lot of my classmates feel like we tend to get pushed to the side and ignored. But again, there are a lot of professors who are amazing people and go above and beyond for us, and they're not who I'm talking about here.

No worries! I was just wanting to give a 1st year opinion since things have changed quite a bit from what I understand

 

[Frozenshades]

That's great that you've had a good experience so far! I hope you don't think that I or my class is just being whiny or ungrateful, if you had asked me two years ago I probably would have had similar things to say. Part of it is definitely that as vet school goes on, it's hard to not get beaten down and cynical, and some of it is issues that have come up directly related to second and third year classes (spring of second year and fall of third year are the WORST). I've been lucky I haven't personally had problems with administration, but I've heard of some very condescending and disrespectful things that were said to classmates of mine who were concerned about failing a class or needing to take a leave of absence, mainly by one particular person. Yes, there are opportunities to give feedback to the administration, but for my class at least I could name multiple instances where concerns were brought up and nothing was done about it. It definitely doesn't help that my class has missed out on a lot of the things that your class and 2021 have gotten (the new anatomy lab, clinical skills in 1st and 2nd year, etc.). Of course I'm happy that they're continually improving things, but I think a lot of my classmates feel like we tend to get pushed to the side and ignored. But again, there are a lot of professors who are amazing people and go above and beyond for us, and they're not who I'm talking about here.

No worries! I was just wanting to give a 1st year opinion since things have changed quite a bit from what I understand

Experiences are so different person to person...especially on clinics with so much more day to day interpersonal interaction. There are faculty members and house officers I worked well with and thought they were great. Others, well, not so much. I really do believe there are administrators and faculty working with their best intent and trying to make changes as needed. At least from the outside looking in it seems like some good changes have been made over the past few years. But change takes time and experimentation, some people are apathetic or don't agree, and academia and the university system is riddled with bureaucratic nonsense.

There are many people who try to do right, but always maintain some vigilance in looking out for your own interests. Learn how to think, and do it. Find the balance between impudence and a doormat. Know your limits, but be confident within them.

Also yes, spring of second year sucked noodles. I was so over class. Junior surgery is challenging but that fall semester felt like the ascent out of the valley.

 

[LyraGardenia]

Also yes, spring of second year sucked noodles. I was so over class. Junior surgery is challenging but that fall semester felt like the ascent out of the valley.

I was told fall of third year would be better than second year, but that was a lie. They made some changes to junior surgery that made it more involved and stressful for us, but it sounds like it won't be as bad next year.