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Addyson
Student
Bellingham, Washington
1
Question
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What are important things to know about being/becoming a veterinarian?
I'm in job corps and I'm starting in community college soon, so I'd like to learn more about the veterinarian as I begin my goal.
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Kristen Pauley
Laboratory Animal Veterinary Technician
1
Answer
Sykesville, Maryland
Updated
Kristen’s Answer
Hey there! Great question. There are a lot of things that go into making a great veterinarian, just need to get over some hills to reach that doctorate!
To get to vet school, you need to maintain a good GPA in college, get some animal, veterinary, and research hours, and make sure you have some hobbies or clubs you like to attend. The admissions committees like to see a well rounded student! Sometimes it takes people multiple times to get in.
You don’t necessarily have to get a Bachelors degree, as long as you have enough credits or classes to cover what would be required to attend a particular vet school.
Some attributes of a veterinarian that are important:
Resiliency: Starting on Day 1 in veterinary school, and continuing throughout one’s career in veterinary medicine, a successful individual needs to wake up and smell the roses, or maybe the occasional feces. Life, and practice, don’t always go by the book – things don’t go as planned, living creatures die despite one’s best efforts, owners don’t always do what you hope they will and may even call you every name in the book, including incompetent, and banks and employees expect to get paid even when monthly expenses exceed revenues received. Being able to pick oneself up after a fall – a course grade lower than expected, a criticism from an instructor in clinics, a sick animal that dies or a healthy animal an owner wants euthanized, a practice owner expects you to see a large number of clients leaving little time to provide the client education that you want to give – through resiliency, one can learn from mistakes or setbacks, develop internal peace and confidence, and ensure a work-life balance with good coping skills. A confident, resilient veterinarian will be a good team leader/mentor, possess empathy for clinic staff, owners, and patients, and have the skills to ensure a long, successful, and satisfying professional career.
Engagement: A successful veterinarian cannot, by definition, be closed off, shut away, or noninteractive with clients, staff, peers, and family. A successful veterinarian must have communication and empathic skills to deal effectively engage with clients and staff. A successful veterinarian is a teacher, a counselor, a mentor, a problem solver, each requiring engagement with others. A successful veterinarian is engaged with her/his profession and peers. Within the profession, the veterinarian is expected to receive continuing education to learn new knowledge and techniques, and to collegially interact with peers for exchange of knowledge and assistance. Veterinarian should seek to publish interesting cases, or make presentations at local, state, regional, or national professional meetings. A successful veterinarian is engaged with staff, helping them to grow personally and professionally, and to develop skills that will provide more effective and efficient services to clients, and by extension, earning appreciation for the clinic and its staff. A successful veterinarian is involved in her/his community, demonstrating selfless service, and yielding a good impression of veterinarians in general. Helping out with talks at schools or clubs promotes that individual, and the profession. Allowing young people to assist and learn at the practice helps foster the next generation of veterinarians, and builds goodwill. A successful veterinarian must be engaged with her/his family – life isn’t all about work, and time must be invested in relationships and love in the family.
Business Acumen: Patience, empathy, kindness, communication, and clinical skills are all important, but without a basic understanding of business knowledge/skills, how will a veterinarian successfully keep the lights on and the practice doors open? A veterinarian is more than the sum of her/his clinical training – business longevity for the truly successful veterinarian involves a myriad of other skills, which are not typically addressed in veterinary school. These include logistics (purchasing and inventory, staff scheduling, time management), financial matters (payroll, payroll taxes, bookkeeping, fee calculations, loans, personal investments, business income tax), human resources (hiring, firing, performance evaluations, training, mentoring, team building, delegation of duties, standard operating procedures, addressing compassion fatigue), physical plant (facility and equipment maintenance, renovation and new construction planning and financing), and regulatory compliance (zoning permits, business licenses, DEA registration, OSHA compliance). Depending on the size of one’s practice, business acumen may be enhanced and complemented through effective hires – practice managers, bookkeepers, and HR staff. Learning doesn’t stop upon graduation from veterinary school, besides veterinary medical CE, a resilient, successful veterinarian will also seek out practice management and business CE opportunities. Benjamin Franklin once said "An investment in knowledge pays the best interest." Engagement and business acumen, and resiliency in personal, professional, and business matters, will contribute mightily to a veterinarian’s success within the profession.
