Tell me about your clinical year!

[mnm5]

Hi! I'm a third year student at SGU. I am rapidly approaching having to choose schools for my clinical year so wanted to reach out a limb and hear about your schools! We are able to choose 4 schools in the states to be placed with but the information is overwhelming and the fact sheets are melting together at this point.
I would love to hear your experiences in your clinical year and your overall feeling about your school. Both pros and cons are welcomed and extremely appreciated.
My top choices right now are:
Tufts
Ohio
Cornell
Tennessee

Thank you!

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[SkiOtter]

@jaboo @MOOSEygoosey @WildZoo @PippyPony

 

[WildZoo]

Tennessee grad here

Clinics were 2019-2020 for me so 1) it's been a couple years 2) I know some things have changed and 3) COVID messed up the end bit. So take all things with a grain of salt.

Generally clinics was a good time for me, I learned a lot, I felt like I got out of it what you're supposed to get out of it, and I didn't have any more complaints than the usual thing that you hear from all vet students everywhere. I enjoyed it way more than sitting in the classroom, and I felt like I came out of it well-prepared for practice. Rough days, yes. Some long days and sleep deprivation, yes. An emotional breakdown here or there, yes. Large animal rotations in particular tended to be extra rough, though I know they have made some changes there to make the hours more reasonable. I can say I never once felt like I was disrespected by staff or clinicians. The people were great throughout the whole thing and everyone was very supportive. If you have particular interest in equine or small animal rehab, radiology, anesthesia, or exotics/zoo med, Tennessee is especially great for those. We have all of the specialties and GP though, so whatever you're interested in you'll get. We take a pretty decent sized group of island students every year so you'll probably end up with some people you know, which I feel like might be nice?

Tl;dr I love my school a lot, people generally have good experiences here. Let me know if you have specific questions.

 

[PippyPony]

I went to Tufts; I loved clinics!

It has all the bad stuff that you would get at any vet school (long hours, a lot of busy work) but I still really enjoyed it and felt like I was strongly prepared for the NAVLE and real veterinary life, despite going through clinics during the height of Covid.

It's extremely high volume so expect to be overloaded with patients on most rotations (which is ultimately a good thing as a student -- you learn a lot).

 

[PippyPony]

I think we're also pretty good at integrating Rossies and SGU students, although you can probably ask your peers more about that and get their opinions.

 

[jaboo]

Fresh Cornell grad here!

I generally enjoyed clinics and learned more than I did the prior 3 years. I felt prepared for the NAVLE and there were some rotations where squeezing in 30 minutes of prep questions daily were very doable. I’ve heard from some of my peers that our school lets us be more hands-on and involved in case management than other schools, but I obviously can’t compare. I will echo WZ and Pips that there are long hours and sleep deprivation, mostly rotation specific. I feel like I have the tools and resources from clinics to guide me for many more years. The team at the hospital is genuinely great as well.

One downside that I will mention (and am unsure if this is true of all island students on clinics or not) is that all island students have to do the mixed animal track here. So if you are small animal oriented, you will have to do far more large animal rotations than you would like. The island students regularly expressed frustration with this because our large animal rotations are pretty time-consuming.

 

[SkiOtter]

One downside that I will mention (and am unsure if this is true of all island students on clinics or not) is that all island students have to do the mixed animal track here.

I know SGU had to do an extra LA (non-eq) med/sx rotation at uiuc compared to us and Ross got to pick 2 out of 3 eqsx eqmed and LA med/sx so I believe that’s probably based on SGU requirements.

 

[battie]

I know SGU had to do an extra LA (non-eq) med/sx rotation at uiuc compared to us and Ross got to pick 2 out of 3 eqsx eqmed and LA med/sx so I believe that’s probably based on SGU requirements.

According to the island students I had on rotations, it was due to their school requirements, not ours

 

[battie]

I'll put in a plug for Illinois even though it's not on your list. There is a decent element of "make your own adventure" to our program.

 

[SkiOtter]

I'll put in a plug for Illinois even though it's not on your list. There is a decent element of "make your own adventure" to our program.

Especially for island students who don’t have the bull**** of “directed electives” vs “free electives” and can choose any of our rotations for their elective spots.

 

[SkiOtter]

Figured I might as well go find it and add it to this thread, but as of right now this is what it looks like for island students at uiuc and we do take a whole bunch. I would assume the rotation requirements would be relatively similar at each school for those students.

 

[cbucks]

I'm currently in my clinical year at Tufts so I can't speak about *all* of clinics, but I'd emphasize what was said above! Some of the specialty blocks get a lot of patients which can make the mornings very busy and hectic, but because of that I was able to practice physical exams/neurolocalizations/heart murmur grading/etc. a million times lol. I've had a few Ross students on my rotations and it sounded like they had no problems getting acclimated here, but that's just based on what they've said to me. I'm happy to talk with you more about my experiences so far if you have any questions