How To Become a Veterinarian | The Path

Hey guys. Dr. Lehrer here at Heron Lakes Animal Hospital in South Florida, and I'm the owner of the practice as well as a veterinarian. And if you guys are watching this video, you're probably interested in finding out what it takes and, or what the process is like to become a veterinarian. If that's the case, grab a pen and paper because there's a lot of stuff that you need to know that people probably won't share with you. So first things first. If you want to be a veterinarian or you're thinking about being a veterinarian, that means that you most likely have a love for animals and, or a passion for taking care of animals. This can either be found when you're young, which was the situation for me. I can remember from the time that I was five to some people where they may have career changes and recognize that, that maybe it was something that they wanted to do, but it was something that maybe wasn't accepted by their family or something like that, or they had certain life circumstances that shifted their path or life experiences that shifted their path to becoming a veterinarian. So for me personally, what ended up happening was I knew from the time, from the beginning, even from when I was five years old, I knew I wanted to be a veterinarian. There's one memory that sticks out for me where I remember we had these neighbors that had a bunch of dogs across the street. They always let their dogs run around and that kind of stuff. And their dogs had, you know, they were missing hair, they didn't look well kept. And what ended up happening was they probably had some sort of mange or allergies. And what I realized, you know, realizing that now being a veterinarian, but what I told my mom and dad was I asked them, I said, mom, dad, is it okay if I go and bathe these dogs? Because I thought, you know, in my 5 to 10 year old brain that if I bathed the dogs, it would help them. So what I did was I went ahead and I took my recycling bin and that was. The recycling bins back then were not these huge, you know, garbage sized bins. They were like these little bins that were probably about, I don't know, like two feet by maybe like half a foot to a foot tall. And I put these puppies in there and I bathed them. And it was from that time that I knew that I wanted to be a veterinarian. Going on through life, the next thing that I think is really important, if you really do want to Be a veterinarian is recognizing that you need to like science. It's great if you want to, if you love animals, and if that's the case, but if you don't like science, it is going to be very, very challenging to make it through all the steps and all the classes and all that kind of stuff to then become a veterinarian. You can still be involved in taking care of animals, helping animals, the welfare of animals, even if you don't like science. So don't get discouraged by people telling you, oh, you can't be a veterinarian. You can still do other things, whether it's being technicians, whether it's being the manager of a practice to go ahead and help animals get the care that they need, whether it's working for foundations, whether it's working for the Humane Society, whether it's working for rescues. The. There are so many different things that you can do if you don't like science, that you can still help animals. But if you do want to be a veterinarian, number two, science is really important. Have to like it. Now, going down that path, going from, you know, junior from 6th to 8th grade, and then from 9th to 12th grade, the purpose of those classes, the curriculum and all those kinds of things is really just to kind of start preparing you for all the classes that you're gonna have to take when you're in vet school. If you're in sixth grade or eighth grade or something like that, don't tell your parents I said this, but it's not that important if you get good grades or bad grades from that standpoint, it's from the time that you start as a freshman in high school up to your senior year, including your senior year, then the grades start to become more important. Even if you don't get good grades, it doesn't necessarily mean that you can't become a veterinarian. I didn't have good grades. You know, I think I had a 3.0 when I got into undergrad. And even then, that's not that big of a deal. The undergraduate institution that you go to is not going to be the end all, be all. You know, I actually ended up going to University of Florida. Go Gators. And I went there for my freshman year because I was super excited. I had a bunch of friends going to vet school or undergrad there, and my sister had gone there as well. And so something that I really looked forward to, and I went, did my first year there. Some people, you know, when they go ahead and they're Taking classes. What they'll do is they'll take, you know, maybe one or two hardish classes, like a science, chemistry, a biology or something like that, and then they'll take like a fluff class here and there. And so what I ended up doing was after my fall and spring semester, I went back down to Miami, which is where I was born and raised, and I went ahead and I started volunteering at a veterinarian's office. Now, volunteering and getting experience is going to be really important for you. If you are planning on trying to become a veterinarian for a couple of reasons. Number one, the reason it's important to go ahead and volunteer for a veterinarian or at a veterinarian's practice is so that you actually know what you're getting yourselves into. Fortunately, in veterinary medicine or veterinary medicine is one of the few medical fields or healthcare provider fields where you can still actually