Character Inspiration: Veterinary Technician

Emily is a registered veterinary technician based in Alberta, Canada. She has five years of experience working in small animal primary care.

WBS: What got you interested in working in the veterinary industry? Was it a lifelong dream or something you decided to pursue later on?

Emily: It was a lifelong dream. I wanted to be a veterinarian when I was a little girl. I always felt a special connection with animals. Then, I started volunteering in a vet clinic when I was in university and discovered the technician role.

WBS: What sort of education requirements do you need to become a veterinary technician?

Emily: You need an animal health technology diploma. Depending on where you live, you need to be registered and pass a licensing exam.

WBS: Can you explain the difference between a veterinarian and a veterinary technician? What are their different responsibilities?

Emily: A veterinarian diagnoses, prescribes treatment, and performs surgery. They can own a vet clinic in Alberta. A registered veterinary technician (RVT) is the jack of all trades in the clinic. We do phlebotomy, dentistry, anaesthesia, radiology, client education, patient care, and the dispensing of medication. We also do nutritional consults and grooming tasks like nail trims. Essentially, a technician liaises between the veterinarian, the patient, and the client, and takes care of any jobs that fall into that purview.

WBS: Who else would be working at a vet clinic (any other jobs/roles)? 

Emily: There are typically veterinarians, technicians, client care staff or receptionists, technicians’ assistants, and a practice manager.

WBS: Can you walk us through a day in the life? What does a typical day on the job entail?

Emily: That would depend on what kind of hospital you work in. My experience is mostly in small animal primary care. Week days, we often arrive before other clinic staff to prepare for any procedures or surgeries that are going on that day. We admit patients for surgery and get them prepared to go under anaesthesia. This usually involves collecting lab samples, placing IV catheters, and performing a brief physical exam. When the DVM (doctor of veterinary medicine) arrives, they take a look at the patient and we proceed to surgery/dentistry. We recover our patients and make sure they are ready to go home a few hours after their procedure. The rest of the day is spent running tech appointments, which are usually minor procedures like bandage changes, sample collection for lab work, and nail trims. We assist the DVMs with their appointments, helping to restrain patients, fill prescriptions, and do behavior and nutritional consults. The rest of our job is usually cleaning, which means proper care and sterilization of surgical equipment, maintenance of the treatment area in the clinic, and more laundry than you could possibly fathom. We also clean up after our patients which involves a lot of bodily fluids and pet hair. Throughout the day is charting, updating medical records, and doing callbacks to check on previous days’ patients.

WBS: What are some of the most common procedures you do? What's your favorite one?

Emily: Common procedures in a primary care setting include spays and neuters, lump removals, and dentals. In terms of appointments, DVMs see vaccine appointments (wellness exams), allergy consults, and GI upset daily. Technicians do appointments for injections, lab sample collection, nail trims, and anal gland expressions daily. I really like anaesthesia—so if I get to sedate anything for surgery or minor procedures. I find it very calming to go through all of the steps to make procedures safe and I feel very honoured by the trust that patients and clients put in me to take care of them. I also really enjoy behavioral consults because I like to help clients better understand their pet’s perspective when it comes to challenging or undesirable behaviors.

WBS: What's your favourite part of the job?

Emily: I find pretty much every aspect of my job rewarding. If I had to narrow it down to something specific, I love the sense of comradery you get working with a good team and showing up for people on some of the best and worst days of their lives.

WBS: What is your least favourite or most challenging part of the job?

Emily: The hardest part is the high stress environment. There’s a lot going on that you have to remember and be working on at all times. When people show up who are having a bad day, they often take that out on the people who are delivering bad news. So, you often receive bad reviews, and sometimes verbal abuse or even death threats.

WBS: Is it mostly cats and dogs? Do other animals come into the clinic?

Emily: In small animal primary care, we see exclusively dogs and cats, but sometimes we work alongside other clinics to dispense medications for other animals and it isn’t uncommon to see exotic animals or wildlife for euthanasia in a small-animal clinic. Other types of clinics are specialty hospitals—these often have referral services like emergency, oncology, dermatology, ophthalmology, etc. There are also avian and exotic clinics, mixed-animal practices, large-animal, and equine practices.

WBS: What is the customer service side like? Do you find clients aremostly friendly? Or do you get a lot of cranky/stressed people? Any tips or tricks for handling stressful interactions?

Emily: We deal with a lot of angry, stressed-out people, which can make the job really hard and exhausting. People have a hard time understanding the cost behind medical treatment and the necessity of practising good quality medicine on pets. It is hard to not take it personally when people get upset, and it’s also really hard to have cost as a limiting factor when it comes to doing what you know would be best for a pet. Medicine of any kind is expensive. In Canada, we are really fortunate to not have to pay for health care, but it makes people blind to the reality of the cost of even basic supplies and medication, which is often the same for veterinary use as it is for human medicine.

My tips and tricks would be to take a communication course if it’s not included in your education because knowing how to communicate effectively helps de-escalate stressful interactions. You also can’t take it personally, and if you are starting to get emotional, you need to know that you have a team member who can have your back and tap you out. Debriefing after dealing with an angry client is really important too, so that you don’t take that dysregulation home with you or into the rest of your day.

WBS: This one is sort of abstract, but I'm really curious: If you read a book that featured a vet tech, what sort of things would you look for in the story/character that would resonate with you and ring true to what it's really like?

Emily: I would be looking for a realistic representation of the industry. I feel like a lot of the media around vet med is very idealized and focuses on only the snuggling with puppies and kittens part of the job, which exists but is like 15% of what is involved in working in vet med. I can also tell if an author has done their research, if they know any of the lingo or make really obvious mistakes of things that aren’t good practice or are incorrect. The job has a lot of legal ins and outs that complicate the profession, and that is hard to replicate if you don’t know what you’re talking about.

One thing I would add is that mental health is really hard in the veterinary industry. The suicide rates are really high. Chances are if you’ve worked in the industry for any length of time, you will lose somebody you know to suicide. There’s a lot of pressure from all sides: corporate takeover, public perception, finances, and staffing are really hard to balance in a clinic setting. We all want to be there to help pets and the people who own them, but we have to make a living wage and have a work-life balance and take care of ourselves and each other. It seems like an impossible thing to balance, and someone is almost always unhappy. It can be a very dark and bleak industry, especially in North America right now. There are definitely good things about working in veterinary medicine, but there is a lot of burnout, a lot of mental health struggles, and a lot of turnover in our industry.

Thank you, Emily!