Yet another question about experience!

[SaintSamson]

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So I feel good about the amount of private practice SA vet experience I have and I have a lot of animal experience with dogs/cats/birds/goats/etc, but I have no other vet experience beyond the SA private practice.
I am applying to a research internship working either with musk ox or wildlife, so hopefully I get one of those positions.
I later plan to shadow an equine vet, an equine reproduction specialist, a SA surgeon (i.e. does surgeries that are more complicated than spay/neuter/growth removal), and a SA internal medicine specialist (chemotherapy, endoscopy, etc).
Anyways, I've horseback ridden since I was very young and have many hours grooming/mucking/cleaning/riding, but not much with younger horses or training horses. My instructor is looking for a working student to help lunge and assist with starting young horses. I could only do it 1-2x a week, but my question is do you think this would be beneficial to my experience? Or do you think my time would be better spent shadowing vets? This would revolve more around training/behavior instead of just learning to ride, and possibly assisting at shows (he's a popular HJ judge on the west coast).
Would love to hear the thoughts on this 🙂

 

[lailanni]

If it's something you'd really like to do (and not just to put it on your app) then you should go for it! If you're considering it only because you'd like something else to list, then maybe your time would be better spent elsewhere.

My opinion doesn't count, but I personally would go for the vet experience. Sounds like you already have a good deal of animal experience.

 

[sumstorm]

Unless you mean he is doing research in behavior, I don't think it will contribute very much to your app, unless the intructor name is big in the equine vet world.

I love behavior, but at times it is treated like a stepchild in vet med. It is the only class where I here my fellow students say 'oh, it all opinion anyways, and I will learn the material for class but when I practice I am going to do what I was before.'

If you are eager to do it, it won't hurt you, but it does sound like you have a lot of equine animal experience already. It may depend on where you apply, but from my experience more hours around a greater variety of vet was the most beneficial.... so I would also see if you can shadows food animal, exotic, or zoo/wildlife vets.

 

[SaintSamson]

Thanks for the input guys, I really appreciate it.
While it is something I would definitely enjoy doing, I think I have to agree that my time would be best spent gaining more veterinary experience (forgot to add that my clinic sees exotics). So I may see if I can do it once a week, but I think that it'd probably be most prudent to use that time shadowing various veterinarians.
Thanks for helping me figure that one out!

 

[marycatherine]

I would just like to add another vote to shadowing a vet. Maybe try to find the equine vet that works there?

 

[SaintSamson]

Thank you 🙂 I have some connections with equine vets/equine repro vets, so I feel pretty confident that I'll be able to get shadowing experience with one or more equine vets in the near future.
Vet experience with food animals, however, is something I'm trying to look into, as it'll be a bit more difficult to find someone to shadow in the career field for me.

 

[lmscout]

Personally, I would recommend trying to get experience with the young horses. For my internship last summer, I spent three months with horses of all ages and genders training them using natural horsemanship techniques, and I only had about 200-300 hours of job shadowing total at application time.

If you have good stats, then I would encourage you to shoot for whatever experience possible to help you as a future vet. If you want to do horses, you will need to learn how to handle them, and that includes young ones and stallions. Yes, you will learn some of that on the job, and yes, you have drugs to help 😛 but young horses (I have been around and raised them before) are drastically different from the older and calmer equines. Young horses are unpredictable, and are more likely to explode in situations. I would encourage you to get experience with young ones and STALLIONS because you have to know what they will do or someone could get hurt.

I think my internship helped me a lot in getting in...if you want to look it up, look up Chacaro So-Black arabians online. I know that they are looking for interns, and it is a great opportunity to get involved with a variety of ages...

 

[WIDVM]

Thank you 🙂 I have some connections with equine vets/equine repro vets, so I feel pretty confident that I'll be able to get shadowing experience with one or more equine vets in the near future.
Vet experience with food animals, however, is something I'm trying to look into, as it'll be a bit more difficult to find someone to shadow in the career field for me.

If you haven't already ask your equine vets if they know anyone. That's what I did and found a great LA vet to shadow. Good Luck!

 

[SaintSamson]

Thanks guys! I will definitely start poking around a little bit harder to find those LA vets!

As for young horse/stallion experience, I'm actually lucky enough to have taken lessons with a lady who primarily bred QHs and Arabs for a living and helped hold mares for live breedings, handled a couple of the stallions, and worked with day old to starting under saddle youngsters. I don't have years of experience doing it, but I definitely got some exposure! (And possibly got dragged around, haha)