go to the office because you don't have to worry about HIPAA violations or anything like that. And you can go ahead and get the opportunity to see what it's really like behind the scenes. Even if you need to work for free, that is probably the best because as a practice owner, when I have employees, I'm worried about making sure that I'm getting what I'm paying for. If you are fortunate enough to be able to volunteer work for free at a veterinary hospital, then it is crucial that you take that opportunity. Okay, if you can't, then see if you can find a job. You know, that's something that, that will be important, but it is something that is going to be crucial in terms of getting the experience, A, so that you know what the, the actual field is like. B, if you are still on that path and you've decided that you want to move forward with still going to vet school, you like what's going on, you think you can make a difference, then what you're going to want to do is you're going to need to get multiple letters of recommendation from at least two or three different veterinarians. And so if you only work at one practice and there's only one doctor there, it's going to be a challenge. So I recommend either working at multiple practices or working at a practice where they have multiple doctors. Again, like I said, volunteering would be ideal because they can show you really cool stuff. They don't have to worry so much about, you know, getting what you're paying, what they're paying for. Recognize everybody needs to start from the bottom. I was cleaning Dog cages, poop, diarrhea, vomit, all that kind of stuff, and then eventually working your way up to becoming a veterinarian, if that's what you still choose, and even potentially becoming the owner so that you understand what it is that everybody in the hospital goes through experiences and that kind of stuff. Okay, so I came down, going back, I came down for my summer after my freshman year, started volunteering for this veterinarian and, and the veterinarian told me, he said, you know, he didn't really recommend me staying at University of Florida because from his experience, what happens a lot of times is people will apply to vet school after they graduate from getting their bachelor's and they don't get accepted because there's a lot of times a lot of applicants and usually not enough spaces for all the applicants. And so what he recommended was that I actually go to the local community college, which was Miami Dade Community College at the time. And he recommended that I take all my prerequisite classes. So biology, biology 1, biology 2, chemistry, gen chem 1, general chemistry 2, organic chemistry 1, organic chemistry 2, physics 1, physics 2. And to be sincere, getting the, the, the foundation in biology and chemistry, helpful to get you through and understanding the concepts and that kind of stuff. But it's all weed out classes for all intents and purposes. And so what you're really learning in those classes, as long as you get a foundation, you don't necessarily need to get crazy and all that kind of stuff. So I ended up making the decision. And this may be if, depending on where you're at, this may be a hard decision. I actually ended up making the decision to stay in South Florida and do my next year at the local community college. That meant I had to break up with a girlfriend who I had no issues with. But I had made the decision. And I told myself, I said I went to undergrad to go ahead and become a veterinarian. I didn't go to undergrad to party and to have a girlfriend and all those kinds of things. So I made that decision. It wasn't a decision that I took lightly and I stayed down in South Florida for a year. And so what I did was I crunched in all these classes. My general chemistry 2, my biology 1, my bio 2, organic chemistry 1, organic chemistry 2, physics 1, physics 2, and then some other classes that were required. And it was something where sometimes at the community college I wanted to take physics 1 and physics 2 at the same time. And that was something that I had to get approval. I will tell you I don't know how it is at your community college, but in my community college, the classes were smaller. At University of Florida, the classes were between two to 400 students. For those pre health classes, that means you have people that want to be dentists, medical doctors, pharmacists, veterinarians, and everyone's really, really competitive in that setting typically. And so it's very, very cutthroat. Versus in these community classes are community college classes. The classes are much smaller. You actually get to speak with the professor. Odds are the classes are probably going to be easier. So you're going to be able to take all those classes and at the end of the day you can come up with whatever you want, but they're still going to accept your credits wherever it is that you're applying. The classes were at an institution that provides those courses, and so they're going to be accepted. You know, you might have to come up with something. I personally said that there were financial constraints which caused me to stay at home and I didn't have to pay rent or, you know, the dorms and that kind of stuff. But that's what I ended up doing in that timeframe. Then I went ahead and I went back to University of Florida for my junior year where I took biochemistry, microbiologies, physiology and endocrinology, a couple of other courses. I personally majored in animal medicine. And that was something that had a very fixed course on getting into vet school. And after those three years, I was actually able to apply to vet school, which is what this other veterinarian had recommended. And