Vet experience or Work history!?

[Barnaby]

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If my full-time job involves research animals (supervised by an MD/PhD), is this vet experience or employment history? How best to denote this on the app itself?

I spend probably 10-20 hours of my week actually using/working on animals, the rest of the time is tissue culture (non-animal).

Do I split the hours into vet experience AND employment history thereby saying "10 hours/week vet, 30 hours/week work"? Seems like it would look less good to not have my full-time job look full-time. Do I double-dip? "10 hours/week vet, 40 hours/week work? Conundrum!

Was anyone who applied this year in a similar boat? Research technicians? Tangentially animal-involved employees?

Thanks in advance for your wise advice oh sage forum contributers.

 

[VAgirl]

Vet experience because it's under a PhD and is with animals. Just list under vet, not under employment. I know that sounds weird, but that's the best way to do it. Vet experience hours are more important than employment hours, anyway. Though perhaps in your description of it you could just include something about "full time employment" which will help them know the context.

 

[Barnaby]

BTW, Vagirl, I love your avatar. Those cats, they crack me up.

 

[Steelmagghia]

One of my apps had me split that up into vet, animal, and work experience. That would be considered animal experience because it involved animals but was not acutally under a DVM. Vet experience was any experience under a DVM (paid or not), and work experience was paid work which did not involve animals.

 

[pressmom]

One of my apps had me split that up into vet, animal, and work experience. That would be considered animal experience because it involved animals but was not acutally under a DVM. Vet experience was any experience under a DVM (paid or not), and work experience was paid work which did not involve animals.

VMCAS specifically states that if it is under the direction of a PhD scientist, it is considered veterinary experience.

 

[SweeTeaPie]

VMCAS specifically states that if it is under the direction of a PhD scientist, it is considered veterinary experience.

Yup! When I applied, I listed my work experience as a research technician under Veterinary Experience. Period. Don't divide your time. In fact you can call some of the schools your applying to, and they'll probably tell you the same thing. That's what I was told...

 

[Pandacinny]

Definitely vet experience. I made the mistake of listing my research work with a professor under work experience my first time applying and nobody seemed to notice it at all. My second time, I put it under vet experience and got lots of questions on it during my interview. Could be a coincidence, but still.

 

[Barnaby]

Very helpful everyone- thanks for the suggestions and personal insights. Yet again, SDN comes to the rescue. 😛