Hi,
I am strongly considering LSU SVM for veterinary school if I am lucky enough to get in! I was just curious how they're program is as far as getting hands on experience, doing surgeries, etc. I have heard mixed reviews about the clinical years and how students don't even tough an animal until the 3rd year, so just wondering if anyone has any experience! Thanks!
I don't know about LSU specifically, and I don't think we have any current students there on the forum, but I wouldn't rule the school out (especially if it's your IS) just because they don't have much hands-on stuff the first two years. At K-State we had little to no clinical skills/live animal stuff in the curriculum before third year until this year, they've added a clinical skills class every semester before 4th year. I'm not sure how much the first years do with live animals in there as opposed to models, and they're still kind of working out the kinks with that class, but I'm really glad they've added it regardless.
My class and the ones before mine have to do outside externships (one small animal, one food animal, and one "non-traditional", generally equine or exotics) to get those hands-on skills before fourth year. It's kind of annoying to have to pay to have outside vets to teach me things that I should be learning in school, but at the same time like PP said, at a lot of schools you may not get much hands-on stuff the first two years unless you go looking for it (doing wet labs through clubs, hanging out in the hospital on your downtime, doing externships even if they're not required, etc.). And at a lot of schools you may only have a couple surgeries guaranteed to you during junior surgery, but you can get more experience by doing things like RAVS trips, Humane Alliance, shelter med rotations through school, etc. Your experience is what you make it.
It would be nice for us to have more hands-on/clinical skills opportunities available, and I'm curious to see how they're going to cram everything we need to know into clinical skills and junior surgery third year for us, but obviously K-State has been doing things that way for quite some time and producing many competent veterinarians. I imagine LSU is similar.
