Choosing Between Veterinary Technician Programs
Choosing between veterinary technician programs can be hard or easy depending on where you live. Sometimes there is only one choice for vet tech programs in your area. Some people will have several choices in their area, so how do you choose?In this post I’ll go over several points to consider, but a comprehensive vet tech program should go over the basics of handling animals and providing basic husbandry, to more advanced veterinary procedures.
Good veterinary technician programs should also give you a lot of instruction on diseases and their treatments, and go into clinical procedures and veterinary laboratory procedures as well.
Here are some questions to ask perspective vet tech programs:
How much hands on time do you get with live animal? Since you are in the learning stage, the more hands on time you get now, the better off you’ll be when looking for a job. While you do need a certain amount of classroom hours, a good indicator of the quality of the program is how much time you spend working with live animals.
What are the qualifications of the vet tech instructors? The instructors should have real life experience in working in the veterinary medicine field. People who only have book smarts can only teach you so much, you need to hear real life experiences.
What is the placement rate for vet tech graduates? Ask the admissions office what is the number of graduates that have graduated from the program that find jobs specifically as vet techs. Now most programs have very high placement rates, which is normal in this field, but keep an eye our for a program with a placement rate below 90%.
Is the veterinary technician program accredited? This is a huge question and actually should be the first one you find out about the program. Accredited vet tech programs are sanctioned by the AVMA, the American Veterinary Medical Association. There are actually several different levels of accreditation, and they should have FULL accreditation. If they don’t have FULL accreditation by the AVMA ask why, and if they plan on gaining FULL accreditation in the near future.
There are lots of other questions to ask, but I’ll save that for a future post. Good luck in your application!
