Why so much large animal in vet school?

[kittensmeow]

Why is the DVM curriculum more-or-less equally split between SA and LA, when most vets practice SA? I’m only in first year but at my school there almost seems to be more focus on LA, especially equine. Hardly a lecture passes in any course without some discussion of horses, while I’ve barely heard mention of a cat. We have an entire course devoted to farm animals and an entire week this year is going to be devoted to horses (it’s called Horse Week). Why not a Cat Week? Wouldn’t this be more practical for more students?

I understand that vet schools want students to be knowledgeable about all species, but is it really necessary to devote half the curriculum to horses and other LAs?

And in 4th year we have to do two externships, both of which must be in mixed animal clinics, regardless of what you choose to focus on in your clinical year. This means that even after you've chosen to specialize in SAs, the school is still forcing students to learn more LA medicine. Why?

I mean no disrespect to horses or to anyone who wants to practice LA medicine. I'm just curious to know why this 50/50 LA/SA split still exists in most vet schools.

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[MixedAnimals77]

Why is the DVM curriculum more-or-less equally split between SA and LA, when most vets practice SA? I’m only in first year but at my school there almost seems to be more focus on LA, especially equine. Hardly a lecture passes in any course without some discussion of horses, while I’ve barely heard mention of a cat. We have an entire course devoted to farm animals and an entire week this year is going to be devoted to horses (it’s called Horse Week). Why not a Cat Week? Wouldn’t this be more practical for more students?

I understand that vet schools want students to be knowledgeable about all species, but is it really necessary to devote half the curriculum to horses and other LAs?

And in 4th year we have to do two externships, both of which must be in mixed animal clinics, regardless of what you choose to focus on in your clinical year. This means that even after you've chosen to specialize in SAs, the school is still forcing students to learn more LA medicine. Why?

I mean no disrespect to horses or to anyone who wants to practice LA medicine. I'm just curious to know why this 50/50 LA/SA split still exists in most vet schools.

I would be hesitant to say most vets practice SA especially after you consider once people specialize, industry reps, etc. I think all AVMA accredited schools are a 50:50 split and the main reason is NAVLE it's ~1/2 small animal, 1/4 LA and 1/4 other. The way vet med is currently set up makes it so all species have to be taught ~50:50 especially since our license is general and surprisingly alot of people change sa vs la as they go through school and their careers. I guarantee your LA counterparts feel the exact same about having to sit through all the SA courses. Honestly my class is probably right about 55:45 split if I had to survey them so our education needs to stay general and split-also for those people who are interested in mixed practice. Also you probably haven't gotten to this point in school, but there's alot of technical entwining like your USDA food security modules that allow you to write health certs. You may never be involved in food security as a SA gp but it's a massive part of the LA sector and an important concept to understand even as a SA gp if you ever plan on writing health papers for animals to travel. At this point it would take alot to sort out individual schooling and presents more issues than you might think of on the surface. We had a pretty decent discussion on this a while back on a thread if you go looking for it (idk what it was called atm maybe someone else remembers).

I'm not sure what school you go to, but I would venture a guess they are making you go to a mixed practice because the school already has contracts with those practices and ensures that students can spend time on either side if they want designating more time to one side. (I could be totally wrong but I know there's a semisimilar clinics set up here and that's how it works if you have 0 LA interest then you can spend your time on the SA side.)

My school does not track and does make students take at least 1 eq rotation+/- another eq rotation or LA rotation plus LA overnights so a total of 6 weeks of LA the SA only people have to take. Why? NAVLE, exposure,demand, and how our hospital is set up. On the flip side LA people are mandated 16 weeks of SA.

I encourage you to use your LA classes to try and find similarities and differences between your SA and how you can take some of the ideas from LA and apply them to SA. I encourage you to look at this is using your comparative knowledge otherwise it's probably going to be a long 4 years. You can take the main concepts of evaluating lameness in a horse and apply it to evaluating lameness in a dog. IMO cats and horses have alot in common aka cat/horse rules may apply. As someone interested in both sides I think there is a lot that can be learned from each side and be applied to the other. Just another way of reinforcing the knowledge. One of our old professors had a saying "a mammal is a mammal is a mammal" -they may have their individual variations, but at the end of the day it's a mammal. Dogs GDV is basically an RDA in a cow mechanisms behind why they happen a bit different, but the stomach is still twisted and need surgical intervention. Shelter med is really similar to herd health management.

