Are you interested in a career in veterinary medicine? Then you have found the right blog. Veterinary Talk is all about providing information to students with aspirations to enter the field of veterinary medicine. But there are many different types of veterinary blogs available to those looking for more information about becoming a veterinarian or veterinary technician.
If you are truly interested in a career as a doctor of veterinary medicine (DVM) or certified veterinary technician (CVT), you should be reading veterinary blogs long before you graduate with these degrees. Blogs can be a fantastic source of real-life information. They can also give you multiple perspectives on the challenges and benefits of the profession. And many veterinary websites also offer the chance to find a community of people who share your interest in veterinary medicine.
Since there are several different types of veterinary blogs, let’s break them down into the top three blogs in the following categories: blogs written by practicing veterinarians about general veterinary topics, blogs written by veterinary students about veterinary school life, and blogs about pre-veterinary topics.
Veterinarians Blogging about Veterinary Medicine
There are a lot of big names in the veterinary industry. Definitely more than the top 3 that I have chosen for this blog post. But here are 3 veterinarians that I think everyone interested in veterinary medicine should be following, especially if you want to focus on companion animals like dogs and cats.
1. Dr. Andy Roark
Dr. Andy Roark is the founder of DrAndyRoark.com, a blog about all aspects of the veterinary profession. I first found Dr. Roark via his Facebook page, in which his humor and frank honesty about the hard aspects of life as a veterinarian hooked me into following his page. Dr. Roark is a fantastic advocate of helping veterinarians and veterinary technicians develop a meaningful and sustainable career.
And many other people agree. Just check out the achievements on his website bio:
Dr. Andy Roark is a practicing veterinarian, international speaker, author, and media personality. He is the founder of the Uncharted Veterinary Conference and DrAndyRoark.com. He has been an award-winning columnist for DVM360 and his popular Facebook page, website, podcast and YouTube show reach millions of people every month. Dr. Roark has received the NAVC Practice Management Speaker of the Year Award three times, the WVC Practice Management Educator of the Year Award, the Outstanding Young Alumni Award from the University of Florida’s College of Veterinary Medicine, and the Veterinarian of the Year Award from the South Carolina Association of Veterinarians. His greatest achievement however involves marrying a bad-ass scientist and raising 2 kind and wonderful daughters.
https://drandyroark.com/about-us/
Today, there are many contributors to the blog on Dr. Roark’s website. As a result, you can find blog posts about a wide variety of topics related to veterinary medicine. So go ahead and check out his website (or Facebook page).
2. Dr. Justine Lee
Dr. Justine Lee is another rock star in the world of veterinary medicine. Her bio is just as, if not more, impressive than Dr. Andy Roark’s.
Dr. Justine Lee, DVM, DACVECC, DABT is a double board-certified emergency critical care specialist and toxicologist who is passionate about all things animal and veterinary medicine! She’s the CEO and founder of VETgirl, the #1 online veterinary continuing education service offering veterinary continuing education (CE). Dr. Lee is a world-renowned veterinary speaker, scientist, blogger and author. She’s the co-host analyst on Nat Geo Wild’s Animal ER LIVE. More, she’s an avid dog and cat lover and hopes to make you laugh and learn about keeping your pets safe in her dog and cat books.
https://drjustinelee.com/
As a practicing veterinarian, I have a membership to her site VetGirlontheRun, which offers a wide variety of continuing education webinars and other resources. But if you aren’t a practicing veterinary yet, then check out Dr. Justine Lee’s blog for great information on a wide variety of pet care topics. She adds new posts regularly.
3. Dr. Marty Becker
While I don’t follow Dr. Marty Becker as close as I do Dr. Roark or Dr. Lee, Dr. Marty Becker is still a well-known veterinarian online. And I know him best for his work on helping make veterinary practices as fear-free as possible for cats and dogs.
