Question about what counts as experience?

[hachandl]

Hi guys! I hope I am posting this in an appropriate place! I'm going to be applying to veterinary school this cycle and had a question about what counts as experience.
I've gathered that most anything involving live animals (other than just owning pets, except if you are giving medical treatment) counts as animal experience. So pet sitting someone else's pets, volunteering at a shelter, dog walking etc. Is that correct? I haven't counted owning pets as animal experience hours (although we have 5 reptiles and a dog) but I did count an hour or two for needing to give my leopard gecko antibiotic injections for three weeks. Does this sound about right?

Additionally, for vet experience, I am taking a course currently that is taught by a veterinarian (vet anatomy course) and I am assuming that just going to class would not count as hours, right?
We also have a lab section where we examine skeletons/do dissections/live animal observations though and she teaches the lab section as well. Would any of the lab time count as vet experience hours? I haven't been able to find any info on this specifically.

Thank you guys!

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[SnowJ]

Here's the VMCAS FAQ about the experience categories and where experiences should generally go:
Experiences

In general anything that involved working with animals and isn't employment, and isn't under supervision of a veterinarian counts as animal experience. For owning pets/giving them medications that may vary from school to school, but I think your leopard gecko experience would be fine to put on there. Some schools recommend you put everything on there (I remember one panel at UMN where someone listed knitting experience) , but if you're worried about it I'd contact the schools you're applying to directly.

As for veterinary experience, I don't think anything that is considered a class will count as veterinary experience. VMCAS specifically defines vet experience as "any veterinary clinical, agribusiness, or health science experiences that took place under the supervision of a veterinarian." My understanding is that the intent of this section is to evaluate what experience you have had with the profession, so taking a class taught by a vet doesn't really count. The class will be on your transcript, so they'll know you've had that experience.

 

[danseth]

Employment in animal-related things like Dog Daycare are considered animal experience too. You just can't put it down as employment AND experience. You just say "compensated" in the area that it asks you to put volunteer, compensated, etc.

Maybe talk to an advisor or discuss with the schools as was mentioned above.

There are also some things that are sort of debated. Personally, I was told that reception at a veterinary clinic does not count for veterinary experience but more as animal or normal employment (by the CSU pre-vet advisor) so I personally avoided hours as a receptionist. Other people have thousands of hours of reception that they used as veterinary experience and it worked for them. I guess each place will be different on how they consider their hours.

 

[battie]

I guess each place will be different on how they consider their hours.

This. Use your common sense and if schools disagree, they'll change it to fit what they consider it. It's not a huge deal.

As far as reception and such, I personally counted every second I was in the vet clinics as vet experience, but that was because these were small 1-4 doctor clinics where my direct supervisor was the vet, regardless if I was acting as receptionist, kennel tech, vet assistant. Had I worked in a big corporate hospital, I might have listed it differently.

But overall, reception and administrative stuff is such an integral part of vet med, it honestly doesn't make sense for it to not be counted as vet experience. When you're being sued for something happening to a pet, your record keeping and client communication could be possibly be more important than the actual procedure or whatever that happened. We're taught that if it's not in the record, it didn't legally happen. So all that admin stuff is just as important as the clinical skills to me.