You definitely are not alone in feeling the way you do, but it's really because of how the industry is set up at this point & NAVLE. It would take ALOT to change it for sure and I'm not sure where one would even begin.

 

[britzen]

Only about 56% of vets in the US are small animal exclusive practitioners. Around 20% are large/equine/mixed and about 25% are outside of clinical practice (including food security... and given that the USDA is the largest public employer of veterinarians in the United States... that's basically all food animal medicine).

To give some context for intended careers of my classmates, less than half of my class is tracking small animal. (I think it's 57 out of 120 ppl).

Once you get past the first year, the focus will probably seem less. Cats didn't get mentioned much my first year because their anatomy is very similar to the dog's, which was the model carnivore for our dissection lab. Cattle and equine have radically different anatomy, so you have to cover them both. Similar species like goats got about as much attention as cats did - you have a model species (cows for goats, dogs for cats) so you dont need to spend much time on them other than to point out differences. First year is very anatomy heavy and basic concept heavy so cats didn't really need to be in the conversation as much. They come up a lot more as we get deeper into internal medicine second and third year because, despite their anatomy, they obviously have different medical problems than dogs.

It also depends on how your school is set up. Small animal trackers here could basically just not do anything large animal related for the last two years of school if they didn't want to. Everyone is required to do one equine and one large animal rotation. So, in two years small animal trackers are required to spend a grand total of 6 weeks on large animal med. (Large animal / equine trackers also have to take at least three small animal rotations. Maybe more... idk cause I'm not tracking any of those).

Even if you did 50/50 SA/LA the first two years of school (which neglects the fact that a lot of stuff applies across species), you'd have spent a grand total of ~25% of your educational time learning about large animals here. When you account for all the other stuff that's in there the first two years (general cardio/neuro/derm/whatever, epidemiology, random ferret/fish/whatever lecture, etc) it's not even that high.

Your degree will allow also allow you to practice medicine on horses or cows or (insert species here) if you want, so the profession has to make sure you actually know something about those species. If you want to trash that from the curriculum, you'd be talking about getting into limited licensure which a lot of vets are opposed to for a lot of different reasons.

 

[Quigly]

Expecting the small animal people to do 2 mixed rotations doesn't seem like that much to ask considering the large animal exclusive students generally have to do 6-8 small animal rotations.

 

[kittensmeow]

Expecting the small animal people to do 2 mixed rotations doesn't seem like that much to ask considering the large animal exclusive students generally have to do 6-8 small animal rotations.

But there is a difference: no SA vet is going to be forced to do LA work on the side to earn a decent living, whereas plenty of LA vets need to do some SA for this reason. This is especially the case with equine - I volunteered with several equine vets and all of them said they had to do cats & dogs to keep their clinic operating financially. Also, a lot of LA vets switch to SA later in their careers due to physical health issues (back pain, etc.), but I've never heard of an SA vet having to switch over to LA because of this. So there is good reason for schools to insist that the LA exclusive students do at least some SA rotations.

Only about 56% of vets in the US are small animal exclusive practitioners. Around 20% are large/equine/mixed and about 25% are outside of clinical practice (including food security... and given that the USDA is the largest public employer of veterinarians in the United States... that's basically all food animal medicine).

This still doesn't explain the immense focus on horses. They aren't a part of the food industry, and last I checked they were among the least common pets (apart from some exotics). I recently saw a chart of pet populations in the US and horses were dead last,

I encourage you to use your LA classes to try and find similarities and differences between your SA and how you can take some of the ideas from LA and apply them to SA.

I'm fine with learning some basic anatomy & physiology of all species and I appreciate that it is very comparative. I just can't help but think it would be more efficient to keep very detailed species/industry-specific subject matter as a part of optional elective courses for upper year students.

 

[supershorty]

This still doesn't explain the immense focus on horses. They aren't a part of the food industry, and last I checked they were among the least common pets (apart from some exotics). I recently saw a chart of pet populations in the US and horses were dead last,

There are upwards of 3.5 million horses in the US, I'm not sure where you're getting this "least common" thing from.

