Foreign "vet" experience - veterinary, animal, or academic?

[Gmc1804]

Hi everyone,
I'm fairly new to this site and trying to figure out my situation when the time to apply for vet school comes.

I'm an undergrad student majoring in microbiology (junior) and I've been doing vet experience hours as much as I can, involvement, animal, etc. However, here is the interesting part, I am originally from Peru (born and raised), started my undergrad studies there where we have a university/college system that allows students to apply and, if admitted, enroll in an undergraduate Veterinary program (B.S. in Veterinary Medicine). So, from the beginning I had core science classes as well as animal anatomy/physiology, diagnosis of dog/cat/ruminants diseases,poultry production and diseases, equine production and even surgery.All teaching classes and labs.
Then, I was able to move here and continue my undergrad and pursuing my B.S. here. The reason I feel lost is that I dont know how should I include ALL that in my future application. I barely had time for any vet experiences (7-8 classes year round, 8am-4pm, M thru F) and didn't need to, but i did volunteer at a local zoo for a summer, participated in vaccination campaigns, went on a couple of research study trips and helped every once in a while at the school vet clinic. So..... my pre-vet advisor here told me it's more like "academic" experience, but I'm not sure :?, should i list all that as animal experience?, although I was under vet guidance and stuff, but not from this country so I doubt it counts as vet experience. Anyways, I'd just like to know how to approach that when the time comes. Any help would be appreciated.
thanks =)

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[Gwenevre]

Any experience you had that was supervised by a licensed veterinarian counts as "vet experience". No matter what country it was performed in.
Though I will follow that up with anything that lies in the field of research is "research experience."

 

[Gmc1804]

Mmmm, but in that case, would I need to provide references? i Have the references and contact info from my experiences here in the states, but idk if the application would let me include that for contacts from a different country (numbers and addresses). Plus, the pre-vet advisor told that I should be careful with the stuff I include because it may not look "appropriate" idk if it's true or why :/, e.g. during the vaccination campaigns we are allowed to actually administer vaccines (students are not restricted or need to be licensed), in surgery class we neutered/spayed dogs in the lab

 

[Gwenevre]

Yes, you need to put down a "reference" for every experience you list on your application. Vet schools get international applicants, so there's no reason to not accept experiences from outside the US. As far as appropriateness, the rules are different in other countries for who's allowed to do what. If your supervisors believed that you were competent enough to perform these tasks and not cause harm to these animals, then I personally don't see an issue with writing these experiences in your application. I would talk to someone in admissions at the schools you're interested in applying to.

 

[Gmc1804]

Ok, i'll do that so i can be sure of how to include that info, thank you =)

 

[Cyndia]

Mmmm, but in that case, would I need to provide references? i Have the references and contact info from my experiences here in the states, but idk if the application would let me include that for contacts from a different country (numbers and addresses). Plus, the pre-vet advisor told that I should be careful with the stuff I include because it may not look "appropriate" idk if it's true or why :/, e.g. during the vaccination campaigns we are allowed to actually administer vaccines (students are not restricted or need to be licensed), in surgery class we neutered/spayed dogs in the lab

You can definitely include contact info for foreign experiences, I had a couple since I worked in Australia and lived in England/Ireland for a bit and had no issues with submitting all of that info through VMCAS.

I do agree that you should be careful about including things that might look inappropriate, but since you completed most of those activities while studying for a BVS, I think it's probably fine. I've mostly seen discussion of not including things such as attending a week or two long veterinary trip that allows you to assist with or partially complete a surgery when you have little to zero training whatsoever. In that situation, I definitely think of it as unethical, and likely to be something looked at with concern by admissions committees, but yours is somewhat different since you were actually taking classes and receiving proper instruction. I'd second gwens advice in trying to speak with someone in admissions at the schools you're considering. When you actually begin to write up your application, we have a thread on SDN of veterinary students and veterinarians that read and offer edits/critiques on personal statements. I imagine if you asked nicely you might be able to find a few people on here willing to take a look and critique how you've written up your experiences.

 

[Gmc1804]

Then, those activities would probably count as veterinary experience as long as I make it clear it was in a class-room/lab setting under veterinary faculty supervision at school right?, I'm def going to contact admissions at the schools to be sure about that aspect of my application, but I still wanted to have an idea of how to approach the situation before I ask.

It would def be really helpful If I could get some feedback on my personal statement when I start my application! I will for sure try that, I've started putting ideas together and have like a draft of what I will include on it, but it's far from what I would submit for sure. I really appreciate the help, I didn't even know how to look at the experience aspect since my case is probably not that common :S and I want to include the stuff I did before coming here. Thanks for the info! It was really helpful =)