Veterinary Experience- what qualifies?

[westpoloplayer]

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Hey, looking for some help here. I've worked for about 2 years at my university's large animal vet hospital but I'm not sure whether that counts as veterinary experience or just general animal experience? Anyone know?

The work was primarily feeding animals, cleaning pens, moving horses/cattle around, cleaning and disinfecting surgical suites, working in the isolation unit, replacing the fistulated cow's plug after it fell out for the 2,582nd time, etc.

Thanks!

 

[AuburnPreVet]

There is a bit of grey area between the vmcas experience distinctions. If it was under the guidance/supervision of a vet, I considered it veterinary experience. Based on what you listed, I would consider it vet experience.

 

[pressmom]

I agree with AuburnPreVet. If it was under the supervision of a vet, it was veterinary experience. No vet involved--animal experience.

 

[anc84]

I agree with the others that it is kind of a grey area, but my thought is that most of the other people not asking the advice of this forum (or other forums like this if they exist) would just put it as vet experience because they are employed by a vet. So, I would also put it as vet experience since most of your competition (yes, the other applicants are competition) will be classifying that as vet experience. Although, if you have tons of other vet experience, I wouldn't worry about it and just add it as animal experience. If you describe exactly what your responsibilities were, then it's not as though you're lying- you just think it should be under vet experience. Anyway, those are just my thoughts.

 

[Moonpaw]

I'm sort of in the same boat. Unfortunately for me though, that's about all the "vet" experience I have right now.
My first was when I worked as a kennel keeper/vet's assistant at a small animal hospital. I did plenty of cage cleaning, dog walking, etc., but I also was assisting the vet both in the exam room and the treatment/surgery prep room (but not in actual surgery).
The other time is when I was a "recovery tech" at a large shelter. I extubated animals, watched them while they recovered, and assisted the techs during surgery prep and other random times. I wasn't under the direct supervision of a vet, but would it still count as 'vet' experience?

 

[pressmom]

Your second experience with the extubation and such I would count as animal experience. When I volunteered in wildlife rehab, there was technically a vet present part of the time, but 9 times out of 10 I was working under the fellows, interns and rehab coordinator, so I counted it as animal. But I had PLENTY of vet experience. I ended up with 3 vet (I think) and 3 animal. So it kind of made it equal (but not in hours.)

 

[westpoloplayer]

Hmm, so it sounds like it could go either way. The reason I asked was because it is such a large number of hours ~1500 hours. I would LOVE to have that many more hours under vet experience but I also don't want the application committee to think I am misrepresenting myself or my experience. Edited to add: I do feel like I learned some important vet-type things from working at the hospital...lots of infectious disease protocol and emergency procedures (what happens to a horse when injected in the artery vs. vein = not pretty!)

On a related note, how do you quantify vet experience outside of actively shadowing a vet? I ask because I have had a huge amount of vet experience through jobs in the horse industry and with my own horses (which are SO accident prone) that I haven't kept track of numerically. Do you just do a general estimate or should I start listing out procedures we've done and the rough amount of hours they took as far as I can remember them?

Thanks a lot!

 

[anc84]

I did estimates for most of the numbers. Some were exact, but most estimates. For example, one particular country vet, I shadowed him for a full 10 hour day but then also assisted him on some housecalls to the horse sanctuary I was interning at, so I estimated 15 hours for that vet. It's probably pretty close, but an estimate nonetheless. Also, the vet that I interned at for a year, I just estimated completely. I averaged about 40 hours a week and then just multiplied it by the weeks... So, if you know the vet has been out to see your horses X amount of times (and you assisted him or at least learned from observing and asking questions) and he/she's usually there for about 3 hours (or whatever it happens to be in your case), then just multiply those and guess. I'd just give an explanation of the things you observed or things you learned and the adcoms can decide how valuable it is. Also, if you mention learning in these environments in your personal statement, they might see it as more valuable. In my personal, I talked alot about my diverse experience since I've had contact with many different types of vets and in many countries, so the vet that I only dealt with for about 15 hours was shown to teach me many different methods and approaches to veterinary medicine than I had seen before.

 

[pressmom]

When I didn't keep good track of my hours (like I missed a week or two of keeping track), I estimated from other weeks. What I did do to keep track was: I kept a calendar on my computer (for me iCal, for someone with a PC maybe Outlook's calendar), and kept the usual number of hours on the calendar and if I remembered change, lets say the usual 3 to 4, if I happened to stay 4.

What I wish I had done: Kept a log in a notebook next to the front door and whenever I walked in, written down say, 5 hours at X AH or 3 hours at Y wildlife rehab center and totaled them every 2 or 3 weeks. This would've made filling out the VMCAS so much easier! Maybe this will work for somebody on here that has a year or two left.

 

[Angelo84]

[/quote]On a related note, how do you quantify vet experience outside of actively shadowing a vet? I ask because I have had a huge amount of vet experience through jobs in the horse industry and with my own horses (which are SO accident prone) that I haven't kept track of numerically. Do you just do a general estimate or should I start listing out procedures we've done and the rough amount of hours they took as far as I can remember them?

Thanks a lot! [/quote]

I believe on the VMCAS it states that you can't count hours for treating your own animals. As far as the jobs go I would list them as animal experience as they are not directly under a vet and explain in the summary area what you did. I kept a log book of my experiences which was very helpful to calculate time but if you kept a concistant schedule you could also figure it out that way. Ie 8 hr days, three times a week for 8 weeks.

 

[silverelf]

I believe on the VMCAS it states that you can't count hours for treating your own animals.

you can if you had a farm...you're not allowed to count dogs/cats. i had 2000 hours on my farm milking, shearing, lambing/kidding, etc and that all counted...but you do have to put it down as animal experience, definitely not veterinary experience

 

[silverelf]

also, just working in a vet hospital counts as veterinary experience...i had 1100 hours as a receptionist in a vet clinic, and was told by several schools that i should have listed it under "vet experience" and not "work experience". oops

 

[JIKJen124]

According to CSU, I should have counted my 15 years of competative horseback riding as Animal Experience... I wasn't sure, and because the number of hours I estimated seemed so high, I put it as an extracurricular activity. I still got into 4 schools, but maybe it would have made a difference for CSU... Just something to keep in mind.