Here’s Dr. Becker’s brief bio (you can find his full bio in the link below the quote):
Upon graduation from veterinary school in 1980, … I moved back to where I was born in Southern Idaho. I practiced there for about a decade. Over the course of the next almost four decades, I owned or co-owned seven veterinary hospitals, lectured to veterinarians on six continents, became an adjunct professor at three colleges of veterinary medicine, wrote 25 books (selling over 8 million copies with three New York Times bestsellers), my most recent being From Fearful to Fear Free: A Positive Program to Free Your Dog from Anxiety, Fears, and Phobias, which I co-authored with Dr. Lisa Radosta, Dr. Wailani Sung, and Mikkel Becker. … I’m now leading an amazing group of dedicated professionals on the Fear Fear Advisory Group, with a goal of changing the entire ecosystem of many animals, starting with dogs, cats, and other companion animals. By looking after both a pet’s physical and emotional wellbeing, and really walking the talk that they are family members, I’ve finally completed that journey that began in the barnyard and ended up on the pillow next to my head.
https://fearfreepets.com/about/our-team/dr-marty-becker-dvm/
Dr. Marty Becker’s blog has topics that range from pet health tips to fear-free and behavioral topics. But all of his blog posts aimed at helping improve the lives of pets all over the world.
Veterinary Student Blogs
This next section is dedicated to blogs all about life in veterinary school. If you are interested in becoming a veterinarian, it can be helpful to learn more about what veterinary school is actually like. As a result, I spent some time looking around for some good blogs written by veterinary students and found the following:
1. Life In Vet School
Life in Veterinary School was started in May of 2009, by Dr. Sharon Ostermann, before starting her first year of vet school. She wanted to create a resource that future veterinary school applicants could use to help them prepare for the application process. She also wanted to give a glimpse into what it is like to be a veterinary student.
Since Dr. Ostermann has graduated, veterinary student Lauren Pangburn began writing for Life In Vet School in September 2016. Life in Vet School doesn’t look to be an active blog anymore, but there are plenty of posts to read and lots of good advice on this site.
2. Iowa State University: Student Blog
The Iowa State University College of Veterinary Medicine maintains a veterinary student blog. This blog has been updated as recently as February 2021 (as of writing this blog post). The blog is written by current students and you can even sort blog posts by what year of education the student is in. This blog is definitely worth a look for those planning to head to veterinary school.
3. Vet Student Jenny
Vet Student Jenny is another blog written by a veterinary student. Jenny is a veterinary student in Canada and writes about a wide variety of animal health topics, including her journey to and through veterinary school. If you are interested in a glimpse into the daily life of a veterinary student, check out her website.
Honorable Mention: Vet Student Stories by Merck Manuals
Merk Manuals’ Vet Student Stories blog also offers some great blog posts about veterinary school and several are written by veterinary students. So if you still want to check out another blog after perusing the ones above, swing by Merck Manuals’ Student Stories Blog.
Blogs for Aspiring Veterinarians about Pre-Veterinary Topics
The next websites were created specifically to help students aspiring to become veterinarians. As a result, this blogs have great topics for pre-veterinary students to read through.
1. Vet Set Go
Vet Set Go is the best resource for aspiring veterinarians who are still in middle or high school. Blog categories include topics on Resources for Aspiring Vets, What do Vets do?, the Science of Vet Med, Meet the Vets, and Vet Basics. If you haven’t entered into college/undergraduate yet, this is the website for you.
Vet Set Go is the first and only community dedicated to helping elementary, middle school and high school aspiring veterinarians. Our goal is simple, ENCOURAGE future veterinarians to explore their dream and show them HOW they can do it today.
https://www.vetsetgo.com/about
If you want to learn more about Vet Set Go, check out my review of the fantastic courses offered by this website. (I was paid to write the article, but there are no affiliate links and all opinions are my own.)
2. How I Got Into Veterinary School
If you are getting ready to apply for entrance into veterinary school, this is the website for you. The website offers many resources, but the best feature is the list of interviews with successful veterinary school applicants. You can read about individuals’ journeys to success as they share whether or not they made it into veterinary school on their first application cycle, where they applied, what their GPA and GRE scores were, and more.
3. VetMed Survival Guide
My final pick for great blogs for aspiring veterinary students is the VetMed Survival Guide (VSG). This site is focused on the challenges of achieving a DVM degree, in addition to exploring topics for after graduation including career paths and issues that affect the veterinary profession.
The pre-veterinary topics are still a little sparse, but there is so much information on this website! I highly recommend checking this website and blog out whether you are just starting to think about veterinary medicine as a potential career or if you are in veterinary school already.
Alright, there you have it. The 9 best blogs for aspiring veterinary students (in addition to Veterinary Talk of course)!