What Are The Different Types Of Veterinarians?
You may know about the veterinarian that takes care of your cats and dogs, but did you know there are a few other types of veterinarian? Treating different types of animals may require different education and a different specialty within the field.
What Is a Veterinarian's Goal?
A veterinarian's main goal is to diagnose and treat your animals. They also want to do anything they can to lessen the pain your animals are in and prolong their lifespan. The most common thing you may take your animal to the veterinarian for is vaccinations, but they do so much more than that.
What Do Veterinarians Do?
A veterinarian provides many different services to care for your beloved animal.
Those services can include:
- Diagnosing a condition or injury
- Providing medication
- Treating wounds
- Euthanization
- Performing surgery
- Taking X-rays
- Doing blood, urine, feces tests
- Providing advice
A veterinarian is devoted to doing everything within their power to provide the best treatment to your pet.
Different Types of Veterinarian
There are a few different types of veterinarians, depending on the animal that needs care.
Companion Animal Veterinarian
This is the most widely known veterinarian type. This type of veterinarian is the one who takes care of pets like cats, dogs, hamsters, etc. If you have a pet, you will probably get to know this type of veterinarian well.
Exotic Animal Veterinarian
This is the type of veterinarian you will visit if you have animals like lizards, geckos, turtles, birds, etc. They specialize in treating pets that are less common to the general population. They have received extra training to provide the best care for these animals they can.
Veterinarian Specialist
A veterinarian specialist is someone who has chosen to specialize in a certain field of veterinary medicine. Just like human doctors, veterinarians can choose to specialize in things like cardiology, neurology, oncology, etc.
Large Animal Veterinarians
As the title suggests, these veterinarians provide treatment and care for larger farm animals. They can treat animals like horses, sheep, cows, goats, etc. These vets are known to travel a lot to their patients, especially in case of emergency.
Laboratory Veterinarians
Laboratory veterinarians may not commonly provide care or treatment to animals directly, but they do care for your animals by researching diseases, injuries, food production, etc. Without these veterinarians, people wouldn't know if the medicine they use to treat their pets or the food they eat is safe.
Where Can Veterinarians Provide Care?
Depending on the type of veterinarian, they can provide care in any of the following places:
- Vet clinic or animal hospital
- Client's home
- Farm
- Zoo
Most types of veterinarians will travel in the event of an emergency, but there are also cases of veterinarians being employed by a zoo or farm.
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