Lorenzo Walker Technical College

Veterinary Assisting, Career Certificate Program

Veterinary assistants support veterinarians with every aspect of animal care. Students will learn to work as part of a team, respect one another and the patients, and communicate effectively using proper terminology and self-confidence. Topics to be covered include basic first aid, medical terminology, professional and ethical standards of veterinary medicine, handling and restraint, animal anatomy, diseases and treatments, and various related studies.

Completing this course will prepare the students for full-time employment as veterinary assistants in a veterinary hospital. Students will be expected to meet all of the course goals and demonstrate their understanding of the underlying concepts. The instruction will include lecture, class discussion, hands-on training whenever possible, and assigned reading materials. Students will be asked to work both individually and in teams and practice communication and problem-solving skills. The veterinary community will be involved to a certain extent in the student’s educational process and may be counted on to provide outside activity sources.

This program offers a sequence of courses that provides coherent and rigorous content aligned with challenging academic standards and relevant technical knowledge and skills needed to prepare for further education and careers in the Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources career cluster; provides technical skill proficiency, and includes competency-based applied learning that contributes to the academic knowledge, higher-order reasoning and problem-solving skills, work attitudes, general employability skills, technical skills, and occupation-specific skills, and knowledge of all aspects of the veterinary assisting industry within the Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources career cluster.

The content includes but is not limited to broad, transferable skills and stresses understanding and demonstration of the following elements of the veterinary assisting industry: planning, management, finance, technical and production skills, underlying principles of technology, labour issues, community issues, and health, safety and environmental issues. The program also provides supplemental training for persons previously or currently employed as veterinary assistants.