Top Tips for New Veterinary School Grads

New grad vets, are you ready to get your paws dirty? Wait! Before you pounce on your first real job at a vet clinic, keep in mind that it can take a few years of experience to feel truly confident in your expertise. That’s why this blog is full of advice from someone like you, who has been through it and came out the other side a better, more self-assured vet. Let’s hear what first year vet, Amanda, has to say about her top tips for new veterinarians…

1. Adaptable Mentorship

While many vet students experience a big push in their 4th year to seek out mentorship, Amanda says that it’s important to figure out the style that works best for you. There is no one definition of what mentorship means, let alone what it can look like for each person! That’s why she urges new grad vets not to compare the mentorship they get with the experience of their peers. Instead, she says to think about what learning style worked best for you in school. For her that was seeing something done, then doing it herself with supervision, then trying it alone. She urges that what works for her might not work for you! So, try to find a mentor that adapts to your learning style.

2. Utilizing Resources

It turns out, you don’t have to have it all figured out on your own. Amanda suggests learning to utilize resources to your advantage. From textbooks, videos, software, and of course, mentors, there is a wealth of resources out there that vets can use to stay up to date, keep learning, maintain precision, and fill in any gaps in their experience. Amanda says that it is impossible to know everything all on your own. That’s why she recommends leveraging the resources available to you and not feeling bad about it! As an example, she says veterinary radiology is a topic that new vets often struggle with. According to Amanda, tools like leading veterinary radiology AI software can be incredibly helpful for new grad vets — and even mentors 10-15 years out!

3. Embracing Technology

This carries into Amanda’s next tip; be willing to embrace the technology available to you and what lies ahead. She says that as the youngest vet in her practice by far, it is a great opportunity to be the person bringing new tech in. She urges new grad vets to be part of the generation that is using cutting-edge tech to work for them and seeing new technology as an opportunity to eliminate human error while making life more efficient. For example, she uses apps to achieve precise drug calculations and recommends using veterinary AI solutions, too. Without embracing the technology we have now, you’ll miss out on the ability to provide the most advanced veterinary care to your patients.

4. Cutting Costs

Vet school wasn’t cheap! That’s why Amanda recommends taking advantage of the many programs with new vet specials or student-to-new-grad memberships. According to Amanda, a lot of companies want to invest in new grad vets and the future they bring to the veterinary industry by investing in you and your education going forward. So, don’t hesitate to seek out opportunities to cut costs for you and for your clinic wherever you can. In some cases, finding these discounts can lead to the adoption of helpful, new technologies and even help you indirectly cut the cost of care for your clients.

5. Giving Grace

One tip that is really close to Amanda’s heart is to give yourself grace. She says not to feel bad about being the new grad vet. At first, you might feel self-conscious about having a lack of experience, that’s natural! But she says not to worry about what clients think. Some people are very excited about working with young vets who have new ideas and a fresh perspective. So, don’t doubt yourself, she says, you’re not the only one starting out — everyone starts somewhere.

* Amanda is a first year small animal veterinarian living in Ontario, Canada. To dive deeper into what Amanda has learned as a new vet, you can watch her recent video here.