Hi! I am currently a second year student. I recently got accepted to go on a RAVS trip. I honestly applied not knowing too much about it, and I wanted to hear more about what you get to do as a vet student and your experience. I don't really have surgical experience, so I'm not sure if I'd be able to do anything regarding that? How many vet students/other volunteers are there on the trip? Thank you!
Hi! I did RAVS the summer between 2nd and 3rd year of vet school a couple years back. It was a great experience.
As far as surgeries go, you take a test at the beginning to determine whether you participate in surgery, or perform your own surgeries with supervision. I think there was a step in between as well, but I can't remember how they differed. I was (and most of us at the 2nd year level) were at the participatory level, and it was exactly what I'd wanted prior to my spay week at school for upcoming third year. The clinician you're paired with will talk you through each part of the procedure and allow you to perform certain parts of it. Based on how you do on the entry test, there are certain things you might not be able to do (eg I wasn't allowed to close) but you're still involved in quite a bit! You're also super involved on your anesthesia days; I placed a bunch of catheters, intubated, and monitored. There's typically enough people involved that asking for support was never an issue for my group. We ate dinner as a group summer-camp style, and we got to know one another really quickly. Looking back at some of the group photos, it looked like there were 35 people on my group total, including veterinarians, technicians, and volunteers. I think there were about 10-15 of us students, I think 6-8 vets? And the rest a mix of technicians and support volunteers. The atmosphere was great.
I did one week; I spent two days on anesthesia, one day on surgery, and I think two days on outpatient care? One of my outpatient days got cut a little short because I ended up getting sick, but people were super nice about it and there were enough vets/techs/students that everyone was like, hey, take care of yourself, go take a nap.
Let me know if you have any specific questions! I'm happy to share more info/memories lol.
