Offsite Electives

An organization founded on a single mission: helping people and their pets when they need it most. VEG's rapidly growing group of hospitals has revolutionized pet emergency and urgent care with a client-centered approach, rapid response times, and a highly focused-emergency-only staff. With multiple locations, we offer the flexibility, mentorship, and diverse learning experience you want. Our industry-leading compensation, unlimited CE, and growth opportunities are just part of what makes VEG the place for emergency doctors to work.

VEG's Externship Program allows students to gain hands-on experience in emergency medicine while working right alongside our skilled emergency doctors. Students will focus on learning how to effectively communicate with clients, diagnose a variety of emergency conditions, develop emergency treatment plans and collaborate with support staff in a fast-paced environment.

An organization founded on a single mission: helping people and their pets when they need it most. VEG's rapidly growing group of hospitals has revolutionized pet emergency and urgent care with a client-centered approach, rapid response times, and a highly focused-emergency-only staff. With multiple locations, we offer the flexibility, mentorship, and diverse learning experience you want. Our industry-leading compensation, unlimited CE, and growth opportunities are just part of what makes VEG the place for emergency doctors to work.

VEG's Externship Program allows students to gain hands-on experience in emergency medicine while working right alongside our skilled emergency doctors. Students will focus on learning how to effectively communicate with clients, diagnose a variety of emergency conditions, develop emergency treatment plans and collaborate with support staff in a fast-paced environment.

Students are exposed to a diverse case mix reflecting the full spectrum of urgent care medicine, including gastrointestinal emergencies, urinary and metabolic disorders, toxin ingestion, dermatologic and otic presentations, and end-of-life care. Common case examples include urethral obstructions, lacerations, chronic kidney disease, otitis externa, pancreatitis, and infectious diseases such as FIP. 

Cases are seen across a wide range of acuity, giving students meaningful exposure to triage decision-making and an understanding of the criteria that guide referral to emergency and specialty services. 

A distinctive feature of this elective is the collaborative relationship our practice maintains with primary care veterinarians throughout the community. We frequently serve as an extension of those practices — providing urgent care for their patients when the primary DVM is unavailable. Students will observe and gain insight into how urgent care and primary care intersect, how patient histories and ongoing care plans are communicated across providers, and how clinical decisions are shaped by an established doctor-patient-client relationship. This experience develops an appreciation for continuity of care and interprofessional communication that is directly applicable to any practice model a student may enter after graduation.

Student responsibilities vary depending on the service, student skill set, and overseeing clinician's comfort level, but may include:

• Patient triage for emergencies and/or SOAPing of in-hospital patients
• Weighing patients
• Taking TPRs (vitals)
• Collecting a concise but thorough history and being able to present it to the DVM and answer any additional questions
• Drawing blood from peripheral veins with supervision (technician or doctor)
• Perform in-house cytology (fecal, skin scrapes, blood smears, ear samples,  or aspirates)
• Interpreting lab work results and coming up with a differential diagnosis with the DVM assigned to the case
• Assist in positioning for radiographs (not gowning/obtaining radiographs due to radiation safety rules)
• Interpreting radiographs with the assigned DVM
• Scrubbing in and assisting with surgical cases and surgeries (based on the competency of the student and the comfort level of the surgeon)

The student will be exposed to general mixed animal medical and surgical practices with opportunities to develop and discuss diagnostic and treatment plans alongside the clinicians. Hands-on training opportunities include intravenous catheter placement, drug administration, small animal ovariohysterectomy/castration, laceration repair, and obstetrical deliveries. 

The student will work along side of large animal vets.  Exposure to all aspects of the large animal world.

Our externs are completely immersed in the veterinary surgery specialty experience.  They are involved with the initial consult, 

diagnostics, diagnosis, surgery and post op care.  We have them shadow one of our Board Certified Surgeons along with have support from their licensed technician staff.  If your extern wants hands on experience with monitoring anesthesia, placing IV catheters or other procedures, they just need to let us know, and we will get them involved.

They are able to scrub in with the surgeons and one of surgical assistants for each surgical procedure that the surgeon has.  We average about 5-7 surgeries per day per surgeon- we usually have two surgeons in surgery Monday- Friday and one on Saturday.

We are open on the weekend and available for 24 hour emergency surgeries.

We also have Internal Medicine, Critical Care Emergency Medicine and developing a Nephrology department.

Students will work alongside ER veterinarians and boarded specialists (Internal Medicine, Surgery and Anesthesia) in a busy clinical setting. They will be expected to help perform physical exams, create problems and differentials lists, as well as devise diagnostic plans for high acuity emergency and referral cases. They will practice communication skills and have access for hands on opportunities as they arise. 

• Gain real-world experience through exposure to full-service hospitals and techniques under the watchful care of a personal coach doctor. 

• Develop and improve technical skills under the care of a licensed coach as allowed by state regulations. 

• Learn to practice veterinary medicine within a well-equipped hospital. 

• Perfect physical examination skills using Banfield's proprietary computer-guided exam minimum standards. 

• Learn about the business of veterinary practice through exposure to Banfield's marketing and leadership initiatives.

Student will be shadowing one of our two experienced doctors through their day. This includes wellness and sick appointments, surgeries, dentistry, and drop off appointments. Students will have opportunities to review patient records, gather patient histories, practice physical examinations, create problem lists and generate differentials, create treatment plans and review diagnostics. We routinely perform in house and send out blood testing, review cytology results (ear, skin, FNA), and perform x-rays. On some rotations, students may be to participate in abdominal ultrasounds or echocardiograms. Students will be able to scrub into and assist with soft tissue surgeries. Students will also be able to participate in dentistry, including reviewing dental pathology and radiographs, observing extractions, and potentially participating in dental extractions (patient dependent with supervising doctor discretion). Both veterinarians are also lead partners/owners so there is opportunity for students to explore a "day in the life" with our practice owners and gain exposure to the business end of the practice if they desire.