What is an "average" day like for an equine vet?

[unicornalert]

A little backstory...I got my undergrad in something completely unrelated to medicine and took a few years off of school to travel and give myself a break before applying to grad school. Taking a few years off has made me realize I don't want to work in the industry previously planned and am really considering become an equine vet with a specialty in reproduction. The debt is a little terrifying as well as the time spent finishing my prereqs and getting my GPA up before I can even apply...but to me it would be worth it if I could wake up every morning and excited about having a career that I am extremely passionate about. My only issue is surgery. I just don't know if I'm cut out for surgery. I don't know if I can handle it and I don't want to spend my days in a room cutting horses open...

So equine vets, what is your "average" day actually like as an equine vet (where you live would be helpful as well)? How many hours a week do you work? How long did it take you to become a vet? Any advice? Is there a way that I can still become an equine vet without loads of surgery or does that just come with the territory? I don't want to get into my third year of school and realize that this is also something I can't do. Thanks

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[Coquette22]

The vast majority of equine vets don't "cut horses open". I think you're confusing a run of the mill equine vet with a specialist. For most equine vets, surgery is limited to castrations, laceration repeairs, tooth extractions, and maybe some eye enucleations. Full anesthesia, abdominal surgeries, tendon repairs, etc in an operating room are only done by specialists who will usually be board certified large animal surgeons working in speciality facilities.

 

[KCgophervet]

I think it's pretty obvious what your first step here needs to be: shadow an equine vet. In fact, shadow multiple equine vets if you get the chance. You'll need veterinary experience hours to apply for vet school anyway and it's the best way to see if this profession is really something you want to get into.

 

[Minnerbelle]

The vast majority of equine vets don't "cut horses open". I think you're confusing a run of the mill equine vet with a specialist. For most equine vets, surgery is limited to castrations, laceration repeairs, tooth extractions, and maybe some eye enucleations. Full anesthesia, abdominal surgeries, tendon repairs, etc in an operating room are only done by specialists who will usually be board certified large animal surgeons working in speciality facilities.

You mean you don't go stable to stable chopping open colics, and like plating femoral fractures? How boring.


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile app

 

[Coquette22]

You mean you don't go stable to stable chopping open colics, and like plating femoral fractures? How boring.

Ew.... Surgery..... Gross.

 

[quantized]

Average day:
5am: Woken up by tech for stupid question that they could have answered without waking me up if they had @#$%ing thought for 2 sec about their question
630am: go check on my patients
8am-9am: rounds
9am-6pm: Run around like an idiot, block all the things, teach students, teach students to block all the things, etc
6pm-7pm: Call clients
7pm-8pm: crossfit
8pm-10pm: Eat and drink my feelings
10pm: Cry in the shower about how I'm 35 and can't afford to fix my car while all my non-vet friends have "weekends" and "houses" and "vacations"
12am: Go to sleep and get ready for another glorious day in the life of!
2am: Get woken up by the same damn tech again. One of these days, I may murder her.

Living the dream.

More serious edit (although the above is pretty accurate, stupid POS car): Equine vets work 7 days a week. It sucks. You might think it will be okay and I'm being melodramatic because that's what I thought, but it turns out that it actually does really suck. Pay is balls. Surgery.....eh it depends on what you do. If you really want to do repro as a specialty, you need to do a rotating equine/LA internship, which will require you to scrub in to a decent amount of surgeries. You don't have to like it. Plenty of medicine people get through their internships just fine. Repro involves some surgery too depending on where you are - our repro service does colpotomies and such. If you want to do GP, most do an internship because it's the standard. Simple field surgeries like lacerations and castrations, you'd probably have to get over your squeamishness on those.

 

[shortnsweet]

Average day:
5am: Woken up by tech for stupid question that they could have answered without waking me up if they had @#$%ing thought for 2 sec about their question
630am: go check on my patients
8am-9am: rounds
9am-6pm: Run around like an idiot, block all the things, teach students, teach students to block all the things, etc
6pm-7pm: Call clients
7pm-8pm: crossfit
8pm-10pm: Eat and drink my feelings
10pm: Cry in the shower about how I'm 35 and can't afford to fix my car while all my non-vet friends have "weekends" and "houses" and "vacations"
12am: Go to sleep and get ready for another glorious day in the life of!
2am: Get woken up by the same damn tech again. One of these days, I may murder her.

Living the dream.

More serious edit (although the above is pretty accurate, stupid POS car): Equine vets work 7 days a week. It sucks. You might think it will be okay and I'm being melodramatic because that's what I thought, but it turns out that it actually does really suck. Pay is balls. Surgery.....eh it depends on what you do. If you really want to do repro as a specialty, you need to do a rotating equine/LA internship, which will require you to scrub in to a decent amount of surgeries. You don't have to like it. Plenty of medicine people get through their internships just fine. Repro involves some surgery too depending on where you are - our repro service does colpotomies and such. If you want to do GP, most do an internship because it's the standard. Simple field surgeries like lacerations and castrations, you'd probably have to get over your squeamishness on those.

That's actually pretty accurate if you want to specialize...even for us medicine people. Minus the blocking things for me nowadays...

Private practice associates *might* be a little better off, but you still need to do an intern year.
And equine vets don't get paid well. You do it if you love it, but even then there are days you question it.