Vet Experience or Animal Experience?

[mnnatio]

I currently work at a small animal general practice vet clinic. I am a kennel attendant, and I mainly care for patients after their surgeries, so we feed them and clean their cages when they go home. We occasionally have boarding patients but they are usually boarding for medical reasons and we are also in charge of meds. I get pulled to help restrain from time to time, and we often consult the vets directly about what food to feed the patients. Technically the vets are my direct bosses, but there is also a vet tech who is our "kennel boss". Multiple people have told me that this counts as vet experience, and many have told me it doesn't. Please help.

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[JaynaAli]

This is kind of a grey zone and I think you can justify both. I’d potentially consider reaching out to a couple of your top schools and seeing if they have a recommendation? I mean as long as you explain in the description what you do, even if the schools feels like you characterized it “wrong”, they’ll still see the experience and judge it for what it’s worth. But in my opinion the purpose of vet experience is to see the day to day life of a vet and make sure you understand challenges of the field. And from what you describe, it doesn’t sound like you’re getting a lot of time with the vets and seeing what they do, but there is still value in just being in a clinic too. So I’d view is as more animal/light vet experience probably.

 

[mnnatio]

This is kind of a grey zone and I think you can justify both. I’d potentially consider reaching out to a couple of your top schools and seeing if they have a recommendation? I mean as long as you explain in the description what you do, even if the schools feels like you characterized it “wrong”, they’ll still see the experience and judge it for what it’s worth. But in my opinion the purpose of vet experience is to see the day to day life of a vet and make sure you understand challenges of the field. And from what you describe, it doesn’t sound like you’re getting a lot of time with the vets and seeing what they do, but there is still value in just being in a clinic too. So I’d view is as more animal/light vet experience probably.

Thank you for the reply! I will say, the clinic itself is very small, and the kennels are set up right next to the surgery rooms, and we often go up to the front where the exam rooms are. I definitely see the vets interacting with staff, entering their notes, and talk to clients. We also have 7 vets, in a small clinic, so I always have my eyes on one of them doing something while working lol. This is why I am leaning more towards vet experience, but I definitely will talk to some of my top schools! Would you reccommend emails the admissions or calling them?

 

[JaynaAli]

Thank you for the reply! I will say, the clinic itself is very small, and the kennels are set up right next to the surgery rooms, and we often go up to the front where the exam rooms are. I definitely see the vets interacting with staff, entering their notes, and talk to clients. We also have 7 vets, in a small clinic, so I always have my eyes on one of them doing something while working lol. This is why I am leaning more towards vet experience, but I definitely will talk to some of my top schools! Would you reccommend emails the admissions or calling them?

I’d wait a couple more weeks until things slow down with waitlist movement for the incoming class then probably email. Then if you don’t get a reply after a week or two, call. But this is a crazy time of year for an admissions worker.

 

[WildZoo]

I actually think this is pretty clearly vet experience, based on how AAVMC describes the categories. While ideal vet experience is more closely tied to the day to day work of vets as Jayna described, this is work in a veterinary setting where you are caring for patients receiving medical care and your supervisors are vets.

From the applicant guide:

Animal Experience (no Veterinarian involved):
Animal Experiences include farm and ranch experience, 4-H
membership, animal training, or similar activities that were
not under the supervision of a veterinarian.
[...]
Veterinary Experience (with a Veterinarian):
Veterinary Experience includes any veterinary clinical,
agribusiness, or health science experiences that took
place under the supervision of a veterinarian.

As a side note though, because it will be useful for you personally, I would recommend talking to your vets about spending some time shadowing them if you can.

 

[mnnatio]

I actually think this is pretty clearly vet experience, based on how AAVMC describes the categories. While ideal vet experience is more closely tied to the day to day work of vets as Jayna described, this is work in a veterinary setting where you are caring for patients receiving medical care and your supervisors are vets.

From the applicant guide:


As a side note though, because it will be useful for you personally, I would recommend talking to your vets about spending some time shadowing them if you can.

Thank you for the reply! Yes I got about 50 hours shadowing various vets at the practice before I was hired, and I am going to continue shadowing/working there over the summer!