You'll learn things in vet school that won't be applicable to your practice, and that's okay. There's still plenty you can take away from it. I'm going to be a small animal person, but feel like I got the most out of our large animal surgery II class compared to all the other courses in the curriculum.

You can be salty about it or find ways to appreciate it - either way, you'll have to take it (and know it for NAVLE), so you might as well find the positives unless you want to choose not to.

 

[allygator13]

Many specialists also have to treat multiple species, not just small animals, at least in an academic setting. Off the top of my head I can think of radiology, neurology, cardiology, dermatology, theriogenology as specialists who help with multiple cases in both the large and small animal teaching hospitals that I have witnessed. So sure maybe a small animal general practitioner is never going to look at a cow or horse ever again, but with the increasing number of people choosing to specialize, that knowledge is necessary.

 

[kittensmeow]

There are upwards of 3.5 million horses in the US, I'm not sure where you're getting this "least common" thing from.

You'll learn things in vet school that won't be applicable to your practice, and that's okay. There's still plenty you can take away from it. I'm going to be a small animal person, but feel like I got the most out of our large animal surgery II class compared to all the other courses in the curriculum.

You can be salty about it or find ways to appreciate it - either way, you'll have to take it (and know it for NAVLE), so you might as well find the positives unless you want to choose not to.

3.5 million is a very small number relative the number of other species of pets (there are over 95 million pet cats, and about 140 million pet freshwater fish). It's all relative, and that is why horses are the least common pet despite there being several million of them.

I'm not sure what 'salty' means with regards to a person, but it sounds negative. All I've done is ask for an explanation as to why the vet curriculum is the way it is, and suggest that it could perhaps be made more practical- for everyone, not just me and not just SA-tracking students.

 

[britzen]

But there is a difference: no SA vet is going to be forced to do LA work on the side to earn a decent living, whereas plenty of LA vets need to do some SA for this reason. This is especially the case with equine - I volunteered with several equine vets and all of them said they had to do cats & dogs to keep their clinic operating financially. Also, a lot of LA vets switch to SA later in their careers due to physical health issues (back pain, etc.), but I've never heard of an SA vet having to switch over to LA because of this. So there is good reason for schools to insist that the LA exclusive students do at least some SA rotations.

A boatload of SA vets end up not liking their job and wanting to change careers. Last AVMA survey that was done, 30% of veterinarians wanted to change careers. Not like, look for a new job at a different clinic. Straight up leave clinical practice to do something completely different. A lot of those people end up in industry or government. Both of which have to deal with food/fiber animals and equine. (And other species.)

This still doesn't explain the immense focus on horses.

I haven't had a single class related to horses in over 10 months. I won't have a single academic thing to do related to horses for over another year. The only horse thing I intend on doing my last 2.5 years of vet school is my 3 week equine rotation. If I went back through my first few years of lecture, I would guess that less than 10% of my classes were equine specific. I wouldn't consider that an "immense focus on horses" during my education.

Did we have a week where we suffered through a lot of horse leg anatomy and lameness or gut anatomy and colic? Yeah, and I hated it too. I hope to never deal with a lame or colicking horse again once I leave vet school. But it has been overall a very small part of my education. Either your school is very different than mine, which seems unlikely given that they are all accredited by the same agency, or you are missing the forest for the trees because you are still in first year where there is the most horse content.

They aren't a part of the food industry, and last I checked they were among the least common pets (apart from some exotics). I recently saw a chart of pet populations in the US and horses were dead last,

Government vets still have to deal with horses all the time even though they aren't part of the food industry. They can get transboundary animal diseases, they have quarantine requirements for certain diseases that have to be certified and monitored like EIA, there are significant laws related to their welfare, they are used in research, they have wild populations that have to be managed so they don't destroy the environment, etc. I can think of at least five major federal government agencies that deal with them off the top of my head, and none of them are the Food Safety and Inspection Service.

