A Hour Internship At My Local Animal Hospital

During the summer of 2015 I did a 240 hour internship at my local animal hospital. Bethlehem Veterinary Hospital is located in Glenmont, New York this facility is a small animal practice the doctors in this clinic take cats and dogs as their patients. This facility is located on route 9W and when you drive past you will see it is a small house, equipped with two exam rooms, a receptionist area along with a waiting area, a back room with another exam table, kennels, a back porch that holds the extra equipment, along with an radiography room, processing room (which also happens to be the bathroom), an attic with extra supplies and a basement where you do laundry. This clinic provides well patient exams stressing preventative care, new puppy and kitten counseling, genetic counseling, microchipping, nutritional counseling, dental care, illness examinations, surgery and senior wellness exams, diagnostic radiography surgeries that need gas anesthesia, all the equipment needed for dental cleaning or tooth extractions, as well as laboratory equipment to perform routine blood and urine analysis. However, if there is extensive blood work, cytology or histopathology analysis needed they send the samples to laboratories or to Cornell University. They also have a pharmacy to dispense medications when clients need to refill or order.

Dr. Elaine La Forte and Dr. John Kearney both DVMS were the two and only veterinarians I worked under during my internship. They kept track of my progress, along with helping and teaching me about working in a practice. Brandon who is exam room assistant and building maintenance was one of the many people to tutor me during my internship, he taught me how to better use a needle and syringe, how to wrap surgery p...

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...hat will only get so far, your clinic doesn’t run on where you graduated from or how high your skill set is. You are a team , you must be willing to learn all that you can, listen to others point of view, help each other and most importantly do anything you possibly can to help the patient/client. I never realized how many hours go into being a veterinary technician it is not a normal 9 to 5 job you can’t leave a bleeding patient on the table and say “oh it is time to leave,” you are there until the job is done. There was countless of times where I got there at 7:30 in the morning and my hours ended at 7PM but I didn’t leave until 8:30-9 o’clock. I met a bunch of passionate animal lovers and learned so much from each and every one of them. This internship only validated what I have always wanted to do, and I can’t wait to graduate and become a veterinary technician.