med to vet? should i try for european schools?

[Ser Demetrius]

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Hey guys,

Im in a weird situation... I am an accepted incoming M1 at a solid state school. I've always wanted to become a vet, but chose to pursue medicine due to pressures and my fascination with surgery. I recently found out some vets do surgery also. Do I decided to give it another look.

I want to do vet, so im thinking of withdrawing. I have no vet experience but great grades, research, a masters etc. The only thing my app lacks is vet experience.

1) Do any vet schools accept the MCAT?

2) Should I consider European schools since im late in the game?

I was actually researching the school in Dublin, Ireland if anyone could tell me about it. Any current students?

Im confident if I could get accepted to med, I have the willpower to get accepted vet.

Sorry for any grammatical or flow errors - im on my phone.

 

[Fly Racing]

Don't withdraw now. Get into a vet clinic and start shadowing everyday between today and your first day. Your level of knowledge about vet med is too low to make such a decision (based not only off you just learning there are veterinary surgeons, but everybody needs that first hand experience to understand this unique career). I'm sorry to be blunt, but you need to experience some of the vet world before throwing away a MS admission. It's very different!

Best of luck!

 

[PetPony]

I think by now, all schools in the US require the GRE...

What you have so far sounds good, but make sure to get a lot of veterinary experience. The school might question you why you changed from med to vet and then it'd be easier to explain your understanding of the profession and why you made the change.

It's great that you got accepted to med school but that doesn't automatically mean you will also get accepted to vet school. There is a significantly lower number of vet schools in the US with a high number of applicants, which can make getting an acceptance extremely difficult.

 

[PetPony]

Also, it's hard to get high grades in vet school which you need to get a surgery residency. It's very hard to get one and you need to accept that you might not be able to get one.

That's why you need vet experience. To learn what else there is and to understand the daily life of a vet.

 

[hai1983]

Why do you want to do vet? Are you sure you're not just nervous about starting med school and this is how it's manifesting?

Im confident if I could get accepted to med, I have the willpower to get accepted vet.

 

[wildcatj]

As others have said, definitely get at least several hundred hours of vet experience before you decide this is what you want to do. It's very easy to THINK you want to go into vet med when the actual experience may be very different than what you were expecting. The majority of small animal private practice vets do surgery, but there also is the possibility to get board certified in surgery (requires internship and residency just like human med). There are some advantages/disadvantages to choosing vet med over human med and vice versa, you should really explore these thoroughly. I would say in a good majority of cases if you could be totally happy in human med and making money is really important to you, you should probably reconsider the human med aspect.

Additionally, I don't really see a reason you should exclude applying to state side schools (unless you really want to go abroad). Being "late in the game" won't effect where you get excepted. Having good grades, good GRE scores (I think there are only a handful of schools that still accept the mcat), and varied experience is what will get you in regardless of whatever else you've been doing.

 

[abbercadaver]

I was in almost the same situation. 🙂 Although, I was in the *process* of applying to med school when I finally came to my senses.

I graduated, then worked full-time for a year and a half as a tech/assistant in two clinics, then applied to vet school. So, if you have any specific questions for me, I'm all ears.

Just a side note, not only do you need to have hours at a clinic in order to know if this is what you want to do with your life, but hours are also required in order to apply at (almost) every school. Research and human clinical stuff is GREAT--but you also must have veterinary hours as well.

 

[bunnity]

I think only the Canadian schools accept the MCAT. You can visit aavmc.org for a full list of requirements by school. Be aware that vet schools have more pre-requisites than med schools.

Of course vets do surgery(!) - both general practice vets and board certified surgical specialists. Vet med is way more similar to human med than most doctors think. However, you will make way less money as a vet (starting salary is 60k and average student debt is about 150k), you will often face situations where you can't do that life saving surgery or treatment because the owners can't afford it, and you have no guarantee of getting into vet school.

You don't need to answer this for me but you need to answer it for yourself: Why do you want vet over human med? Is it worth the huge loss in income and the fact that many new grads are not finding jobs right now? Is it worth throwing away your med school acceptance (which I think you will have to inform vet schools about and they may not like)?

