Ok, I'm going to take this thread in a different direction....If senior vet students/new grads/more established vets, etc. wouldn't mind chiming in here, I would appreciate any advice.
I'm a vet student that did a 180 flip and would like to pursue SA general practice (the last thing I ever thought I would do) but I'm limited in my SA experience because I was very focused prior to vet school on something completely different. I was a tech assistant for a few months during the school year at an emerg practice and have a "tech asst with vet student learning opportunities" position this summer at a different place (I've done various SA volunteering as a pre-vet, worked as a receptionist, etc. but it was pretty minor). Upon a recent discussion with my mentor (a retired SA gen practice owner), I've become confused as to what I should be doing after graduation with practice ownership as a goal in the future. He has said that I shouldn't be writing off an internship as good mentorship and exposure would be valuable for me. However, I was always under the strong impression that an internship would be overkill for someone not looking to do emerg or specialize?
Is this still the general consensus - that it's largely unnecessary? I don't care to sell my soul for a year when I'm not pursuing specialization, but are there internships that would be more reasonable for a general practitioner looking for mentorship and confidence?
Any input would be appreciated.
Honestly, I don't think there is a "right" or "wrong" way to go about things here. I would hope any new graduating veterinarian would want mentorship, regardless of any prior experience they have had. Even with the many years of tech experience I had prior to vet school, I still want that support and to be able to bounce my ideas off of someone with experience. So I believe that you are not at a disadvantage not having a ton of SA experience prior to vet school. Especially since you are already trying to get experience prior to even your clinical year. You will be fine.
Having said that, an internship will definitely give you experience, the reason I decided against one is multi-fold:
1. My loans are high enough, I don't need to watch them balloon further for one year of crap pay.
2. I don't want to pursue a residency.
3. Academic medicine has started to grate on my nerves. This may just be related to where I am at school, plus having some GP experience, but every time a client voices concern over money and clinicians are still spending tons of money (as in a few hundred to a thousand dollars) and adding on things that don't really need to be done (and admitting to it), I get annoyed.
4. The hurry up and wait of academic medicine. Now this might just be my school or in an academic setting and may not be so at a private specialty practice. But holy hell, the amount of time it takes to do anything around here is obnoxious. There is also a lack of acknowledging the owner's time... oh we have meetings for an hour in the morning, yup start appointments at the same time our meetings begin and make the client wait over an hour. I feel bad for clients many, many times for how long they have to wait just for a doctor/resident to get into the exam room. This isn't to say things can't get busy in a general practice but generally (there may be exceptions), if you are away/having meetings, you won't schedule a client to come in for the time in which you are not there. Not sure this is such an issue in a private specialty practice, but it definitely gets annoying as to how slow the cogs run in an academic hospital.
5. Many of the interns/residents/clinicians I have been around don't have that experience of general practice and the ability to identify with cost/how things can go down in a GP. Especially some of the interns. They really take on an everything needs as many diagnostics as possible because this is what you do approach. Sometimes a dog that has had diarrhea once, has just had diarrhea once. It doesn't need ultrasound and endoscopy and rads and bloodwork and oh why not toss in a CT for just on episode of diarrhea. I get diarrhea on occasion too, I don't go to get a full workup for one instance of diarrhea. Sometimes **** just happens (pun intended).
6. I have found quite a few jobs that offer mentorships. So, I get the benefit of learning about general practice, how to balance those cases where a client is really concerned about cost and still continue to get the feedback and mentoring that I want. So I have the best of all the worlds that I am looking for.
In the end, I don't think doing an internship prior to general practice or not doing one is going to make a huge difference. It is kind of up to you. If you can't find a job with mentoring available, maybe an internship is better. Or maybe you can find a job with mentoring and you can jump right into working. It really is a personal decision. I decided against internship, because, as you can see, I am done with the academic side of things. I do think if I had decided to go for an internship, I would have done a private practice one, but most of them are at specialty clinics and I really want to know about GP, not what additional tests we can do that the GP hasn't already done.
Anyway, I don't think either direction is more "right", I think they both have their advantages and disadvantages, you just have to decide which ones have the advantages that you prefer.