Types of Veterinary Experience

[bee83]

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I am worrying over my lack of experience again, so thought I'd ask for some advice/opinions. I am planning to apply to vet school this fall. My dream is to specialize in zoological medicine, particularly wildlife medicine. I'm really not terribly interested in being a regular small animal vet, and I think my experiences reflect that.
I have only 70 hours shadowing in a small animal vet clinic. I have (or will have) about 300 hours doing just about everything from autoclave to surgery assistance at a trap-neuter-return clinic for feral cats. I will have over 500 hours experience working an internship at a zoo vet hospital. I have 300 non-veterinary experience working at a wildlife clinic. I plan to get in some random days of shadowing a variety of vets including small, large, mixed, exotic vet clinics.
So my question is: should I really push to get in at a standard small animal or mixed practice somewhere, just for the sake of saying that I have a fairly in-depth experience with doing the "normal" stuff? I know it is all good experience and important for whatever I end up doing in the profession, but due to time and money constraints I want to carefully plan where I put my efforts for the next ten months. And I want to know if I should be more worried (i.e., motivated) about getting more small animal clinic experience.
Thank you!

 

[EllieGirl89]

I am worrying over my lack of experience again, so thought I'd ask for some advice/opinions. I am planning to apply to vet school this fall. My dream is to specialize in zoological medicine, particularly wildlife medicine. I'm really not terribly interested in being a regular small animal vet, and I think my experiences reflect that.
I have only 70 hours shadowing in a small animal vet clinic. I have (or will have) about 300 hours doing just about everything from autoclave to surgery assistance at a trap-neuter-return clinic for feral cats. I will have over 500 hours experience working an internship at a zoo vet hospital. I have 300 non-veterinary experience working at a wildlife clinic. I plan to get in some random days of shadowing a variety of vets including small, large, mixed, exotic vet clinics.
So my question is: should I really push to get in at a standard small animal or mixed practice somewhere, just for the sake of saying that I have a fairly in-depth experience with doing the "normal" stuff? I know it is all good experience and important for whatever I end up doing in the profession, but due to time and money constraints I want to carefully plan where I put my efforts for the next ten months. And I want to know if I should be more worried (i.e., motivated) about getting more small animal clinic experience.
Thank you!

It's going to depend upon the school you want to apply to as well as the rest of your application. Do you want to apply to UC Davis? They value depth of experience over breadth. Ohio State? They value depth in one area and then a little bit of breadth in the form of "dabbling" in a few other things.

I'll tell you a little about my experience and you can take from it what you will. I applied this cycle with just 454 hours of veterinary experience and managed to get into Ohio State. I applied with a main interest in equine medicine but I actually have very little experience in equine medicine. The bulk of my equine experience was in my several thousand hours (7,000+) of animal experience with horses. I think that even though I didn't get a lot of equine veterinary experience, my committment to the industry was apparent through my experience raising, training, working with, and caring for my own horses and those of others.

My veterinary experience was only about 120 hours of large animal experience with maybe half of that being horses. The rest of the ~450 hours I had were small animal clinical work, a spay/neuter clinic, and a canine theriogenologist.

So my advice would be take what you can get. It sounds like your numbers are awesome already, so anything you add is just icing on the cake. Do what makes you happy and what you think will help you the most with the schools you hope to apply to. Good luck!

 

[drwildlife]

I'm looking to specialize in zoological medicine as well. Basically what I'm doing is getting depth of experience while working on diversity. I've worked at a zoo for over a year now and I'm trying to get experience working with as many animals as possible. I started out with the African BlackFooted Penguins / birds breeding program and have since moved on to African Elephants. Like I said, diversity because of species and techniques but depth because its all zoo related.

I also have about 1000 hours experience at a rural companion and large animal clinic.

If you want to know more about internships you can do, I'm more than happy to share. Right now I'm at Coltons about to eat so I'm limited in what I can say 🙂

 

[VeganSoprano]

Zoo med is an extremely competitive specialty so it might be worthwhile to think about what other specialties interest you and try to get some experience there. If you don't like general practice, then definitely don't worry about getting in-depth experience there. But be prepared to answer questions about what areas interest you other than zoo med, because you probably will be asked in interviews.

 

[bee83]

Zoo med is an extremely competitive specialty so it might be worthwhile to think about what other specialties interest you and try to get some experience there. If you don't like general practice, then definitely don't worry about getting in-depth experience there. But be prepared to answer questions about what areas interest you other than zoo med, because you probably will be asked in interviews.

Good point. I've been researching other specialties, and I'm really drawn to radiology. It may have something to do with being very visually-minded, with an undergrad degree in photography 😛 I will definitely check out the specialists hospital I know of and see about tagging along with some of the vets there.

 

[drwildlife]

You could always be one of the veterinarians who works at a zoological facility and has a private practice that accepts exotic pets on the side. Or go into research. Those are the two areas I've looked in to.

 

[VeganSoprano]

It sounds like you might also like internal medicine (especially ultrasonography and endoscopy) or cardiology (echocardiography). A cool thing about shadowing these specialists is that when clients aren't in the room, they'll often talk you through what they're seeing.

