How do you become a vet?
The love of one's own pet often awakens the desire to become a vet. If you want to become a vet, there is no way around studying veterinary medicine. As the degree programme is just as popular as human medicine, you need a good A-level grade to stand out from other applicants and be admitted to your chosen university. Internships play a particularly important role during your studies so that you can optimally prepare for your future job. You complete the 11-semester degree programme with the state examination. Career entry usually leads to a position as a doctoral student or intern or subsequently as an assistant veterinarian in a clinic or practice.
Prerequisites
- General or subject-restricted higher education entrance qualification
- Interest in medicine and natural sciences
- Careful and responsible way of working
- Resilience and willingness to perform
- Empathy for people and animals
- Flexibility
What does a vet do?
Examining and treating animals As part of the counselling process, your main task is to examine animals for diseases or other ailments and select the most suitable treatment method. Above all, empathy towards animals and their owners is essential here. Sometimes you will also carry out blood tests or send the animal patient for an X-ray to make a final diagnosis. Depending on the findings, you may prescribe medication, provide owners with diet plans or possibly order further tests.
Carrying out operations
Both vets and clinics have an operating theatre in which they perform operations. While you as a small animal vet perform routine operations such as neutering, clinics are responsible for more complicated operations, for example following a Cruciate ligament rupture. This job requires a high degree of concentration and a careful way of working.
Obstetrics
If an animal breeder feels overwhelmed or complications arise during the birth of your fosterling, you are the right support. This takes place in the owner's home or at the practice.
Writing documentation & invoices
So that you can follow the progress of the disease and the therapy, it is important to record all steps of the treatment in writing. This is usually done on a computer. The documentation also forms the basis for subsequent invoicing, as each examination or treatment method is associated with different costs.
Analyse samples in the diagnostic laboratory
Working in a diagnostics laboratory is another possible job for you as a vet. Here, various samples are analysed and assessed to find the cause of complaints. These may include tissue, blood or urine samples.
Carrying out food inspections
If you work in a veterinary practice, your tasks will include monitoring animal welfare or combating animal diseases as well as food inspections. Here, for example, you have to check whether the owners of slaughterhouses or restaurants are complying with food processing regulations.
What are the career prospects?
Whether you work in a small animal clinic, equine clinic, veterinary practice or industry, you will have a wide range of opportunities after completing your veterinary degree. You will find a promising job in almost every field. The number of pets in Germany is increasing, as is the willingness to provide professional medical care. The livestock sector also offers great potential. Not only is there less competition among small animal vets, but the health of cows, pigs and sheep also plays an important role for farmers from an economic point of view. Animal welfare, for which the veterinary office is responsible, is also becoming increasingly important. Generally speaking, the more experience you have and the more specific your knowledge, for example in the field of homeopathy, the better your career prospects.
What specialisations are there?
Veterinarian for small animals
As a vet in a small animal practice or clinic, you will mainly look after typical pets such as dogs, cats, birds and rodents. However, your patients may also include snakes, tortoises and lizards. Treatments of acute and chronic diseases as well as operations are part of your daily routine. In addition to normal working hours, you can also expect emergency and weekend duties, even in a clinic. Accordingly, the job requires sufficient resistance. In addition to a fixed location, it is also possible to offer a mobile service. In this case, you will set off and carry out the treatment at the pet owner's home.
Veterinarian for large animals / Veterinarian for farm animals
You are predestined for the profession of Large animal veterinarian or the Farm animal veterinarian, if you want to combine your love of animals with your passion for farming. You will spend most of your working time outside on the farms. Here you will look after the health of cows, pigs, goats or poultry by regularly vaccinating them, checking their feed or helping the breeder to keep them in optimum condition. You will also inseminate cattle or pigs and provide obstetric care. As a cattle vet, you are always on the move and have to be on hand when a cow gives birth at night or an animal experiences acute symptoms at the weekend.
Veterinarian for horses
Are you a horse lover? Then you can also specialise in horses as a vet. Depending on whether you run a mobile practice or work in a clinic, you will carry out examinations on site at the riding centre or in the clinic's treatment rooms. While as a mobile equine vet you will deal with more straightforward cases and regularly check the health of the animals, hospital vets are more concerned with operations and the corresponding preliminary examinations such as x-rays. If you have additional premises to your driving practice, you also have the opportunity to carry out more complex treatments. As an equine veterinary specialist, you will always be on duty during the week and at weekends. You can also expect administrative tasks in the form of treatment documentation or medication prescriptions.