LA veterinary shadowing vs volunteering

[Jakesmom]

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I'm a non-traditional pre-vet (29-yrs old, BA in math & taught high school for 5 years) who is now back at school taking all those super-fun 😱 science pre-req's. I work evenings & Saturdays at a small animal practice. I don't have much time between full-time school and almost full-time work, but I'd like to get some LA experience while on break from school. Would you recommend shadowing a LA vet or should I try volunteering at a LA sanctuaries instead? I'd rather shadow a vet, but a friend of the family, who is a vet, said volunteering would probably be better for my application.

 

[luplodw]

Working/shadowing/volunteering for a vet is always better than just working with animals even if you get more hands on experience.

 

[Ben and Me]

Volunteering at large animal sanctuary = animal experience

Shadowing a vet = vet experience

Which will be more helpful depends on what your application needs.

Also, if you have absolutely no large animal experience, it might be helpful to volunteer first so you can get comfortable around the large beasts. If you search around here, you'll see that lots of folks have had a hard time getting shadowing positions with large animal vets - but I never had a problem, I think because I have ridden my entire life and am comfortable around horses.

 

[eventualeventer]

^ What she said. Volunteering is better for learning how to interact with horses/LA, which takes some getting used to, and can make it easier to get shadowing positions. Besides knowing how to stay safe around large animals, IMO you would probably get more out of your subsequent shadowing experiences by knowing a bit about the husbandry of horses. You can then spend your time asking the vet and learning about horse veterinary issues instead of the basics.

OTOH, if you have limited time before you apply and you CAN find someone to let you shadow, it IS vet experience and increases the diversity of your experiences. LA is great because you can use the time in the truck between calls to pick the brains of the vet you are riding with. Also, by going to the animal's home environment you get a sense of how their day-to-day management may affect their health.