 

[vetme]

Hey all,
I was cruising on the net and found some info. I think it is a few years old, but It will give you some idea what some of these schools are looking for. Hope this helps

School-Specific Requirements:
CORNELL UNIVERSITY:
No specific minimum. Average applicant worked 1335 experience hours (combined vet and animal)

COLORADO STATE UNIVERSITY:
Average applicant accumulated over 1000 hours with a veterinarian and another 1000 hours working with animals in other capacities

UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI:
Minimum of 40 total experience hours

NORTH CAROLINA STATE UNIVERSITY:
Vet Experience: Minimum of 400 hours
Animal Experience: At least 100 hours or more highly recommended

OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY:
Vet Experience: Must have served with the veterinarian writing your recommendation at least 80 hours

OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY:
No specific minimum hours stated but states "the quality, quantity, and diversity of the experiences are important".

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA:
No specific minimum given but states "exposure to research or clinical veterinary medicine is essential" and will need to be documented extensively in your application.

VIRGINIA-MARYLAND REGIONAL COLLEGE:
No specific minimum. Average applicant worked 400-600 hours with a veterinarian

full document can be seen here: www.bio.davidson.edu/programs/prevet/documents/Veterinary%20School%20Admissions%20Guide.doc

 

[EllieGirl89]

Hey all,
I was cruising on the net and found some info. I think it is a few years old, but It will give you some idea what some of these schools are looking for. Hope this helps

School-Specific Requirements:
CORNELL UNIVERSITY:
No specific minimum. Average applicant worked 1335 experience hours (combined vet and animal)

COLORADO STATE UNIVERSITY:
Average applicant accumulated over 1000 hours with a veterinarian and another 1000 hours working with animals in other capacities

UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI:
Minimum of 40 total experience hours

NORTH CAROLINA STATE UNIVERSITY:
Vet Experience: Minimum of 400 hours
Animal Experience: At least 100 hours or more highly recommended

OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY:
Vet Experience: Must have served with the veterinarian writing your recommendation at least 80 hours

OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY:
No specific minimum hours stated but states "the quality, quantity, and diversity of the experiences are important".

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA:
No specific minimum given but states "exposure to research or clinical veterinary medicine is essential" and will need to be documented extensively in your application.

VIRGINIA-MARYLAND REGIONAL COLLEGE:
No specific minimum. Average applicant worked 400-600 hours with a veterinarian

full document can be seen here: www.bio.davidson.edu/programs/prevet/documents/Veterinary%20School%20Admissions%20Guide.doc

Unless something has changed since I applied this year, I don't think that this is true about Ohio. In the website it specifically says that veterinarians writing your recommendations DO NOT have to be veterinarians that you have worked under. In the same vein, the veterinarian who signs your "80-hour verification form" does NOT have to be one who writes your LOR.

Edit: Yeah, see the guidelines for references here: http://vet.osu.edu/education/references and the guidelines for the 80-hours form here: http://vet.osu.edu/education/veterinary-experience-verification

In the first one it specifically says you are NOT required to have worked in a clinical setting with the veterinarian, and nowhere in the second one does it say that the 80-hours form has to be signed by a vet writing your recommendation. Though it's probably easiest to have a vet writing a recommendation sign your form (I did), just wanted to clear up that it's not required so there was no confusion.

 

[vetme]

Unless something has changed since I applied this year, I don't think that this is true about Ohio. In the website it specifically says that veterinarians writing your recommendations DO NOT have to be veterinarians that you have worked under. In the same vein, the veterinarian who signs your "80-hour verification form" does NOT have to be one who writes your LOR.

Edit: Yeah, see the guidelines for references here: http://vet.osu.edu/education/references and the guidelines for the 80-hours form here: http://vet.osu.edu/education/veterinary-experience-verification

In the first one it specifically says you are NOT required to have worked in a clinical setting with the veterinarian, and nowhere in the second one does it say that the 80-hours form has to be signed by a vet writing your recommendation. Though it's probably easiest to have a vet writing a recommendation sign your form (I did), just wanted to clear up that it's not required so there was no confusion.

Ok, that document was dated 2008 and is a few years old, so it was just a general guide to what the schools were looking for. But thanks for the correction

 

[LetItSnow]

So my question is: should I really push to get in at a standard small animal or mixed practice somewhere, just for the sake of saying that I have a fairly in-depth experience with doing the "normal" stuff? I know it is all good experience and important for whatever I end up doing in the profession, but due to time and money constraints I want to carefully plan where I put my efforts for the next ten months. And I want to know if I should be more worried (i.e., motivated) about getting more small animal clinic experience.
Thank you!

I will pass on what I and another pre-vet student who got rejected last year learned.

She is young (21), works in a vet clinic, and has tons of small animal experience and wants to be a companion-animal vet.