It is also factually incorrect to say they aren't part of the food industry. We don't breed them for meat, but we do export hundreds of thousands of horses to slaughter for food purposes. There are regulations related to using them for food that have to be followed, and if you are one of the veterinarians involved in certifying them for slaughter transport, it's your career on the line if you don't know

U.S. slaughter facilities only closed 13 years ago, and they made it legal for them to operate again just four years after banning it. It's politically unpalatable so no one has made a move to reopen a slaughter plant yet (and there is a lot of politics involved), but my guess is that they will reopen one at some point in the not too distant future because closing them has had downstream welfare effects and because there is money to be made in it.

 

[britzen]

I'm not sure what 'salty' means with regards to a person, but it sounds negative. All I've done is ask for an explanation as to why the vet curriculum is the way it is, and suggest that it could perhaps be made more practical- for everyone, not just me and not just SA-tracking students.

You do seem a little combative, to be honest. Like you're not here to actually consider what's being presented as an answer to your question and you just want to fight about opinions of other people on the forum as to why FA/equine is important to the curriculum. I'm sure that's not your intent, but that is the way your posts are coming across.

If you want to change the curriculum for future students - go for it! Figure out what you would need to do to change accreditation standards, get involved with the AVMA to push the change, and see if you can get it going. If 44% of the veterinarian population is not working in SA exclusively, I think you'll have an uphill battle to get the accrediting body to change its standards to allow SA trackers to do nothing but SA (or SA plus just a very shallow understanding of other species like we get for ferrets, or whatever minor species). Also an uphill battle because you'll be talking to people like the vets and vet students on this forum that have responded to you to say that they think it's not a good idea. But if that's what you think is best for the profession, go see if you can change it.

Also, if you get any say in what mixed practice you can go to for your rotations, interview with different locations. Some may let you work mostly SA while you're there, so just go to those places and then never think about anything but a dog and cat again. (Except for the NAVLE, obvs. You're gonna have to know some things about FA and equine or you won't pass and then you won't have a license to practice any kind of medicine).

 

[JaynaAli]

You have to learn large animal because after you graduate and pass the NAVLE you’ll be licensed to treat all animals. It’s really as simple as that. Doesn’t matter if you choose to never treat a horse, you still could legally, so they need to present that information to you. I’d advise you to take the opportunity to find the parallels between large animal and small...the septic foal isn’t much different than a septic dog on a physiology basis. The LDA cow is basically a dog with a pyloric outflow obstruction. As an educator, the people who have an attitude of “why do I need to learn this I’ll never use it” are tough to work with on clinics and their grades in my rotation (that covered all species) definitely reflect that closedmindedness. Some people are proponents of limited licensure (where you’d only be ‘allowed’ to practice on whatever species you choose to be licensed in), and it sounds like you’d be one of them, but in my opinion that’s unlikely to change soon, if ever, and certainly not without a big period of change.

 

[kittensmeow]

You do seem a little combative, to be honest. Like you're not here to actually consider what's being presented as an answer to your question and you just want to fight about opinions of other people on the forum as to why FA/equine is important to the curriculum. I'm sure that's not your intent, but that is the way your posts are coming across.

If you want to change the curriculum for future students - go for it! Figure out what you would need to do to change accreditation standards, get involved with the AVMA to push the change, and see if you can get it going. If 44% of the veterinarian population is not working in SA exclusively, I think you'll have an uphill battle to get the accrediting body to change its standards to allow SA trackers to do nothing but SA (or SA plus just a very shallow understanding of other species like we get for ferrets, or whatever minor species). Also an uphill battle because you'll be talking to people like the vets and vet students on this forum that have responded to you to say that they think it's not a good idea. But if that's what you think is best for the profession, go see if you can change it.

Also, if you get any say in what mixed practice you can go to for your rotations, interview with different locations. Some may let you work mostly SA while you're there, so just go to those places and then never think about anything but a dog and cat again. (Except for the NAVLE, obvs. You're gonna have to know some things about FA and equine or you won't pass and then you won't have a license to practice any kind of medicine).

Thank you, britzen (and MixedAnimals77), for your comments. All of them have been very instructive and I already feel I have a better understand of the reasoning behind the curriculum. And big thanks for your suggestion re: mixed animal externships!

I definitely didn't intend to appear combative (in fact I tried to avoid this in my original post by stating that no disrespect was intended). In fact, I'm becoming increasingly enamored with cows, and who knows, if I ever summon up the courage to go near a horse I may fall in love with them....or I may continue to avoid anything larger than a cat.

