Experience hours...what qualifies and how many hrs are advised?

[annie800]

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I haven't really found much data on previous applicants and their experience hours. I did see that NCS noted an average of 3,000 experience hours for their accepted applicants. Wow. I have been looking for a vet assistant job and I hope to land one, but if I can't, I really won't be able to afford that much volunteering and get by. I will happily apply to other schools, but I wont have nearly that many hours. Thoughts? I mean, maybe I can foster from a rescue? What the heck qualifies as experience hours other than vet-shadow or vet-assistant?

About me...
I am 27 and with a Bachelors in Microbio, Molecularbio, and Biotechnology. Certified in Biotechnology. I have tons of shadow/volunteer hours through Hospice, my local hospital, and medical examiner's office. Then, it hit me. I was making a big mistake. My passion lies in medicine, but not just any medicine- animal medicine. So, here I am at square one again. 🙂 Haha.

 

[Minnerbelle]

I haven't really found much data on previous applicants and their experience hours. I did see that NCS noted an average of 3,000 experience hours for their accepted applicants. Wow. I have been looking for a vet assistant job and I hope to land one, but if I can't, I really won't be able to afford that much volunteering and get by. I will happily apply to other schools, but I wont have nearly that many hours. Thoughts? I mean, maybe I can foster from a rescue? What the heck qualifies as experience hours other than vet-shadow or vet-assistant?

About me...
I am 27 and with a Bachelors in Microbio, Molecularbio, and Biotechnology. Certified in Biotechnology. I have tons of shadow/volunteer hours through Hospice, my local hospital, and medical examiner's office. Then, it hit me. I was making a big mistake. My passion lies in medicine, but not just any medicine- animal medicine. So, here I am at square one again. 🙂 Haha.

so there are 2 types of experiences, animal experience and veterinary experience. anything involving animals (i'd strongly advise against including pet experience) is by default animal experience. anything involving animals while being supervised under a health professional (DVM, PhD, MD) gets bumped up to veterinary experience.

if you foster for a rescue, that would be animal experience. but be a bit conservative about how you count your hours for that kind of thing... if you say 3000 hrs foster care, that doesn't look all that great. i would only try to count the hours where you were actively taking care of them. i took in over 35 very sick (so sick couldn't stay at the shelter without getting euthanized) animals, and i think i only counted like 100 hrs for that because i felt like inflating the hours here would discredit everything else i did.

you can go and volunteer at shelters or wildlife rehab places too! if those places have vets working there and you're working in a related department, that can count as vet experience. research involving animals under a PhD or an MD also counts.

by all means though, list your human med experiences as work experience. that will definitely get you noticed!

 

[racccjlm]

The bottom line is that there is no average or certain amount of hours required. I know people can fill you in with a lot more details than I can, so I'll tell you a bit about my situation because it is somewhat unusual. I have never worked in a vet clinic - or volunteered in one for that matter. I started volunteering at a zoo summer after 6th grade and eventually got a job there in high school. In college I did chemistry bench work summer after freshman undergrad (trying to figure out if I'd want to go into the research side of veterinary medicine), wildlife rehab summer after sophmore, and whale acoustics research this past summer. So, while it may not have been the traditional way to go about things, it managed to do the trick! So, go for experiences that interest you - if working in a clinic is it, then great! If you want to explore a bit outside the norm, go for that too! Best of luck!

 

[that70sfan11]

not sure if I'm doing this right (this is usually twelvetigers job haha)
but here is the successful applicants stats from last year
that will give you an idea about the number and variety of experience out there

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=589279&highlight=successful

if this turns out wrong feel free to repost correctly!

EDIT: WIN

 

[annie800]

Thank you everyone! I like this place, everyone is so friendly and helpful.

That thread you posted was awesome.
Yea, I still feel like some people have listed bogus hours. 😎
Or, I am sad that I can't accumulate that many hours. 🙁
Both?

 

[twelvetigers]

not sure if I'm doing this right (this is usually twelvetigers job haha)

I was busy watching Dexter, sorry. A girl has priorities!

 

[sunshinevet]

If you don't feel you can accumulate that many hours - dont worry! Just make sure you get some really QUALITY experiences - shadow in a small practice, in a big practice, an equine vet, a food animal vet, an exotics vet, some specialists etc for like, 50 hours each, and make sure you get some really great experiences, and can explain what you got out of your experiences in essays and to an adcom. Also make the most of your experiences if you cant afford to volunteer a lot of hours - ask lots and lots and lots of questions, get involved, dont just fade into the background! Really, quality over quantity 🙂

 

[sumstorm]

The advice given at our cvm is breadth and depth. at least 100 hours in at least 3 different fields. You need to have enough experience t know what will bothers you the most in the field, an what you find boring/tedious, as well as what you enjoy.. Those are things enthusiasts don't often consider, but they are important in career decisions. Be able to articulate what you learned; and don't discount transferable skills. I know far more about client communication from being a CNA and zoo curator than from wrking in vet clinics.

