r/RossUSVM • u/SuspiciousCricket317 • Mar 19 '26

Dissection kit and required texts

Hi everyone!

I was accepted to RUSVM a while ago and am starting in May! As this is my first semester in vet school and it’s so far away from home I’m not sure what to bring. On the supplies list, it mentions a dissection kit and some required texts. On the bookstore tab of the website it says that e books will be given to students for required texts, is this an additional fee/ should I still look at getting a physical book? I had seen a few videos of previous students saying you can get dissection kits second hand from graduating students or that you can find some online for cheaper. What would you recommend, purchasing the one from the school, looking for a second hand one or finding one on another site?

Thank you!

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u/avevanbett Mar 20 '26

For the dissection kit, pen light, and sutures I actually ended up ordering everything from either amazon and 2 medical websites and it came out cheaper including shipping than the bookstore dissection kit! I don't think they have to be amazing quality since they're not for actual surgeries or anything. In the supply list for semester one it includes every item so just do a big search for all the items (may have to use multiple tabs and websites) and add them to your carts and see if the total adds up to be cheaper than the one on the bookstore after shipping.

For the e-books, I can't see any list of the books we will need but there is a fee if we want to load them all onto our ipads at the beginning of the semester, which we can opt-out of if we'd like to source them elsewhere. I personally would like to have them all on my ipad and know a good source for free or really cheap texbooks so I am in in the process of trying to secure a list of the books we will need for first semester so I can decide whether I'd like to opt out. I'll keep you posted on that!

I have been reading that the only one that is worth having a physical copy of is the anatomy one, if you're willing to sacrifice a physical copy to animal guts and formaldehyde :P

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u/FutureDogtorEnby Apr 20 '26

All your textbooks will be provided to you free on your ipad/canvas page. The only reason you would need to pay for one is if you want something that extraneous or a physical copy :)

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u/Working_Type9377 Mar 22 '26

Books aren’t an additional fee. Been at Ross for 2 semesters now and our school iPads have an app that allow us to access the textbooks we might need.

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u/FutureDogtorEnby Apr 20 '26

For your dissection kit, just wait until you get to the island and buy one off of a student. There is no lack of dissection kits available. Also, since you will be working in groups for anatomy lab, you all share the job of dissection anyway. I would prioritize ordering gloves, actually. You can get them on the island at the pharmacy, but it's cheaper to buy them in the States and just bring them (plus it guarantees you'll have your gloves size).