An emergency veterinarian is a specialist who provides medical care to animal patients and emergency clinics and animal hospitals. They treat acute illness, neurological medical conditions, renal medical problems, broken bones, and general trauma. You may work with veterinary internal medicine and on-call surgeons. You can specialize in one type of animal - large, small, exotics, or equine.
Emergency veterinarians take referrals from general veterinarians to treat animal patients who are under duress. You need to receive your Doctor of Veterinary Medicine or DVM degree and become a licensed veterinarian. You can practice emergency veterinary medicine without additional training, but it would be great if you become a Diplomat and are certified by the American College of Veterinary Emergency and Critical Care or DACVECC.
You will need to complete your study in emergency medicine and critical care and go through a three-year residency program. You will need to be compassionate, able to treat animals with respect and kindness, and be sensitive to animal owners. Communication is an essential skill. With all this training you can make a salary of $150,000 per year. Your salary could go higher depending on how trained and what experience you have.
Emergency Veterinarian Overview
Emergency Veterinarian Careers
There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being an emergency veterinarian. For example, did you know that they make an average of $48.4 an hour? That's $100,678 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 18% and produce 15,600 job opportunities across the U.S.
What Does an Emergency Veterinarian Do
There are certain skills that many emergency veterinarians have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed decision-making skills, communication skills and compassion.
When it comes to the most important skills required to be an emergency veterinarian, we found that a lot of resumes listed 25.9% of emergency veterinarians included internal medicine, while 13.4% of resumes included high quality, and 11.7% of resumes included emergency. Hard skills like these are helpful to have when it comes to performing essential job responsibilities.
When it comes to searching for a job, many search for a key term or phrase. Instead, it might be more helpful to search by industry, as you might be missing jobs that you never thought about in industries that you didn't even think offered positions related to the emergency veterinarian job title. But what industry to start with? Most emergency veterinarians actually find jobs in the health care and hospitality industries.
How To Become an Emergency Veterinarian
If you're interested in becoming an emergency veterinarian, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 10.6% of emergency veterinarians have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 14.9% of emergency veterinarians have master's degrees. Even though most emergency veterinarians have a college degree, it's impossible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
Choosing the right major is always an important step when researching how to become an emergency veterinarian. When we researched the most common majors for an emergency veterinarian, we found that they most commonly earn doctoral degree degrees or master's degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on emergency veterinarian resumes include bachelor's degree degrees or high school diploma degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become an emergency veterinarian. In fact, many emergency veterinarian jobs require experience in a role such as veterinarian. Meanwhile, many emergency veterinarians also have previous career experience in roles such as associate veterinarian or internship.
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Average Salary for an Emergency Veterinarian
Best Paying Cities
Recently Added Salaries
Job TitleCompany  | Company | Start Date | Salary |
|---|---|---|---|
Bluepearl Veterinarian-Emergency, Mid-Shift Veterinarian-Emergency, Mid-Shift | Bluepearl Bluepearl | 01/12/2021 01/12/2021 | $101,74501/12/2021 $101,745 |
National Veterinary Associates Overnight Emergency Veterinarian Overnight Emergency Veterinarian | National Veterinary Associates National Veterinary Associates | 12/28/2020 12/28/2020 | $150,00012/28/2020 $150,000 |
National Veterinary Associates Emergency Veterinarian (ER Mentorship Available!) Emergency Veterinarian (ER Mentorship Available!) | National Veterinary Associates National Veterinary Associates | 08/23/2020 08/23/2020 | $120,00008/23/2020 $120,000 |
National Veterinary Associates Overnight Emergency Veterinarian Overnight Emergency Veterinarian | National Veterinary Associates National Veterinary Associates | 08/23/2020 08/23/2020 | $150,00008/23/2020 $150,000 |
VCA Emergency Veterinarian Signing Bonus! Emergency Veterinarian Signing Bonus! | VCA VCA | 05/22/2020 05/22/2020 | $200,00005/22/2020 $200,000 |
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Top Colleges for Emergency Veterinarians
1. University of Georgia
Athens, GA • Public
2. Texas A&M University
College Station, TX • Public
3. Cornell University
Ithaca, NY • Private
4. Tufts University
Medford, MA • Private
5. University of Florida
Gainesville, FL • Public
6. University of Wisconsin - Madison
Madison, WI • Public
7. Stanford University
Stanford, CA • Private
8. University of Maryland - College Park
College Park, MD • Public
9. North Carolina State University
Raleigh, NC • Public
10. University of California - Davis
Davis, CA • Public
Top Skills For an Emergency Veterinarian
The skills section on your resume can be almost as important as the experience section, so you want it to be an accurate portrayal of what you can do. Luckily, we've found all of the skills you'll need so even if you don't have these skills yet, you know what you need to work on. Out of all the resumes we looked through, 25.9% of emergency veterinarians listed internal medicine on their resume, but soft skills such as decision-making skills and communication skills are important as well.
- Internal Medicine, 25.9%
- High Quality, 13.4%
- Emergency, 11.7%
- DVM, 9.8%
- Soft Tissue, 7.3%
- Other Skills, 31.9% See All Emergency Veterinarian Skills
Best States For an Emergency Veterinarian
Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as an emergency veterinarian. The best states for people in this position are North Dakota, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Maryland. Emergency veterinarians make the most in North Dakota with an average salary of $120,337. Whereas in Connecticut and New Jersey, they would average $116,322 and $111,125, respectively. While emergency veterinarians would only make an average of $110,536 in Maryland, you would still make more there than in the rest of the country. We determined these as the best states based on job availability and pay. By finding the median salary, cost of living, and using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Location Quotient, we narrowed down our list of states to these four.
1. Connecticut
$116,322
Avg. Salary
2. Texas
$103,077
Avg. Salary
3. New Jersey
$111,125
Avg. Salary