I Want To Be A Veterinarian

My grandfather was a veterinarian. He graduated from KCVC (Kansas City Veterinary College) in 1911. He was a veterinarian in the US Cavalry. He raced trotters. He imported, bred, raised, and trained guard dogs. He raised and trained horse and dogs that he sold to circuses. He worked for the federal meat inspection service to feed, house, and clothe his family during the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s (the Great Depression and WWW II). He provided veterinary care to his neighbors after his meat inspection workday. When he retired from meat inspection, he went back to the farmstead, and worked as a mixed-animal veterinarian in a rural area of Kansas, in an area that had an abundance of horses (Mennonite settlements). I was tagging along with him on his calls by the time I was three years old.

I am a veterinarian. I graduated from K-State in 1977. I started my own practice straight out of vet school. I worked in a rural area, dealing with dogs, cats, horses, cattle, etc. Twenty years later, I added a job with the Veterinary Information Network (VIN), helping veterinarians use an online service that was designed to help them with their medical case and management issues. Eventually, I closed my private practice and went to work for VIN full time. Including tagging along with my grandfather while we treated our animals, and then working in my own practice, I've been involved in veterinary medicine for over 56 years.

In 1911, when my grandfather graduated from vet school, he had no educational debt. Back then, you paid as you took your classes. No money, no enrollment for that course.

In 1977, when I graduated from vet school, I had educational debt in the amount of $35,000.

In 2012, a typical vet school graduate had educational debt of $150,000 - $200,000.

The educational debt has risen immensely, but the salaries have not. Yet many students have no idea how this debt/income issue will actually affect their lives.

Veterinarians have started trying to educate high school and pre-vet college students, to alert them to the issue. Nobody is trying to stop people from going to veterinary college. But we're all trying to ensure that the people who do go are knowledgeable about the issues ahead of time.

So, the VIN Foundation created the I Want To Be A Veterinarian website.  The website has a brochure about veterinary medicine as a career. It also has the Student Loan Repayment Simulator.

If you want to be a veterinarian, that's great. I love my career -- and my grandfather loved veterinary medicine. (He didn't love meat inspection. Remember, he worked during the years when meat-packing reform was just starting.)

But if you want to be a veterinarian, at least know what you will probably be getting into. (You can't know it all, and you can't foresee the future. After all, when I graduated, where was the Internet?  LOL  Who could have predicted that I'd be using my training to help my colleagues around the world?)

So ...
If you want to be a veterinarian, please check out those resources.
If your child/grandchild wants to be a veterinarian, please check out those resources.
If your students want to be veterinarians, please check out those resources.
The VIN Foundation created these resources to help our future colleagues avoid unknown pitfalls, so take advantage of the opportunity and use them.  ;-)