Need advice about moving to Edingburgh

[basl]

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I am 38 years and got my masters a few years ago in public health and after several failed attempts at landing a job in my field, I decided to come home to Iran to spend some time with my aging parents. I am already $25K in student loan debt. While I've been teaching English here, I decided to apply to a couple of vet schools that didn't require VCAT. I had completed my Med pre-reqs about 15 years ago at a community college and got all A's. I also worked close to a year at an animal hospital. Long story short, I just got an offer to study at the Royal (Dick) vet school at the university of Edinburgh for their 4 year program. I need a vet's perspective on the worthwhileness of this path considering the enormous debt I'be going under by the time I graduate at 43. The university alone costs close to £30,000 per year plus between £7,500-10,000 in living costs. Needless to say, I'd be close to £155,000 in debt, something in the order of $220,000 plus my $25K. I'd like to work with wildlife or farm animals and poultry. Taking into account my age and my area of interest what advice do any of the current practicing vets have to offer? I do want to return to the States eventually to practice. I've considered going back there and just work at some job to pay off my MPH loans. My grades are very good but because I am not passionate about public health I don't have the confidence that I'll ever get hired to work on paying off my debt. Plus, I don't want to be in the same place 10 years from now and wonder maybe I should've gone to vet school.

On another note, does one need a PhD on top of their DVM to get involved in research? I've considered research or lab animal veterinary medicine if large animal medicine does not work out, but I don't want to get a PhD. I have only a short time to make a decision, so I hope someone will respond to this by then.

Thanks

 

[MassDVMMPH]

There are very few jobs working with wildlife, so I wouldn't count on being able to get a job doing that when you graduate. Working with large farm animals is physically strenuous - many vets start out working with large animals and then switch over to small animals once their body starts to complain. You need to take that into consideration if you're going to be graduating at the age of 43 - it is very difficult to continue to care for large animals into your late 50's and 60's. And, with the kind of debt you're talking about, you will be working into your 60's at the very least. If you are willing to work on small companion animals as you get older, that's fine, but if you don't like that kind of work, it is definitely going to be hard on you as you age.

 

[basl]

Thank you for your reply! Can you tell me if I wanted to get into teaching, would a DVM alone suffice? I have an MPH too. What non-clinical jobs are out there. Thanks

 

[MassDVMMPH]

Do you mean teaching in a veterinary school? You wouldn't need a PhD in most cases to do that, but you would need to specialize and that would add a minimum of 4 more years of low-paid training to your schooling (one year of internship and 3 years of residency for most specialties) and then you would need to get your board certification (pass an exam in your specialty). And the amount of money you would owe would just get larger as you wouldn't be able to afford to make payments during those years (and the interest would just increase the amount you owed). Most veterinarians are in clinical type work (that's just where most vet jobs are). But, if you are interested in public health, there are plenty of jobs in food safety for a veterinarian (food inspection in slaughterhouses, for example). The CDC and APHIS also hire veterinarians. There is also work in industry (pharmaceutical companies, etc.), but they generally want more education than just a DVM.

 

[basl]

Thank you! I'm actually kinda freaking out because I have not been in school for 3 years and I took my science courses 15 years ago. The way I studied for my masters may not at all work for vet school. I've been thinking of getting a book to study to give me a head start, but I've read advice against that. Do you recommend trying to work on developing study habits before school starts? Can you tell me how many hours of your day were spent on studying and how many hours on sleeping? It's seems to be generally recommended relaxing and not doing anything coursework related. My MPH had nothing to do with biological sciences and I'm scared about the unknown...

I start my EMS (Extra Muriel Studies), required to be done during school, before school starts. They're weeks of volunteering at different animal husbandry establishments, and writing seemingly elaborate reports.

On another note, I don't have a significant other and will be away from all family in a new country. I'm an emotional type of person and although I'm working on becoming stronger, I was wondering if that would be really hard to cope with in vet school. Forgive me if there are other threads already on these issues. I'm trying to find them. Thanks

 

[MassDVMMPH]

Studying ahead of time really won't help that much - I would focus on healthy eating and exercise and having fun this summer, so you can start vet school in as healthy a condition as possible, both physically and emotionally. That will help you a lot more than a collection of random facts you happened to pick up while trying to study. In vet school, I always made sure I got at least 7 hours of sleep a night. I know kids who used to pull all-nighters, but I just don't think straight on no sleep, so I never did that. I used to give myself Friday nights off - go out to eat, watch TV, wind down from the week. Otherwise, I was studying. When I couldn't study anymore, I would use that time to do laundry, go grocery shopping, etc. (the required activities of living). I went to vet school in the 1990's, so lectures weren't recorded the way they are now. If you wanted to know what the prof said, you had to get your butt out the door and attend lecture (or borrow someone else's notes). We had lectures/labs pretty much from 8AM to 5PM Monday through Friday, with an hour off for lunch, unless you had an elective. Electives were generally held during the normally free lunch hour or during the early evening (I remember I had one that met from 7:00 - 9:30 PM one day a week one semester). When you took an elective during lunch break, you'd bring a sandwich from home and eat it during the lecture. I basically had my head in a book the rest of my waking hours (except for Friday evenings).

I stayed in the same country for vet school, but I moved to an area that I had never been before and I had no relatives or friends there. Lots of people in your class will be in the same situation. And you will have more in common with them than any other group of people you have ever met. I loved the vast majority of people in my class. You will honestly get closer to them than anyone else you have ever known. You will basically be going through Hell together and the common experiences you will suffer through together will result in very strong bonds.

 

[basl]

Hi there,

Just curious, did you ever find during the course of your studying that you had to fight boredom while studying your textbooks, and how did you do it? I've downloaded an anatomy pdf to get an idea about the subject, and every couple paragraphs I get the urge to fall asleep! It's an old copy, there are not a lot of pictures, they're black and white and some of the letters are faded. Is this something shared by others? Do you have to have an insatiable hunger to learn to succeed? I'm a tactile learner and I learn better by doing, touching, feeling, etc. rather than just reading and trying to imagine in my mind's eye the concept being conveyed.

In vet school I'd have to learn and memorize the material at a much faster space. My major was not in biology and though I took anatomy and physiology, I find that I have to read and re-read multiple times many of the sentences in the textbook to understand what they mean. May this have to do with having a different background, or the fact that English is my second language? Might it get easier as I advance into the course(s) and have a more solid foundation of knowledge to play with? As it is, it makes me anxious to think that, in addition to learning and retaining a great volume of facts quickly, I'd have to spend extra time on trying to comprehend the readings too.

Thank you

 

[MassDVMMPH]

If you're a tactile learner, anatomy will be right up your alley. Anatomy lab is all about dissecting out the structures you are learning about in class. You learn more anatomy in the lab than you do in the classroom. I wasn't ever bored - more stressed out and overwhelmed than anything. Most vet schools have lectures on tape now, so if you have trouble understanding something, you can listen to the lecture as many times as you need to.