 

[TheGirlWithTheFernTattoo]

I think the reason we spend so much time on horses is that they are so bizarre compared to all of the other species; thus, it takes more time to get the basic understanding in them compared to the "basics" most people are familiar with.

I love horses and enjoy equine med so I don't mind, but I know numerous of my classmates hated the equine-heavy start to this year. Meanwhile I'm absolutely miserable during our dentistry class right now because I never want to to do that again in my life (but a lot of both the small and large people love the class).

My school is a very mixed/rural focused one, so probably almost 50% of students do mixed for at least a few years after grad. Because of that we get a lot of large animal and equine in our curriculum.

My view is that we are expected to have a basic understanding of all species, and since some species are weirder than others it may take more time to gain that understanding and the course hours reflect that.

 

[supershorty]

I'm not sure what 'salty' means with regards to a person, but it sounds negative. All I've done is ask for an explanation as to why the vet curriculum is the way it is, and suggest that it could perhaps be made more practical- for everyone, not just me and not just SA-tracking students.

Listen, I get it. I am a salty person much of the time - I'm cynical and sarcastic. The way your posts read to me is that you're frustrated with this and you wanted to vent about it, more than you actually wanted an answer to your question. And that's okay too - we have a Rant Here thread for that reason in the pre-vet forum. Everyone needs to get things off their chest sometimes.

My program has an entire week that's just focused on birds. It's called Avian Core, and Monday-Friday of that week, it's all birds, all day, 8-5. I'm afraid of birds. I'm not a bird person. Avian core was my least favorite week of vet school and it was really hard to find the motivation to study for its exam. But you know what, birds are on NAVLE. Even though it's highly unlikely that I'll ever practice medicine on a bird, I still had to learn how to do it and had to do things like drawing blood from a quail. And honestly? Birds are pretty neat, even if I'd be perfectly happy never touching one again. And the labs we did were kind of cool, even if I made the mistake of picking a quail instead of a chicken for the live handling lab because I thought the smaller one would be easier (it wasn't).

When I said you can choose to be salty, it's just what it sounds like. Either way, you're going to have to go through your curriculum as it is; even if you managed to effect change such that future students didn't have to take equine coursework or something, it's virtually guaranteed that you will just because of timing. You can be mad and stew on it, but it takes a lot of mental energy. I'd suggest finding the positives in the situation (many of which have been mentioned upthread already) because you're in it anyway, you might as well find what you can take from it and just get through it. Even if it's something as simple as reminding yourself that this will be on NAVLE, gritting your teeth, and figuring out a way to memorize it. Or you might find that horses are pretty interesting because they're weird.

 

[DVMDream]

There really isn't that much large animal in vet school compared to small animal once you get through the entire program. Yes, you have to learn all of it. You can extrapolate information about cows to cats, horses to rabbits, pigs to dogs, etc. Anatomy is different in some ways as is physiology in some ways, but overall things are super similar. Certain diseases in one species are going to be very similar to those in another. You can still apply the information across the board.


Plus, you have no clue where life will take you. Yes, it isn't as common for a vet to move from small animal to large animal or equine but it does happen. Also we have specialties that span across all species.

I never thought I would end up doing what I am doing today. I thought I would be in predominantly small animal clinical medicine my entire career, but I am not. I was for the first few years. While my job now is easily 90% small animal, I do occasionally get a snake/rabbit/rat/guinea pig/bird/horse/cow/etc. Without the baseline knowledge in vet school, there is no way I could navigate helping those species.

Yeah, I wasn't super thrilled about a semester of horses, but I still found ways to relate it to what did interest me in order to hold my attention.

 

[RS1]

This is especially the case with equine - I volunteered with several equine vets and all of them said they had to do cats & dogs to keep their clinic operating financially.

....

This still doesn't explain the immense focus on horses. They aren't a part of the food industry, and last I checked they were among the least common pets (apart from some exotics).

Not sure what equine vets you’re hanging out with, but I’m a successful one who has never set foot in a small animal clinic since vet school and have no intention to...😂

Also, most horses aren’t classified as pets. They’re part of a $6 billion+ industry and considered livestock.

