atDove Blog | Veterinary Training Blog

To any well-established veterinarian, it’s no surprise the high rates of compassion fatigue, burnout, and feelings of overwork in this field. The pressure and intensity within veterinary medicine were only further accelerated due to COVID and the ramifications of clinic overload, staffing, and the financial burden of increasing veterinary costs. Regardless of years in the field, it’s easy to see how the state of mental health is fast dwindling. As a result, the need to restructure how we approach training on the floor is profoundly important and necessary to foster resiliency in new doctors.

Pursuing an internship can be a complex decision that requires a variety of considerations. While four years in vet school is a highly intense, overloading experience when it comes to education, training, and exposure, the true experience gathered during a clinical year pales in comparison to the type of skill and understanding of the profession when in your first years of practice. With the limited exposure to certain specialties, lack of consistency amongst training of fourth years in vet school, and over-exposure to highly unusual tertiary referral cases at a university-based hospital over standard illnesses treated on a day-to-day basis, it is easy to see how one is still seemingly unprepared to hit the floor running when first hired at a practice.