How many hours of Residency is required for MDV following Med School?

Hi Hailey!

First of all, I commend on you on undertaking the brave task of becoming a physician, an often self-less and daunting career but full of great rewards, both external and internal. In order of thoroughness, which seems to be an essence of your question, becoming a surgeon is one of the most elite tasks within medicine all together, and therefore the training is quite rigorous and one must be well prepared for that sort of ride. First you must clarify if you want to be perform surgery on people, whether you want to be a General Surgeon, or a Neurosurgeon as those are very different. Typically, General Surgery residencies are five years, while Neurosurgery can last up to seven (but both vary depending and should be looked up by program). Neurosurgery is one of the most prestigious and demanding fields within medicine, and thus, amongst the most difficult to obtain a training position in. General Surgery is much more obtainable but also a tough residency. The option of simply becoming a Neurologist is also a viable option. This is being a Physician practicing the non-surgical side of Neurology similar to the many forms of non-surgical specialties within medicine (i.e. Internal/Family Medicine, Anesthesiology, Pediatrics, Psychiatry, OBGYN, etc).

Veterinary medicine is an amazing field but do realize it is a whole different ballpark really, as far as everything from the school’s you’d attend, places you’d train, and the organizations you’d be shuttle through). Human life is, somwhat by default, valued more heavily than animal life, and thus, training will organically reflect that in it’s comparitive stringency. Nonetheless, your question is a bit vague and instead of attempting to answer it too precisely, I isolated four various links for you mentioning the four potential routes I could gauge seemed interesting to you and hopefully they may provide you with some insight into each option.

An Overview of the ‘General Surgery Program’ at Johns Hopkins

https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/surgery/education/Residency/GeneralSurgeryTrainProg.html

Neurology Resident Schedule at Darthmouth (following ACGME guidelines)

https://gme.dartmouth-hitchcock.org/neurology/oncall_vacation_policies.html

“Typical day in the life of a neurosurgery resident” (a less formal citation but gives you an idea from someone’s firsthand account of what a day is like)

https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2010/12/neurosurgical-residents-typical-day.html

ACVS: American College of Veterinary Surgeons (of great note*** there are detailed PDF’ manuals for training standards and requirements at bottom for each year)

https://www.acvs.org/residents/standards

http://iwanttobeaveterinarian.org/default.aspx?pid=5585&id=7789623

The last two are probably the one’s you should focus on if Veterinary is the way you want to go. Again, this response is not intended to sway you in any which direction but rather just to provide you with relevant content. Make sure to do all your own homework before choosing a life path. I wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors Hailey!

Best Regards,

Hassan Chaudhry, MD