Vet Tech Specialties: Explore Career Options

Veterinary Technician Specialties

Working inside the environment of a pet clinic is a good way to launch a new career phase as a vet tech.

However, when you work in a job as a veterinary technician, there are quite a few ways in which you can apply your skills.

As such, you might discover that certain vet tech specialties within the realm of veterinary technician work are more appealing than others.

This page will share a few of the possible career paths for vet tech specialties.

Veterinary Internal Medicine

This particular specialty stems from the need for more research into different animal diseases. Two primary areas of focus are preventative medicine and general wellness.

Special attention is usually paid to the anatomy, chronic diseases, physiology, and the non-surgical pathology matters of animals small and large alike.

Oncology focusing on cancer treatment and care and cardiology specializing in heart disease are two sub-specialties deeper in veterinary internal medicine.

If you want to do research that has a direct impact on the quality of care of many animals, then internal medicine might be where you want to start your career as a veterinary technician.

You may also want to read about vet tech job descriptions and duties.

Critical Care

Critical and/or emergency vet care is a veterinary technician specialization worth looking at. In a critical care setting, veterinary technicians are truly crucial team members.

When each minute counts, experienced vet techs need to be adept at critical thinking and make smart decisions under pressure.

During an emergency procedure, a vet tech might do any or even all of these functions:

• Intravenously replace lost fluids
• Handle the administering of general anesthesia
• Collects specimens and takes radiographs
• Assists with both diagnosis and treatment
• Performs various invasive procedures, which can include drawing blood
• Monitor vital signs carefully

Critical care isn’t a vet tech specialty for everyone. It takes someone who can maintain their composure under tremendous stress.

As a critical care vet tech your skills will really be put to the test.

Zoo Keeping

This is a highly competitive field that focuses on caring for animals in aquariums or zoological parks.

In environments such as these, a vet tech can help maintain exotic and captive animals for activities like research, recreation, public education, and conservation.

On top of caring for animals daily, you might also have the chance to work inside a zoo hospital, which is where quite a few different medical emergencies get dealt with.

Zoo hospitals have to worry about cross-species disease, handling the quarantine of some animals, and the year-round wellness of animals that come from quite a few different climates.

Duties that zoo vet techs might perform are quite varied but might include:

• Giving veterinarians assistance with their clinical cases
• Providing treatment to many different species
• Immobilizing animals big and small
• Surgical assistance
• Medical record-keeping
• Laboratory work

Working in a Zoo is a position that sounds very appealing and it does come with many great perks.

However, Zoo work is no joke it takes serious animal care experts to take care of animals living outside of their natural habitats.

Other Vet Tech Specialties

There are already many different veterinary technician specialties with more and more becoming available as new technologies in animal care emerge.

Below is a list of other vet tech specialty areas you can explore.

• Avian Medicine focusing on caring for birds
• Equine Medicine focusing on caring for horses
• Biomedical Research to study for new drugs and other medical procedures and technologies
• Clinical Pathology focusing on disease diagnoses through lab work
• Animal Dentistry focusing on mouth care for animals
• Emergency Medicine focusing on emergency care for animals
• Exotic Care focusing on caring for exotic breeds of animals
• Large Animal Care focusing on caring for large animals such as horses and cows
• Small Animal Care focusing on caring for small animal breeds
• Animal Surgery focusing on surgical procedures for animals
• Clinic Supervisor/Administration focusing on managerial and administrative aspects of animal care facilities
• Animal Anesthesia focusing on administering anesthetic
• Animal Nutrition focusing on feeding and nurturing animals with healthy diets
• Ophthamology eye specialists for animals
• Toxicology experts who deal with animals that eat or contact poisonous materials

The list above are really just some of the many veterinary technician specialties you could focus on. There are dozens more specializations as well and more new ones appearing with new technologies.

There are many vet tech specialties for you to consider advancing your career or specializing your education.