the case was if I did not get into vet school, then what would happen is I would have a whole other year to work on whatever the weaknesses were in my applications for the following year. That way I didn't have to either have a gap year where I was either working or maybe starting a master's program where I saw that a lot of times with other classmates, it was something where I was ready to go. And, and what actually ended up happening was I got. I didn't get into Florida because my GRE score wasn't high enough. I think they wanted me to get it bumped up maybe another 40 or 60 points. I got waitlisted at Mississippi State University and then I took the. Then I actually ended up getting in probably about like a week later, a few days later or something like that. And, and I took advantage of that opportunity and it was great because there was no guarantees that Florida was going to accept me the, the next year. And if you go ahead and you assume that you're going to get in, or if you're concerned about the increase of cost of tuition and that kind of stuff because you're going out of state, you have to also think from the standpoint of if you have one less year of income as a veterinarian, which is when I started was $65,000, most likely. Now it's probably between 80 to $90,000 starting then. That's a big difference. And so that's something that you're going to have to take into consideration. Now, the other thing that you want to know, next thing, you need to be aware of the amount of student debt that you are going to accumulate, and you need to figure out what kind of lifestyle you want to live. A lot of people don't like about talking about money. That is something that I think is very naive. Because if you are going to be taking out all this money or all these loans to go to vet school, you need to make sure it makes financial sense. And so as a practice owner, it does make financial sense for me to go ahead and go to vet school and accumulate those debts. I was very fortunate that my family ended up helping me cover a lot of the expenses of vet school. But a lot of people don't have those opportunities. And so if you do want to become a veterinarian, the other thing that you have to take into consideration is the amount of student debt that you're going to accumulate and then what that's going to cost you each month and is it still going to be worth it? Because you can get burnt out, and I don't want you guys getting burnt out, hopping back to undergrad. The other thing is, you need to go ahead. When I was in undergrad, I had, I think I got into vet school with like a 3.6 or a 3.5, something like that, GPA. And I went ahead and when I was applying for vet school, some people might be too prideful to say, oh, you know, I'm not going to use any sort of thing. I just want it to be based on my grades and my merits and all that kind of stuff. That's a bunch of malarkey, and that's ego. Because if at the end of the day your outcome isn't get into vet school, who cares if they let you in because you're a guy, you're a girl, you're Hispanic, you're Asian, you're black, whatever it is, you take that opportunity and you run. And if you choose not to accept it, you Got a lot of pride. And you need to go ahead and rethink things because at the end of the day, you want to become a veterinarian, you want to become a doctor, and you want to help animals. And so always keep that into consideration. I went ahead and I used the experience of growing in, growing up in the city of Miami in a melting pot and how that exposed me to all these different kind of cultures, and that's how I was going to go ahead and bring diversity to the Class of 2008 at Mississippi State University. You know, it's something that I would definitely go ahead and keep in consideration. The other thing that you need to know, when you're applying to vet school, not only do you need, do you want letters of recommendation for from multiple veterinarians. Ideally you would have some large animal experience. So that means working with cows and horses as well as small animal experience. I personally am a small animal veterinarian, and so dogs and cats is what I'm comfortable with. A lot of people tend to go down the path of what they're comfortable with. If you've grown up on a farm or around large animals, you may want to go ahead and do large animals. You do. You don't be forced into anything that you don't want to do. The other thing that you want to know is if you can potentially get some research experience, that is something that would be very helpful because now you're going to go ahead and you're going to have small animal experience, you'll have large animal experience, and then you have some research experience. So that's going to make you look more diverse on paper and it's going to make you look more attractive. Now, when you've got the letters of recommendation, you've got the different experience, you're going to want to go ahead and you're going to want to have some leadership roles or role in some organization or organizations. Why you want to do this? Because you want to make sure that you are trying to distinguish yourself from, let's say everyone has a 4.0 or 3.5, whatever. I'm not going to get crazy and think that everyone has that, because I certainly did not. But you want to go ahead and you want to be able to say, hey, look, I was a president of the, of, you know, the pre vet club or I was the president of the Circle K Club or some. Some sort of organization that shows that not only do you care about your grades, but you also care about the community and you also have leadership school skills. Because what will end up happening potentially is you will go