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Aiden
Student
Rock Hill, South Carolina
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Question
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What is a day in the life like as a veterinarian?
What do the hours tend to be like? How much time do you spend interacting with patients and owners? Do you spend a lot of time doing paperwork?
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Abigail Sine
Veterinarian
2
Answers
New York, New York
Updated
Abigail’s Answer
That's a great question! It varies a lot, depending on where you are. But days are typically 10 hours, sometimes more or less. Because the days are long, most vets only work 4 days a week these days. If you do more than that, you can burn out pretty quickly.
I spend most of my day seeing appointments. Probably 85% of it. So you're doing exams and making a plan, doing diagnostics etc. How much time you spend with each owner depends on you as an individual and also how much time the practice gives you for each appointment. I've always worked in places that have 30 minute appointments. That's a comfortable amount of time for me. I spend time getting to know the animal and talking with the owner.
I have one surgery day a week where I spend the morning doing surgeries and then see appointments in the afternoon.
Paperwork is a big part of the job as well. It's mostly writing records for each appointment, which can be time consuming. And then you've got calls to make to owners with questions or followups. And then you're calling people with lab results from tests that you've done.
So my typical day starts at 8am, I see appointments (and try to keep up with the visit records) in the morning. Then an hour or so for lunch (which is just me doing callbacks and records usually, with a quick bite worked in). Then more appointments in the afternoon. And then I usually spend 30-60 minutes after the last appointment to finish up on callbacks and records.
Hope that helps :)
I spend most of my day seeing appointments. Probably 85% of it. So you're doing exams and making a plan, doing diagnostics etc. How much time you spend with each owner depends on you as an individual and also how much time the practice gives you for each appointment. I've always worked in places that have 30 minute appointments. That's a comfortable amount of time for me. I spend time getting to know the animal and talking with the owner.
I have one surgery day a week where I spend the morning doing surgeries and then see appointments in the afternoon.
Paperwork is a big part of the job as well. It's mostly writing records for each appointment, which can be time consuming. And then you've got calls to make to owners with questions or followups. And then you're calling people with lab results from tests that you've done.
So my typical day starts at 8am, I see appointments (and try to keep up with the visit records) in the morning. Then an hour or so for lunch (which is just me doing callbacks and records usually, with a quick bite worked in). Then more appointments in the afternoon. And then I usually spend 30-60 minutes after the last appointment to finish up on callbacks and records.
Hope that helps :)
Okay got it! Thanks so much for a details response!
Aiden