Median annual earnings of veterinarians were $63,090 in 2002. The middle 50 percent earned between $49,050 and $85,770. The lowest 10 percent earned less than $38,000, and the highest 10 percent earned more than $123,370.
According to a survey by the American Veterinary Medical Association, average starting salaries of 2002 veterinary medical college graduates varied by type of practice as follows:
| All private clinical practices | $46,339 |
| Large animals, exclusively | 48,303 |
| Small animals, exclusively | 48,178 |
| Small animals, predominantly | 46,582 |
| Large animals, predominantly | 45,087 |
| Mixed animals | 43,948 |
| Equine (horses) | 34,273 |
The average annual salary for veterinarians in the Federal Government in nonsupervisory, supervisory, and managerial positions was $72,208 in 2003.
Veterinarians play a major role in the healthcare of pets, livestock, and zoo, sporting, and laboratory animals. Some veterinarians use their skills to protect humans against diseases carried by animals and conduct clinical research on human and animal health problems. Others work in basic research, broadening the scope of fundamental theoretical knowledge and, in applied research, developing new ways to use knowledge.
Most veterinarians perform clinical work in private practices. More than one-half of these veterinarians predominately, or exclusively, treat small animals. Small-animal practitioners usually care for companion animals, such as dogs and cats, but also treat birds, reptiles, rabbits, and other animals that can be kept as pets. About one-fourth of all veterinarians work in mixed animal practices where they see pigs, goats, sheep, and some nondomestic animals, in addition to companion animals. Veterinarians in clinical practice diagnose animal health problems; vaccinate against diseases, such as distemper and rabies; medicate animals suffering from infections or illnesses; treat and dress wounds; set fractures; perform surgery; and advise owners about animal feeding, behavior, and breeding.
A small number of private practice veterinarians work exclusively with large animals, focusing mostly on horses or cows; some also care for various kinds of food animals. These veterinarians usually drive to farms or ranches to provide veterinary services for herds or individual animals. Much of this work involves preventive care to maintain the health of the food animals. These veterinarians test for and vaccinate against diseases and consult with farm or ranch owners and managers on animal production, feeding, and housing issues. They also treat and dress wounds, set fractures, and perform surgery—including cesarean sections on birthing animals. Veterinarians also euthanize animals when necessary. Other veterinarians care for zoo, aquarium, or laboratory animals.
Veterinarians who treat animals use medical equipment, such as stethoscopes; surgical instruments; and diagnostic equipment, such as radiographic and ultrasound equipment. Veterinarians working in research use a full range of sophisticated laboratory equipment.
Veterinarians can contribute to human as well as animal health. A number of veterinarians work with physicians and scientists as they research ways to prevent and treat various human health problems. For example, veterinarians contributed greatly in conquering malaria and yellow fever, solved the mystery of botulism, produced an anticoagulant used to treat some people with heart disease, and defined and developed surgical techniques for humans, such as hip and knee joint replacements and limb and organ transplants. Today, some determine the effects of drug therapies, antibiotics, or new surgical techniques by testing them on animals.
Some veterinarians are involved in food safety at various levels. Veterinarians who are livestock inspectors check animals for transmissible diseases, advise owners on treatment, and may quarantine animals. Veterinarians who are meat, poultry, or egg product inspectors examine slaughtering and processing plants, check live animals and carcasses for disease, and enforce government regulations regarding food purity and sanitation.
Very good opportunities are expected because the number of graduates from veterinary school is not expected to increase significantly over the 2002-12 period. However, as mentioned earlier, there is keen competition for admittance to veterinary school. Employment of veterinarians is expected to increase faster than the average for all occupations through the year 2012. As pets are increasingly viewed as a member of the family, pet owners will be more willing to spend increasing amounts on advanced veterinary medical care, creating more demand for veterinarians.
Most veterinarians practice in animal hospitals or clinics and care primarily for companion animals. Recent trends indicate particularly strong interest in cats as pets. Faster growth of the cat population is expected to increase the demand for feline medicine and veterinary services, while demand for veterinary care for dogs should continue to grow at a more modest pace.
Pet owners are becoming more aware of the availability of advanced care and are more willing to pay for intensive veterinary care than in the past because many pet owners are more affluent, and because they consider their pet part of the family. More pet owners even purchase pet insurance, increasing the likelihood that a considerable amount of money will be spent on veterinary care for their pets. More pet owners also will take advantage of nontraditional veterinary services, such as preventive dental care.
