traveling vet surgeon?

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jiaky

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Hi everyone! :clap:

I am a vet graduated 2 years ago, and had 1.5 year of experience in a SA hospital. I love travelling and surgeries, and had a (unrealistic) dream of doing both of them together, for example, a relief /locum vet that work 3 months in a place, and travel from country to country. The biggest problem would be certification and licensing, and i got my DVM from a South East Asia country.

1. What certification should i looking for, so that i can work in more countries?
for example, if i go through
pave/ecfvg--navle--state license--i can work in US only?
mrcvs--i can work in all europe countries? or each country have different exams?
australia/ NZ national board exam-- aus/nz only?
or are they accepted between each other?

2. Lets say if somehow i got myself an internship and residency, pass through speciality board, and become board certified surgeon, will that make things easier?

i know it sounds quite impossible. Hope someone can provide some ideas or your experiences. thanks in advance. :)

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Hi everyone! :clap:

I am a vet graduated 2 years ago, and had 1.5 year of experience in a SA hospital. I love travelling and surgeries, and had a (unrealistic) dream of doing both of them together, for example, a relief /locum vet that work 3 months in a place, and travel from country to country. The biggest problem would be certification and licensing, and i got my DVM from a South East Asia country.

1. What certification should i looking for, so that i can work in more countries?
for example, if i go through
pave/ecfvg--navle--state license--i can work in US only?
mrcvs--i can work in all europe countries? or each country have different exams?
australia/ NZ national board exam-- aus/nz only?
or are they accepted between each other?

2. Lets say if somehow i got myself an internship and residency, pass through speciality board, and become board certified surgeon, will that make things easier?

i know it sounds quite impossible. Hope someone can provide some ideas or your experiences. thanks in advance. :)

The pave/ecfg--navle will allow you to work in Canada as well. But like the U.S., you will need a provincial license for the province you are working in.

I can't comment on anything overseas.

An internship/surgery route seems like a long, painful process only to locum around. You'd be better off building surgery experience instead imo.

Also, I'm not entirely sure how long it takes to get licenses as you move around so I'd probably take that into account as well...
 
Even if you have your ECVFG to work in Canada and the US, you will still need to get licenses in every state or province of the US you want to work in, and that would be a lot of money (in Canada, provincial licenses average about $1000 each, I think US state licenses are less). I'm a Canadian vet who does only locum work, but I only work within my province so I don't have to take the time and spend the money on a bunch of different licenses that I will rarely use. Additionally, I believe there are some US states that require veterinarians be US citizens or permanent residents to get a license (NY is one).
 
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I know that I am not giving any opinions, but I am just curious, which South East Asian country are you from?

Hello from Indonesia, your fellow South East Asian resident who is also pursuing residency in dermatology in the U.S (without having to pass any ecfvg/pave/navle, if possible) :D
 
I wonder how doctors without borders works? I have no idea, pardon my ignorance.

I wonder if there is something similar for vets? My friend is an OBGYN, specializing in pelvic floor reconstruction. He raised funds and TODAY traveled to Rwanda for 2 weeks to operate on women and girls with pelvic organ prolapse, fistulas, and urinary incontinence.

Is there nothing similar for veterinarians? It would be pretty amazing.
 
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I wonder how doctors without borders works? I have no idea, pardon my ignorance.

I wonder if there is something similar for vets? My friend is an OBGYN, specializing in pelvic floor reconstruction. He raised funds and TODAY traveled to Rwanda for 2 weeks to operate on women and girls with pelvic organ prolapse, fistulas, and urinary incontinence.

Is there nothing similar for veterinarians? It would be pretty amazing.

(If anyone is interested, this is my friend's gofundme page. He is already flying to Rwanda, but I'm sure any donations would still be accepted )


There are several international veterinary charity groups that operate around the world in various fields.......vets without borders (https://www.vetswithoutborders.ca/) is usually looking for LA/FA vets, but they also have added work for public health and business development volunteers. On the other end of the spectrum, the Esther Honey Foundation (http://estherhoney.org/) has veterinarians volunteering in the South Seas for primarily small animal medicine and surgery. Vets Beyond Borders is an Australian based volunteer group (http://www.vetsbeyondborders.org/) doing small and large animal work around the world, and Worldwide Veterinary Service is based in the UK (https://wvs.org.uk/). These are just the ones I know about.....I'm sure there are more.
 
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I personally know a traveling surgeon. She does relief work all throughout the U.S. and Canada. As far as I know, she thinks she might be the only person who provides surgical relief services to clinics across the continent. That being said, she is board certified and quite honestly, you'd probably need to be too. The only clinics that are going to be looking for surgical relief work are specialty centers who have a wide surgical case load. The vast majority of small animal private practices are going to employ veterinarians who are capable of doing basic surgery. Keep in mind that MOST specialty centers are going to want a formally trained board certified surgeon, because that's the way it works these days.
 
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