VEG NERD program ?

[breezywonton]

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Does anyone have any insight on the VEG NERD program? My main goal is to go into shelter med but the shelter vet i work for suggested working in emergency for a bit before going into shelter to gain confidence/crisis management. i’ve heard mixed reviews regarding VEG doctors, so i’m unsure if it’s something i want to pursue. or are there any other ER programs similar to what VEG does? or should i go for an internship?

 

[JaynaAli]

I don’t know anything specific about the program, but be sure you know exactly how much of a commitment they require after the program…most of those things require that you work for them for a certain time period after the program ends. Not sure how long but if it’s more than a year and you don’t think er is your ultimate goal, it may be better to consider an internship with a shorter commitment instead.

VEG seems to be either loved or hated and not much in between but I don’t have personal experience with them. I believe BluePearl also has a similar program and also maybe Thrive, so if you’re looking for a similar type program with a different company they exist.

I’d recommend you talk to other shelter vets and see what they think too; to me it seems like the caseloads and budgets and everything would be quite different in shelter med vs specialty er, but that could be naive of me and I’d definitely defer to people in those fields. After my internship I was comfortable treating a lot of emergencies, but that doesn’t translate over to common GP stuff super often and I worry shelter is similar.

 

[bernerluvah]

All the VEGs near me are staffed by relief vets and new grads. That would be a terrible learning environment because there are no experts and no one to take ownership of mentoring you. It's one of the few ER hospitals that has no specialists on staff. My experience getting records from VEG is that they spent a whole lot of the client's money but didn't always practice good medicine. A few months ago I had a follow up for a cat who went to VEG for decreased appetite/weight loss. They did a full Chem/CBC/T4/UA, chest and abdominal rads, and an abdominal ultrasound which were all normal and came to me for a second opinion. About ten seconds into the PE I saw the cat had horrible, painful stomatitis. It was an exam room diagnosis that required only my eyes to see. After full mouth extractions that cat was eating like a champ!

 

[battie]

The big thing to keep in mind is you go where you're sent. You don't really get a say as far as I've been told by folks who tried or did the nerd program. And then you don't necessarily get to stay in that hospital after the training period. Otherwise, their training program is unlikely to be any better or worse than any of the others (Blue Pearl, NVA come to mind). You local leadership and direct in-hospital mentors are going to have the biggest influence on your learning.

All the VEGs near me are staffed by relief vets and new grads. That would be a terrible learning environment because there are no experts and no one to take ownership of mentoring you.

This is a pretty important point and something you'd want to clarify prior to signing a contract.

However, I don't think the following are unfair criticisms of VEG.

It's one of the few ER hospitals that has no specialists on staff.

My experience getting records from VEG is that they spent a whole lot of the client's money but didn't always practice good medicine.

My ERs don't have any specialists on staff, but one of my local VEGs does (the only one who does the nerd program). My hospital still does really good medicine. Likewise, misdiagnosis is not unique to veg at all. Every doctor is going to miss something some day; I can think of a few cases where I missed something off the top of my head.

It's like the criticism of Banfield in the GP world. I had a phenomenal work up/transfer from a Banfield doctor who did what she could in house until she figured she was out of her depth and sent her patient somewhere with 24hr care and ultrasound capabilities.

 

[pp9]

All the VEGs near me are staffed by relief vets and new grads. That would be a terrible learning environment because there are no experts and no one to take ownership of mentoring you.

I have had a rotating intern quit her VEG program (and start a rotating at BP) for this reason, but that's just one person. It clearly does happen this way, though.

My experience getting records from VEG is that they spent a whole lot of the client's money but didn't always practice good medicine.

I'm curious to know what area you work in, because I'd say the same thing. Not so much that they practiced 'bad' medicine, but...

The following is specific to the VEG locations that were near me at the time I was in ER FT:

My big issues with VEG is that they charged the same amounts as we did for specialty-level work, and also refused to refer until the eleventh hour. Those VEGs pushed their ER doctors to do anything and everything. Example: spending 10k on a septic abdomen, only to then say 'yeah now it's going to need a criticalist because it didn't magically bounce back right away and we don't have staff/skills to manage multiple CRIs, go to BP, best of luck.' That wasn't a one-off situation, we were taking horrible transfers from them on a very regular basis. That's not to say their DVMs weren't skilled necessarily, but that they made a serious habit of biting off more than they could chew, whether it be do to availability of highly trained techs in their ICU, or even if it really was a lack of DVM training.

Took more 2am calls than I can count where the VEG DVM was in literal tears asking for help on how to manage something. They were definitely not all new grads, some I knew personally had more years in than I did but weren't comfortable with the very critical/unstable stuff. They 100% wanted their ER docs to play criticalist. It was very clear that their culture was to not refer out, no matter how underwater the DVM was with the case.

When you've been sitting on a steadily declining patient for 2 days and send it to me when it's half dead and the owners are now out of money, I have an issue with that. When your DVM is afraid to refer something because of backlash, I have an issue with that. When you are pushing a new grad to solo cut an extremely unstable septic abdomen a week into her career, and she calls me crying in the OR while she's scrubbed in, I have an issue with that.

I don't know if all VEGs are like that, they probably aren't. The market area I was in though seemed to have some serious issues though, considering how many specialists (BP or not) we had in that market they could refer to. This was for 2019-2022, so things may be different. They've also opened up a new location and took a BP doc as their medical director, who I personally would think would not be putting vets and patients in these positions, but idk for sure.

I believe BluePearl also has a similar program

BP's EmERge imo is a really good 'bootcamp-esque' program that I can vouch for, but yes, be mindful of your commitment and where they want to send you. Several of the EmERge grads I worked with as a rotating and then FT BP ER wanted to leave or move sooner than their commitment was up and could not.