Veterinarian Salary & Wages per Hour Info: Job Description and Duties

Veterinarian Salary Info & Job Description

Veterinarians provide preventive and diagnostic health care services to small as well as large animals. Here we will check the average veterinarian salary rang at starting career and veterinary job description & duties. They provide care to companion animals such as birds, cats, dogs etc., production animals such as cow, buffalo, sheep, poultry etc., aquatic animals, zoo animals etc. They examine the animals and treat them for injuries, perform surgeries if needed, prescribe medication, vaccinate animals etc. Veterinarians not only treat animals but animal owners too by preventing animal disease to spread to human.

veterinarian pay

Unlike general practitioner, veterinarians have to rely on signs and symptoms of the animals as animals cannot talk and that makes their work challenging. Veterinarian also responsible for operating diagnostic equipment in order to perform diagnostic tests such as blood tests, x-rays, and CT-scans etc. Veterinarians are also authorized to carry out euthanasia, which is the painless killing of an animal from an incurable disease. Vegetariansadvise how to take care of pet owners and educate the public on diseases.Veterinarians can work in animal hospital, private animal clinics etc. They can also work as animal safety inspector, researcher etc.

Pros and Cons of a Career in Veterinary Medicine

Veterinarians have good career prospects and they do get good salaries. There are pros and cons of the career in veterinary medicine. Veterinarians earn quite good salary which is above average and you can lead good life. They have various choices from 37 types of specializations.

Veterinarians have to work in noisy and stressful environments. Sometimes they have to work for long hours. Even they might have to work at night time or on weekends if there is any emergency call. They also run the risk of getting injured from bites, scratches or other injuries from the animals they are treating. Even sometimes they may catch some infection or disease.

Requirements

To practice as Veterinarians, you must be a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM). To seek admission to veterinary school, generally you need to hold a bachelor’s degree. There is a tough competition for the admission, you must have a high GPA throughout your undergraduate studies and you also need to have high scorein the Veterinary College Admission Test, Graduate Record Examinationsor admission test for Medical College.

DVM programs are of four years and includes medical and science curriculum. Hands-on professional training is also a part of the program. There are about 30 veterinary medicine programs offered in 26 states. On completion of the DVM program, you have to get the state license to practice as a veterinarian. Different states have different licensing requirements but you can pass the standardized North American Veterinary Licensing Exam. To get better job opportunities, veterinarians can take internships for some time and veterinary graduate can join an established pet care practice before starting their own practice. You can work with only one type of animal or with a variety of animals. One can opt for specialization. There are about 39 veterinarian specializations such as feline care, radiology, dentistry, nutrition etc.

The field of veterinary medicine is vast, one can join research lab if interested in research work associated to animals. One can even join corporations and federal governments.

Veterinarian Salary Information and Career Prospects

There is a high demand for the veterinarians as more and more pet owners are considering pets as part of their family. It is likely to grow the job for veterinarians by 36% by the year 2020. They earn median salary of about $91,000. The top 10% professional up to earn $142,000; whereas the lower 10% make about $50,000. Veterinarins who work in scientific research, animal production support andpharmaceutical manufacturing earn the most.

Veterinarians can also get the opportunities to work for training animal, food safety, epidemiology, public health as well as for biomedical research.

There are promising opportunities for veterinarians in the rural area. Some experience in the field offers you better opportunities.

Standing out in the Field

The first challenging step in becoming a veterinarian is to get admission to veterinary school as there is a tough competition to face. You must have taken pre-veterinary courses in science subjects such as animal science, microbiology, zoology, genetics, chemistry etc. Some of the schools also ask for a background in mathematics. If you have some work experience of working with animals, it would count too. In general, you should be able to demonstrate your passion and caring nature for animals.

Specialize in an area of veterinary medicine gets you an edge as a veterinarian. To get specialization, you can take post graduate certificate program from a, residencies or fellowship program. For specialization, veterinarians can take postgraduate certificate or degree programs or take residencies and/or fellowships.

If you have passion for animals and wants have career that satisfy your passion as well as gets you good earning, becoming a veterinarian is a right choice.