As someone living in a rural area who has worked in mixed animal clinics but also did an internship and specialized, I agree that you don’t need one. The level of care and caseload between the average mixed practice in my area and the specialty hospital where I did my internship is like night and day. That’s not to say that one is better than the other, but I’d actually argue that getting used to a fancy specialty hospital and getting used to overnight care, CRIs, and all the bells and whistles then being relocated to Small Town America, population 12,000 where you have like one fluid pump, don’t have any oxygen besides your anesthesia machine, have to hospitalize things alone overnight because referral isn’t an option, and the average budget is like $200 would be just as difficult or even more so than the adjustment from vet student to practicing vet. Almost nothing I learned in my internship is applicable to my rural mixed best friend’s day aside from rare emergencies. I’d imagine the difference isn’t quite as pronounced between an equine specialty hospital and rural mixed than it is between SA specialty and rural mixed, but I bet it’s still there. An internship can teach you how to manage complex cases and shore up your knowledge base, but it doesn’t teach you how to be a GP because quite frankly you never see those cases. GPs who have done an internship might be slightly better at a work up and advanced stuff because they’ve had access to those things, but the vast majority of your cases don’t need that fancy stuff. I would not do an internship in your situation unless you’re wanting to do fancy procedures or make a name for yourself early on for equine sports med or something. But if you’re wanting to be an everyday food/equine/some small animal GP, it’s not worth it.
