Three Places You Can Intern As A Student Of Veterinary Medicine
If you are currently studying to become a veterinary technician or a veterinarian, you may be looking ahead towards your internship. Both vet techs and future vets have to intern in the same way human nurses and doctors do. Here are three possible locations where you may be able to fill your internship hours prior to graduation.
Animal Hospitals
Animal hospitals can provide you with more experience in emergency veterinary medicine. They often have emergency and urgent care rooms like people hospitals have, and you can learn a lot about pre-surgical triage for severely injured animals. Some animal hospitals are also open on third shift (overnight) which may work to your advantage if you are in school or have classes all day long. Additionally, if you get a job at an animal hospital while attending vet school, you can earn money to pay for your vet tech certification or veterinary medicine degree.
Vet Clinics
There are many different kinds of vet clinics. Some are general care clinics where all animals are cared for, while others are focused on care for just small animals, just large farm animals, just cats, etc. You can choose to intern at any one of these clinics and gain valuable experience and knowledge caring for the animals that come into the clinic or, if the clinic is focused on large animal care, you may even get the chance to drive out to where the animals are to provide care. There are even vet clinics that are strictly mobile clinics, providing care based on the appointments scheduled with pet owners and visiting the pets in their homes instead.
Animal Shelters
One of the most overlooked options for getting in your intern hours is an animal shelter. The veterinary care in these places is almost always subsidized or donated by local vets and vet techs, but you could arrange to complete some of your intern hours here. Most of your duties will probably include giving shots, administering worming medicines, applying anti-flea products and addressing any health concerns of incoming animals while assessing their adoptability. Internships in animal shelters may prepare you for the future by helping you "toughen up" for those cases where you will have to put pets to sleep.
Planning Ahead and Talking to Instructors
Once you have a good idea of where you would like to perform the bulk of your vet internship hours, you can discuss this with your clinical instructors. The instructors will have to be the ones to facilitate the arrangement between you and your first and/or second choice of clinical placement. Be sure to have a couple of backup options in case the clinic, animal hospital or animal shelter you want to work with closes down. Contact a business, such as Bay Street Pet Suite Hotel & Day Spa, for more information.
