:lol: Well after reading some of this evening's posts, I'm not sure being a vet is so terrific!
But, to answer your question. For most vet schools you have to have an initial four-year (bachelors) degree in some biology or science field. Getting into vet school is quite an ordeal. The application was longer than anything I've ever seen! It included an essay where you had to explain your motives and convince them that you could stay the distance. Then there's usually an interview. Vet school is hard to get into. There were 700+ applicants for the 100 spots in my class.
I can only go by my experiences, so here goes. Remember I came in as an older student so my experiences are colored from that viewpoint.
The first year is memorization. Anatomy, anatomy, anatomy! For tests, you'd have to examine dissected, old, decaying, smelly limbs (that we'd been working on for a month) to identify nerves, muscles, bones and blood vessels. Or walk up to a live horse and point out whatever structure was called out to you. (At the end of the first year I won a scholarship to study at Woods Hole Massachusetts, but could not go because I developed pneumonia and pleurisy, from the incredible stress of the semester, and was flat on my back all summer. Star Trek reruns, that's how I survived!)
The second year, we learned what went wrong with the body and how the body responded. In a word, Pathology. Lots of microscope work! Lots of schmoo!
In Junior and Senior years we moved to the Veterinary Teaching Hospital. Boy, were we hot stuff, or what! Welcome to the world of 36-hour days! Labs, real patients, real surgeries, really having to walk dogs who just had a total hip replacement in the middle of the night because there's no one else to do it, and by the way you have to take all the emergencies coming in, including the sheltie whose owner wrapped a rubber band around his nose to shut him up, and now the rubber band is embedded in his necrotic muzzle, the scars of which he will bear for life. Or the cat having a hard time breathing because her years-old diaphragmatic hernia allowed her gassy bowel to migrate up into her chest on a Friday night, but they don't bother to operate until Monday, at which point they find squamous cell carcinoma under her tonge and this sweetest orange cat suddenly has a death sentence. Or Sampson the Great Pyrenees with osteosarcoma in three legs. They amputate one leg, only to find that the radiation has completely rotted away the other two, he has no chance, and no one is willing to confront the owners and tell them this dog needs to be euthanized. Days of pain and finally we are allowed to take Sampson out on the grass, and love him and hug him and say goodbye.
I was an older student, 36 when I started. So my perspective is somewhat jaundiced. Personally, I hated vet school, but my best friend found it the most wonderful and fulfilling service she could conceive of. I think she's just a better person than me!
It was not an easy road, but getting that dang diploma was one of the finest moments of my life, because I knew every drop of blood, sweat and tear that went into it!
No wusses go to vet school. You have to want it. You have to want it BAD. It's like wanting to play quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers. Do you have what it takes? Then prove it!
So, I feel I earned this darn DVM and if I have to throw it around a little, well that's just okay! :lol:
Cheers,
Dr. Jean
