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Hiring a shelter veterinarian
We do not post job listing on our website. Some good places to post shelter vet jobs are listed below.
RESOURCES FOR POSTING SHELTER VETERINARY POSITIONS
The Association of Shelter Veterinarians (25$ donation, click on “donation” and place your ad copy in the special instructions box or email separately)
www.sheltervet.org
Humane Society of the United States (free for animal sheltering organizations)
http://www.animalsheltering.org/job_listings/
The American Humane Association (20$ for non-members):
http://www.americanhumane.org/site/PageServer?pagename=pa_shelter_services_jobopps
You may also consider posting to your state veterinary medical association (VMA); not shelter specific but reaches a wider audience. In California, the address for posting to the state VMA is ($65 for members, $90 for non-members): http://www.cvma.net/doc.asp?id=1905&title=place_ad&titletype=career&ptitle=Career+Center
INTERVIEWING AND HIRING A SHELTER VETERINARIAN
Before you interview, I strongly recommend clarifying job parameters and support needs, if that has not already been done, so the vet and shelter are entering into an optimistic but realistic set of expectations. Life is much more fun when everybody is at least mostly on the same page regarding goals and roles for the veterinarian. Remember that hiring adequate support/technician staff is at least as important as getting a good vet. Sometimes I see shelters make the mistake of hiring a vet without sufficient support staff...then lots of expensive vet time gets spent running fecal floats, restraining ornery dogs, cleaning runs, etc. Frustrating for the vet and not a good use of limited shelter resources!
For a thoughtful article on maintaining a productive and positive relationship with your shelter veterinarian (whether a new hire or an old hand), please read Dr. Lila Miller's excellent article, "A blend of science and art: what every shelter should know about shelter medicine". This article is from the January/February issue of Animal Sheltering Magazine, published by the Humane Society of the United States. For more information on the magazine or to subscribe, please see their website at http://www.animalsheltering.org/publications/
James R. Weedon, DVM, MPH CEO Spay/Neuter Assistance Program (SNAP), Inc., Houston Texas Created a 16 page workbook entitled Strategies for Recruiting and Retaining Spay/Neuter Veterinarians which details how to find the right veterinarian for your clinic and how to overcome negative perceptions of spay and neuter veterinarians and how to find creative ways to meet financial expectation in order to retain quality people.
Best of luck in your search – hope this is helpful.
INTERVIEW QUESTIONS FOR A SHELTER VETERINARIAN
Periodically I have been asked to suggest questions for shelters interviewing veterinarians, especially those who do not have a shelter veterinarian to assist with the interview process. Here are some interview questions to consider (some that I have been asked in interviews, others that I have used when interviewing candidates). I have included some information about what I think are potentially desirable answers. Keep in mind my perspective that shelter veterinarians should have significant involvement with maintaining population health; if you are looking for a vet exclusively for spay/neuter or individual patient care, some of these will not be relevant.
What do you see as the role for a veterinarian in an animal shelter?
Desired answer depends somewhat on what your shelters is looking for. Does the vet demonsrate awareness of population as well as individual animal care? Would they be interested in developing cleaning, vaccination, intake, quarantine protocols if needed? What is their awareness of working with resource management issues? Are they comfortable trying to find cost-effective strategies for health care on an individual and population basis, if that is important for your shelter? If high volume surgery is part of the job, are they interested/experienced with this specifically? If not, how would they go about learning?
Please describe why you are interested in working at this shelter. What are your top three goals for your first year on the job?
Bonus points for having learned something about the shelter before applying. Are their goals consistent with the goals of this particular shelter?
How would you manage a case of parvo in a shelter dog? (Population and individual)
Caution if totally focused on care of the individual dog. What would they advise re identifying and cleaning contaminated areas (the dog’s run, where-ever else the dog had recent contact, e.g. animal control vehicle, exam room). What would they advise re the dogs closely exposed? Quarantine? If so, how long?
How would you feel about working at a shelter that sometimes euthanizes healthy animals?
If applicable to your shelter. Best to find out whether there is serious discomfort around this and/or if they seem troublingly cavalier.
How do you prefer to handle conflict? Please describe an incident where you had to handle a conflict with a co-worker, employee or supervisor.
Standard interview question. Particularly important especially when bringing a vet on board for the first time: in my experience there is often significant “growing pains” as staff and veterinarian get used to a new way of handling health issues at the shelter. Sometimes hard for staff to let go of control of things they used to manage without veterinary input, sometimes hard for vets to understand how they fit in to a new environment, in many shelters there is more of a dialogue between vet and staff re how to handle things than with vet/client relationship in private practice, where typically the vet makes a recommendation and the client (theoretically) follows it.
Do you have any experience developing formal protocols or policies? Please describe some of the components of a written protocol, for example for managing URI in shelter cats.
Examples of desirable answers: How would they define a case of URI (do they understand importance of a clearly communicated case definition), do they address whether the cat should be moved or left in place, what would standard treatment be, would cleaning be different, what constitutes adequate isolation for URI cats, how would you decide when a cat is better enough to move back into general population? This set of answers would apply to any infectious disease question (ringworm, kennel cough, etc.)
A cat comes in reportedly “hit by a car”. It was found lying by the side of the road by a good Samaritan. It is icteric, emaciated, and has firm, shrunken, irregular kidneys on palpation. How would you handle this?
For most shelters, recognition that heroics are not in order (this cat has a very poor prognosis – body condition and shrunken kidneys indicate a chronic, ir-reversible condition). Stabilize cat, make her comfortable for a holding period to allow owner to reclaim, look for lost cat reports matching this cat. No diagnostics indicated – the clinical signs are enough to know the cat is not a candidate for treatment in most shelters.
Do you have any experience in training or teaching employees or students? Please describe.
If the veterinarian will be expected to participate in training staff, volunteers, foster parents, etc.
What basic intake protocol would you recommend for puppies? Kittens?
Should address de-worming, vaccinations, external parasite control, basic physical exam to screen for serious infectious disease. Should be thorough but realistic.
Additional veterinary bonus points if demonstrated interest/ongoing education regarding shelter medicine issues.
For example :
- Member of Association of Shelter Veterinarians?
- Familiar with textbook “Shelter Medicine for Veterinarians and Staff”?
- Attended shelter medicine continuing education (now pretty widely available at major veterinary conferences)?
- Volunteered with shelters or rescue groups?
- Were familiar enough with the UC Davis Shelter Medicine Program Website to have found this document and prepared answers to all the questions listed above? :)