At the end of the day...that attitude will get you nowhere. We took a whole semester class on exotics in vet school. I accidentally ended up in an elective on camelids. It’s all beneficial and applicable to what you end up doing. Whining is not.

 

[britzen]

I accidentally ended up in an elective on camelids.

How does one accidentally end up in an elective on camelids?

 

[yogapony]

Everyone tends to complain "there's too much focus on XXX species" when whatever XXX species is not their primary interest. You will be expected to graduate with knowledge about all of the major species so that you can pass the NAVLE. You should also be able to, as a veterinarian, speak knowledgeably about animals other than your primary practice focus. My practice is almost exclusively equine, and to me (and my LA colleagues) our curriculum felt very small animal-centric. I have ZERO intention of ever entering small animal practice, but that doesn't mean that I can throw my hands up and plead ignorance if someone asks me a small animal question. I recently helped one of the barn dogs receive treatment for IMTP, because one of the grooms happened to ask me what I thought about marks on her belly. You might never work on horses, but you should still know their anatomy/physiology and be able to recognize clinical problems.

 

[finnickthedog]

I have ZERO intention of ever entering small animal practice, but that doesn't mean that I can throw my hands up and plead ignorance if someone asks me a small animal question.

I agree with the rest of what you're saying, but as for this part I think once you're in practice it's totally fair to throw up your hands and plead ignorance about a species you don't work on.

I'm sure I'm not going to forget everything I know about large animals, but I have zero intention of answering questions about them after I graduate.

 

[yogapony]

If someone hands me a cat and asks me to run a glucose curve on it, I'll throw up my hands and direct that person to a small animal vet. But if someone asks me a basic question about their dog or cat's health, I feel like I should be able to at least provide some guidance. You might be surprised by the questions you'll get from clients about other species - I just had a conversation with an owner (of pigs and horses) about dairy cow husbandry. I have another horse owner who breeds Labradors, and we talked about her whelping schedule and vaccine protocols while I'm there to do dentals on her herd. You'll be surprised by the random facts you'll remember down the line in practice.

 

[finnickthedog]

If someone hands me a cat and asks me to run a glucose curve on it, I'll throw up my hands and direct that person to a small animal vet. But if someone asks me a basic question about their dog or cat's health, I feel like I should be able to at least provide some guidance. You might be surprised by the questions you'll get from clients about other species - I just had a conversation with an owner (of pigs and horses) about dairy cow husbandry. I have another horse owner who breeds Labradors, and we talked about her whelping schedule and vaccine protocols while I'm there to do dentals on her herd. You'll be surprised by the random facts you'll remember down the line in practice.

If you're comfortable providing an answer, that's great. (Provided you know your limits, which it sounds like you do). I'm just saying it's also fair to wash your hands of it and decide that no, you're not comfortable answering questions about species that you don't work on. People can ask--I just have no intention of answering.

I think it might also be more common to get these kinds of questions about species you don't generally practice on in large animal than it is in small animal. I've never seen someone roll into a small animal exclusive clinic and casually ask the vet questions about their horse or goat. I'm sure it's happened before, but not commonly.

I'm sure I will remember random facts about horses and cows and the like years down the line, but that doesn't translate to me feeling comfortable answering questions about them.

 

[Quigly]

One other frustration that I will voice with people that have this attitude that large animal has no relevance to them. There are a lot of clinics on the fringes of the urban/suburban settings that have traditionally served livestock producers. 40 years ago these clinics made their income on livestock, but cared for area pets as a service, one that was generally more an inconvience to the clinic than an income stream. At this point many of those clinics have moved to being primarily small animal, but still taking care of the area livestock. As those veterinarians retire and sell their clinics, the new vets come in and make these excuses that they dont have any experience with livestock and arent going to be able to stay current on them (or any other excuse they can come up with to avoid saying they don't think they should be expected to get up in the middle of the night to go pull a calf in the cold). Those clinics quit offering large animal services and leave those producers that have supported the clinic for 50 years out to dry. I've seen a lot of clinics go down that path and it has a tough effect on the area agricultural economy. I say that, however, understanding that this example, like all the other ones previously given, will in no way ever be relevant to you personally.

