EMBARK ON A LIFE-CHANGING CLINICAL EXPERIENCE

Attend a Ross Vet Clinical Affiliate during your DVM program

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Work with Real Patients

With the guidance of a clinician, you’ll tend to animals in a variety of situations.

Learn New Procedures

Learn new techniques from field experts and put your classroom training to work.

Manage Caseloads

As you ramp up, you’ll start handling caseloads, patient emergencies, and on-call schedules.

Clinical Affiliates

Countries

Weeks in Clinical Rotations

Selecting Your Clinical Experience Placement

Collaborate and rank your preferred affiliate locations.

Share in the selection process for your clinical experience. Beginning in your 6th semester, you’ll work alongside our Clinical Affairs team to identify your interests and career goals, and eventually ranking your match preferences at the start of your 7th semester. A number of factors are considered during a student’s clinical affiliate matching, including international status, overall GPA, and academic performance in preclinical semesters.

While you aren’t guaranteed placement in your affiliate school of choice, we work with you to weigh the many factors and find a good fit for this important clinical experience.

This list was last updated September 2023 and is subject to change. The University of Montreal does require fluency in French. Murdoch University College of Veterinary Medicine will have a January intake only.

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Discover How Clinical Rotations Work

Get the details on your 20-week clinical experience.

After your placement is announced, you’ll prepare for an intensive 45-week clinical experience inclusive of 20-weeks core clinical experience and 25 weeks of electives, externships and any additional requirements of your clinical site. Each clinical rotation varies in length, providing you with hands-on experience in multiple disciplines of veterinary medicine.

Small-Animal Medicine: Includes preventive health maintenance/community practice (Minimum of 4 Weeks)
Small-Animal Surgery: Minimum of 4 Weeks
Medical Services: Includes anesthesiology and diagnostic imaging (Minimum of 4 Weeks)
Diagnostic Pathology: Includes clinical pathology, parasitology, microbiology, and necropsy services (Minimum of 4 Weeks)
Large-Animal Medicine: A minimum of 4 weeks in one of the following:
Food Animal Medicine and/or Surgery: Includes ambulatory services, theriogenology, and/or food-animal production medicine where offered
Equine Medicine and/or Surgery: Includes ambulatory services where offered

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Enhance Your Clinical Experience with Electives and Externships

Create the clinical experience you need for the career you want.

Add on electives or externships to your clinical experience to maximize the value of this opportunity. Focus on a veterinary specialty of interest in an elective or engage in experiential learning through an off-campus, supervised externship.

ELECTIVES

Electives are evaluated rotations that allow you to focus on a veterinary specialty to further your learning beyond the core curriculum. Typically, students will receive a grade (associated with a course number) after completion of an elective rotation.

EXTERNSHIPS

Externships provide you with an experiential learning opportunity to actively explore your veterinary medical interests (i.e., exotic animal medicine or lab animal medicine) under-qualified DVM or Ph.D. It provides time to strengthen an area of weakness or begin to pursue employment opportunities. Externships may be conducted anywhere in the world, as long as they are approved by the clinical affiliate. An externship is an off-campus, supervised, and evaluated learning experience and students typically receive a pass/fail grade after completion.

Your externships must meet the following criteria:

Must be directly supervised and evaluated by a fully qualified, practicing DVM or PhD
State licensed veterinarian (if a veterinary practitioner)
Must be in a veterinary or veterinary-related field
Must be approved by your affiliate school (except for Cornell, Tennessee & Kansas State University*)

Throughout your externship experience you will work with a preceptor(s) of your choice who may be involved in one of the following areas:

Private or specialty practice
Diagnostic laboratories
Research
Zoo, exotic, or lab animal medicine
Alternative medicine
Federal or state service
Industry
Other pre-approved are

Externship Approval:

Before accepting an externship, you should seek approval from your clinical affiliate.

Externship Time Commitment:

Ross Vet requires that students spend a minimum of 35 hours per week in their chosen externships (your requirement for graduation is based upon weeks and not hours). Externships are for 2 or 3 weeks, depending on your number of weeks for your rotations at your clinical affiliate. One week is the equivalent of one credit hour

Compensation for Externships:

Students may not accept payment from the externship site, if compensation is offered. All compensation including scholarship, stipends, or reimbursement for other expenses (e.g. travel, food, and lodging) should be reported to the Student Finance office. Accepting compensation in any form may affect your financial aid. For more information contact Student Finance.

Externship Evaluation:

In order to apply towards clinical credit to graduate, all externships must have an evaluation completed by your externship supervisor (veterinarian or PhD). Evaluators will use the evaluation form of the affiliate school that you attend except for Kansas State University (KSU), University of Tennessee (UT), and Cornell University*.

In addition, students may be asked by their affiliate school to submit an evaluation of the externship experience for the benefit of future students.

All students are responsible for confirming that the evaluation of their externship has been returned to the appropriate person at their affiliate school or OSU if attending KSU, UT, or Cornell University. The externship supervisor must submit an evaluation of your performance for you to receive academic credit. Students that do not receive an acceptable (passing) evaluation will be required to repeat the externship prior to graduation.

*OSU manages externships for students at KSU, UT, and Cornell University

Sarrah Cisneros ’16

Clinical Year at Murdoch University in Perth, Australia

“The doctors here expect a lot from us and give us responsibility over all cases, whether in a house or on a farm.”

“Having actual responsibility has been a great highlight of my experience here at Murdoch.”

Sarrah Cisneros ’16

Clinical Year at Murdoch University in Perth, Australia

REVIEW OTHER IMPORTANT CLINICAL EXPERIENCE INFORMATION

Beginning in your 4th and 5th semesters at Ross Vet, the Clinical Affairs team will provide you with all the information you need to successfully complete your clinical rotations.

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LIABILITY INSURANCE

Your affiliate school will require malpractice insurance. This insurance is provided for your clinical year through Essex Insurance Company. This Policy can be found in the RUSVM Portal under Clinical Affairs.

NAVLE EXAM

Passing the NORTH AMERICAN VETERINARY LICENSING EXAMINATION® (NAVLE®) is a requirement to practice veterinary medicine in the US and Canada. This computer-based, multiple-choice examination administered by the International Council for Veterinary Assessment (ICVA) is offered throughout North America and at certain overseas sites typically during a four-week testing window in November-December, and a two-week window in April.
Information on this essential licensing examination is available on the ICVA website.

STATE VET BOARDS

Once you’ve graduated and passed the NAVLE, you’ll need to meet the requirement of the jurisdiction where you wish to be licensed. The American Association of Veterinary State Boards (AAVSB) provides these details and serves to support veterinary licensing boards across the U.S., Canada, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico.
Additional information is available at AAVSB.