Empowering the Internship Seeker
Wednesday, October 19, 2011 at 05:56PM By Anthony Bartels
Colorado State University
Class of 2012
There is a gap in the “Continuum of Excellence” in veterinary medical education. Internships, usually
completed during the first year after graduation from veterinary school have been recently attracting
larger numbers of veterinary graduates. In fact, the number of graduates entering internships has
increased by more than 50% in the last decade. Paradoxically, internships are described as “advanced
education” alongside residencies, yet there currently are no standards, metrics or accreditation
processes in place.
Although it may be imperfect, at least residencies are accredited by their respective specialty colleges.
Due to this gap in oversight and the accompanying lack of standards, applying for and completing a
veterinary internship can represent a journey into a jungle of uncertainty. Prospective interns may
face widely varying work schedules and working conditions, which may even be clearly untenable or
unhealthy. For enduring such conditions interns can expect to receive substandard compensation both
during their internship and through their career.
Veterinary students are extremely resilient; thus, ultimately some sort of rating system for internships
will evolve. Using social media and other interactive online avenues, a rating system where current and
previous interns rate and evaluate Internships could provide current veterinary students access to the
information they need. The costs of a veterinary education have become too great to gamble a costly
year or life away in a system with little to no checks and balances.
Thankfully, qualitative Information about internships is beginning to emerge through The Veterinary
Information Network (VIN), which has been surveying interns since 2008. VIN has made the results of
these intern surveys available only to those with student memberships, and the results can be found at:
beta.vin.com/members/tools/surveyviewer/survey.html?testid=165. Some internships in this survey
have very few data points and others have many responses. As with any survey, please consider the
number of responders for each question prior to drawing any conclusions.
Additionally, the recent AVMA Task Force on Veterinary Internships released a set of recommendations
which included a more robust set of disclosure guidelines for internships offered through the Veterinary
Internship and Residency Matching Program (VIRMP). From www.VIRMP.org, “The AAVC reviewed the
form and implemented many of the Task Force recommendations for 2012.” In combination with the
new VIN internship survey data, the internship playing field has begun to level, but we still have a long
way to go.
If you have any questions or suggestions regarding the VIN internship survey, please contact me at
anthony.bartels@colostate.edu. I will be working with VIN to improve and expand future iterations of
the survey. We value any input that you may have to improve this crucial data that students must have
in order to make sound internship decisions.
We want to hear your comments and thoughts on this important topic! Please submit comments for posting at savma.editor@gmail.com and look for the conversation to continue over the next week.