listing experiences on VMCAS

[doxie88]

---

Members do not see this ad.

Hi all,

I just started my application and am currently listing my experiences, and stumbled into some confusion with classification. I worked at a zoo hospital last summer, mainly with the hospital supervisor doing stuff like husbandry and helping feed/clean animals/pens etc.... I sometimes shadowed the vet but not often. I am therefore tempted to list this experience as "animal" but not "veterinary". The only problem is that I am getting my recommendation from the vet. Any suggestions?

Thanks!

 

[feadog]

If you have a good idea of how many hours were spent shadowing, perhaps you could separate out the experience (ie. hours spent on husbandry work in "Animal Experience" and time spent shadowing under "Veterinary Experience").

I had worked in a shelter for 3 years and separated my experiences, because I spent 2 years in adoptions/grooming doing things like walking dogs, cleaning cages, etc. and 1 year in the shelter's medical center.

 

[sumstorm]

I had a very similar problem. I was a curator at a zoo, but spent considerable time with the vet (necropsy, treatment, etc) who wrote one of my elors. I had to ask VMCAS several times before they agreed it should be divided. I put appropriate hours under animal experience and vet experience and explained in each and in the explanation statement why I divided them.

 

[doxie88]

I guess the problem is that i worked in the hospital, so it would seem to me that this would go under veterinary experience...still confused! because if i were to divide it, the "vet" hours (where I actually was shadowing the vet on her rounds) would be like...5. I explained in the description section what I did though, so maybe that is enough.

 

[sumstorm]

If you were doing all your work in the zoo hospital, I personally would just put it under vet, especially with the elor, just be honest in the description. I missed the hospital part. I didn't exclude the hours at the SA clinic I worked at when I was cleaning kennels (all the techs pitched in cleaning kennels, doing laundry, reception, etc)....it would have been problematic to do so. I also assume people working with equine vets don't exclude the hours they are cleaning stalls for the vet.

 

[nyanko]

It kind of sounds to me like the position you had was more of a "kennel" position than a "tech" position then. People who were kennel techs at a vet clinic - how did you enter your experience? It seems more comparable to that than to a tech position that occasionally cleans kennels.