RANT HERE thread

Started by flyhi
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overcastkidjuno said:
Two weeks prior to selection of winter semester electives they informed us that the ONLY wildlife, zoo, and exotics professor is on sabbatical so none of those courses will be offered to our year. They were offered to the year above and will be offered to the year below. I came to vet school with a background of 95% wildlife / zoo with the intent to continue heavily pursuing wildlife / zoo as a serious endeavor. How are you going to pull the rug out from under me with two weeks to go after 2.5 years? They told me I should try taking some webinars online and that I can take the 4th year rotation with the professor next year when she returns from sabbatical. However, the 4th year rotation, is primarily focused around GOING TO MY WORKPLACE WHERE I HAVE 1400+ HOURS EXPERIENCE. So it's not like it will even be particularly enriching... I'm so beyond upset. Wildlife conservation is my life's passion and you are going to tell me you're going to offer me no training. I feel lied to... had they told me this when I was applying to vet school I genuinely may have tried to tap into my bilingualism and history of living in Quebec as a kid to pursue going to U de Montreal. How am I supposed to become a zoo veterinarian when you offer me no opportunity for classes and training? Not to mention how am I supposed to learn the exotics content for the NAVLE? They keep acting like it's a minor inconvenience that people won't get to take these "fun electives" and ignoring me and others trying to say that this is seriously damaging to our education. If the equine professors were on sabbatical they would replace them, they wouldn't tell all the future equine docs to suck it up and just take horse webinars to replace these skills. So because I'm in wildlife I get to be screwed over? I don't know how to keep escalating this but I feel like I can't just sit down and accept that they aren't going to train me in the thing I came to vet school for.
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Im so sorry. I can’t even imagine. If you want a clinical rotation in primate medicine, the chimpanzee sanctuary I volunteer at takes vet school Externs / clinical rotation! Chimpanzee Sanctuary NW in Washington state. 🙏🏼
 
overcastkidjuno said:
Two weeks prior to selection of winter semester electives they informed us that the ONLY wildlife, zoo, and exotics professor is on sabbatical so none of those courses will be offered to our year. They were offered to the year above and will be offered to the year below. I came to vet school with a background of 95% wildlife / zoo with the intent to continue heavily pursuing wildlife / zoo as a serious endeavor. How are you going to pull the rug out from under me with two weeks to go after 2.5 years? They told me I should try taking some webinars online and that I can take the 4th year rotation with the professor next year when she returns from sabbatical. However, the 4th year rotation, is primarily focused around GOING TO MY WORKPLACE WHERE I HAVE 1400+ HOURS EXPERIENCE. So it's not like it will even be particularly enriching... I'm so beyond upset. Wildlife conservation is my life's passion and you are going to tell me you're going to offer me no training. I feel lied to... had they told me this when I was applying to vet school I genuinely may have tried to tap into my bilingualism and history of living in Quebec as a kid to pursue going to U de Montreal. How am I supposed to become a zoo veterinarian when you offer me no opportunity for classes and training? Not to mention how am I supposed to learn the exotics content for the NAVLE? They keep acting like it's a minor inconvenience that people won't get to take these "fun electives" and ignoring me and others trying to say that this is seriously damaging to our education. If the equine professors were on sabbatical they would replace them, they wouldn't tell all the future equine docs to suck it up and just take horse webinars to replace these skills. So because I'm in wildlife I get to be screwed over? I don't know how to keep escalating this but I feel like I can't just sit down and accept that they aren't going to train me in the thing I came to vet school for.
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Not to diminish your desires or feelings at all. I will say at US schools exotics for alot of schools is not a guarantee and exotics/wildlife students have to seek those opportunities. It sucks, but do you have vacation blocks you could do zoo/wildlife rotations? In terms of NAVLE you will be fine. For better or worse the exotic section is a minor fraction of the exam. Like you could probably get all the exotic questions wrong and still pass iirc I had like maybe 5 or 10 questions total.
@pp9 @WildZoo for thoughts
 
