Registered Veterinary Technician
If you adore your furry friends, and want a reliable job that’s in demand, a registered veterinary technician might be what your looking for. The job has a prerequisite of only 2 years of university to receive your associates degree and you do not need the many years of education and large amount of money that is required of veterinarians.
Becoming a registered veterinary technician gives you a professional edge. It means greater prestige among other vet techs and businesses that employ vet techs. Registered veterinary technicians have better job certainty and more job advancement opportunities.
Various states require you to obtain a certain number of continuing education hours each calendar year so you can keep your registered status. Always keeping educated is imperative to maintaining your registered status. It assures consumers that your knowledge and skill are up to date and that you are actively participating in veterinary medicine.
The registered veterinary technician can perform the same job functions 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 more than likely work in a veterinary office or clinic. Your job tasks would consist of arranging appointments, completing medical records, or updating existing patient records. You can work with animals of all kinds and sizes. You may help 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 seek from a technical school that is approved by the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA). The school courses 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. You will need to do volunteer work or intership duties to get hands on experience. You will usually perform jobs tasks under the management of a registered veterinarian while practicing the skills you’ve learned in school.