New graduates continue to be attracted to small-animal medicine because they prefer to deal with pets and to live and work near heavily populated areas. This situation will not necessarily limit the ability of veterinarians to find employment or to set up and maintain a practice in a particular area. Rather, beginning veterinarians may take positions requiring evening or weekend work to accommodate the extended hours of operation that many practices are offering. Some veterinarians take salaried positions in retail stores offering veterinary services. Self-employed veterinarians usually have to work hard and long to build a sufficient client base.
The number of jobs for large-animal veterinarians is likely to grow more slowly than that for veterinarians in private practice who care for companion animals. Nevertheless, job prospects may be better for veterinarians who specialize in farm animals than for small-animal practitioners because of low earnings in the former specialty and because many veterinarians do not want to work in rural or isolated areas.
Continued support for public health and food safety, national disease control programs, and biomedical research on human health problems will contribute to the demand for veterinarians, although positions in these areas of interest are few in number. Homeland security also may provide opportunities for veterinarians involved in efforts to minimize animal diseases and prevent them from entering the country. Veterinarians with training in public health and epidemiology should have the best opportunities for a career in the Federal Government.
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Prospective veterinarians must graduate from a 4-year program at an accredited college of veterinary medicine with a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (D.V.M. or V.M.D.) degree and obtain a license to practice. There are 28 colleges in 26 States that meet accreditation standards set by the Council on Education of the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA). The prerequisites for admission vary by veterinary medical college. Many of these colleges do not require a bachelor's degree for entrance, but all require a significant number of credit hours—ranging from 45 to 90 semester hours—at the undergraduate level. However, most of the students admitted have completed an undergraduate program. Applicants without a bachelor's degree face a difficult task gaining admittance.
Preveterinary courses emphasize the sciences. Veterinary medical colleges typically require classes in organic and inorganic chemistry, physics, biochemistry, general biology, animal biology, animal nutrition, genetics, vertebrate embryology, cellular biology, microbiology, zoology, and systemic physiology. Some programs require calculus; some require only statistics, college algebra and trigonometry, or precalculus. Most veterinary medical colleges also require core courses, including some in English or literature, the social sciences, and the humanities. Increasingly, courses in practice management and career development are becoming a standard part of the curriculum to provide a foundation of general business knowledge for new graduates.
In addition to satisfying preveterinary course requirements, applicants also must submit test scores from the Graduate Record Examination (GRE), the Veterinary College Admission Test (VCAT), or the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT), depending on the preference of each college.
Some veterinary medical colleges place heavy consideration on a candidate's veterinary and animal experience in admittance decisions. Formal experience, such as work with veterinarians or scientists in clinics, agribusiness, research, or some area of health science, is particularly advantageous. Less formal experience, such as working with animals on a farm or ranch or at a stable or animal shelter, also is helpful. Students must demonstrate ambition and an eagerness to work with animals.
There is keen competition for admission to veterinary school. The number of accredited veterinary colleges has largely remained the same since 1983, whereas the number of applicants has risen significantly. Most veterinary medical colleges are public, State-supported institutions and reserve the majority of their openings for instate residents, making admission for out-of-state applicants difficult.
While in veterinary medical college, students receive additional academic instruction in the basic sciences for the first 2 years. Later in the program, students are exposed to clinical procedures, such as diagnosing and treating animal diseases and performing surgery. They also do laboratory work in anatomy, biochemistry, medicine, and other scientific subjects. At most veterinary medical colleges, students who plan a career in research can earn both a D.V.M. degree and a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degree at the same time.
Veterinary graduates who plan to work with specific types of animals typically choose to pursue additional education in 1 of 20 AVMA-recognized veterinary specialties—such as pathology, internal medicine, dentistry, ophthalmology, surgery, radiology, preventive medicine, or laboratory animal medicine—usually in the form of a 2-year internship. Interns receive a small salary but usually find that their internship experience leads to a higher beginning salary, relative to those of other starting veterinarians. Veterinarians who seek board certification in a specialty must also complete a 3- to 4-year residency program that provides intensive training in specialties, such as internal medicine, oncology, radiology, surgery, dermatology, anesthesiology, neurology, cardiology, ophthalmology, and exotic small-animal medicine.
All States and the District of Columbia require that veterinarians be licensed before they can practice. Licensing is controlled by the States and is not strictly uniform, although all States require successful completion of the D.V.M. The Educational Commission for Foreign Veterinary Graduates (ECFVG) grants certification to individuals trained outside the United States who demonstrate that they meet specified requirements for the English language and clinical proficiency. ECFVG certification fulfills the educational requirement for licensure in all States except Nebraska. Applicants for licensure satisfy the examination requirement by passing the North American Veterinary Licensing Exam (NAVLE). The NAVLE, administered by computer, takes 1 day to complete and consists of 360 multiple-choice questions, covering all aspects of veterinary medicine. The NAVLE also includes visual materials designed to test diagnostic skills, comprising 10 percent of the total examination. Requirements differ by State and may involve attending a class or otherwise demonstrating knowledge of recent medical and veterinary advances.
