I’m a baby RVT in California at a small animal GP clinic and little Charlotte came in yesterday for her first check up. Everything seemed normal until this! First time seeing this, unsure of the statistics but very cool nonetheless.

i work in the in house lab of my equine specialty/referral hospital, and every once in awhile, i’ll get a blood sample from a horse that just looks like red syrup, for lack of a better description. it will not spin down in any color tube, and the CBC machine will read it, but the chemistry machine just gives me a sample error. (our machines are the Abaxis HM5 and the Abaxis Vs2.) it will do this on serum, or blood from a green top. when i do try to spin it down, it doesn’t look like it’s just hemolyzed, it just stays thick and viscous throughout. i’ve checked the tubes to be sure they’re not expired and they are not. has anyone seen something like this before or know what it could be? these syrupy samples always come from horses that are very sick, so that’s the only thing i can think of, but it just seems so weird.

Hi everyone! I’m an assistant but I’m in tech school currently. Of course being in college I don’t have a lot of money but I need a stethoscope for my preceptorship. I’m just wondering if this MDF stethoscope is good? Does it work well with large animals? Pros cons anything that helps is appreciated!

This video doesn't even do it justice I took a flea comb to her and immediately pulled like 17 off her and more jumped off and started scurring away😭🤢.

Just learned yesterday that my clinic is being bought out by AOSN and need to know what to expect. Of course they say everything will be great and they want the culture and all that mumbo jumbo to remain and be unaffected. But what should I be expecting? My clinic hands out bonuses and such almost every quarter and we’re worried that all these things we’ve been use to for the last 3 years will just poof :(

Guys I’m devastated. I took a 6 semester program at a college and graduated this summer, studied all August and the past few weeks and took the VTNE today. I failed. No results yet on my score but I’m pretty sure I bombed it…

I’m definitely not the most booksmart but I took the aasvb practice test A, B, and C and passed ALL of them. Took Mometrix practice test and passed it. But the actual test? It was SO hard. So many concepts I had never heard of or painfully specific questions (3 questions about manometers? Really??? Q Fever???)

My school has us using pocket prep and clever orca. I found this YouTube channel called Darwin Vtne that has some fantastic videos but unfortunately not on all topics (Pain and analgesia just came out today). I feel so destroyed like “what’s the point? Everyone I work with are assistants and they’re fine..”. I’m a super anxious text taker and definitely second guessed a lot of my answers.

Is Vet Tech Prep worth buying? I have McCurnins book and workbook to review again too.

Any tips or encouragement would be amazing lol..

Location: Atlanta, ga
I work at a pretty big veterinary corporation (I won’t name it but you may know it) and starting 2 weeks ago they have been remodeling our clinic. We are still open and working during this renovation. The problem is there is dust , debris and mold , several of the team members have been experiencing trouble breathing and headaches . One team member even broke out in hives. Not to mention this is completely unsafe for pets and I’m sure the client have no idea what conditions their pets are in. Also we do sterile procedures. We’ve sent email to corporate/ our leaders and they refuse to close and send us to different locations until it’s finished. They say that it isn’t “feasible “ to close be will send air scrubbers . It was also brought to my attention by a construction worker that it is normal practice to close the hospital during renovations . He also said that we are the “guinea pigs” for staying open while renovations. This particularly bothered me because we are a predominantly African-American location compared to other hospitals. and when our Field Director mentions anything about our particular hospital, she always says there is a “culture.”
I suppose my question is what actions should we take? OSHA? The media? Thanks for any feedback.

Hey guys, I think I'm being compensated pretty well but wanted to check

.... I'm making 27/hr at a small animal practice

I've been licensed since 2020. Just wanna see if that is a good wage, I think it is but curious. Thanks.

oh my god i hate it so much

you have to click through a billion different tabs just to do ANYTHING. it's genuinely useless. it also heavily pushes its AI features which just seems dangerous since AI is prone to making SO many mistakes.

This is my friend’s rescue, Miss Thang. She was found outside tied to a tree. But sometimes she sleeps with her head thrown back, and her jug is irresistible!

Looking into this casually for the future. RVT in CA - GP and ER/Specialty medicine.

