Maybe you dream of becoming a veterinarian, or maybe you’re already in veterinary school. This is an amazing and rewarding career, but it comes with its own challenges. When you're helping animals, comforting owners, and filling out paperwork, you might feel overwhelmed by all your responsibility. But if you’re equipped with all the hard and soft skills you need as a veterinarian, you can make a difference in your daily work and your career.
The Hard Skills
You can’t become a veterinarian without the hard, technical skills you learn in your graduate program. You can’t do your job safely and effectively without them. Some of these hard and technical skills include:
- Animal Anatomy & Physiology: Knowing how an animal’s body works and how diseases and injuries affect them.
- Immunology & Pathology: Knowing how to test for and treat different diseases and injuries.
- Surgical & Procedural: Knowing how to perform various surgeries and procedures, like spaying/neutering and delivering a baby.
- Tech Proficiency: Knowing how to use modern medical machines, like X-rays and ultrasounds.
All of these essential skills you learn while you’re in school because your entire graduate program is centered around teaching them. You’ll be well equipped, but when it comes to your career, you need more than just the technical know-how to be impactful and successful: you need the soft skills, too.
The Soft Skills
The soft skills for a veterinarian are just as important as the technical skills. They don’t necessarily have a whole class dedicated to them, but that doesn’t mean you can’t learn them. Like any skill, they can be earned through hard work and motivation. Some of the soft skills you’ll need as a veterinarian include:
- Communication: You’ll need to communicate with clients, other veterinarians, and your team everyday.
- Leadership: As the veterinarian, you’ll need to take charge to ensure the best treatment for your animal patient.
- Patience & Composure: In emergencies, you need to stay calm, think clearly, and act fast.
- Flexibility & Adaptability: Emergencies happen everyday, so you’ll need to be flexible in your plans and be able to adapt.
- Empathy & Compassion: You might be meeting animal owners on the hardest days of their lives, so it’s important to be compassionate.
- Ethics & Counseling: You’re making the decisions about animal welfare and public health, and this needs to be done with integrity.
- Business Management: If you have a private practice, you’re running your own business with all the paperwork and employees that comes with it
Being a veterinarian goes beyond just the hard, technical skills you learn in school. These soft skills help make your career successful, because you’re not just taking care of an animal: you’re taking care of their owners and your own business.
How Do I Learn Soft Skills?
Veterinary school equips you with all the technical know-how you need as a vet. The soft skills aren’t the focus of your program, but that doesn’t mean you can’t learn them. Many of these soft skills are just part of being a good person, and the rest fall into line as you advance in your career. If you’re still worried about the soft stuff, here’s some tips to get you on the right track:
- Communication: When you’re in any relationship, with your family, partner, or friends, you learn how to communicate with others.
- Leadership: Take on positions of leadership in group projects, in volunteer projects, or at work. Don’t be afraid to learn while you lead.
- Patience & Composure: The next time you're faced with a stressful situation, like finals week, practice handling it with grace.
- Flexibility & Adaptability: When plans change, take it in stride. Try jumping at last-minute events and opportunities.
- Empathy & Compassion: Try volunteering in animal shelters and vet clinics. This will teach you how other professionals handle emotional situations with clients.
- Ethics & Counseling: Again, shadowing a professional at an animal shelter and vet clinic can show you how to navigate difficult decisions.
- Business Management: If you’re an undergraduate, you can take elective classes in business management. Or you can find courses online.
End of the Day
If you want to be a veterinarian, don’t let the hard and soft skills scare you away. Graduate school will equip you with all the hard, technical skills you need to be a qualified veterinarian. And all the soft skills that make you a great veterinarian comes with time, resilience, and dedication to your work. So don’t sweat the small stuff: you got this!