The People Behind

Tad P. Frog's

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Out of sheer frustration with the lack of information provided to me by local veterinarians, I went to college and got the degree. I don't care to work in practice for any of the local veterinarians; I didn't go to school for the express purpose of getting a job. I did it for the knowledge I needed! Now we have a dachshund named Diogee, who has had a wide variety of medical problems including major allergies, as well as the large group of other pets. Thankfully we now know what to do for our pets!

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Veterinary technology is a fast growing field. At this time being an RVT is as close to being a veterinarian as a person can be without actually being a doctor. It is very similar to being a human's registered nurse (R.N.), except that RVTs are trained to perform many more tasks than and RN is. To be registered a person must go to college and get the degree in order to be eligible to take the state and national exams. An RVT, RVN, CVT, and LVT are the same thing; the name one uses depends on what state they live in.

Veterinary technology students must take a variety of complicated classes such as: Animal Science, Animal Physiology and Anatomy, Radiology, Anesthesiology, Patho-physiology, Micro-Biology, Chemistry, Clinical Parasitology, Veterinary Pharmacology, Nutrition, Surgery and Critical Care, Clinical Pathology and Immunology, among other basic classes. See the NAVTA web site for more information on schools.

RVT's are not "just assistants" who hold animals while the doctor treats them. RVT's are trained to perform a wide variety of functions, and are highly educated people. RVT's are able to be your pet's dental technician, surgical nurse, anesthesia nurse, radiologist, lab technician, and in general, provide quality care for your pets. Basically the only functions an RVT cannot perform are diagnose, prescribe drugs, or perform surgery.

The general public is not completely aware that until the education was available most vets did hire AND STILL DO hire people off the streets at minimum wage to perform these many functions in the animal hospital. Uneducated, inexperienced people are out there caring for your pets. These people are allowed to do things such as induce anesthesia, perform the dental work, draw blood, assist in surgery, and many other important technical duties. The problem with that is they may not have any idea what they are doing and why they are doing it. They don't have the formal education to back up their actions, so basically they are experimenting on your pets. I have personally heard receptionists falsely claim to be "vet-techs"; thereby misleading the public. Answering a phone is slightly easier than placing an endotracheal tube into your dog, or getting an IV catheter into your cat's vein. Of course in these situations the blame falls to the doctor. If the doctors want good reputations for quality care, then these doctors should not allow this to happen. As the veterinary client I certainly do not want this treatment for MY pets. Many vets in the larger cities have already stopped the practice of hiring the uneducated. Unfortunately this is not so in smaller areas of the country. There still is however the old on- the- job trained techs that are capable, and some of them are very valuable to the field. It isn't their fault the formal education didn't exist when they got into this line of work. The problem is in smaller areas of the country too often the uneducated AND inexperienced are hired with the false notion that they too can be vet-techs. This will not be so as it was in the past, unless they go to school, or if all the states opt for changing the name of RVT, CVT, and LVT to registered, certified or licensed nurse instead of technician. If the use of the word nurse is adopted then the vet-techs will exist but not be licensed.

In the past there was no other choice, vets had to hire uneducated because the education did not exist. As stated before, there are some techs that have done this work for many years and actually are educated enough for it. They learned through experience. Many states have grandfather clauses allowing the on the job trained to take the exams and become licensed. This is not going to be the case in the future as more and more colleges offer the training, the on the job trained will be seen less. The uneducated will be assistants and kennel workers. It is true the whole staff is important but the entire world of veterinary medicine is changing now, it will never be the same.

Veterinarians are highly educated doctors. Many people for some reason still do not understand that they are real doctors, more educated than human doctors. It is a fact that it's tougher to get into veterinary medical school, than human medical school. Think about it, vets must learn the anatomy and physiology of hundreds, if not thousands of species. They also must be able to diagnose a disease in a patient that cannot speak to them. A human medical doctor has only one simple mammalian species to practice on, which makes it a mystery as to why they don't seem to do a very good job of it; their patients can speak. What human doctor do you know of that can function as a total medical care provider? Vets are the OB/GYN, the pediatrician, the heart surgeon, the doctor of internal medicine, the orthopedist, the dentist, radiologist, the pathologist, the ophthalmologist, the podiatrist, urologist, the cancer specialist, the geriatric specialist, they do it all!

Veterinarians really don't get the respect they deserve from the public or even the human medical field. They do make less money in general than human doctors do, so this is partly why they hire uneducated, low paid employees to do that nursing work for them. I hope to help change this is the future!

Many people believe that drugs manufactured for animals are lower in quality than human medications. This is NOT true. If it were, what would be the point of using them? They wouldn't work if they were low quality. Most of the drugs used to treat animals are the same drugs used to treat humans and are manufactured by the same drug companies. They are as high quality as any human medication. This is one reason why a veterinarian should be consulted when your pet is ill. You cannot properly medicate your pet without a diagnosis, just as it is for humans!

The next time your pet is ill and you don't want to "waste" money on a vet, ask yourself why you have that pet!