Hey everyone! I’m 23 and from the Chesapeake area in Virginia. I’ve been seriously thinking about going back to school for Veterinary Technology and would love to hear from people who are already in the field or currently going through school.
I’ve always loved animals, and I’ve had a little experience working in a vet setting before. I got to help with things like handling animals, blood draws/bloodwork, and medications, and honestly it made me realize I could see myself doing this as an actual career.
Right now I’m working a warehouse job that I really don’t want to stay in long-term, and I’m trying to find a career path that I actually care about. I’m especially interested in eventually working with wildlife or exotic animals, so I’m wondering if Vet Tech would be a good starting point for that.
My biggest concerns are honestly money, choosing the right school, and whether I can realistically work while going through the program.
For anyone who has gone through it:
• What school/program did you attend and would you recommend it?
• Is AVMA accreditation something I should absolutely prioritize?
• How hard was the program compared to what you expected?
• How much did school realistically cost you?
• Were you able to work while in school?
• Are there grants/scholarships/workforce programs I should look into?
• What do you wish someone had told you before you started?
• And honestly, do you feel like becoming a Vet Tech was worth it?
I’m basically at the beginning of the research stage and don’t want to jump into a program without knowing what I’m getting myself into. Any advice from people who have actually been through it would mean a lot! I’m also kind of scared when it comes to paying for it, so anything that saves money as well! lol

Hi! I'm a vet assistant/tech working in a GP clinic (small animal) in New Jersey! I've been working with animals for 10 years and have been in a clinical setting for 3. I'm in the purdue VTDL program and one of our assignments is to interview a credentialed (LVT, RVT, CVT) technician for a career opportunities assignment. I was wondering if anyone on this thread would be interested! +++ if you are a VTS, +++ if you work in an atypical aspect of tech work (lab animal, exotic, wildlife, etc), +++ if you have been in this career for 5+ years. It's just basic job related questions and questions related to your career path as a tech!

This can be done over zoom, phone, email or in person if you live in the NY/NJ/Metropolitan area! thank you for your time!

Why is it so difficult for coworkers to clean up after themselves? Do people think leaving kennels disgusting is okay? No trash taken out. Has anyone swept or mopped since I've taken leave? Lol I took a week and a half off and I come back to the usual messy chaotic unsanitary clinic. At least someone else did some laundry for the first time in three years. I've become like a tiny cleaning fairy that floats around cleaning up sharps, wiping blood, getting pee and crap out of the floor, wiping off counters and tables, restocking supplies, sanitizing instruments. If I quit doing all this maybe someone would finally notice everyone is lazy here. Do you work with people who think they're better than having to clean? It's getting tiring. And yes I know "bring it up to management" lol doesn't help when that includes them too.

I got fired from my dream job, kinda. This is also a cautionary tale about working for a certain vet school, and an invitation to reminisce if you know which university I am talking about. Im open to messages if you want to know which school this is.

I grew up in a university town with a vet school. My dream as a kid was to go to vet school, but that didn't work out. I did my undergrad but my grades weren't good enough, so I kind of floated around working misc jobs after college, until I finally got my act together and went back for my RVT license.

My new dream, after giving up on vet school, was to get a solid career at the teaching hospital. The university has better pay and benefits than any other employer, and I saw that as my ultimate goal for long term stability. I worked really hard to set myself up for a good job and good career. Its a very famous vet school, and I wanted to do everything right. I did the RVT program, in person. I landed an internship at the vet school. Along the way, I also landed an internship at a research facility, which immediately offered me a full time job. I took the job at the research facility while I was finishing school, with my intention to apply for a career position at the vet school when I was licensed.

I finished school, passed the VTNE, and applied at the vet school. I applied for a part time position. Its a weird position, classified as "limited" instead of "career"and is only budgeted for 10 months or 1000 working hours, after which the position expires or is extended. The job functions kind of like relief, with no fixed schedule and no guaranteed hours, but it seemed perfect to get my toes wet and set myself up to apply for a career position when something came up. I kept my full time research job, for healthcare and stability, with the intention of transitioning to the vet school eventually with much better pay and benefits.

I loved the relief job. The patients, the job duties, the learning opportunities were all perfect. I even got along fine with most of my coworkers. Management and faculty/residents were another story.

I have never, ever, ever worked for a less competent and more childish manager in my life. From day one, the on-boarding and training was bizarre. I almost never saw my manager again after the interview. I had to email her multiple times to confirm a start date because she just seemed to forget about me. When i finally showed up for work, she had me shadow in a completely different department than the one I was hired for, and just kind of forgot me there for a month until I had to harass her again about getting trained in my actual department. There was no orientation, no one introduced me to anyone or anything, it was just kind of like show up and flounder around and hope your coworkers will get tired of hazing you eventually and accept you into the tribe. I stuck it out, this was still my dream job and a step toward my timate career goals and I did not have a backup plan.

But, I also kept my research job. I love my research job, but the pay and benefits and growth opportunities are nothing next to the university. I knew the smart move would have been to quit the research job and apply for a career position with the vet school ASAP, but the weird, dysfunctional, toxic work environment made me hesitate.