ahead and you will turn into a leader in the field, and that will reflect back well on the university. And so that will make them that much more prouder and that much more likely to consider you as a potential candidate to get into vet school versus if you just have two people who have 4.0s. Well, what's really the difference? Okay, One person's a guy, one person's a girl, one person's black, one person's white, one person's Hispanic, one person comes from poverty, one person comes with wealth. You want to go ahead and show as much diversity as possible and that you're not just, you know, oh, I'm a bookworm, A. If you are, great. Even if you are, you still need to show some other. That you're well rounded. Okay. Also, for when you're asking for those letters of recommendation, do not wait till the last second. If you're going to be asking somebody for a letter of recommendation, they need to know you for probably close to six months to a year. So this is something that in an ideal situation, you would go ahead and you could plan it. Otherwise, what you could potentially end up doing is, you know, three to six months, you could potentially make it happen. But it's something that you really want the person to get to know you. If you ask them to write you a letter at the last second, it may not come out that great, and that's going to reflect poorly on you. So you don't want to go ahead and give somebody a few days or a few weeks or something like that to go ahead and write you a letter of recommendation. It might seem, seem. It might seem silly to go ahead and mention this, but it's something that I would definitely recommend. Also, if you're asking somebody for a letter recommendation and you know them, I personally tend to go ahead and wait till the last minute for things. So when people have asked me for letters of recommendations, sometimes they have actually told me the deadline was four weeks before it was actually due. And it is actually not even available for the veterinarian to know or whoever is writing you the letter of recommendation when it's actually due, you, as a person who's applying to vet school will go ahead and be able to put on the application, hey, it's due this time. Doesn't matter if it's really due four weeks from then. So remember that the next thing that you want to know, cramming versus going ahead and actually studying little by little, studying by little. Little by little is something that is going to be better for you. There's a guy, his name is Jim Quick, he's really good about teaching. I highly recommend that you look him up. He teaches you on how to learn. So that way, not only are we always getting taught on what to learn, but we're never taught how to learn. Look him up. It'd probably be worth it if you look into some of his classes. He is not a sponsor of this. It is just somebody who. He's got some information out there and some courses and I do recommend it. But if you cram, can you make it through vet school? Yes, you can, but you're gonna have to cram maybe instead of the night before, maybe two or three nights before, because the volume of information that you're gonna have to go ahead and consume is significantly more. I specifically remember the first parasitology test that I took. I was almost had an. I'm trying not to curse on video, but I had. I had to have a talk with myself. I come to Jesus point and say, freaking out is not going to help the situation. You need to go ahead, you need to suck it up and you need to do what you need to do. Also, if you are a crammer or something like that, make sure that you surround yourself with. With people who are not crammers because they're going to help you in certain studying in certain ways, and hopefully you can add value to them. Everybody hates somebody who's just a leech who just asked for notes and all those kinds of things. Don't be that person. Another side note, taking notes while typing, you don't retain the information anywhere near as much as you do when you write it out. That's something that I learned from experience. There are studies that show that now. So if you want to go ahead and get it all down by typing it, great. But you're gonna. My recommendation is you go back and you write it out. So that way you go ahead and have to summarize what it is that was actually said and you'll go ahead and start retaining it. Okay. When you're going. Once, let's say you've actually gotten it into vet school, now you're in vet school, and. And you're going ahead and you're going through the process and all that kind of stuff. My recommendation is if you do want to be a specialist, which will go ahead and generate a lot of income, those will be areas that are going to require you to potentially, you know, you're going to need to have pretty decent grades. And if you're not going to have decent grades, you need to go ahead and you need to find specialists who have residency programs. And if they don't have a residency program, would they be willing to go ahead and have you be a resident? So I didn't have necessarily great grades. I think I had like a 3.0 when I graduated vet school. But I can tell you I was a hard worker. I was easy to get along with. I was very pleasant. I added energy to the environment. And honestly, if I wanted to, I'm pretty sure I could have become an ophthalmologist, a veterinary ophthalmologist because of a particular area. I remember this one particular ophthalmologist that I work with. People were super. The people were super nice. And it's not necessarily just going to be about getting, you know, stellar grades, but also if you go ahead and you develop those bonds that goes into what we call externships. Mississippi State. Apply