How does one "shadow" a vet?
25 Apr 2010, 9:37 pm
PunkyKat wrote:
budgenator wrote:
Shadowing is following a professional at work to get an idea of what their profession is really like to work in, the shadow is expected to be observant, unobtrusive, quiet and wearing professional or business attire, (slacks, nice shirt and lab coat if you have one). set up a little script like "hello my name is Whatever, I'm interested in shadowing your Doctor because I think I would like to become a veterinarian" the receptionist will probably either tell your her Doctor doesn't allow that, will not know if the Doctor allows it and ask or will take your name and phone number to set up appointment for a brief interview and orientation before you start shadowing, be polite and respectful and use formal titles like Mister, Misses, Miss and especially Doctor; take notes!
It's probably a lot easier than your afraid it'll be right now, your school consellor can give you leads of offices that have allowed it in the past or even set it up for you or you can get out the phonebook and start cold-calling, good luck.
It's probably a lot easier than your afraid it'll be right now, your school consellor can give you leads of offices that have allowed it in the past or even set it up for you or you can get out the phonebook and start cold-calling, good luck.
I don't have a school councler. I'm homeschooled or am going to have to get my GED. I'm 23 and haven't even finished high school. :shame: I got really sick and took a long time to get well. I'm going to see a phycologist next month because I need help getting over the trama of being abused as a child. Maybe they can help but I doubt it.
Contrary to the name, a school counselor typically doesn't actually counsel the students...they do things like make schedules and help you with decision making type stuff. So I don't think it would be your psychologist's place to do it, but they could definitely help you with how you should go about approaching a vet to shadow them. When you ask about job-shadowing, I would say you are entering college soon and explain your schooling situation later. There's nothing wrong with the fact you haven't finished, it's just a bit hard to explain things like that. (I got very sick my senior year of high school and missed about 5 months of school, and people tend to get confused if I go into much detail about it.)
I think the best thing to do is print up a nice little resume. With that, you can walk into clincs, go to the receptionist, and explain that you are a prospective vet student and are looking to get experience working and/or job shadowing. If the vet is unavailable when you are at the clinic, you can just leave your resume.
I'm 19, a college freshman, and I'm going to do the same thing you are. I've got a little resume (I've only had one real job but I still made a resume, lol) and probably next week I'm going to try to find a job at a clinic. If you have questions about a resume or anything like that you can ask me or PM. Oh, and sometimes there are jobs at vet clinics on craigslist and on facebook (on marketplace). But I've had better luck going in person.
