I absolutely do not agree...first of all, moonpaw hasn't worked with large animals, so how does she know thats not what she wants to go into? secondly, even if its not something she's interested in, the only way to find out is to try it. it's so foolish to go into vet school with a predetermined career path, because you really never know what might happen.
A lot of people get to vet school and join clubs etc. about the species they are less familiar with. If you do not plan on attending a school that tracks, you will have to take courses in food/lab/equine regardless of if you plan to work on them or not. Basically there will be plenty of chances to see if you want to do LA once you get to vet school. I know several ppl who did "switch" in vet school....apparently the equine units/instructors are notorious for making people want to work with them.
The reason I said I wouldn't freak out not having a ton of veterinary LA experience is b/c I know a lot of people who have and who went through very drastic and often expensive measures (driving 2+ hours to a clinic, temporarily relocating, etc.) to get some LA xp and regreted it b/c they lost time they wanted to be doing SA or other non-LA experience and/or had their grades suffer.
When I wrote my post, I wasn't considering schools that track. I'm not sure how rigid those curriculums are in terms of exposure to other species, but you're going to have to know all species for the boards, so I'm guessing there is some cross over. If the programs are pretty strict then it probably is more important to get some LA experience before vet school, but again I wouldn't freak out about it, especially if you really really think that SA is really for you. Yes people do change, but an equal or greater proportion of people stick fairly closely to what they originally planned on working with. There is often a decent decline in grades/class attendence for the non-SA units b/c all LA people pretty much do need to know the nuts and bolts of SA, but SA people who don't plan to touch a cow or a horse for the rest of their life really don't need the LA units (except for boards info).
I just heard a lecture yesterday about a vet who planned on working on dairy cattle, and ended up being the leading hollywood vet for movie sets...so from being at vet school for only a few short weeks, the one piece of advice i can give pre vets is keep your options open! working with large animals is really fun! and, the more varied experience you have,
I don't think I know a single vet who has worked at the same practice from right out of school and I know several who have switched feilds, but none of the switches was from SA to LA.
Many of the switches happened b/c of economic/job stability concerns. Usually this means a move from SA to something more corporate or industry. I personally know switches from SA to research, lab animal, pet food products, and teaching. In a lot of these cases the switch ws made b/c they needed a less demanding job (time wise) and better medical for their kids. I think the person I knew at Iams worked 3 days a week. The people I knew who went into teaching did so (and one has a set plan to do so) so that they could send their kids through school for free. People commonly move from LA to SA b/c as they got older and/or experienced various medical problems they really didn't have the strength or stamina to do LA anymore. I also know a few people that were basically forced from LA to SA b/c a LA crippled them.
The other reason people often switch around, usually within LA and usually with cattle, is b/c of regional changes in the industry. I know someone that did dairy for years (until all the daries shut down), then beef until there were not more of them also, and now does FDA meat inspection (He admitted that part of the change there was also related to better benefits, regular hours, and more time with kids)
the better your app looks. so moonpaw, don't get it into your head that cats and dogs are the only animals you should have experience with! you (usually) need to be much more varied than that to have a chance at getting in.
Again, everyone says this and I'm not sure how true it really is. There probably are some univeristies...especially those in less-rural areas that really want people that plan to do LA, simply b/c the majority of their applications are more SA oriented already. In someplace like TX/OK/KS etc. wanting to do LA is much more common simply b/c these are the states where all the LAs are and more of the applicants grew up with them and want to work with them.
DVM'08 (who FYI who almost always disagrees with me) will advocate playing the adcom system and telling them whatever they want to hear. That's obviously your choice, but like I said, I'm really not convinced, at least for every school, that having LA xp really sets you apart.
Again, it would be good if you knew how to get around horses and cows but if you can't the vet school does understand this and they will teach you. Yes, if they tell you to grab the Angus bull and you bring them a Holstein cow with it's halter on upside down, they will laugh at you. If you call all chestnut and bay horses "brown" and lead a horse on his right side, people will laugh at you. These aren't mean laughs, just people acknowledging that you're proabably going to be the person that takes care of their dogs and cats.
If you weren't brought up with LAs in your life, you're not going to know as much as those that did. Additionally there is a whole horse-people and cow-people culture (and an alpaca-people culture, and a swine-people cutlures etc etc)....lol and the cow-people cutlure is really different b/w dairy and beef. I'm not saying that there isn't a SA-people culture, just that most people have already been exposed to it.
I hope that helps/clarifies.
Thanks all!