 

[annie800]

Re: Human-Medical Training/Research/Work Experience:

Thanks so much sunshine and sunstorm, makes much more sense than 3,000+ hours.

So, let's say about 00-250+ hours in each of three varied fields sounds like a nice goal.

I guess I an count my work as a nursing aide, lupus researcher, and university lab instructor, etc. God, those things have nothing to do with vet science. Good to know that I am not alone. Many people on here seem to have human-medical experience/training and from what I understand, we can list that under "work experience" because it is really not animal or vet related. .????

 

[twelvetigers]

Yep, it goes under work experience. But, it's really interesting work experience, and if you find neat ways to relate it to vet med, you can really impress in an interview or in your personal statement, Be prepared to explain why you made the switch, but something like that can make excellent fodder for a well-written personal statement.

 

[annie800]

Thanks!!! YAY!
I made the switch so late in game. Wow, I would have been so unhappy at Med School too. Anyone else switched from Pre-Med to Pre-Vet?

Friends and family think I downgraded from Med to Vet. They are in the freggin dark on that one. Vet-Med is so much more challenging and competitive, at least IMO. Both disciplines are probably equally demanding in different ways. 😛

 

[luvgoldens482]

Something to be aware of: in interviews sometimes they ask why you chose vet med instead of people med if you used to be pre-med. Make sure you have it all figured out before then 🙂 (which you should anyways since this is a BIG decision.)

 

[eventualeventer]

If you're wondering about the people with thousands of hours, yes, it is possible to be completely honest and list thousands of hours. 😉

I have about 3,500 hours of equine vet experience. I worked a couple summers and then took a year off from college and worked for an equine vet practice, and spent extra time shadowing on my days off and when there were interesting emergencies in the evening. Depending on the season (winter is dead slow in equine), I averaged anywhere from 35 to 65+ hours of veterinary experience per week. I was making enough to sort of support myself -- I paid my rent (living with room mates; when my last roomie moved out, my bank account started dwindling very rapidly), bought food and gas, and took care of my car, but I had no car payments and my parents paid my health insurance, which is both expensive and important. Especially if you are working around animals that can seriously injure you accidentally.

If you have time, I'd love to hear about why you decided to switch. 🙂

 

[annie800]

If you're wondering about the people with thousands of hours, yes, it is possible to be completely honest and list thousands of hours. 😉

I have about 3,500 hours of equine vet experience. I worked a couple summers and then took a year off from college and worked for an equine vet practice, and spent extra time shadowing on my days off and when there were interesting emergencies in the evening. Depending on the season (winter is dead slow in equine), I averaged anywhere from 35 to 65+ hours of veterinary experience per week. I was making enough to sort of support myself -- I paid my rent (living with room mates; when my last roomie moved out, my bank account started dwindling very rapidly), bought food and gas, and took care of my car, but I had no car payments and my parents paid my health insurance, which is both expensive and important. Especially if you are working around animals that can seriously injure you accidentally.

If you have time, I'd love to hear about why you decided to switch. 🙂

Oh that makes a lot of sense. Equine is so cool. My SO is studying to become a farrier! I still haven't decided on my speciality, sounds like you have it all figured out. As for accidental injuries, sounds like you speak from experience. Is there a story for me? 🙂

One of the reasons I wanted to switch was because of people like you. There is just this honesty and warmth about people who care for animals and I feel drawn to that. I couldn't find much of that in the human-medical world. Not saying it's not out there...maybe I'm saying that I saw things the way I needed to, in order to move on.

Well, I lost my father in my senior year of college. It was a painful battle that went on for years, and it really showed me a side of medicine that I could not see myself in. I realized that the sincerity and compassion for helping people was so far removed in those I shadowed or worked with and that didn’t feel right. I also lost my ambitions and my interest. The hardest part was telling my family. They were so disappointed.

All that changed when I adopted my first pet, a rescue dog, and I felt a love I had never known before. This loveable, forgiving, and super happy dog filled my heart. He mended our family, brought light to my mom's darkness, and changed my world. Soon after, I found myself immersed in the world of animals and the connection and happiness was undeniable. I eventually met an awesome vet and it felt like I had found exactly what I was looking for. The rest is history. I feel stupid in not figuring it out sooner. Stupid. 😛

How about you? I guess you knew from early on?

 

[deleted266066]

Thanks!!! YAY!
I made the switch so late in game. Wow, I would have been so unhappy at Med School too. Anyone else switched from Pre-Med to Pre-Vet?