To get to vet school, you need to maintain a good GPA in college, get some animal, veterinary, and research hours, and make sure you have some hobbies or clubs you like to attend. The admissions committees like to see a well rounded student! Sometimes it takes people multiple times to get in.
You don’t necessarily have to get a Bachelors degree, as long as you have enough credits or classes to cover what would be required to attend a particular vet school.
Some attributes of a veterinarian that are important:
Resiliency: Starting on Day 1 in veterinary school, and continuing throughout one’s career in veterinary medicine, a successful individual needs to wake up and smell the roses, or maybe the occasional feces. Life, and practice, don’t always go by the book – things don’t go as planned, living creatures die despite one’s best efforts, owners don’t always do what you hope they will and may even call you every name in the book, including incompetent, and banks and employees expect to get paid even when monthly expenses exceed revenues received. Being able to pick oneself up after a fall – a course grade lower than expected, a criticism from an instructor in clinics, a sick animal that dies or a healthy animal an owner wants euthanized, a practice owner expects you to see a large number of clients leaving little time to provide the client education that you want to give – through resiliency, one can learn from mistakes or setbacks, develop internal peace and confidence, and ensure a work-life balance with good coping skills. A confident, resilient veterinarian will be a good team leader/mentor, possess empathy for clinic staff, owners, and patients, and have the skills to ensure a long, successful, and satisfying professional career.
Engagement: A successful veterinarian cannot, by definition, be closed off, shut away, or noninteractive with clients, staff, peers, and family. A successful veterinarian must have communication and empathic skills to deal effectively engage with clients and staff. A successful veterinarian is a teacher, a counselor, a mentor, a problem solver, each requiring engagement with others. A successful veterinarian is engaged with her/his profession and peers. Within the profession, the veterinarian is expected to receive continuing education to learn new knowledge and techniques, and to collegially interact with peers for exchange of knowledge and assistance. Veterinarian should seek to publish interesting cases, or make presentations at local, state, regional, or national professional meetings. A successful veterinarian is engaged with staff, helping them to grow personally and professionally, and to develop skills that will provide more effective and efficient services to clients, and by extension, earning appreciation for the clinic and its staff. A successful veterinarian is involved in her/his community, demonstrating selfless service, and yielding a good impression of veterinarians in general. Helping out with talks at schools or clubs promotes that individual, and the profession. Allowing young people to assist and learn at the practice helps foster the next generation of veterinarians, and builds goodwill. A successful veterinarian must be engaged with her/his family – life isn’t all about work, and time must be invested in relationships and love in the family.
Business Acumen: Patience, empathy, kindness, communication, and clinical skills are all important, but without a basic understanding of business knowledge/skills, how will a veterinarian successfully keep the lights on and the practice doors open? A veterinarian is more than the sum of her/his clinical training – business longevity for the truly successful veterinarian involves a myriad of other skills, which are not typically addressed in veterinary school. These include logistics (purchasing and inventory, staff scheduling, time management), financial matters (payroll, payroll taxes, bookkeeping, fee calculations, loans, personal investments, business income tax), human resources (hiring, firing, performance evaluations, training, mentoring, team building, delegation of duties, standard operating procedures, addressing compassion fatigue), physical plant (facility and equipment maintenance, renovation and new construction planning and financing), and regulatory compliance (zoning permits, business licenses, DEA registration, OSHA compliance). Depending on the size of one’s practice, business acumen may be enhanced and complemented through effective hires – practice managers, bookkeepers, and HR staff. Learning doesn’t stop upon graduation from veterinary school, besides veterinary medical CE, a resilient, successful veterinarian will also seek out practice management and business CE opportunities. Benjamin Franklin once said "An investment in knowledge pays the best interest." Engagement and business acumen, and resiliency in personal, professional, and business matters, will contribute mightily to a veterinarian’s success within the profession.