Individual animal medicine and animal production skills expected of entry-level veterinarians in bovine practice

摘要

Little objective information is available to assist Colleges of Veterinary Medicine in designing appropriate core and elective food animal curricula. Core courses should equip veterinary students with essential entry-level skills and knowledge. Although student performance on national examinations and internal criteria have apparently been used to assess the adequacy of food animal training, surveys of employers of entry-level food animal veterinarians appear to be lacking. Because most veterinarians (76 percent at the time this study was performed) enter private practice after graduation from veterinary school, we believe that data from bovine practitioners regarding the skills they use most frequently and the proficiency they expect of entry-level veterinarians would be a valuable resource to assist curriculum development.