Internships and specializing

[aspirevet]

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I've spent this week at a vet referral center that is literally a hospital. It's opened my eyes to the different types of vet med you can specialize in. There are a few intern doctors who work in the surgery department I've been at. Can someone give me a general timeline for specializing in something? Like deciding to do surgery? AKA do people usually go straight into internships after vet school or spend some time doing other things like general practice beforehand? How long do they typically do internships/ how long before they're doing their own surgeries?

 

[KCgophervet]

First of all, you can do surgery in general practice. Maybe not complicated specialized surgeries (or maybe yes with a lot of CE and practice), but as soon as you have a DVM you can do surgery legally.

Second of all, for a surgical specialty it sounds like the trend is for people to go straight from vet school (where they got very good grades due to the competitiveness of things) into a rotating internship (1 year), then into a surgery internship (1 year) and then into a surgical residency (3 years). Some people manage to only do one internship, I don't know of anyone who has gone straight into a residency. I think surgical residencies in particular prefer to take applicants who have gone this route as opposed to working in GP for awhile (so they don't have to un-teach "bad habits").

This is all coming secondhand from talking to surgery residents though, and since I don't plan on doing that route I definitely don't have the best info on it.

 

[SocialStigma]

Surgery residency programs are notorious for not wanting to take applicants who have been in GP, because you're likely to have already developed your own way of performing surgery and may be less "teachable" vs. someone fresh out of an internship. They prefer to take candidates who have completed at least 1 rotating internship. Most people will go on to do at least 1 surgical internship after a rotating internship if they don't match to a surgery residency right away. General timeline is vet school->rotating internship (1 year)-> +/- surgery internship(s) (1 year)->surgery residency (3-4 years). That being said, I just started a surgery residency and I matched straight out of a rotating internship (and so did my residentmate) so it's not unheard of to skip the specialty internship. I've found that there are some schools that prefer to take candidates who have done a surgery internship, and there are some schools that prefer ones that haven't.

 

[doctor.cvas]

Hi, Usually in Pakistan, the veterinary undergraduates do internships in their final year. And then they go for a job. But they do also preinternship during the course of their degree. However at least 6 months internship is necessary to get them the degree.