SleepyE

Have you had a sleep study done? If not, you should seriously look into both a night and day sleep study.

Once she gets in to vet tech school, she won't have time to complain. Don't worry. Quite honestly, vet tech school was harder than nursing school has been for me. Granted, having the vet tech degree under my belt and a decade of experience in vet med, has helped tremendously with nursing school. Either way, give her a break. Vet tech school is NOT easy. They cram everything from radiology, pharmacology, anethesia, lab, surgical assisting, dentistry, vaccination protocols, parasitology, animal disease, including zoonosis, etc. You must know the in's and out's of all of this and I didn't even mention all of it. Oh, and this is including learning it on dogs, cats, birds, cows, horses, sheep, goat, turtles, lizards, small pocket pets.....Oh and don't forget you must know the lab values and vitals for all the species and they are ALL different. Then you must learn this all in 2 years and sit for your national and/or state boards. It's an experience and all for pay that could not help support yourself, let alone a family. Now with all that said, nursing school is NOT easy. It's been rough. The animal hospital that uses "PetNurse" is probably Banfield. They are notorious for using this title. It annoys me as well. If she doesn't have a degree, her title should be "technician assistant" or "veterinary assistant", not "petnurse" or "vet tech." Yes, I'm one of those that thinks vet techs should go to school and I hope one day it's the law. I don't care how much experience you have at an animal hospital (or human hospital)....if you didn't go to school and pass your boards, I don't want you being my pet's vet tech (or my nurse.) Having someone give medicine, IV's, etc on a human or pet with out understanding the how's and why's scares me tons! I'm sorry if this offended anyone, but until you walk in both shoes, it's really hard to understand both sides.

Like I mentioned to the poster above, there needs to be more like you out there, because unfortunately with most prices for any type of veterinary services people simply complain, complain and complain.

There need to be more like you around!!! That's great money. I know my friends aren't seeing anything near that amount.

I agree they might not know everything, if anything at all, that you DO, but they still know an RN is a nurse. When you say you are a CVT/RVT/LVT, they don't even know that has anything to do with vet med. In reality, yes, in the world's eyes, no one in human med or vet med has an education because 'nurses wipe butts all day' and 'vet techs play with puppies all day'. That's what we do!

Although an awesome idea, the unfortunate part is, with out a vet on premises, the only things a tech could do would be simple kennel type work, grooming and medicate with drugs already scripted by the vet, possibly including subcu fluids. Anything outside of that, wouldn't be allowed without a doctor order. I have a few friends that do this and they only make enough to use it as a side job. People expect to pay next to nothing for veterinary services from a vet, let alone services from a vet tech. Pet insurance is starting to help veterinarians a little, but I don't see this helping techs.

Lack of respect is a HUGE thing in vet med for techs. I know nurses feel they don't get a lot of respect as well, but I promise you, it is a million times worse in vet med. Most of the problem starts with the fact that many states don't require a vet tech to have a 2 yr degree, pass their boards and be licensed. The second problem being, many veterinarians do not want to pay for those with licenses and rather pay to train someone for much less. Then to add, when you say you are a LVT/CVT/RVT (it's different in each state), people typically respond with, "what's that", then are shocked when you tell them the vet isn't the one calculating drugs, inducing anesthesia, intubating and doing your pet's dental cleaning. When you say you are a RN, everyone knows what that is.

I'm a CVT with an AS degree in Veterinary Technology. Love the field, but after starting my own family, (and like others said, cost of living, etc), nursing started calling my name. I'm currently in nursing school and loving it. I do plan to keep my CVT license up to date because vet med will always be in my heart as well and I'm sure I will still want to pick up some shifts here and there.