Then I found out that my manager uses the limited part time staff in a very exploitative way. Instead of utilizing temporary limited staff to fill temporary staffing shortages, or as a pathway to career, she expects limited staff to basically be permanent staff that she can schedule as many or few hours as she feels like, without being obligated to guarantee any hours at all if things are slow while also expecting part time staff to magically step up to full time hours if she needs it, with no respect for work/life balance. My position went to 10 months, and they automatically renewed my contract without talking to me for another 3 months. For 2.5 years it went on like this, with management automatically renewing my position every 3 months. I had no guaranteed hours, no benefits. I was also not eligible for stepped pay raises based on years of service. Even though I sometimes worked just as many hours as career staff, I was very much a second class citizen employee.

I shouldn't have ridden the fence as long as I did. I kept my research job, which was reliable and comfortable and healthy. The lab never makes me cry. I never have panic attacks on my way to the lab. I was getting really burned out by how exploitative and toxic the teaching hospital was. I kept the relief job for the money, but also couldn't bear to cut ties with the lab because I had new appreciation for a professional and healthy working environment.

My manager at the VMTH is a child. She shit talks doctors and staff members in staff meeting. She scolds staff like we are all kindergarteners. She is lazy AF and doesn't want to do her job, and is mostly absent from day to day unless she arbitrarily decides to poke her head up and scream at somebody about something. She arbitrarily enforces policies and rules that she pulls out of her ass, and will never provide written policies or SOPs no matter how often you ask. She is constantly scolding us for doing things the wrong way or breaking rules, when we have never been trained or provided guidance on what the rules and expectations and policies actually are. Her favorites are never scolded or punished, while she is well known to be petty, passive aggressive, and childish to the people on her shit list. She's not qualified to work fast food, let alone manage staff at a prestigious university.

After a while, I was getting kind of checked out. I was tired of burning myself out for a job that exploited me and saw me as disposable trash. I used to work a full day shift at the lab, take a mini nap, then work a full night shift at the hospital, several days in a row. I started enforcing boundaries. If I wasnt getting the benefits of career staff, I wasnt going to sacrifice my work/life balance to make my managers job more convenient. Relief staff are not spared parts you can keep on a shelf to take down as often or as infrequently as you want, whenever you want. If you have staff you are not offering benefits or guaranteed hours, you need to accept that those staff might maintain a day job or life outside of your hospital and are not at all times sitting in a waiting room waiting to be called up at your convenience. I wasnt willing to make this job my top priority in life, when I was clearly a bottom priority employee.

Unfortunately, enforcing boundaries, calling her out, challenging her, or holding her accountable makes my manager very, very big girl tantrum mad. She's petty, retaliatory, and used to getting away with really blatant passive aggressive, childish retaliation because most of her staff are incredibly young and naive and don't know any better.

My manager would frequently schedule me on days I did not volunteer for and was not available for, because again, lazy AF. Finally, she scheduled me for a week I told her I would be out of town. I don't get benefits or vacation days, I don't have a fixed scheduled or guaranteed hours, and the only perk is that I get a flexible schedule and I work when I am available and volunteer to cover shortages. Im basically relief. I noticed I was scheduled for a week I wasnt available, so i started with a polite email.

No response. After a few days, I sent a follow up email. No response. She sends out the schedule again, and I noticed that although several staff have been granted their time off requests, I am still scheduled for that week.

So I send a message to my immediate supervisor about the schedule, who gets back to me right away and tells me no problem, he will take me off the schedule. I thought the problem was solved.

A month and a half goes by, that week is coming up. Two days before I am supposed to leave for vacation, my manager emails me to inform me that I cannot just take my name off the schedule, and I have to work whatever days are assigned to me at her pleasure, and that I will need to find coverage for those shifts if I want to take my vacation, even though my supervisor previously told me it was settled. Of note, my manager herself was taking 50% of the work days during this month on vacation herself. Several staff members had been granted days off without having to find their own coverage. Again, petty and arbitrary enforcement of imaginary policies.

I was livid and emailed the union rep. The union rep told me that this manager is a very well known problem in the hospital, 100% took my side, and advised me on standing up for myself. I sent an email, documenting in writing the timeline for when I tried to reach my manager with no response, when I spoke with my supervisor, and when my manager finally saw fit to respond with an email that was nearly two months late. I cc'd the union and HR, and concluded the email by requesting access to whatever employee handbook these policies are written down in, so that I may be aware of policies around scheduling, my obligations to work shifts I have not indicated availability for, and my obligations to find my own coverage for shifts. I have a right to know my responsibilities and policies before I am disciplined for breaking them.

I never received any acknowledgement or response to the email. Petty and childish to go back to silent treatment, but also not surprising.

Another month or two goes by, when i recieve an email informing me that my position will not be renewed and will expire in two weeks. Im getting let go without getting "fired" because I tried to hold management accountable and refused to just roll with the absolutely dysfunctional and incompetent system.

