Also known as veterinarian medicine, pet medicine is the branch of the medical science studied by those who pursue a degree in animal health. In order to practice pet medicine as a profession, every animal doctor needs a degree and a diploma. There are some vets that specialize in more advanced fields like surgery for instance. Yet, all vets have the general training to treat infections, perform vaccinations, recognize and diagnose disease, repair broken bones and so on.

Experience then teaches vets the real skills of pet medicine, no matter how tough in theory they may have been. They encounter common health issues as well as problems out of the ordinary. The most serious of cases will be at animal centers and rescue shelters. In such professions, routine and monotony have no place. An evaluation of the health condition is also required for every pet that a shelter takes in. And all these tasks are performed by personnel trained in pet medicine.

Even if they have a lower type of qualification, the nursing or animal care stuff at rescue centers and shelters have pet medicine trainings. Rescue officers need to be able to perform the first aid procedure on injured, dehydrated or traumatized animals before transporting them to the clinic. This means that the treatment of the animal begins in the street or at the location where it is picked up from, because, for severe conditions, the animals have to be stabilized in order to be transported. Sometimes, this first medical intervention saves the animals’ lives.

Pet medicine has applications for the development of products designed for pet care, such as shampoo, flee and tick treatments and the like. Food producers also need pet medicine experts to help them create food blends. There are plenty of ramifications in veterinarian medicine for all the domains related to animal welfare. In fact, this field of activity is wider than we can imagine.

You can get a much clearer picture if you watch RSPCA or some other Discovery and Animal Planet series, where real life cases are brought to the attention of the public. Pet medicine also plays an important part in the behavior and temperament evaluation of rescued pets before they can be given for adoption. Traumatized animals require special care from specialists and in the majority of cases professional help teaches them how to regain trust in humans and make good family pets.