Registered Veterinary Technician
If your an animal lover, and your hoping for a rewarding career, a registered veterinary technician might be what your looking for. To work in this field only two years of university to obtain your associates degree and it does not require multiple years of schooling and costly monetary investment that is demanded of veterinarians.
Becoming a registered veterinary technician provides you with a professional edge. It means greater recognition with other vet techs and vet clinics and offices. Registered veterinary technicians have better job certainty and more job advancement opportunities.
Registered Veterinary technician certification requirements are different for various states, but general requirements include a a two-year associate degree and up to three years on the job training. More work related experience is essential for those who desire to become a registered veterinary technician but did not graduate from an accredited veterinay technician school.
The registered veterinary technician can do a lot of the same things as a veterinarian can except diagnose, subscribe prescription medications, and perform surgery. Its similar to the duties that a nurse performs who works with a medical doctor. You will usually work in a veterinary office or clinic. Your day at work would include making appointments, filling out medical records, or updating current patient records. You will work with a variety of animals. You may assist in blood draws or collecting specimens and other tasks required for lab testing. You also might help in surgery, taking x-rays, or pet grooming, or even giving vaccinations.
There are several jobs available for anyone who is a registered veterinary technician. While most registered veterinary technicians will work in a veterinarian’s office or animal clinic, there are also job offers in other areas. If you are interested in sciences or medical research, there are a lot of research facilities that depend on veterinary technologists to care for animals in their biomedical research facilities. The registered veterinary technician would coordinate all tasks with animals to ensure adequate care is given and keep track of all research projects for the research staff.
If you like to work outdoors or with wildlife you could work at a zoo or wildlife park. Zoos employe many registered veterinary technicians to perform the following tasks, prepare special diets for animals, and taking care of sick animals. Humane Societies that are professionally staffed, usually in larger cities, often hire veterinary techs with a two year Associate’s Degrees to help in taking care of the various abused or abandoned animals that come to them. This can be a rewarding job that involves a great deal of work in the healthcare field.
To get a rewarding career as a registered veterinary technician you must have a two year Associate’s Degree, which you should obtain from a technical school that is approved by the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA). The course curriculum will consist of general study courses in math and business as well as other veterinary based classes such as zoology, anesthesiology, pharmacology, animal nursing, surgical principles, comparative anatomy, public health and more. Volunteer work is required or intership duties to get hands on experience. In most instances you will perform job duties while being supervised by a veterinarian while applying everything you’ve learned in school.