 

[briankirby]

If u are 50/50 then,imo stick with med school.U will get paid way better for your efforts though you will probably have an extra 5 years before fully qualified.I kinda got sucked into the prestige when choosing vet school-dad is a vet,his uncle is a vet and my area is very agricultural so the question i was always asked was "will u be a vet?".Now that im here and i see the efforts we put in compared to the med/dent/pharmacy students i wonder if we are the fools.

 

[devyn]

If you withdraw from med school you will have to start the process all over again and you will need to gain hundreds of hours of experience in vet before you can even apply - so I would think long and hard before doing so. Make sure it is what you really want. I do find it odd you have always wanted to be a vet, but did not know they performed surgery.

Vet schools do not accept the MCAT, they usually accept the GRE. Even European schools have the same requirements as state schools, so you will still have to build up your veterinary experience hours and take the necessary pre-reqs you are missing before you can apply. It is just as hard to get into a European vet school as it is a state school and you cannot apply for Fall for any vet school, you would have to wait for the next application cycle.

UCD is a very prestigious vet school in the EU/UK and it is AVMA accredited, so you could practice in the states after graduating. In the EU/UK grading and exams, are done differently so it will take a bit to get used to. There is also a lot more clinical hands on work in the first few years as opposed to state schools. If you have any specific questions - let me know - I am a current student. 🙂

 

[LetItSnow]

If you withdraw from med school you will have to start the process all over again and you will need to gain hundreds of hours of experience in vet before you can even apply - so I would think long and hard before doing so. Make sure it is what you really want. I do find it odd you have always wanted to be a vet, but did not know they performed surgery.

I would guess what the OP meant by that is that she didn't realize there were board-certified vets who did nothing (or little) BUT surgery. I think that interpretation makes a lot more sense than thinking that someone who got into med school didn't realize vets don't do surgery at all (spays anyone?).

I can understand not realizing there are surgical specialists in vet med. AVCS has only been around since 1965 (I realize that sounds like forever to most of you, but it's really not), and there are only around 1600 board-certified veterinary surgeons. I would bet that a lot more vet clients than you'd realize aren't aware there are board-certified veterinary surgeons.

I think the OP is at a really, really difficult decision point. If she truly wants to do vet med, the best route is to withdraw from med school before starting (no reason to spend that money), start getting vet experience now, and apply this fall with the plan that she will most likely have to spend another year getting experience and applying again in fall 2013.

OP: The money is far better in human medicine. Vet medicine has never paid as well, and economic pressures are making it even worse (harder to find a job and holding back salary growth at the same time). So be really, really sure you'd not enjoy human medicine and that you would enjoy vet med. That said, the board-certified surgery people do pretty good. You need to understand there are far fewer surgical residencies available ... I know a surgeon I consider to be one of the best of the best who took three years to get a residency. I think the biggest question you need to answer is: Is it that important to me to be in animal medicine instead of human medicine. If it is, then sure - change paths now rather than 15 years from now. But if it's a more ambivalent "well, I think I might like it" ... you're probably better off staying on your current path.

 

[scb44f]

Just wanted to throw it out there that Mizzou does accept the MCAT.

 

[adams30]

Just wanted to throw it out there that Mizzou does accept the MCAT.

That's true, some vet schools DO accept MCAT scores but not very many. I think there might be about 3 of them in the US that do. You can check out the VMCAS website for info on school pre-reqs.

Also, it would be very helpful to get more experience in a variety of veterinary areas first. Vet schools won't accept applicants with 0 hours of experience even if their grades are awesome. To be competitive, (depending on the school) you should try to get at minimum 100 hours of vet experience (and not all at one clinic/ one type of practice) and some animal experience hours too. That's my opinion at least.

The accepted applicant threads are helpful to read to see what schools look for.

 

[anotherbusybee]

There are also a lot of researchers with MD/PhD dual degrees working with animals and who are cleared to perform surgeries on animals. The world of laboratory medicine is far more integrated than most people realize.

Also, no matter if you pursue a specialty in surgery for human vs. vet med, your job would be pretty similar, wouldn't it? If it's the surgery that fascinates you, why does it matter if the creature on which you're operating is an animal or a human? If you're craving the special human-animal relationship, then, why specialize in surgery? I think you should do a bit of deep thinking about your motivations before making a life-changing switch..