 

[battie]

A good point one of my favorite production medicine professors always brings up is the case of a community disaster/emergency. He is from the UK and uses the example of FMD and BSE, where when literal millions of animals were being destroyed and it was an all hands on deck situation. He had friends throughout the country asked to help, regardless of what medicine they practiced. And while that may seem like an extreme example, it really isn't. Communities across the US rely on vets in all sorts of disasters, from 9/11 and the care of the cadaver and search and rescue dogs to natural disasters that take out an entire small town, these community catastrophes need literally any vet that can help in any way they can, with whatever animal they are presented with. In those situations, the fact we have such a breadth of knowledge that we can at least try to apply across the board is an absolute gift.

As someone taking the NAVLE on Tuesday and frantically going through Zuku, some of these questions I'm able to answer are because of the first year anatomy/physio/histo/whatever class that I remember the professor being like, "Yeah, this is a thing you should know," for all three of our model species (dog, cow, horse). I'm so glad that someone who knows this info actually taught it to me instead of me having to teach it to myself for a standardized test.

I'll also point out that pet pigs, goats, sheep, and backyard chickens are actually becoming a thing in metropolitan areas. My schools sees a lot more potbelly pigs living their best lives in the actual legit city of Chicago (not the suburbs, but the actual city) than you would think. I've had several friends ask if I'll be their pet goat's or pet chickens' vet post-graduation and return to the metropolitan area I grew up in.

Last, but not least, I will also echo the sentiment that who you are day 1 of vet school is not who you will be walking across the graduation stage. Interests change, life happens, etc. to where what you want now can likely be something you don't want or can't have later on. I am a great example of that. Started out vet school liking a ton of things, but knew I would probs just end up in small animal ER. Then I wanted to be mixed so I could move back to my BFN college town and be their vet. Then got a significant other who does not want to live in BFN, so back to ER. But I also loved the wildlife clinic, so maybe exotics/zoo med. Then reeeeeealllllly liked oncology. But both of those requires internship/residency, which my 133/133 class rank is not really conducive to. And during all these clinical medicine dreams, I have also grown to really love the concept of animal welfare science and the concept of teaching/being a part of the animal welfare academia world (which would also cover all species). So here I am, 1 week out from starting the job hunt, and I'm seriously considering not even going into clinical medicine at all, when I went through the ringer of clinical medicine from small animal ER to mixed animal to zoo medicine to oncology. You just simply don't know who you'll be when you're actually getting ready to join the real world. So you should be as prepared as possible.

 

[Ariel-Li]

Listen, I get it. I am a salty person much of the time - I'm cynical and sarcastic. The way your posts read to me is that you're frustrated with this and you wanted to vent about it, more than you actually wanted an answer to your question. And that's okay too - we have a Rant Here thread for that reason in the pre-vet forum. Everyone needs to get things off their chest sometimes.

My program has an entire week that's just focused on birds. It's called Avian Core, and Monday-Friday of that week, it's all birds, all day, 8-5. I'm afraid of birds. I'm not a bird person. Avian core was my least favorite week of vet school and it was really hard to find the motivation to study for its exam. But you know what, birds are on NAVLE. Even though it's highly unlikely that I'll ever practice medicine on a bird, I still had to learn how to do it and had to do things like drawing blood from a quail. And honestly? Birds are pretty neat, even if I'd be perfectly happy never touching one again. And the labs we did were kind of cool, even if I made the mistake of picking a quail instead of a chicken for the live handling lab because I thought the smaller one would be easier (it wasn't).

When I said you can choose to be salty, it's just what it sounds like. Either way, you're going to have to go through your curriculum as it is; even if you managed to effect change such that future students didn't have to take equine coursework or something, it's virtually guaranteed that you will just because of timing. You can be mad and stew on it, but it takes a lot of mental energy. I'd suggest finding the positives in the situation (many of which have been mentioned upthread already) because you're in it anyway, you might as well find what you can take from it and just get through it. Even if it's something as simple as reminding yourself that this will be on NAVLE, gritting your teeth, and figuring out a way to memorize it. Or you might find that horses are pretty interesting because they're weird.

Every time I see your profile, I laugh about the thought of April and Leslie horrified at that loose possum And good to know that chickens are easier than quails to handle. The only bird I ever handled was a wounded pigeon...and we had to put that poor guy down.