Advice for an undergraduate considering DVM?

[Minnerbelle]

A lot of breeders won't go to a vet to have tail docking done anyhow.

Exactly. It's a nonissue for me. And when you don't cave to their demands and require an exam PER puppy for their rabies vaccines, breeders will go elsewhere. Makes any breeder issue a total nonissue.

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[VetHusband]

. Pretty much everyone passes, and if not, you can just retake it.

In a lot of states you get 2-5 shots at it and after that you can't. There are exceptions of course.

You mentioned vet prep, one of the problems with a lot of those test prep products is their questions are often structured nothing like those on the exam. That has been a tripping point for my wife and others that I know who have passed. It sounds like a minor thing but for some it's not.

 

[WhtsThFrequency]

 

[OneLove1<3]

I think euthanasias are usually not a component of the difficult emotional time many vets have (or even occasionally have) about the job. Certainly a run of many of them at the same time can be emotionally difficult, but they are far from the hardest parts of the job. Compassion fatigue and burn out are real, but euthanasias are often not a big part (or any part) of that. There is definitely a need for a vet to have good outside support, in one of many forms (family, hobbies, sports, etc).

Regarding the suicide rates and compassion fatigue, euthanasia isn't the highest thing on my list. I hear so many people say, "I could never be a vet because I could never put down animals," but honestly it really isn't something that affects me a lot. Like others have said, not being able to help an animal because the owner won't let you is frustrating, especially when the owner is really emotional but has poor compliance and won't follow directions or let you do testing for no rational reason. The hardest ones are the poor people, who deeply love their pets and want to do everything they can and understand everything I'm telling them, but can't afford to do much beyond a course of antibiotics.

Another large component of compassion fatigue is also not being able to practice the way you want to, or the way you know you should. Sometimes it's not even the owner that's preventing you from what you want to do. Practice management is a huge part of that. Not carrying life saving drugs, or only carrying suboptimal drugs. Needing to refer away cases (particularly to places that the owners cannot afford) that you are 100% capable of handling because there is no time in your schedule to fit a needed procedure. Not being able to appropriately hospitalize patients. Not offering diagnostics that you know you should be offering because the price is ridiculously jacked up. Having old timey vets and practice managers that for some reason will not allow you to practice good medicine even though it is feasible AND profitable. The guilt and sadness of not being able to do the best for your patient when you should be able to. Needing to do something that you know is wrong, even when you shouldn't have to and other alternatives should be readily available. That kills you inside very quickly.

Thank you everyone. I think the reason many pre-vets wonder about the impact of euthanasia is because we don't yet know what it would feel like to do one personally. It seems like it would be the saddest part of the job because it results in death. I think that is why many of us assume this is the cause of compassion fatigue.

Since the large consensus is that it is more about the issues of not being able to treat patients the way you want to, how do you get around this? Is it possible to eliminate many of the issues by owning your own practice? Of course, you can't really change the issue with people not wanting to treat their animal when you know what is best. But the other issues...will owning practice help?

Do you guys feel burnt out? I know some say they would do it again despite the issues at hand. Would those who haven't commented on that yet also do it again?

I guess what I am asking is, would you recommend this career to others now that you are in it and understand what it is all about? Do you think vet med is misunderstood by the general public?

 

[dyachei]

Since the large consensus is that it is more about the issues of not being able to treat patients the way you want to, how do you get around this? Is it possible to eliminate many of the issues by owning your own practice? Of course, you can't really change the issue with people not wanting to treat their animal when you know what is best. But the other issues...will owning practice help?

No because you still need to turn a profit. You can sometimes treat some of the patients, but not often.

Do you guys feel burnt out? I know some say they would do it again despite the issues at hand. Would those who haven't commented on that yet also do it again?

I did while I worked at a corporate job. They kept claiming they had a good work-life balance. Even when I asked for time off for vacation they would heavily schedule around it so taking a vacation was almost being punished. I now own my own practice and things are better despite the pressure to turn a profit.

I guess what I am asking is, would you recommend this career to others now that you are in it and understand what it is all about? Do you think vet med is misunderstood by the general public?

You have to *really* want it for it to be worth it. If there is any other career that you would be happy in, choose that instead.

We are very much misunderstood by the public.

 

[Minnerbelle]

I don't feel burned out as an associate, as I work in a hospital where I have a lot of say in how I do things. I would never want the stress of being an owner. Oh hell no.

I can schedule days off for CE/vacation and if other doctors can't cover my shift, either we just have one doctor on that day or it's someone else's problem to find a relief vet. Not my problem. If there's a pissy client, and it wasn't my fault, totally not my problem. Someone else deals with that. Even when it IS my fault, I get a lot of support. All I have to do is get my job done and take care of my patients, and as long as I make production each month (hasn't been a problem, never had to stress about it), and not get complaints about me from clients or other staff members, I get to do whatever I want. I even get quite a bit of latitude when it comes to providing discounts. I have a set amount of money as a percentage of my production that I'm allowed to give away. And sometimes I do creative accounting to make things cheap enough to make it work for financially limited clients.

I very rarely have anyone tell me what to do, or how to do it. So I get to enjoy my work day, then walk away from it at the end of the day. And I get 3 days off a week. I can even just use 1 vacation day to have a 4 day weekend. It's pretty awesome. Quality of life is better than it's ever been since high school.


Buuuut, I feel like I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop. My happiness and fulfillment is 100% dependent on the practice being managed well. I would be absolutely helpless if things changed, and I stopped being able to do whatever I wanted to. There are so many ways my career could go to make me uber miserable.

And yes, we are very much misunderstood by the public.

