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Careers in Veterinary Medicine
Meet members of the Purdue University School of Veterinary Medicine Team
Registered Veterinary Technicians perform a wide range of veterinary nursing, imaging, anesthesia, dental hygiene, and diagnostic laboratory procedures in a practice setting.
Registered Veterinary Technologists perform the same duties at Registered Veterinary Technicians but many will begin their career in clinical technician positions and advance to head technician, staff supervisor or project leader.
Doctors of Veterinary Medicine have a broad range of career opportunities.
Veterinarians can specialize in a specific type of animal:
- Dogs
- Cats
- Horses
- Companion animals (dogs, cats, and horses)
- Cattle
- Pigs
- Sheep and goats
- Poultry (chickens, ducks, turkeys)
- Food animals (cattle, pigs, sheep, goats, poultry)
- Exotic animals (i.e. reptiles, birds, zoo animals, wild animals)
- Laboratory animals (animals used for the advancement of both human and animal health)
Veterinarians can have many career types, including:
- Private Practitioner (Own your own clinic or work in a veterinary clinic)
- Research Scientist
- Public Health Officer (Federal and State Government Veterinarians)
- Industry Veterinarian (Work for a private company)
- Veterinary Educator (Work at a university)
- Military Veterinarian
The American Veterinary Medical Association has more information on career choices in veterinary medicine.
Veterinarians can specialize in many areas, just like human doctors. Specialty areas include:
- Surgery
- Internal Medicine
- Anesthesiology
- Toxicology
- Dentistry
- Cardiology (Heart Doctor)
- Dermatology (Skin Doctor)
- Pathology
- Diagnostic Imaging
- Ophthalmology (Eye Doctor)
- Oncology (Cancer)
- Public health
- Emergency Medicine
- Reproduction
- Nutrition
- Neurology
- Behavior
- Clinical Pharmacology
- Microbiology