Hi there!
1) So we have three primary treatment crews that allow you to work at the VTH throughout the year (small animal, large animal, and wildlife). There are some other opportunities available, but these are the most common, though there's an application process to become a part of them. Once you're in, there's a pretty reasonable time commitment- small animal treatment crew, for example, asks for 6 hours a week (4 shifts a month) and then one on call shift/month. Small animal and large animal positions are paid, pretty sure wildlife treatment crew is the only one that is not.
2) So outside of things like anatomy lab where you're hands on dissecting specimens (small animal first semester, large animal second), our first semester we also had a course called Physical Diagnosis. In this course, people were introduced to how to handle large animals (because many people in the class weren't familiar), as well as how to do basic physical exams on small & large animals (horse, cow, sheep, goat, dog, cat). So we were really hitting the ground running with getting our hands on animals. I'm only a few weeks into my second semester so can't really speak much about moving forward, but it's been a good start so far!
3) We briefly touch on exotics throughout classes like Bacteriology, etc when relevant. As far as truly focusing on it, there's a Zoo & Wildlife Medicine elective in second semester of first year for those interested. I think there are also one or two more exotics-focused electives in second year, though I cannot remember exactly what they are at the moment. Then obviously once you're into clinics you can take exotics rotations. If you're interested in exotics, I definitely recommend Wildlife Treatment Crew! They get to do a lot of hands on work with the wildlife that get brought into the VTH and because they're in the exotics department, they get to know faculty and staff over there/often get to be around for procedures and treatments on non-wildlife cases!
www.aavmc.org