to Mississippi State. There are so many people that don't apply to Mississippi State because maybe they think, oh, Mississippi, this, that, and the other. The people in Starkville, Mississippi are extremely nice, and they don't get enough qualified in state candidates. So half the class is out of state. That's unheard of for a college of veterinary medicine to take that many out of state students. So it really helps your chances to get in somewhere. So don't go ahead and discount Mississippi State. They have one, or at least when I graduated, they had one of the highest match percentages in the nation of all the vet schools. Match. What is match? Match is where you go ahead and you. Let's say you've decided to go ahead and become a specialist. You can go ahead and then decide where it is you want to apply to specialize, and then they have to choose you. Mississippi State has a whole year or maybe like four or six months. The program may have changed since then. Where they do externships, essentially you go somewhere for two to three to four weeks and you just get experience there. Doing something like that is huge because those places get to know you as a person. They get to know your work ethic, they get to know your personality, not just you on paper. And so if I have to choose between someone that has worked in my clinic with me or somebody that is just on paper, that person that I've worked in the clinic definitely has the advantage. So that's one of the things that I would definitely recommend. If you're looking to specialize or even if you're at Mississippi State and you have the opportunity to get an externship and you want to go, we want to work at a particular practice, look at going ahead and doing the externship there. Okay? The last thing that I'm going to tell you is if you want to be a veterinarian, have that group of friends in vet school that will help you go ahead and make it through. Vet school is not easy. It does require persistence. Almost anyone can probably become a veterinarian if you are persistent enough, if you want it bad enough. Because at the end of the day, the only people who don't become veterinarians are either the ones that say, hey, it's not my passion, which is totally fine, shouldn't be doing something that you don't love, or the people that thought that it was, you know, that they couldn't make it. There may be some guidance counselors in undergrad programs that might tell you, oh, don't apply because you don't have the grades, don't listen to them. Those people are misguided and they will go ahead and potentially steer you down the wrong path. So that's something to keep in mind. Now when you're going to graduate from vet school, you're going to start to look for a job. And what you're going to want to do is you're going to go ahead. It's going to be about a year to probably two years in advance that you'll probably, if you're going to go out into general practice, that you're going to start looking at where you want to go. I highly recommend that if you're not going to do an internship, which I did, not that you at least try to go ahead and work your first year at a really busy practice, a 24 hour facility, because heads up, surprise. If you're in vet school, they don't really teach you nine to five medicine, they teach you hospital medicine. And so when you go ahead and you graduate, if you work at a practice that is open from 8 in the morning to 6 o' clock at night, what do I do with those hospitalized patients? Well, does this patient need to go home? I normally would have hospitalized this patient. That's something where you're going to go ahead and you're going to learn little by little. And if you guys want it enough, I'll go ahead and I'll create a video on helping you guys kind of navigate those waters in terms of the difference between 9 to 5 medicine and 24 hour medicine. But what you're going to want to do is you're going to want to find a place that is open 24 7, sees all kinds of crazy cases. So that way you can actually go ahead and just soak up all that experience. So number one, you're going to get the experience but number two, you're also not going to get paid like an intern. You're going to get paid like an actual veterinarian. Now they may not hold your hand as much as or they may, but it is definitely worth it. That's the path that I took. I worked at an institution that was had been open for 85 to 95 years, was a 24 hour facility. They had me, they had two different locations. I bounced back and forth a couple of times between each one of the locations. I worked mostly daytime, did a week of emergency shifts which you know meant that I was on from 7pm to 7am and that was actually really helpful. Also, I personally also look into going ahead and there's a book, it's called who and who is a book that is made for business owners on figuring out on who we want to hire, what we need to look for and that kind of stuff. It's something that I would highly recommend that you look into and read. It's a short book. You can do it on audio. It'll give you some ideas of what a business owner would be looking for and to go ahead and give you that opportunity to get in and go ahead and find that job that you really want. Because at the end of the day it would really suck if you ended up getting a job and hating the environment because it's toxic and then wondering what you could have done to prevent that from happening otherwise. That's pretty much everything that I got. If you guys have other questions about maybe some stuff that I didn't COVID leave it in the comment box. If you found this video helpful, please give us a thumbs up. 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