Find a Rewarding Career: Veterinary School

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Find a Rewarding Career: Veterinary School

Monday, December 1st, 2008 Subscribe To Our Feed

The decision to go to veterinary school is a big decision, but also an exciting prospect at the career that will evolve out of this choice. There are many different specialties to go into after the general requirements and degree are achieved. Most veterinary schools require students to have a bachelor’s degree in a science or math field in order to be accepted into their programs. However, there are some schools that will grant admission with a veterinary assistant school degree, but the students of this type would have to fulfill more undergraduate courses before starting their advanced work.

Requirements

There are many undergraduate class requirements that must be taken in order to be accepted to veterinary school. Different schools have different requirements, but they fall in some general categories. General science classes such as biology, microbiology and chemistry must be taken. The humanities course requirements must also be fulfilled. More specific classes about animal anatomy and physiology are also usually requirements. Other preferred undergraduate classes are animal medical technology, animal husbandry and animal diseases. Hematology and radiology are also recommended.

In addition to these undergraduate requirements, candidates for veterinary school must also take entrance tests. Each school determines what tests must be taken for entry and what the scores must be on the tests. The three main tests for entrance are the GRE or Graduate Record Exam, the MCAT or Medical College Admissions Test, and the VCAT or Veterinary College Admissions Test. If all of these requirements are fulfilled, then the applicant may be accepted into veterinary school.

Degrees

To achieve a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM) degree or a Veterinariae Medicinae Doctoris (VMD) degree, the student must go to school at an accredited veterinary school for four years. Once the degree is achieved, then the student must go on to choose a specialty, which will take another two years of internship and four to five years of residency to become fully certified. For full licensure, the vet then needs to take the North American Veterinary Licensing Exam (NAVLE.)

Some specialties that veterinarians can go into are lab medicine, preventative medicine, surgery, radiology, oncology or internal medicine. There is also specialization in large animals, small animals, wild animals or marine animals. The starting salary on average is approximately $47,000 per year and the average salary for veterinarians is $63,000 as of 2008, making it a solid field to go into. In addition, there are around twenty-five percent of veterinarians that open their own practices, again statistics shown in 2008.

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