Ross Zimmerman
Roo Uni may very well be one of the best things we do, and you probably haven’t heard of it yet. So let’s change that!
Roo Uni makes finding the right externship easy for the first time. We’ve worked hard to assemble the largest-ever searchable database of externships across the country so veterinary students can find the externship that’s the perfect fit for them and clinics can get to know the next generation of DVMs. You know, the usual Roo win-win.
Roo Uni is the answer to a common problem for vet students: There are so many great externships out there and many more great clinics looking to mentor students, but for so long, there’s been no way to bring everyone together without an impossible amount of legwork. And if we know one thing about vet students, it’s that they don’t have a lot of free time on their hands. I mean, we literally just wrote a whole article about their notorious lack of sleep. So we did the Roo thing, and we made it easy.
The shockingly short history of Roo Uni externship matching
Roo Uni was started by Dr. Andrew Findlaytor in 2022, inspired by his own experience as a vet student not too long before. He lamented that there weren’t many resources out there to help veterinary students find externships, and interestingly, there weren’t many services to help animal clinics find students either.
As a student, I was frustrated by how difficult it was to find great externships that had an emphasis on hands-on learning. It was difficult to get a good understanding of what a practice excelled in, what they felt like, and what sort of opportunities I would have before I actually arrived. Shortly after joining the team here at Roo, I realized we could use the same incredible technology we were using to help vets to help veterinary students around the US.”
Dr. Andrew Findlaytor, DVM, Founder of Roo Uni
We were sitting on the solution the whole time! Roo had an enormous network of animal hospitals at its disposal who already came to us for relief staffing, and these very same hospitals were desperately searching for student externs too!
Thus, Roo Uni was born out of a marriage between need and opportunity. Knowing the benefit this would provide the veterinary community, we prioritized Roo Uni:
“The team and I dove in, did research, and planned out how to make the very first externship match program specifically for veterinary students,” Dr. Andrew recounts. “The dream was to have a program where everyone could find what they were looking for: Small animal, Large Animal, Exotics, Specialty, and more.”
Today, we’ve built a massive, searchable collection of over 100 high-quality externships for students to browse! Now, finally, finding that perfect externship is only clicks away! But it’s not just about quantity…
Quality and quantity: cake having and eating
Obviously, it wouldn’t be enough to just throw a bunch of externships together and call it a day. These had to be valuable learning experiences or else, why bother?
So, we take an active role to make sure every externship will be a great experience for both the student and hospital. It’s crucial to us that every opportunity we offer provides three things:
- Quality hands-on experience to put the skills veterinary students have worked so hard learning into actual practice.
- Lasting mentorship relationships that extend far beyond the externship itself, providing students much-needed guidance as they venture forth into their careers.
- Networking and community-building opportunities for both veterinary students and clinics, which could even result in future career opportunities!
Only hospitals with a 4-star rating or higher on Roo are eligible to host externships, so we guarantee that every externship is at an exceptional hospital held in high regard by the veterinary community.
As with all things Roo, every veterinary externship has its own profile, giving you a ton of information and transparency on each clinic up front, and students get to rate their externships, so you can see what your peers think of any opportunity before signing up.
We also encourage our hospitals to offer as much of a hands-on, active experience as they can. However, in practice this comes down to the hospital and the student and what both parties feel comfortable doing.
Your chance to explore veterinary clinics across the country
I always encourage students to try new things and explore all the incredible opportunities that exist in veterinary medicine. Now, thanks to Roo University, you can!”
Dr. Andrew Findlaytor, DVM, founder of Roo Uni
To make it super easy wasn’t enough. To ensure each clinic and veterinary externship are of outstanding quality still wasn’t enough. These experiences had to be as diverse as vet med itself. After all, isn’t that the whole point of an externship? To explore and try new things?
There’s no better opportunity to experiment with different kinds of veterinary work than a short one to two week externship. There’s zero long-term commitment, so if you’re not sure what specialty you’re interested in, why not dabble in a few externships and see what you like?
Also, this may be the only time in your whole veterinary career when you’re not bound by state borders by your license, and with Roo, you’ll find externships across the country. Venture into a new state to see what vet med looks like in different cities, or travel to a fun destination you’ve always wanted to visit because why not?
There’s no better opportunity to learn and explore than with veterinary externships, and Roo’s got an insane variety of clinics to choose from!
And it’s completely free!
That’s right, Roo Uni is completely free for both students and hospitals! Yes, really. Roo makes no money off of Roo Uni at all because that’s not what it’s about. It’s about providing a helpful service to the veterinary community and bringing people together, which is why we do anything here at Roo.
Don’t get us wrong, plenty of these externships are paid, but Roo never takes a cut. That’s entirely between the hospital and the student.
So why do we do it? Are we crazy? Yeah! Crazy about changing the veterinary profession for the better!
Browse over 100 clinics hosting externships and find your perfect match
To all the veterinary students of years past, we’re sorry we couldn’t get this to you sooner.
For the students of today, hop on in to Roo Uni and see what you find: It’s completely free, there’s no commitment, and you’ll get to browse all the externships we offer!
What are you waiting for?
