A call for internship quality control

摘要

Veterinary internships have become more readily available in the past decade and are attracting larger numbers of veterinary graduates. Given that interns typically receive salaries much lower than the mean salary for veterinarians entering private clinical practice and that there is a lack of evidence that completing an internship will result in higher earnings later in one's career, the quality of training received during an internship takes on increasing importance.Internships represent that portion of the continuum of veterinary educational training between veterinary college and residency programs. Although veterinary college programs are accredited by the AVMA Council on Education to ensure that they meet minimum quality standards and residency programs must meet standards established by their respective specialty colleges, there are currently no processes in place to ensure the quality of training provided by internship programs. We believe this represents animportant gap in the continuum of excellence in veterinary medical education and suggest that processes should be developed to ensure the quality of internship programs.