3840 is roughly the number of dogs and cats I’ve seen during my internship. My name is Keribel Sanchez, I'm from Oxon Hill, MD, and during the summer I interned at Vetco Vaccine clinics in northern Virginia. Vetco vaccine clinic specializes in preventative care at an affordable rate. Vaccines, prevention against heartworm, fleas, and ticks, testing for heartworms and the 3 most common tick-borne diseases, and many other services. “Our mission is to avoid illness in animals and humans through client education regarding the value and necessity of preventive veterinary medicine. We strongly encourage pet vaccination, anti-parasitic treatment, and diagnostic screening for all dogs and cats.” We will continue to follow this mission because it will benefit both the pet and the parent.
We are based in Alexandria, VA, and travel to different Petco locations to provide these vaccine clinics. These clinics are appointment-based, and our goal is to complete each pet's visit within 5 minutes. When I first started I completed training to become a customer advisor, this person checks in the pet and looks through medical records to understand what the pet should be getting and puts it into the system. During this part, it is very important to communicate exactly what services are recommended and the ways they will benefit the pet. Communication seemed to be the biggest skill I worked on throughout the different positions I had.
After completing my time as a customer advisor I began to be trained as a vet assistant. This would involve double-checking the CA’s job, drawing up vaccines, restraining, and completing paperwork. At first, it was difficult to understand how everything worked but as time went on I continued to practice my skills of drawing up vaccines and restraining pets. I am still at Vetco working as a Vet Assistant and it has gotten easier and I have gotten faster.
Working with multiple Veterinarians allowed me to understand that things can be done differently but still have the same result. So trying to problem solve and find ways around a barrier is something we want to build the skill towards. I gained so much knowledge and experience while working here and I hope to continue networking and building the skills needed to get into the veterinary field. “Keribel you're doing amazing and continue to do what you have been doing because you got it together and I hope everything goes as planned.” Dr. Robinson told me this and it’s something I will never forget because the support that she gave me is something that lets me understand that I'm on the right track and whenever I need to slow down and breathe it will be okay.