 

[CalliopeDVM]

Thank you everyone. I think the reason many pre-vets wonder about the impact of euthanasia is because we don't yet know what it would feel like to do one personally. It seems like it would be the saddest part of the job because it results in death. I think that is why many of us assume this is the cause of compassion fatigue.

I don't think it's the saddest part of the job at all......oftentimes, it's a a satisfying thing because it's the only way I can relieve an animal of pain or distress. I believe there are worse things than death.

Since the large consensus is that it is more about the issues of not being able to treat patients the way you want to, how do you get around this? Is it possible to eliminate many of the issues by owning your own practice? Of course, you can't really change the issue with people not wanting to treat their animal when you know what is best. But the other issues...will owning practice help?

There is still nothing we can do without the animal owners' approval. Period. Even in cases of neglect or abuse, we (personally) can't do anything without their approval other than call animal control or the police. That doesn't change if you own your own clinic. In cases where money is the reason owners aren't allowing us to do something (it's not the only reason), even a clinic owner has to realize that bills need to be paid and there's only so much charity work one can do. An owner can elect to do work for cheap or free on occasion, but they still need to keep the business running well and profitably, and they don't want an influx of many requests. Certainly owning a clinic allows you to make those decisions, but it comes along with the need to make a lot of other decisions too, including how you're going to pay property taxes, salaries, and heating bills, etc.

Do you guys feel burnt out? I know some say they would do it again despite the issues at hand. Would those who haven't commented on that yet also do it again?

I guess what I am asking is, would you recommend this career to others now that you are in it and understand what it is all about? Do you think vet med is misunderstood by the general public?

I have had periods of burn out in my career, but I'm not now. Veterinary medicine is definitely misunderstood - many people think we play with puppies and kittens all day, or that they can learn what we know by doing a Google search.

See my answers in red, above.

 

[dyachei]

See my answers in red, above.

View attachment 198698

I recently was reamed out by a group of people with chronic disease for a similar mug (medical degree instead of vet) because they <3 google and their med professionals google so what makes vets and doctors more able to. They didn't want to hear that med professionals can weed out poor sources...

 

[OneLove1<3]

Thanks for all the information everyone. I have a lot to think about but it definitely helps to have advice from the professionals themselves!

 

[bloodlab8305]

x

 

[CalliopeDVM]

What would you say are some of the things that irritate you or slow you down, that you didn't predict?

And to all the other vets on here: How hard would you say it is to find a job? Are owners/hiring managers usually inept and treat you poorly as a vet? What advice would you have for finding a good job? What is work/life balance like? Is it possible to be able to work 30-40 hour weeks and sustain yourself or is 50-60 hour weeks the norm? What about vacation time?

It is all incredibly variable on where you're looking for a job, what kind and size of clinic you work for, and on the personality of your boss. Some owners are use-em-up and toss-em-out vets who run what are colloquially called "new grad mills", promising new grads all kinds of support and then throwing them in the deep end without practical or psychological support, whereas other owners are supportive and welcoming to new grads, wanting to pass on their knowledge to, and learn new things from, the next generation. And of course a whole bunch of owners in the middle. Work/life balance? Well, it depends on what you want, what the clinic owner values, and what type of job you get in what type of location (eg solo vet where there's no one to take over from you at the end of your day, or a multi-doctor practice where you pass on responsibility to the next vet on shift; urban practice where there are lots of after-hours clinics to cover patient needs after closing, or a rural clinic with no after hours care other than what you (and your boss/staff) can provide; emergency practices where the shifts are long but total weekly hours are less, or a two-vet clinic where you might run late to cover appointments running long, or need to work through lunch to cover unexpected paperwork and phone calls. You get the idea -- one size doesn't fit all.

For specializing, are all residencies 80-100 hour workweeks in veterinary medicine like many are in human medicine? Is wildlife medicine as competitive as zoo medicine is?
If you specialize in a field, how rusty do your general skills get? If you end up specializing, do you still have the diagnostic abilities to treat pets in your spare time, or would you be so mastered in your field that you can't be a GP anymore? If you specialized in a non-surgical field, how likely is it that you can still do spay/neuter/GDV/mass removal/etc?

I haven't done (and didn't seriously consider) a residency, so I can't comment on that. Wildlife medicine isn't a specialty on its own so there's no specific program to compete for, but in general competition for those jobs is tough because demand (for wildlife jobs) usually outstrips supply. Most specialists don't treat pets in their off hours (except treat them for their specialty) because they tend to lose the knowledge and skills as time goes on (and it doesn't pay as well) - but I know there are a few who do so. It's uncommon, though.

I'm wondering if I should go MD or DVM. I enjoy science and medicine, but it would be amazing to work with animals. It's been my lifelong dream, but a lot of things I am learning now make the picture not so rosy. I don't know if it's worth horrible work conditions, and no work/life balance. As an MD I would choose one of the lifestyle specialties, but I don't really have as much of a passion for it. The salary I can live on, since I would attend Canadian school without as much debt.

I don't think the work conditions are horrible, generally speaking - though there are some jobs that do have horrible conditions, of course. No different than many MD jobs I'm sure. Regardless of the cost of your education, you will certainly make more as a human doctor, but as a human doctor you will have much more time spent (wasted?) on paperwork and billing issues than a vet does (with insurance companies and/or the government). There is probably less work/life balance as an MD than a vet in the total time of their career, if you include the much longer time in school as well as the time getting established - but of course that also depends on where you are working and in what setting. Most importantly, you need to remember that most of a vet's time is not "working with animals" but working with people. The animals are the patients, but most of a vets time is spent with the owners (getting a history, discussing the options, discussing the home care), since the patients can't talk and the owners make the choices, pay the bills, and give the medication/therapy at home.

Thank you all!

See my answers in red, above.