Research questions

[Groominator]

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I would really like to get involved in research at my school and am trying to get more savvy with the bio department. My question, basically, is how do I know what counts?

My understanding is that most research done under the bio department in our school is tissue-culture or microbial based, so no actual "animals". And the PIs are PhDs, not DVMs. The psych department does work with mice and zebrafish that I know of but i have no affiliation with the psych dept at all.

The explanation of what is applicable to vet applications is sort of vague. I pulled this from another thread...

Veterinary Experience

Veterinary experiences should relate to any veterinary clinical, agribusiness, health science, or research experiences that you have had with veterinarians, other health scientists, or other professionals.

Include all relevant experiences, whether they are voluntary, paid, or academic experiences, beginning with the most recent. If you are unsure of the dates or number of hours worked, please estimate and provide details in the description. If your experience was over broken periods of time (for example, summer break), enter the average number of weekly hours and note the periods worked in your description of duties.

But if i can get into a lab that works on HeLa cells, for example, can I still use it in lieu of vet hours? And use the PI's letter as a vet letter? I guess it could count as "health science", right? Also would it make a huge difference if I'm allowed to actively help with a project or am asked to do mostly mundane tasks like washing dishes? As long as i know what the research is about and get a good letter?

Thanks!

 

[GellaBella]

Biology based research, whether under a PhD or DVM, can be counted under "veterinary experience".

However you should only count this as veterinary experience if you are actively involved in a research project...washing dishes, mixing solutions etc doesn't cut it in my book...thats more "work experience". Even if you know whats going on in the lab...thats helpful...but thats not doing research. You should have your own project that you are working on or with someone.

It doesn't matter that it doesn't involve animals directly. Gaining micro experience is great because hey, there are pathogens in vet med. Gaining tissue culture experience is great cause hey, tissue culture is a great way to work with mammalian cells without having to work on a whole animal. That is all applicable.

Just make sure you're working at the bench and you'll be just fine

 

[Groominator]

I see, thank you 🙂

I'm sort of feeling that beggars can't be choosers and lab positions are very limited so I'd be hard pressed not to accept even a dish washing position. But I'm gonna try to look for something with potential of advancement. I mean I also feel that actually helping on a project has a lot more weight than being a stockgirl.

 

[jpeterman13]

Biology based research, whether under a PhD or DVM, can be counted under "veterinary experience".

However you should only count this as veterinary experience if you are actively involved in a research project...washing dishes, mixing solutions etc doesn't cut it in my book...thats more "work experience". Even if you know whats going on in the lab...thats helpful...but thats not doing research. You should have your own project that you are working on or with someone.

It doesn't matter that it doesn't involve animals directly. Gaining micro experience is great because hey, there are pathogens in vet med. Gaining tissue culture experience is great cause hey, tissue culture is a great way to work with mammalian cells without having to work on a whole animal. That is all applicable.

Just make sure you're working at the bench and you'll be just fine

Agreed. Definitely don't count washing dishes/mixing solutions as veterinary experience! I've heard of a lot of chemistry majors being really bummed that they couldn't include their research because it wasn't based in Biology. So watch out and maybe contact the schools that you'd like to apply to beforehand to see if whichever project you start working on will count.

 

[PigsRock]

Even if your research is not animal related, it still counts for some schools. I know that VMRCVM has a big emphasis on research, so they have a supplemental form for you to list all of your research stuff that's not on the VMCAS. For them, even if it is with a PhD and you put it under veterinary experience they will count it as research experience.

 

[ColoGirl]

If you are eligible for Federal Work Study then that seems to open up many more opportunities, at least at my school. Another thing I would look into is shadowing a graduate student. We have a program here that partners undergraduates with graduate students with the understanding that they will actually be doing research and not just washing dishes. It isn't paid, but in my experience, when we bring in a volunteer into the lab that is intelligent and hard working, they almost always get offered a paid position. Good luck!

 

[sumstorm]

As for LOR's, that will depend on the school. some are VERY specific and won't sub a PhD PI for a DVM. Either way, remember that both depth and breadth of experience are important, so you will still need other hours with another vet.

 

[Groominator]

I do have actual vet clinic experience, and will have at least one LOR from a vet (I have experience with several but some were too long ago for me to be comfortable to ask for a letter now and for whatever reason I didn't do it back then, meh).

