Yesterday I wrote about vet schools perhaps being an alternative to costly vet procedures. Something I quickly realized was that vet schools aren’t just like regular vets with cheaper prices. Most require referrals from your current vet. At least when you’re dealing with more specialized cases, like surgeries.
However, this wasn’t always the case.
Vet Schools’ Veterinary Services
Some vet schools, like Virginia Tech’s Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine and Auburn University’s College of Veterinary Medicine, provided primary care services just like a regular vet practice would. Their “full service out-patient preventive health care” services included vaccinations, spaying and neutering, and dentistry. Both provided these services for people living within a 35 to 50 mile radius. (For small animals 35 miles, and for large animals 50 miles.)
I also discovered that large animals (like horses or cows) didn’t always need referrals in order to be treated. Nor did exotic animals or birds. Especially if it was an emergency. And some schools, like North Carolina State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine, even provided small animal emergency service care for after hours, holiday, and weekend cases.
Cost
I couldn’t find “price sheets” on any of the vet schools’ websites. I don’t know if, had we needed to be referred to a vet school, that our cost would have been any lower.
I’m thinking in our case probably not. The closest vet school would be the University of Tennessee’s College of Veterinary Medicine. We would have had to factor in travel time and lodging costs. (UT’s a good three hours from where we live.)
If there hadn’t been a specialist here to treat Murph, we would of course had no other choice and no distance would seem too far.
Best Care
What it really boils down to is getting the best care possible. I perused many of the vet schools’ websites. Most claimed to have state of the art technology. And something I was really impressed by was that many offered pet loss support.
Overall I learned that vet schools offer an alternative place to get pet care from. I hope I’ll never need to seek out such services, but if I do it is good to know they’re there.
Question to Readers
Have you ever used a vet school for pet care?
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