Question on Shadowing

[stang21]

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My father owns a livestock auction and for the past 15 years I have spent countless hours between there and the farm my family also owns. Through working at the livestock auction and our farm I have observed veterinarians for thousands of hours over the years and have assisted giving shots, pouring, dehorning, preg testing, etc. etc. to cattle. Since I strive to be an exclusively large animals veterinarian, (I love dogs but I just would rather work on cattle, pigs and sheep) do you think it is vital to do direct "shadowing" of a veterinarian since I have essentially been shadowing for years and have such extensive amounts of large animal experience?

 

[david594]

do you think it is vital to do direct "shadowing" of a veterinarian since I have essentially been shadowing for years and have such extensive amounts of large animal experience?

Yup. You will also need at least 1 veterinarian who can write you a solid letter of recommendation.

 

[lailanni]

My father owns a livestock auction and for the past 15 years I have spent countless hours between there and the farm my family also owns. Through working at the livestock auction and our farm I have observed veterinarians for thousands of hours over the years and have assisted giving shots, pouring, dehorning, preg testing, etc. etc. to cattle. Since I strive to be an exclusively large animals veterinarian, (I love dogs but I just would rather work on cattle, pigs and sheep) do you think it is vital to do direct "shadowing" of a veterinarian since I have essentially been shadowing for years and have such extensive amounts of large animal experience?

You will need at least one letter of recomendation from a DVM if you're applying to an American school. So you'll need to have some time with a vet - long enough that they'll feel comfortable writing you a good recomendation.

You may also want to work/shadow with a vet just to see the whole picture. It sounds like you have a ton of animal experience on the farm side. Being in a clinic might show you some things you haven't encountered yet.

And on the flip side, you may want to spend some time in a small animal clinic and/or shelter just to round out your application.

Yay! More large animal vets!! We need more of them!!

 

[stang21]

I've got the Letter of Recommendation thing already because these vets are also close family friends (I actually went fishing in Alaska with two of them for a week with my parents a year or two ago and am going again next summer!). And that is a good idea to do shadowing of small animal vet.

 

[david594]

I've got the Letter of Recommendation thing already because these vets are also close family friends (I actually went fishing in Alaska with two of them for a week with my parents a year or two ago and am going again next summer!). And that is a good idea to do shadowing of small animal vet.

Were the vets treating the fish? Otherwise that wouldn't count as veterinary experience. There are a few schools out there that have strong programs in aquaculture. I know one of the vets I work for spent many years "fishing" and doing biopsies on open water farmed Atlantic salmon.

Read the successful applicant thread and you will find a trend. Most applicants have far more than just "shadowing" for their veterinary experience. I would bet if you crunched the numbers you would find the average successful applicant had >1000 hours working directly with a vet.

 

[Electrophile]

Vet schools these days LOVE to see large/food animal vets to be, but they want you to be well rounded. Ask the LA vets if they know any good colleagues in small animal, exotics, equine, etc that you could shadow as well. The admission committees know that people change their minds all the time on what they want to do when they get in. Which is totally fine, because I think too many people go in too focused and then they make it harder on themselves to change. Our assistant dean told me a story of a guy a few years ago who started wanting to do solely dairy cows (as that's what he grew up with), then he switched to lab animal second year, and then he settled in on a small animal oncology residency! So...get a broad view of the profession.

 

[stang21]

Were the vets treating the fish? Otherwise that wouldn't count as veterinary experience. There are a few schools out there that have strong programs in aquaculture. I know one of the vets I work for spent many years "fishing" and doing biopsies on open water farmed Atlantic salmon.

Read the successful applicant thread and you will find a trend. Most applicants have far more than just "shadowing" for their veterinary experience. I would bet if you crunched the numbers you would find the average successful applicant had >1000 hours working directly with a vet.

I meant the fishing thing just to show that I already have very good relationships with these individual veterinarians. I mean I have assisted working cattle with these two veterinarians for more than ten years!