I switched from pre-med to pre-vet at the end of my junior year of college. Fortunately the only additional class I had to take was Biochem in the switch... but I am SO far behind on the vet/animal experience stuff! I've been piling as many hours on as I can while finishing up my Bio/Psych degree in my biology research lab and at a big and awesome animal shelter that I've become pretty involved with. My school breaks were full of farm volunteering and clinic shadowing. I'm really nervous I won't have enough hours to apply (planning to do so this fall!)... and it's really hard getting a vet assistant/tech job around here for pay when I have no previous work experience in that area. And then... even if I *do* get a position in the field, I'm not even sure if it would pay enough to cover my rent/living expenses because Boston is so freakin expensive ugh!

Anywho. It wasn't a huge surprise to everyone else when I switched to pre-vet... I got a lot of "Wow finally, we were wondering why you didn't pick that in the first place!" so it was nice to have support from friends and family in that regard. I spent a while trying to figure out which career I would prefer, and realized I would only go back to the human med side of things if I knew for sure that I couldn't make it into vet school. My dad initially wanted me to apply to both in case I didn't get into one or the other... but I don't think he realizes how different each path would be, despite the similiarities in education! My boyfriend (and likely soon to be fiance! 😍) is starting medical school in the fall so I'll still be connected to the med world anyway. It'll be cool to have a family and have all of our loved ones (furry and not) covered in case of a small emergency that we have to deal with ourselves 😀

 

[DVMDream]

Re: Human-Medical Training/Research/Work Experience:

Thanks so much sunshine and sunstorm, makes much more sense than 3,000+ hours.

So, let's say about 00-250+ hours in each of three varied fields sounds like a nice goal.

I guess I an count my work as a nursing aide, lupus researcher, and university lab instructor, etc. God, those things have nothing to do with vet science. Good to know that I am not alone. Many people on here seem to have human-medical experience/training and from what I understand, we can list that under "work experience" because it is really not animal or vet related. .????

Just to let you know: dogs and cats can have lupus as well. So the adcoms could be very interested in your research. That is a lot of good experience in different areas. The university lab instrucutor could show leadership qualities, etc, etc. So definitely be sure to mention everything even if you think it is insignificant. Good Luck!!

 

[scb44f]

I switched from pre-med to pre-vet at the end of my junior year of college. Fortunately the only additional class I had to take was Biochem in the switch... but I am SO far behind on the vet/animal experience stuff! I've been piling as many hours on as I can while finishing up my Bio/Psych degree in my biology research lab and at a big and awesome animal shelter that I've become pretty involved with. My school breaks were full of farm volunteering and clinic shadowing. I'm really nervous I won't have enough hours to apply (planning to do so this fall!)... and it's really hard getting a vet assistant/tech job around here for pay when I have no previous work experience in that area. And then... even if I *do* get a position in the field, I'm not even sure if it would pay enough to cover my rent/living expenses because Boston is so freakin expensive ugh!

Anywho. It wasn't a huge surprise to everyone else when I switched to pre-vet... I got a lot of "Wow finally, we were wondering why you didn't pick that in the first place!" so it was nice to have support from friends and family in that regard. I spent a while trying to figure out which career I would prefer, and realized I would only go back to the human med side of things if I knew for sure that I couldn't make it into vet school. My dad initially wanted me to apply to both in case I didn't get into one or the other... but I don't think he realizes how different each path would be, despite the similiarities in education! My boyfriend (and likely soon to be fiance! 😍) is starting medical school in the fall so I'll still be connected to the med world anyway. It'll be cool to have a family and have all of our loved ones (furry and not) covered in case of a small emergency that we have to deal with ourselves 😀

Umm... TheEvilShoe, you and I must be twins. That was freakishly similar to my experience, despite a few details such as undergraduate major.

 

[sunshinevet]

I realized that the sincerity and compassion for helping people was so far removed in those I shadowed or worked with and that didn’t feel right.

Be careful, this exists a lot in vet med as well - long hours, low pay, abusive clients = compassion fatigue. Hence why vets in Australia have the highest rate of suicide of any profession. "Losing the drive" isn't unique to human med, and you are going to come across, and probably work with, vets who seem to not care about the animals and people they are in business for.

 

[sumstorm]

Actually, I thought any bio med research under a DVM/PhD/MD/DO would count as vet experiece; research is a career field in vet med

 

[GellaBella]

According to the VMCAS Sumstorm is right, any research under a PhD/MD/DO/DVM does count as veterinary experience

HOWEVER! When I got my post-mortem from Colorado, they specifically said they did not count my 5 years of PhD research (conducted under a PhD...involving antibiotic resistance, which I think is highly relevant, and consisting of about 10,000 hours) as vet experience.

They told me it was animal experience?? (not sure how that works since I didn't work with animals on that at all).

They also did not count my research at University of Cambridge Veterinary School in the UK...which was under a veterinarian.

don't understand that either.
All they counted was my clinical experience under a vet which was about 350 hours, which they said was "too low".

i found that very strange. but oohhh well