Production Medicine Information and Lifestyle

[lkellyanns]

I am a first-year student with a budding passion in production animal medicine. I have little experience in the field yet and was wondering if anyone could provide me with some insight into the lifestyle, how stressful this area of vet medicine is, job availability, etc. As with most people entering vet medicine, I am fully aware that this profession, in general, is not very lucrative, but if anyone has insight into general salary prospects, that would be helpful as well! I did utilize the AVMA salary calculator just for fun and it said for my area, a starting salary was $90K+ for this field, which seemed quite high to me.

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[battie]

Seeing as I was being offered 90k for small animal GP in the Denver metro area, 90k for general practice production med sounds very high. I could see that if you were more working for a corporation that does large scale food production maybe. But not for general practice. A friend doing mixed animal in the midwest is getting 70k with 4 days/week plus on call.

 

[JaynaAli]

I think it’s going to differ by what area of production medicine you go into. Vertically integrated industries like poultry or pig medicine have a different structures and probably going to pay differently (aka more) than production cattle medicine in a traditional rural clinic where you service a large area with lots of different clients and the average herd size is like 30 animals on hobby farms. And even that is different from someone who does mostly things like show pigs and club calves. My friend doing rural mixed started at just over 50k doing predominantly large animal medicine 5 years ago. I know she’s gotten raises but I guarantee she doesn’t make 90k. I was also offered a rural mixed job for 50k but turned it down in order to specialize in pathology.

 

[Teepster87]

Jayna is right on track with this.

Species specific production med is going to best your best bet for bringing home the bacon. Swine, poultry, I've heard 2nd and 3rd hand tales of some beef people doing well, and probably aquaculture as an emerging market (this could be a while off though)

@katashark how are fish vets making out these days? I can't remember if you're focused on production or conservation.

 

[PippyPony]

You may also want to look into USDA work -- my understanding is that they actually pay pretty well. And since it's the government, employees also get a bunch of days off and benefits and stuff.

 

[DrinkWater95]

You may also want to look into USDA work -- my understanding is that they actually pay pretty well. And since it's the government, employees also get a bunch of days off and benefits and stuff.

Agreed! @britzen has some great insights into the USDA

 

[britzen]

Agreed! @britzen has some great insights into the USDA

I'll type some thoughts up later when I'm not on mobile, but @Teepster87 can also speak to thoughts on the USDA

 

[lkellyanns]

I'll type some thoughts up later when I'm not on mobile, but @Teepster87 can also speak to thoughts on the USD

Is it possible to start working with the USDA straight out of vet school, or do they prefer/require experience in a clinical setting, internships, etc.?

 

[Teepster87]

Is it possible to start working with the USDA straight out of vet school, or do they prefer/require experience in a clinical setting, internships, etc.?

It is possible to start working for the USDA straight out of school.

Britzen and I were both in the Saul T Wilson scholarship program that allows us to go directly into the APHIS workforce after successfully completing vet school. I had a classmate who had a similar scholarship from FSIS (Adal A Malak). FSIS is honestly the easier route to gain access to. They usually have a wide number of vacancies, and they're willing to work to accommodate applicants. I had another classmates who got hired for FSIS during 4th year. APHIS doesn't go out of their way to make applying to jobs easy for graduating seniors. All of their job postings I see require you to have your conferred DVM degree before the job posting closes. They also don't time job announcements to coincide with graduations.

The pay is..... underwhelming. You aren't going to get rich working for the government. I had a number of offers for small animal GP jobs that dwarfed my federal starting salary. The federal system always starts you at the lowest grade they're allowed to, which if you only have a DVM is usually a GS11. That's around 65k annual salary, it can be slightly higher in higher cost of living areas. After a year as an 11 you can get promoted to a 12 in most position, and that's around 77k. For every year you stay at the same level, you can go up 'steps'. These are smaller raises that occur when you're staying at the same grade level.

 

[turnandburn]

I've definitely consider USDA work... it seems like there are a lot of opportunities for growth, plus all the benefits that come with working for federal government.

 

[heather4521]

It is possible to start working for the USDA straight out of school.

Britzen and I were both in the Saul T Wilson scholarship program that allows us to go directly into the APHIS workforce after successfully completing vet school. I had a classmate who had a similar scholarship from FSIS (Adal A Malak). FSIS is honestly the easier route to gain access to. They usually have a wide number of vacancies, and they're willing to work to accommodate applicants. I had another classmates who got hired for FSIS during 4th year. APHIS doesn't go out of their way to make applying to jobs easy for graduating seniors. All of their job postings I see require you to have your conferred DVM degree before the job posting closes. They also don't time job announcements to coincide with graduations.

The pay is..... underwhelming. You aren't going to get rich working for the government. I had a number of offers for small animal GP jobs that dwarfed my federal starting salary. The federal system always starts you at the lowest grade they're allowed to, which if you only have a DVM is usually a GS11. That's around 65k annual salary, it can be slightly higher in higher cost of living areas. After a year as an 11 you can get promoted to a 12 in most position, and that's around 77k. For every year you stay at the same level, you can go up 'steps'. These are smaller raises that occur when you're staying at the same grade level.

Quick question: Are these available to students who have just been accepted into vet school? (starting my first semester in the Fall)
I am also unable to find the application for this year, has anyone had any luck in finding it on USAJOBS??

 

[britzen]

Quick question: Are these available to students who have just been accepted into vet school? (starting my first semester in the Fall)
I am also unable to find the application for this year, has anyone had any luck in finding it on USAJOBS??

Yes, you can apply now before you start in the fall. The applications are only open for a very small window on usajobs.

The Chester A. Gipson scholarship just opened today. I think it's open for about 1 week so get on it asap!

The deadline for the Adel Malak and the Saul T Wilson already passed for this year. (Sorry)

Best way to keep track of when the scholarships come open if you want to apply next year is set up an alert for them on usajobs.