overcastkidjuno said:
Two weeks prior to selection of winter semester electives they informed us that the ONLY wildlife, zoo, and exotics professor is on sabbatical so none of those courses will be offered to our year. They were offered to the year above and will be offered to the year below. I came to vet school with a background of 95% wildlife / zoo with the intent to continue heavily pursuing wildlife / zoo as a serious endeavor. How are you going to pull the rug out from under me with two weeks to go after 2.5 years? They told me I should try taking some webinars online and that I can take the 4th year rotation with the professor next year when she returns from sabbatical. However, the 4th year rotation, is primarily focused around GOING TO MY WORKPLACE WHERE I HAVE 1400+ HOURS EXPERIENCE. So it's not like it will even be particularly enriching... I'm so beyond upset. Wildlife conservation is my life's passion and you are going to tell me you're going to offer me no training. I feel lied to... had they told me this when I was applying to vet school I genuinely may have tried to tap into my bilingualism and history of living in Quebec as a kid to pursue going to U de Montreal. How am I supposed to become a zoo veterinarian when you offer me no opportunity for classes and training? Not to mention how am I supposed to learn the exotics content for the NAVLE? They keep acting like it's a minor inconvenience that people won't get to take these "fun electives" and ignoring me and others trying to say that this is seriously damaging to our education. If the equine professors were on sabbatical they would replace them, they wouldn't tell all the future equine docs to suck it up and just take horse webinars to replace these skills. So because I'm in wildlife I get to be screwed over? I don't know how to keep escalating this but I feel like I can't just sit down and accept that they aren't going to train me in the thing I came to vet school for.
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I'm not trying to diminish your frustration here but I will try to inject some practicality/reality (as someone on the other side) to hopefully help alleviate the panic:

You could have attended a school with absolutely no exotics clinicians and still have an equal chance at achieving your career goals/you could have attended a school with a very prominent zoo/exotics team and not make it. And for those of us that have attended a school with exotics/wildlife/zoo stuff as part of the core courses (or at minimum, available as electives), it's not even scratching the surface of what you need to know/do in order to be a good zoo/exotics clinician. I 100% hear your frustration but this isn't going to affect your career!

Agree that you could get all exotics questions wrong on the NAVLE and still pass; also worth remembering that the exotics questions are usually super straightforward because the exam people know not everyone has the same basic exotics education. I've heard there are occasional off the wall questions but most are along the lines of 'this old budgie has a right leg lameness' type questions (and said material is usually covered in VetPrep).

AFAIK, exotics/wildlife/zoo material is still not a required part of basic veterinary education (I could be sorely mistaken here but I really don't think it is?), whereas equine/food/domestic pets are, so it's not apples to apples. You run the risk of this single clinician quitting just the same as them taking a sabbatical. Some of us have been through this with a school's single radiologist (me!), ophtho, dentist, derm, etc and it DOES absolutely suck but it's also absolutely survivable.

Has anyone asked if finding a remote adjunct professor would be possible? I don't know if having said person be international would be a problem, but there are potentially many zoo/exotic vets that would be down to teach a course remotely. The sucky part is that if I'm correct in thinking exotics are not a required part of the curriculum, the school isn't obligated to do anything. If you have a strong exotics/zoo club, you could arrange for monthly guest lectures or something like that. A lot of vets are happy to do zoom lectures.

As a final thing, just remember that zoo med is far less about what class/elective you had in school and far more about how much effort you put in to pursuing the career. Networking (x10000000), well planned externships, and general perseverance are far more important.
 
thx for all the advice guys, ive been looking at a lot of 4th year externships and unfortunately im realising the problem is i wont be able to afford to get and stay there. its just completely out of my budget to be able to leave the maritimes for 4th year. i guess becoming a zoo and wildlife vet was always going to be unachievable because i just cant afford the extra training and still pay for school
 
overcastkidjuno said:
thx for all the advice guys, ive been looking at a lot of 4th year externships and unfortunately im realising the problem is i wont be able to afford to get and stay there. its just completely out of my budget to be able to leave the maritimes for 4th year. i guess becoming a zoo and wildlife vet was always going to be unachievable because i just cant afford the extra training and still pay for school
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The money is definitely tough. Choosing to use loan money or savings for externships/other opportunities is a very personal choice but often one that the majority of students are forced to make. That said, there are both US and Canada zoo externships that offer free/very cheap housing. There are also a very small handful that are paid, at least in the US. There are also scholarships one could apply for, but I'm most familiar with what's available to US students.

As a side note, I don't know what it looks like for a Canadian student to get a US externship right now though, paid or unpaid. We had an OVC student scheduled for this past spring who had to cancel due to changes at the border.
 
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