The very existence of this discussion speaks to a serious flaw in VTech's training regimen for veterinary students. Other professional schools around the nation (medicine, dentistry, psychology, social work) have protocols for experiential learning that include (1) clear notice that a practitioner is a student and (2) highly regarded professional settings that regularly train students in these fields. These settings have a commitment to education and provide thorough supervision of those assigned to their clinic, hospital, or social service program.

Furthermore, students are educated in the classroom and in clinical work in an orderly manner such that the student is not asked to do more than he or she has been prepared to do at any given point, and the public is not put in the position of endangerment. Would a second-year medical student be asked to perform brain surgery? No, but he very well might perform certain aspects of a physical examination or basic procedures and then discuss it with his medical supervisor. What's any different about veterinary training?

Vet students deserve to know they'll be asked to perform tasks that help them practice what they've learned, tasks within their comfort range but that also give them the opportunity to stretch; this they can do by learning from their supervising vets; thus they develop confidence that they're providing good service to their animal patients. Animal owners would know from the start that a student was working on their pet or livestock; it serves no one well for the owner not to know and not to be able to opt out of having a student work with their animal. However, in well-run internship programs, the public feels confident that students' services are based on the competence of the entire setting and are less likely to feel apprehension.

It's not clear to me, an animal-owning member of the public, that VTech has developed sufficient links to excellent clinical training settings for their vet students; this puts students and the animal-owning public in awkward and potentially painful situations. The school has produced many wonderful veterinarians but needs to work out these questions in a forthright manner that benefits students and public alike.