I guess I'll go look through school requirements and see which ones don't accept PhD letters. anyone happen to know any offhand? Figured I'd ask just in case.

 

[Minnerbelle]

I do have actual vet clinic experience, and will have at least one LOR from a vet (I have experience with several but some were too long ago for me to be comfortable to ask for a letter now and for whatever reason I didn't do it back then, meh).

I guess I'll go look through school requirements and see which ones don't accept PhD letters. anyone happen to know any offhand? Figured I'd ask just in case.

Any school will take a PhD letter. It just won't be the "vet LOR." In most cases, you only need one vet LOR so as long as you have one already you're okay. The only place I know off the top of my head that requires 2 vet LORs is THE OSU. A PhD letter will not count any less than that of a vet if you're getting a letter about your competence in a research laboratory. If anything, most places like will ONLY take 3 LORs. So to get a nice balance, it might be nice to have 1 vet LOR, 1 PhD LOR, and 1 academic LOR. Whatever combo of letters shines lights on your attributes from all different angles is good.

EDIT: In fact, I have 2 vet LORs, 2 PhD LORS, 1 MD LOR + a few other random LORs. The only schools that gave a **** about my letters were the ones that specified that I'm only allowed to have 3. For those, I kept 1 vet, 1 MD, and 1 PhD. Of all of my letters, I think the MD one is probably the strongest to tell you the truth.

 

[Groominator]

I looked through my little notebook where i wrote out each school's requirements and I found two that specify 2 vets, Ohio and NC, most others specify one vet. Hmm, that makes me a little sad because OSU was the school that I've had in the back of my mind for a while now. But i probably won't be able to get a second vet LOR by the 2010 application cycle, unless research doesn't work out right now. Oh well, we'll see what happens.

 

[sumstorm]

If you had a strongly positive experience with a vet in your past, and that vet remembers you, it may be worth approaching them. I did that, and it worked out well for me. I hadn't worked with the vet in 5 years, but it was my largest chunk of vet experience, and it was zoo vet experience, so I couldn't just let it go without at least talking ot the vet and seeing what he said. He was wonderfully happy to help out, and told me later that he was honored that I had remembered the experience so well. After I asked, I sent him a resume, CV, and a detailed request about what I was hoping he could address in his LOR, along with a list of significant experiences I had gained with him, and a list of hte responsibilities I held.

 

[cms07c]

Sorry to hijack your thread, but I also had a question regarding research. I am currently doing a DIS (Directed Individual Study) where I assist in the lab. Working with flies, I do things such as transferring, measuring out food, picking larvae, etc. Does this count as research experience? Also, although the research is overseen by a professor, with a PhD, the lab tech that I work with does not hold a PhD.

 

[BlacKAT33]

Sorry to hijack your thread, but I also had a question regarding research. I am currently doing a DIS (Directed Individual Study) where I assist in the lab. Working with flies, I do things such as transferring, measuring out food, picking larvae, etc. Does this count as research experience? Also, although the research is overseen by a professor, with a PhD, the lab tech that I work with does not hold a PhD.

I did this with stalkeyed flies! i put it under work experience on the vmcas application. IMO, this doesn't count as research. Unless, you are doing some type of study about the larvae you have collected. You said this is an Individual Study? Does that mean you are answering some kind of quetion? I'm a little confused about how the name of the program fits with your job duties. But you should still add it as work experience and describe what you are doing. If you are investigating some type of question then yes it would be research. However, I would recommend getting another research position so you have something more solid to write down about research.

 

[OtakuVet]

I agree with BlackKat, although what you are doing in the lab is valuable, its best to be able to either be the one actually conducting the experiment or the one who is doing the research for the experiment. The reason why i say this is because, if I get an interview and the adcoms ask me about my lab, I will be able to tell them the ins and the outs about it and why I am doing this. And the reasons why my PI and I believe its important. I started in my lab just feeding fish, now Im actually setting up, reading papers, making mixtures feeding those mixtures to my fish and recording responses. These responses would then be used as data. ><; Its been a long....hard process. But I wouldnt trade it for the world. So what I suggest to you is simply this, find a PHD who wants free help. And when I say free help, make it aware that you want to assist in their lab and propose the experiments you have done along with your previous lab experience. Also provide the PhD a reason for needing you. Some are really nice, others can be really stuck up. Thats why I work in bio and not on the medical campus. >>;