Where Are They?

Veterinary medicine interns and residents are few in number, and are found in a limited number of places. Residents are mostly found at the two campuses of the vet school, in Blacksburg and Leesburg, but a few are working in private specialty practices. Interns are found both at the vet school and in private specialty practices. Internships are typically six months to a year in duration. Residencies usually last three years. Veterinary medicine students spend the fourth and final year of their education rotating through multiple locations, both within the vet school and in private practices. Rotations are typically three weeks in duration. During the most recent five year period, the vet school approved almost 150 private practices in Virginia, which employ approximately 650 veterinarians, as sites for external rotations. There are even more approved private practices outside Virginia, so we should assume that veterinary medicine students are also coming into Virginia from other schools of veterinary medicine. There is no way of knowing how many there are or where they are working. Northern Virginia Community College and Blue Ridge Community College have two-year veterinary technology programs, both as on campus programs and as distance learning programs. The students on campus spend 300 - 400 hours working in private offices between their first and second years. They have the advantage of labs during their first year where they can practice on models before they work with patients. Students in the distance learning programs obtain all of their experience working with patients. Between the two schools and the two types of programs, in the past five years there were 281 private practices employing over 1,000 veterinarians involved in training veterinary technology students. Four of the six professional members of the Board of Veterinary Medicine work in practices which participate in the training of either veterinary medicine or veterinary technology students; some work with both.