February 10, 2009 Meeting Minutes
• Unfortunately, no pizza, but it still looks like an exciting meeting!
• The t-shirts are Irish Green! Woo hoo!! YaY for the voters!
• Website is http://web.utk.edu/~prevet
• Please add old exams, tests, study guides, etc. to our test bank. The more we add, the more useful of a tool it will be. To sign in, name is “prevet” and password is “prevet”
• Photos coming soon.

• Horseback riding: $15 - $20 per person. Email if interested and what dates would be good around end of March or early to mid April. If more than 10 people go, we get a discount. For lunch, we could pack or eat at Subway. We’ll set up carpooling closer to time. Need to know week before how many people are coming, so don’t wait until the last minute to sign up.

• Shirts: Irish green with white font. Old shirts are $6. Order’s coming in fairly soon. If prepay, guaranteed shirt in right size; ordering extra, but don’t know if the size you’ll need will be there.
• Volunteering: email coming soon.

• Dean Thompson applied to vet school twice and wasn’t accepted; they weren’t taking any out-of-state students. He was finally accepted on his fourth try.
• Veterinary medicine is a very broad degree; can practice surgery, medicine, do research, work for public health, army, become specialized, etc.
• There’s a great deal of respect for vets.
• He was the academic dean at Florida for 12 years.

• First part is grades; they are broken down into three categories: overall GPA for every class ever taken in college, GPA in science based classes (biology, animal science, chemistry, etc.), and most recent 45 hour GPA. To be competitive, you need about a 3.5. They like a balanced life – wonder what’s going on with a 4.0 student.
• GRE test: The average is around 1200; usually, the quantitative is higher than the verbal. Typical is to have a 700 on quantitative and 500 on verbal. You need at least a 1000 to be competitive.
• The rest is all subjective – the interviewing process. Categories: “must have,” “very strong,” “excellent,” “good,” “marginal,” “weak,” and “no way.”
• Need experience: get a letter of recommendation from at least one veterinarian that knows you really well. Use the experience gained from a veterinarian as your own personal education. Keep a journal of things you saw/learned while on the job. Educate yourself with the help of your veterinarian.
• Vet school will be hard; have to take 164 credits over 9 semesters. Must be motivated and willing to do the work.
• It would be great to have a second veterinarian, preferably from different practices.
• The third letter is usually from someone in the academia field, especially if you have a lower GPA.
• The personal statement is very important: why you want to go to vet school. You need goals, the goals you have concerning you as a veterinarian. Where do you see yourself going? It will probably take you about 6 weeks to write – needs to be more than liking animals. You should keep it to one page.

• He went to grad school before he was accepted into vet school.
• The art of medicine: you’ll never get it exactly right “practice of medicine”. You work with a background knowledge of science, but each case is different and presents its own challenges. You have to decide what’s best for a particular patient at a particular time. Each surgery is different – it requires skill.
• Accreditation: School is overseen by AVMA; they evaluate 11 different things at each school. The large animal facilities need to be fixed. It’ll take about $21 million to fix it, but he’s working hard with the government and private people to raise money. There’s a two year window to have “substantial progress.” All students will be able to get a license because we’re on limited accreditation right now.
• The large animal project will be done in phases so that operation won’t have to stop. It will be an expansion as well as a renovation.
• You can do a dual program where you can get your masters in public health while getting your vet school. It makes you marketable and gives you a lot of opportunities, but it’s a lot of work.