How to Become an Exotic Animal Veterinarian

hey guys it's Rachel from the exotic pet vet Channel and I'm here today to tell you how to become an exotic animal veterinarians I'm currently a fourth year veterinary student at Texas A&M and I'm on my path to become a exotic animal veterinarian and there's a couple different options so I'm just gonna walk you through what I've done so far and what I hope to do in the future so starts out you graduate high school go to college college is usually a four-year plan but I did mine in 3 years I have a video on that that you can check out on another time once you graduate college usually in the degree like biology or animal science you go to veterinary schools which are four-year programs at least in the u.s. so you graduate as a veterinary student usually you have experience in exotic animal medicine for me I joined the Zoo Club at Texas A&M I was an officer and I am also joined the laboratory animal Club I joined the wildlife disease Association and basically did everything that I could to get exotic animal experience I took the electives for consumed animals and exotic animals which a lot of that schools have some vet schools like mine put on an exotic animal wet lab which basically means students from all over the united states come together and learn how to do practices on exotic animals so basically we do need cropsey's we do splinting of for broken bones we learn how to do surgeries or other you know diagnostic procedures which are really helpful for getting hands on experience grades are also important but mostly they're everything but definitely you don't want to slack off in vet school I always try my hardest and you know I'm not the best student by any means but it's definitely something to consider another thing that really helps to become a exotic animal veterinarian or especially getting accepted into your resident sees his research I cannot stress this enough research is so important no matter what path you choose because it's you know the world of exotic animal medicine is currents always evolving there's a lot of things that we don't know yet just because these animals aren't you know the main focus of veterinary medicine and it's our job to learn more about them and improve the medicine that we know so far one way I did this you know I worked on in an exotic I worked in a biology research lab an undergrad that involved fish and aquatic species but he also worked with you know octopus and a cuddle finish and then once I came to veterinary school I started my own research project actually just by talking to some professors and saying this is what I'm interested in can I join your lab and do some work and you know they're really excited to help me so I started my own project involving reptile parasitology basically I went around to all the reptile shows which are basically like conventions where you can look at and buy reptiles they asked all the vendors you know give me your reptiles fecal samples I'll test them for free I will give you the results and in exchange I'll have this data that compiled to basically do a survey of the parasitic prevalence in the region so this is just you know it wasn't easy but it was straightforward and it definitely helps having a first author publication for when you're applying to these internships and residences so I also took advantage of all the study abroad experiences that were offered to me in veterinary school I did go to South Africa with one of my favorite professors and we studied conservation medicine we learned how to work with all sorts of wildlife air including giraffes elephants rhinos big cats like lions and cheetahs really everything there and it was incredible it's also like you know a different type of medicine you instead of working with hands-on with animals that you know our friendly and tame we have to dart these animals with a dart gun and you know they go to sleep and then you're able to work with them and you know it's a lot more unpredictable and exciting by different type medicine that really opened my eyes towards um you know the big exotic animals I also went to Thailand and Vietnam through another study abroad program we volunteered a lot with dog and cats panniers and farm animals but another part of it was working with exotic animals like the elephants and the birds of prey and the raptors such as the owls and hawks and eagles which was really cool in my opinion so there's a bunch of different opportunities in vet school they think that students can use to prepare themselves for internship and residency in the future another opportunity that was really helping me in vet school is the option of doing externships externships are like mini internships so internships usually lasts like an entire year externships last of couple weeks and we do them during our fourth year rotations basically fourth years split up into a bunch of two-week or four-week rotations where you go from one part of the hospital to the other like cardiology radiology to all the other parts but a Texas A&M allows us to take some of these externship blocks and do them a way off campus at any animal hospital or zoo or anything that you you know that you can prove gives you important experience I'm in the alternate track which means I'm not you know daughter cat medicine and not food in telemedicine and I'm not equine I'm something else and this kind of gives me a little bit more freedom to choose where I go with my externships I have chosen to do my externships at the Dallas and zoo but Fort Worth Zoo the Toronto Zoo Oklahoma State University because they have a good exotics program there and Texas ap and exotic Hospital so that will help me you know make connections and get a lot more hands-on experience with exotic animals that I wouldn't otherwise get at the teaching hospital one thing that can also help is this thing called exotics con that is basically a huge convention where exotic animal veterinarians come from all over the world to learn skills basically like a giant wet lab which I was discussing earlier but basically it's way more intense and you're learning alongside actual veterinarians and making connections which i think is one of the most important things among the exotic animal world just because sometimes it's not you know what she didn't get school but it's who you know that can help you get to where you want to go that really helps me I did do a lot of shadowing experience that Texas avian exotic hospital which I think was just phenomenal and like a great experience I did get to meet a lot of amazing veterinarians that I will hopefully learn from in the future and I think after that you there's a couple different options as far as how you want to do exotic animal medicine some people they still want to do dogs and cats and just do a little bit of exotics on the side and for them they can probably get away with just graduating vet school and going into general practice they could do some general seee which is like continuing education it's kind of hone in on their skills but they don't have to do any special learning after that so that's the shortest option to become a board-certified exotic animal that there are two options and both of them take pretty long time so you're in for the long haul if you want to be an exotic vet the first one is a BB PE which stands for American Board of veterinary practitioners it's a species specific self-reporting you report your own caseload and you do two to three years of residency you have to have a couple publications work in private practice and you do you know peer review reports you can do it in avian a reptile amphibian or exotic companion mammal I mean you know take a test at the end of this residency this is mostly geared towards I would say exotic pets and not zoo animals if you want to do zoo animals there's another route called a czm which stands for the American College of zoological Medicine it's a six year full-time zoo practice and you do for publications or there's a three year residency before you can sit for the tests and do the there's a test and a practical lab has a you know very low pass rate it's very competitive I mean both of these options are really competitive and but you specialize in everything zoo but before these two residency options you usually have to do an internship if not two or three to get accepted you can't just go straight in from veterinary school a lot of people do a small animal rotating internship before they do an exotic animal internship so that's adding on you know four years for some undergrad for years for veterinary school one or two years of internship then two to four years of residency which you know adds up it's definitely not a career path for everyone it takes a lot of work and dedication and you have to make sacrifices but I hope that it'll pay off and I'll get my you know dream job in the future so if you have any questions for things I didn't go over please let me know in the comments and I'll get back to you as soon as I can and make sure to follow my channel here and on instagram at exotic pet vet I love to educate people on exotic animals and interesting facts so leave me a comment and follow me if you can

Channel: Dr. Rachel, Veterinarian

Views: 10,836

Rating: 4.9796953 out of 5

Keywords: Vet, Veterinarian, Veterinary, Medicine, Vet med, Exotic animal vet, Zoo vet, Exotic pet vet, Pets, Vet school, Animals

Id: i2PYQMA8O7A

Length: 10min 59sec (659 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 21 2020