They spend their time visiting farms and ranches to treat ill and injured animals and to test for and vaccinate against disease. They may advise farm owners or managers about feeding, housing, and general health practices. Food safety and inspection veterinarians inspect and test livestock and animal products for major animal diseases. They also provide vaccines to treat animals, enhance animal welfare, conduct research to improve animal health, and enforce government food safety regulations.
They design and administer animal and public health programs to prevent and control diseases transmissible among animals and between animals and people. Veterinarians held about 84, jobs in The largest employers of veterinarians were as follows:. Most veterinarians work in private clinics and hospitals.
Others travel to farms or work in settings such as laboratories, classrooms, or zoos. Veterinarians who treat horses or food animals travel between their offices and farms and ranches. They work outdoors in all kinds of weather and may have to perform surgery, often in remote locations. Veterinarians who work in food safety and inspection travel to farms, slaughterhouses, and food-processing plants to inspect the health of animals and to ensure that the facility follows safety protocols.
Working on farms and ranches, in slaughterhouses, or with wildlife can also be physically demanding. When working with animals that are frightened or in pain, veterinarians risk being bitten, kicked, and scratched.
In addition, veterinarians working with diseased animals risk being infected by the disease. Most veterinarians work full time, often working more than 40 hours per week. Some work nights or weekends, and they may have to respond to emergencies outside of scheduled work hours. Veterinarians must have a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree from an accredited veterinary college, as well as a state license.
A veterinary medicine program generally takes 4 years to complete and includes classroom, laboratory, and clinical components. Admission to veterinary programs is competitive. Veterinary medical colleges typically require applicants to have taken many science classes, including biology, chemistry, and animal science.
Most programs also require math, humanities, and social science courses. Some veterinary medical colleges prefer candidates to have experience such as previous work with veterinarians in clinics, or working with animals on a farm, at a stable, or in an animal shelter. In veterinary medicine programs, students take courses on animal anatomy and physiology, as well as disease prevention, diagnosis, and treatment. Most programs include 3 years of classroom, laboratory, and clinical work.
Here, they offer five qualities a veterinarian should have for you to trust them with your pet. Not only does this help you better care for your pet, but it shows that the vet has a thorough understanding of their practice. Any veterinarian should love and have a passion for animals. This requires excellent intuition and a kind of sixth sense that all great doctors should have.
Because vets need to perform surgery and handle animals of all sizes with care, they should have excellent manual dexterity. Do not disclose. Far and away the most trustworthy and accurate opinions come from staff at your local emergency hospital. However, getting the lowdown on your prospective veterinarian this way is tricky. You cannot just walk in there and ask.
Well, you can but the odds somebody will tell you are low. So do yourself and your dog a favor and grab a copy. Yes, it is a shameless plug. Diagnostic skills include both hands-on examination, observation skills, and knowledge and mastery of diagnostic tests and tools. Fear-free veterinary medicine is a relatively new movement.
You can Google what it stands for—it is just as important as it is self-explanatory. These days, there is even a certification program for that.
Your veterinarian should strive for the same. Yet, there are still veterinarians out there who send a dog home after surgery with no pain medications. So do ask about it. By communication skills, I mean the ability to explain their findings, laboratory results, and treatment options so the client can understand it.
I have put together a series of checklists that can go a long way to facilitate this process. I cannot understate the importance that your veterinarian be a good listener. This is imperative.
Nobody can make a useful diagnosis without considering a detailed history. Being able to take a thorough history is more important than all other diagnostic tools combined. A good veterinarian will listen to what you say. Btw, I have a checklist for that too. But it is more than annoyance—it can even be dangerous and definitely detrimental to the outcome. A study in human medicine showed that history alone led to a final diagnosis in 76 percent of patients! Contributions of the history, physical examination, and laboratory investigation in making medical diagnoses.
West J Med. You could say that commitment to care is a summary of all the above points. And it is. So why address it separately? Because it is all of the above and more.
Nutrition is the foundation of health. It is also a highly controversial subject. It is hard to work with a veterinarian who opposes what you believe is the best nutrition for your dog. You might not be able to work together at all.
So it is definitely something to consider. Veterinarians are not machines—they are people. Each of them is a unique individual. Michelangelo, Einstein … it was not their education or their affiliations what made them who they were. Their education might be the same, the information out there is available equally to all of them. It is what they do with it what makes the difference. Do you prefer an experienced old-timer? New technicians to work with, new pharmacies to prescribe from, new electronic medical record systems to type through, and new hospital cultures to connect with are just a few things that we navigate around.
We look for doctors who can see several correct ways to achieve the same result — and are flexible in choosing a path based on the hospital dynamics. Luckily, veterinarians are tough people, inside and out, and we are used to the responsibilities of having to get to work, even when conditions are less than ideal. Great doctors have great clinical skills.
But they also have great work attributes. Heller is chief growth officer for IndeVets. Reach him at: andrew indevets.
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