This week: Want to know more about becoming a vet?
What I love about my job as a veterinarian is the variety. It is never dull and if you get bored of one aspect then there are endless numbers of roles that veterinarians can fill in society. The most commonly encountered face of our profession in Hong Kong is the health care of common household pets such as dogs and cats. But this is only a minor part of our role.
Veterinarians play a vital role in the backbone of public health and infectious disease prevention. It is a constant job for epidemiological veterinarians to monitor infectious disease outbreaks such as the Sars outbreak here in Hong Kong, or an anthrax outbreak in rural Australia. If an outbreak does occur, then it is a veterinarian's job to contain the outbreak and assume a leadership role to lead a team and protect that team and the general public from further exposure to the contagion under investigation.
Veterinarians have historically taken a leading role in improving food production. In the eradication or control of diseases in livestock, they have greatly improved global food production output. Veterinarians are also responsible for the security of national food supplies and are inspectors that monitor meat quality controls, which keep the public safe from potential health risks from contaminated food. We are the scientist detectives that help search for the cause of an unknown illnesses, such as mad cow disease.
We are laboratory scientists that not only engineer cures for animals, but preventatives and diagnostic techniques. Many of the resulting discoveries have ramifications for human health as well. We are the experts that help police humane treatment of animals, for example, we are responsible for the stress-free transport of pigs to the abattoir, we are expert witnesses in cases of animal cruelty.
There are rural veterinarians that are on the frontline of livestock health, these rural veterinarians can be general practitioners or can be specialists that treat a very specific group of animals. The vet that is dealing with intensive livestock industry such as chickens, pigs or indoor grain-fed cows are very specialised and need very specific skills and experience to be useful. There is a worldwide shortage of rural veterinarians at the moment as many new graduates are looking to become small animal practitioners.