Please delete if not appropriate.
I keep seeing candidates referring to themselves as a "veterinary technician" or working as a technician for the experience hours. As a credentialed veterinary technician who has been in the field for 16 years, PLEASE STOP. Please start referring to your hours as veterinary experience hours, or veterinary assistant hours. You don't see medical school applicants advertising the hours they worked as a nurse, because they did not.
Turning the term "veterinary technician" into a colloquial, disposable title is devaluing what a credentialed technician brings to the field. Our field is already hemorrhaging support staff due to low utilization, low job satisfaction, and a poor pay scale. If you haven't been in this field for long, you may not be aware of this. I don't mean just shadowing at a clinic, I mean really investing in the field. Did you know that there are actively credentialed technicians who make $8/hour?
You (we) are the future of our profession. If we can't elevate technicians professionally, there will be no one left to monitor anesthesia for DVMs, to run lab work, to provide high quality nursing care for our patients. This generation of veterinarians HAS TO make a difference for our technicians, without them a DVM literally cannot do their job. Start differentiating between an assistant and a technician, truly separating the two roles because they have different responsibilities. The title of veterinary technician is gaining title protection in most states, which makes it illegal to call someone who is not credentialed in that state a technician. We also do not refer to technicians as nurses, that's an international thing that can't happen here because nurses have title protection.
Sincerely,
A CVT who loves her job but has done a lot of soul searching and has decided pursuing a DVM is the right path for her but would not trade her career thus far for anything.
I keep seeing candidates referring to themselves as a "veterinary technician" or working as a technician for the experience hours. As a credentialed veterinary technician who has been in the field for 16 years, PLEASE STOP. Please start referring to your hours as veterinary experience hours, or veterinary assistant hours. You don't see medical school applicants advertising the hours they worked as a nurse, because they did not.
Turning the term "veterinary technician" into a colloquial, disposable title is devaluing what a credentialed technician brings to the field. Our field is already hemorrhaging support staff due to low utilization, low job satisfaction, and a poor pay scale. If you haven't been in this field for long, you may not be aware of this. I don't mean just shadowing at a clinic, I mean really investing in the field. Did you know that there are actively credentialed technicians who make $8/hour?
You (we) are the future of our profession. If we can't elevate technicians professionally, there will be no one left to monitor anesthesia for DVMs, to run lab work, to provide high quality nursing care for our patients. This generation of veterinarians HAS TO make a difference for our technicians, without them a DVM literally cannot do their job. Start differentiating between an assistant and a technician, truly separating the two roles because they have different responsibilities. The title of veterinary technician is gaining title protection in most states, which makes it illegal to call someone who is not credentialed in that state a technician. We also do not refer to technicians as nurses, that's an international thing that can't happen here because nurses have title protection.
Sincerely,
A CVT who loves her job but has done a lot of soul searching and has decided pursuing a DVM is the right path for her but would not trade her career thus far for anything.