Most veterinarians begin as employees in established practices. Government meat and poultry inspectors, disease-control workers, animal welfare and safety workers, epidemiologists, research assistants, or commissioned officers in the U.S. They should have an affinity for animals and the ability to get along with animal owners, especially when working with pet owners, who tend to form a strong bond with their pet. Veterinarians who intend to go into private practice should possess excellent communication and business skills because they will need to successfully manage their practice and employees and will need to promote, market, and sell their services.
.Veterinarians prevent, diagnose, and treat diseases, disorders, and injuries in animals. Those who do similar work for humans include chiropractors, dentists, optometrists, physicians and surgeons, and podiatrists. Veterinarians have extensive training in physical and life sciences, and some do scientific and medical research, closely paralleling the work of biological scientists and medical scientists.
Animal care and service workers and veterinary technologists and technicians work extensively with animals. Like veterinarians, they must have patience and feel comfortable with animals. However, the level of training required for these occupations is substantially less than that needed by veterinarians.
For additional information on careers in veterinary medicine, a list of U.S. schools and colleges of veterinary medicine, and accreditation policies, send a letter-size, self-addressed, stamped envelope to:
For information on veterinary education, write to:
For information on scholarships, grants, and loans, contact the financial aid officer at the veterinary schools to which you wish to apply.
Information on obtaining a veterinarian position with the Federal Government is available from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) through a telephone-based system. Consult your telephone directory under U.S. Government for a local number or call (703) 724-1850; Federal Relay Service: (800) 877-8339. The first number is not tollfree, and charges may result. Information also is available from the OPM Internet site: http://www.usajobs.opm.gov.
Animals and Pets > Veterinary Medicine in the Yahoo. Veterinary Information Network (VIN) - resources for veterinary professionals. Ferret Pathology - disease information for owners and veterinarians. Emergency Vets - companion site to the Animal Planet program where you can meet the vets, follow case studies, and watch video clips. 100-Day Contract Dairy Wellness Plan - program to improve dairy cow health and maximize the number of early pregnancies.
Summary of: http://dir.yahoo.com/Science/Biology/Zoology/Animals__Insects__and_Pets/Veterinary_Medicine/
Employment opportunities are expected to be very good, but competition for admission to veterinary school is keen. Veterinarians should have an affinity for animals and the ability to get along with animal owners. Some veterinarians use their skills to protect humans against diseases carried by animals and conduct clinical research on human and animal health problems. Others work in basic research, broadening the scope of fundamental theoretical knowledge and, in applied research, developing new ways to use knowledge. Small-animal practitioners usually care for companion animals, such as dogs and cats, but also treat birds, reptiles, rabbits, and other animals that can be kept as pets.
Summary of: http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos076.htm
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Summary of: http://www.marylandinfo.com/Pets_and_Animals/Veterinary/
Our purpose is to provide the same high quality DNA tests for animals. Since 1994, DDC has been dedicated to providing the highest quality DNA test services available at a reasonable price. Most accurate method for securing permanent individual identification. Store DNA for future testing or technology. Testing is performed in our state-of-the-art 68,000 square foot facility.
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Veterinarians need to know about all of these areas of animal medicine plus more.
Summary of: http://www.njvma.org/
Moeller comes to Mesa after completing a year-long internship at Animal Referral and Emergency Center of Arizona, where she focused on small animal medicine and surgery. WE HAVE A WINNER. Congratulations Lesilie. This should be a time of joy, companionship and building bonds that will last a lifetime. SURVEY Please take a moment to provide us with your feedback on your recent visit to our hospital.
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School of Veterinary Medicine .
Summary of: http://www.tufts.edu/vet/
It is found in animals as well as humans. There are many different types of cancer that are found in animals, symptoms are often similar to those in people (eg. abnormal swelling, unexplained weight loss, lethargy / reluctance to exercise etc). Animal Tumour Registry (Italy) The site includes details of tumour classification systems for animal oncology. Gulf Coast Veterinary Oncology (Houston, Texas, USA) The site has details of the practice and information for both veterinarians and the public.
Summary of: http://www.cancerindex.org/clinks30.htm
The hospital is the principal clinical research and instructional laboratory for the Department of Veterinary Clinical Medicine. We are committed to the highest standards of compassion and care for our animal patients, and service to the animal owning public.
Summary of: http://www.cvm.uiuc.edu/vth/
The Merck Veterinary Manual .
Summary of: http://www.merckvetmanual.com/