I am older (41), with limited, but varied, experience: some equine shadowing, a fair bit of small animal shadowing, canine rehab experience, and wildlife rehab experience. And a tiny bit of farm vet shadowing along with some summers working on a farm. I also want to be a companion-animal vet.

The director of admissions gave us differing advice: To my friend, the director said "go get more varied experience." She did, and she got an interview this year.

To me, the director said: "Go get more small-animal experience. Forget varied, forget huge numbers, focus on what you want to do." I did, and I got an interview this year.

So I'm not sure what to make of that, other than it appears to me that they take into account - at least somewhat - your 'place' in life. If you're young, it sounds like they're going to want to see that you know what you want to do, but that you've at least poked your nose into other veterinary areas to check it out. If you're a second-career non-trad like me, it appears that they want to see that you have put in the time pursuing exactly what you want to do.

In the end I suspect it's not so much your total number of hours, but whether - and how well - you demonstrate what you learned putting in those hours. Last year when I was rejected, I said very little about what I actually SAW shadowing. This year, I went into great detail about what I saw and learned. Don't just tell them what you did generally: be specific, and be sure to show them that you *learned* something.

 

[sumstorm]

Here is the thing to remember with zoo med; all experience can be funneled into zoo med. Seriously, I have yet to meet a domestic species that does not have an equivalent species in the wild or in the zoo realm. One of my serious short falls as a zoo focused student is horses; if I could go back and do it again, I would get more experience with equine vets, because equines are part of zoos, and/or many of the procedures are similar to things that may be done in zoos. So, looking at what you have done, I'd say get some experience in large animal/equine/food animal. There's a ton of information in those areas that will improve your ability to do zoo vet med and/or exotics vet med. And if you have the ability to tie those experiences (including small animal) into your interests in your PS and your interviews, it will help you stand out as understanding the comprehensiveness of the area of your interest.

I have had some externships with a couple of zoos now as a vet student, and have repeatedly heard compliments that I have pursued oppurtunities in food animal and small animal as well. Generally, the attitude is 'skills are skills; develop them in the animals that are well known and better understood before trying to transfer them into a species where there may be a single expert in the entire world.' And there are a lot of folks who do have the attitude of 'its wildlife/zoo spp/exotics or nothing' and that can be questioned. I know a resident left here without completing his program (before my time) and part of the reason he left was that he alienated himself among the faculty by saying that he would 'waste' his DVM if he couldn't find a position in zoo med, because he wouldn't be willing to work in any other position.

 

[kaydubs]

Here is the thing to remember with zoo med; all experience can be funneled into zoo med. Seriously, I have yet to meet a domestic species that does not have an equivalent species in the wild or in the zoo realm. One of my serious short falls as a zoo focused student is horses; if I could go back and do it again, I would get more experience with equine vets, because equines are part of zoos, and/or many of the procedures are similar to things that may be done in zoos. So, looking at what you have done, I'd say get some experience in large animal/equine/food animal. There's a ton of information in those areas that will improve your ability to do zoo vet med and/or exotics vet med. And if you have the ability to tie those experiences (including small animal) into your interests in your PS and your interviews, it will help you stand out as understanding the comprehensiveness of the area of your interest.

I have had some externships with a couple of zoos now as a vet student, and have repeatedly heard compliments that I have pursued oppurtunities in food animal and small animal as well. Generally, the attitude is 'skills are skills; develop them in the animals that are well known and better understood before trying to transfer them into a species where there may be a single expert in the entire world.' And there are a lot of folks who do have the attitude of 'its wildlife/zoo spp/exotics or nothing' and that can be questioned. I know a resident left here without completing his program (before my time) and part of the reason he left was that he alienated himself among the faculty by saying that he would 'waste' his DVM if he couldn't find a position in zoo med, because he wouldn't be willing to work in any other position.

Thanks for the advice, sumstorm!! If you wouldn't mind, could you tell me more about yourself (either in this post or PM)? Are you at NC State?

 

[drwildlife]

Just thought I would share some advice I heard at the Exotics Symposium yesterday. One of the speakers had a lecture titled "How to Become A Zoo Vet." At the very beginning he said, "if you want to be a zoo vet, you can be a zoo vet." These were the most amazing words I've ever heard someone say. Hopefully they can give you some inspiration as well.

Back to veterinary experience, as some of you might have heard me say at the symposium, I was just offered a research position at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in the Summer. I am extremely excited about this and many have said this should really help out my vet applications in the fall. What do you guys think?

 

[kaydubs]

Just thought I would share some advice I heard at the Exotics Symposium yesterday. One of the speakers had a lecture titled "How to Become A Zoo Vet." At the very beginning he said, "if you want to be a zoo vet, you can be a zoo vet." These were the most amazing words I've ever heard someone say. Hopefully they can give you some inspiration as well.

Back to veterinary experience, as some of you might have heard me say at the symposium, I was just offered a research position at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in the Summer. I am extremely excited about this and many have said this should really help out my vet applications in the fall. What do you guys think?

Woah, that gives me hope. Cool guy 😀 I say go for the research position, drwildlife! I'm sure it will be an awesome experience regardless!!!