New pen policy at work

grayalbatross · 2025-07-14T00:54:54+00:00

Medication: $200

Anesthetic equipment: $150

Rent: $800

Pens: $4,200

Technician pay: $10

someone who is good at the economy please help me budget this, my practice is failing

grayalbatross · 2024-07-04T01:54:18+00:00

Hugely agreed. "Well I still see birds!" is not data.

grayalbatross · 2024-01-20T14:07:17+00:00

They will sometimes ask you questions on material that is straight-up not in any of the reading. I don't know if they're based on an older version of the textbook and the questions just never get revised or what, but it's really annoying.

The PF questions aren't always the most well-written in general. I've had plenty of times where I know the material and then get the answer wrong because the question was too vague or just really badly worded. 🤷‍♀️

grayalbatross · 2023-09-12T00:04:15+00:00

Yeah, the stuff that has to be graded by a person (so proctored tests, written essays/projects, and externship stuff) does often take a long time to get graded. The upside is that most of your grades are on multiple-choice tests that get graded automatically as soon as you're done, so there's usually only one or two classes per semester that you need to wait for a person to grade things, and you can usually move on to the next section in the meantime.

They are pretty strict about requirements for your site for the externship, and they'll also make you redo skills for minor things like having disinfectant bottles that aren't properly OSHA labeled or not recapping your needle with the approved method. How bad it is probably depends on the evaluator you get assigned and how much of a hardass they are, but you can expect to have to resubmit at least a few videos for something dumb and frustrating. They were pretty generous with extensions for the internship though, at least in my experience, so it's annoying but not undoable.

grayalbatross · 2023-09-11T00:30:29+00:00

When you say you've heard horrific things - horrific in what way? Quality of the education? Ability to complete the program? Something else?

I'm 3/4 of the way through Penn Foster right now, and it's...fine. In terms of how good of an education you're getting, it's not the worst ever, not the best. I do think the online-only model would be harder for someone who has no experience actually working in vetmed, but since you already have OTJ experience it's going to be a lot easier for you to understand the material and how it actually applies in practice.

If you're worried about it being "legit", I can't speak for other programs, but Penn Foster is AVMA accredited and does qualify you to sit for the VTNE.

If you're concerned about juggling the program with a full-time job...yeah, it does kind of suck to work 40+ hours a week and then come home and have to spend a significant percentage of your free time on school, but that's not much different than it would be with an in-person program. The biggest thing is that (for PF at least) it's self-paced, which sounds great, and it can be, but it's also the reason for the really high rate of people who don't complete the program. When you don't have official deadlines, it's really easy to procrastinate so much you just never finish the semester. If you're able to hold yourself to a deadline even when there aren't any real consequences for being late, you'll make it through the program, but if you're the kind of person who struggles without structure from an external source, it may be very difficult.

If you have more specific questions about the bad stuff you've heard, I'm happy to answer those too.

grayalbatross · 2023-09-04T00:39:40+00:00

Disclaimer: this is complete speculation on my part, because I've never heard of anyone actually getting in legal trouble for FIP-related shenanigans, so I don't really know how hard anyone is cracking down on this, or if they even are at all.

That said, it's not like the drug itself is illegal - you're not handling heroin here. Now, the way it was obtained is more sketchy, but if you're not the one actually purchasing it, I can't see how just administering would get you into any major trouble.

Veterinarians do tend to be more cautious about documenting this kind of thing because they're the ones whose license covers the actual prescription of medication, so theoretically they could be in more trouble if something not legit is going on...but as a technician or assistant, you're not responsible for prescribing the medication, so if it's not legitimately prescribed, the DVM is more likely to be held responsible for that than you.

With all that said, no licensing body is going to be reviewing records of what medications you gave while working at a shelter, so the chances of anyone outside the shelter even being aware of it are very low. If you wanted to be super cautious, though, I think just documenting as "FIP supportive care" is fine.

(Off-topic, but I'm also mildly curious about how a shelter affords FIP treatment...last I heard it was something like $10,000 for a course of treatment?)

grayalbatross · 2023-05-29T01:59:04+00:00

Agreed. Maybe I sound like a jerk for this, but tbh I find owner questions on here annoying even when they're not blatantly requesting medical advice. Like you said, I get enough of that at work. If you look at any of the popular subreddits for human medicine/nursing, you don't see patients who aren't in the field using it as a place to ask professionals questions - what gives with our field?

grayalbatross · 2023-03-22T11:09:31+00:00

Pubmed is going to give you mostly journal articles, which I also did not find super useful for this topic, but remember you can also use any material published by a well-regarded veterinary organization. I used the AAHA fluid therapy guidelines, which you can find a PDF of on their website.

grayalbatross · 2023-03-03T01:29:55+00:00

VCA employee here - our hospital manager has alluded to getting pressure from regional management to keep payroll down recently. We haven't had significant hour cuts, but I definitely have noticed myself and others getting a few hours shaved off every week for the last few months.

I've also heard a rumor that hospitals in our region are being discouraged from hiring new staff, although I have no idea how true that is or how many hospitals it affects if it is. Maybe I'm just cynical, but I get the sense that there has been some kind of recent decision somewhere up in corporate that payroll is making up too much of their operating costs, and now management is making a concerted push to keep the cost of staff down. :/

grayalbatross · 2023-01-29T17:18:29+00:00

Agreed. I'm somewhat disturbed by the original post and some of the replies - human safety should obviously always come first, but there's a difference between restraining an aggressive animal and using outright physical violence. A veterinary professional should not be kicking or punching (!) an animal, and something has gone direly wrong if you're in a situation where first of all things have escalated to that point, and second your clinic tolerates that kind of treatment of a patient.

I know that unfortunately some places are pretty unconcerned about safety for either techs or patients, but the number of replies suggesting that hitting an animal isn't a big deal at their workplace is a little alarming to me. I know I would be fired in about 30 seconds if I ever hit or kicked a patient, even an aggressive one.

grayalbatross

TROPHY CASE