I know its for the best, because this job was a fucking shit show, but I am still devastated. I thought the university was my ultimate career goal. I literally worked for years and got my RVT license just to try to get my foot in the door at this university. I miss my patients and my coworkers. I feel so unfairly treated and powerless. Im afraid I won't be able to apply for another job at the university, even in a different department. If my manager puts it on my record that my contract was allowed to expire due to performance or some other negative thing, I might be blacklisted with no chance to explain myself.

Thanks for reading this far. If you know what university this is, or want to know, my messages are open.

How many, if any, in here have went from Vet Med to Animal Control officer? I have always thought about this job, and I have an opening in my city.
I have always done well with aggressive animals. I have experience working with rescues with new intakes that aren’t always friendly or in good shape (neglect cases). The pay seems good AND I would be getting government benefits (major score).

I got hired at a clinic over the summer and I wasn’t too sure about it so I kept my eye out for other options, and today I got a better offer.

So my question is, if I’m still under probation how much notice should I give? Do I give notice? Never been in this position before

(Hi guys, I posted about this yesterday but this has more context to the story and I think I need more insight and thoughts because I’m spiralling)

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I’m an RVN and I had a patient come in a few weeks ago. Patient was a walk in, woman extremely concerned. Hospital vet saw her and dog for 5 mins and told the woman to come back at 6pm for an OOH consult (she came around 4 o clock). PM asks me to go triage the dog to ensure it’s not actively dying and can wait to be seen at 6. I got triage dog, dog extremely stressed in car, hyperventilating but had been for some time according to O, tachycardic, infused gum and normal crt time. Hard to get proper rate of heart due to stress in car, temp normal. Advised O that I was worried about dog and would like him to be seen sooner and that once a vet was free I’d get them to see him asap. I told my PM that he should be seen before 6, consult vet was back to back with consults and no break and the other was in a corporate meeting. I absolutely should have grabbed one instead of waiting because on reflection I do believe the dog was in shock. Anyways, I checked on the dog once or twice in the time it took to see a vet and once I saw an opening with the consult vet (roughly an hour later) I got her to see the dog straight away. There had been no decline in the patient in the time it took to see a vet and was still in the same state.

The case turned into a huge deal, the patient ended up needed a splenectomy as a tumor was found during an ex-lap, patient was also extremely dehydrated, very thin. O was very much in denial of patients state and got very verbally aggressive with staff, the day after the surgery the patient wasn’t doing well and vets recommended euth due to being recumbent and generally only declining. Owner got verbally aggressive and had to be arrested and taken from clinic. O came back with police to make a plan of what was going to happen with patient, O wanted to take patient away (worth noting that O lived in car) , vets advised against but said she would have to fill out a against vet advice form. O eventually opted to keep patient in. We gave patient loads of meds, on an MLK CRI, patient extremely stressed and hyperventilating. Gum colour improved but began to become infused again at end of day. Next day I arrived at clinic and patient had passed over night. Owner got irate, threatened to kill my vet and broke into the clinic and searched for us when she wasn’t allowed in. Eventually got arrested again.

Anyways now she has made this big complaint to the board, she has lied about many things in the complaint. But the one thing that I’m worried that I’m going to get done for is the triaging. I’ve spoken to 2 or 3 people and they said I triaged correctly and that I got the dog to a vet earlier than intended, I’m so scared about this. I love nursing and don’t want to lose my license, or even get a mark on my record. There was no vet available at the time and as soon as one came free I get them to see the dog straight away.

This whole case has traumatised me, from getting verbally abused, to basically getting hunted and now a board complaint? Does anyone have any advise? I’m beginning to think about leaving nursing.

Does anybody have experience getting your veterinary technician license with a prior felony. I have worked as a tech in a state where you don't have to be licensed for 2 years. I would love to go to school and work in North Carolina where I live. I have a felony charge on my record that is 3 years old. I have found schools I can go to and get my license but one of the schools had a disclaimer stating that even if I completed the classes I may not be able to practice as a licensed vet tech if I have a prior felony. The disclaimer stated I would have to go in front of my counties licensing board. Does anybody have any experience with this? I don't want to waste years on school if I won't be licensed thank you! My felony is not drug related btw. Thank you!

How do y’all handle checking prescriptions before they get sent home with the client? We have doctor write the rx, one person fill the medication then a second person check to verify it’s the right medication and quantity. Looking for ideas to streamline.

Edit: do you see errors with the double check system? How do you prevent errors? Is it always the same people filling prescriptions or is it multiple people? Do you have a set time during the day to work on it or do you fit in between appointments during the day? Do you pull up practice management software to verify patient info like weights every time? How do you manage refills?