Becoming a vet nurse....advice please!?

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ChestnutConvert

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I have decided that I am now in a position to train for what I have always really wanted to do, that being a vet nurse. As far as I know it will be easier to get a job in a vets as a care assistant or similar and then go on to take the relevant course at college as a mature student.
What I am wondering is if you have to start with small animals and then specialise in equine? Would it be best to find a job vacancy in a vet that does or doesn't do equine?
 
You need a job at a vets to go into vet nursing and they are incredibly hard to get actually. You would have to do a broad spectrum of animals for the course but that doesn't mean you have to do the small animals before equine.
 
Hi, I'm a vet nurse (23yrs this year), if you want to be an equine nurse then if possible get a placement in an equine or mixed (SA&equine) practice.

At college you can do an equine pathway rather than SA but college choices will be more limited.

It's not easy to get a place to train in practice but if you are keen and have researched the practice and the role of the vet nurse it will help.

Good luck xx
 
You need a confirmed placement at a veterinary practise before you can be accepted onto a college course. If you are over 21 you may find getting a placement very difficult. When I finished university (with a degree in biology and history, odd combo I know!) I wanted to train as a vet nurse and applied to pretty much every vet practise within an hours drive of me. Even though I had my own car, previous two years work experience as a volunteer at a well respected practise , I was declined as I was over 21 and so wouldn't qualify for apprenticeship status which meant the practise would have to pay me at national rate. I even offered to work for free but didn't get a response from most practises and rst said no basically there were enough under 21s applying for which they got grants etc for.
That being said I wish I had just kept on applying and not given up. After all if you are not accepted this year, you maybe next or the year after.
 
I have found it very difficult to get even volunteer places in my area as it's such a popular choice. There's a 6 month waiting list at most vet practices
 
I wanted to train to become an equine veterinary nurse. I started at TOCES college, you need to be volunteering/working in an equine practice to get your hours. This is incredibly hard as no where was accepting anyone. Since I was doing equine and not small animals they preferred me to work in a equine vets, we asked the closest one to me and they said no. They next closest one where my horse goes (45mins away) also said no. I asked my vet if I could tag along with her and she said she only takes like degree students for a few weeks. It's not easy to get into I found! I hated it anyway and have decided to train to be a child physcologist. I still have my horse and will compete and ride as my hobby but I don't want to work with horses anymore.
 
I was in a similar position to you, so hopefully I can offer some insight.
Student vet nurse jobs (small animal) are incredibly hard to come by, equine even more so. Please don't let that put you off though. I started off as a work experience student, then about 1 year later was offered a Saturday morning receptionist job and at the start of March this year I became a full member of the team as a receptionist and I also do the occasional day as a nursing assistant, with a view to starting vet nurse training in the future.

I was in the dilemma of deciding whether to specialise in equine straight away or begin as a small animal nurse first. You don't have to train to be a small animal nurse before specialising, but if you did go straight into equine you would still have to study small animals as part of the college course.

Best option would be to try and get as much voluntary experience as possible. I appreciate this is much easier said than done though. Perhaps see if you can do some voluntary work at a vets one evening a week.

Best of luck with it all, and I hope I've been of some help. It may take a year or two, but don't give up! x
 
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