Veterinary Career Center

Watch a video introduction to our hospital here: https://vimeo.com/656703069/673d534a0a

Columbia Pike Animal Hospital & Emergency Center is offering a unique 1 year emergency/general practice mentorship/internship for new veterinarians who are looking for a year of supportive mentorship while they begin their veterinary careers. Our mission is to help you incorporate everything you learned in school with the training and experience you need to feel confident walking into your next job. Continued employment may be offered but is not required after this year. Along with this mentorship, we offer free housing and an excellent benefits package.

Columbia Pike Animal Hospital & Emergency Center was founded by Dr. Davis Hall in 1975. Over the past 46 years our hospital has grown from a one doctor practice to a 24 doctor, 24 hour GP and emergency practice. We have had a successful internship/mentorship program for 6+ years. We recently underwent a $1 million building renovation to increase and improve our workspace, and added a Vimago CT scanner to our hospital. We also have a sister hospital in nearby Fairfax, VA with 8 doctors. We are the largest private practice in Northern Virginia and the practice is still owned by Dr. Davis Hall and his son, Dr. Reed Hall. We are a very busy hybrid general and emergency practice seeing an average of 70 cases per day and performing 7 surgeries a day. The Halls’ focus is on providing excellent veterinary care along with the highest standard customer service to our clients. We also focus on teamwork, education, and have a friendly and collaborative work environment. Our company’s core values of service, devotion, communication and collaboration, as well as our mission statement “Because pets are family members, we want to help them live a long, happy and healthy life”, are evident in our daily work.

Our program is geared towards new graduates (or veterinarians returning to the field after time away) who plan to go into general practice or emergency medicine and are looking for a year of continued education, support, and guidance. We are looking for applicants who are motivated, eager to learn, and have strong communication skills. Our mentees/interns (we like the term menterns!) work fifteen 12 hour shifts a month, with up to 33% overnight shifts (10pm-10am). During your emergency shifts you will see walk-in urgent cares and true emergencies. You will also oversee hospitalized and postoperative patients. During your general practice shifts you will see scheduled well and sick appointments.

We provide our menterns with a lot of surgical and procedural experience. You will be performing spay/neuters during monthly spay/neuter clinics, and working with our surgery team on routine surgeries some days (mass removals/COHATS/cystotomies/amputations, etc). You will also be performing urgent surgeries that include abdominal exploratories, cystotomies, GDV’s, wound management, and hemoabdomens with the assistance of our staff emergency doctors. Our menterns each perform an average of 17 major surgeries over the course of the year (GDV, exploratories, cystotomies, splenectomies, enucleations, pyometra, etc) as well as 20+ spays/neuters. You will master procedure based skills (blocked cats, pericardiocentesis, thoracocentesis, E-tubes, NG tubes…) and have hands on learning opportunities with the ultrasound (FAST scans and wet labs).

We have a wide range of clientele and a varied caseload. We want you to take ownership of your cases and you will have primary communication with your clients, but the staff doctors will supervise, mentor, and are always available for questions and guidance. We follow federal, state, and local COVID-19 guidelines which will change over time.

Our hospital is well equipped with a large staff, licensed veterinary technicians on all shifts, full in-house laboratory, digital x-rays, digital dental x-rays, state of the art GE ultrasound and ultrasonographers, Snyder oxygen cages, a Vimago CT scanner, and a large pharmacy. We work with a traveling boarded surgeon and a traveling ultrasonographer as needed. We also have several specialty clinics within a 30-minute drive for referral of cases when needed. Menterns are directly supervised at least 80% of the time, and when not directly supervised there is a doctor on call for questions or to come in and assist.

Our menterns have a written professional development plan which includes weekly educational rounds on practical topics, monthly check-ins, monthly journal club or morbidity/mortality rounds, wet labs, and 2 weeks for externships at locations of your choice. You will have a formal review at 6 and 11 months. We pair our menterns with a mentor whom you meet with monthly and have quarterly meals with. Finally, we offer our interns a generous CE allowance and time off for a meeting of their choice.

Along with professional support, we offer our menterns benefits appropriate for a professional. Our benefits include free housing in a pet-friendly, furnished, single family home in a pleasant neighborhood about 5 minutes from the practice. Each mentern has their own bedroom and the living room/kitchen is shared. Pets are welcome in the house. We cover your necessary licensing and insurance coverage, and offer health/dental insurance along with a competitive salary. You have access to a full managerial team, HR representative, and chaplain. Our goal is to teach you but not to burn you out. You are never on call when you are out of the office and you have generous paid time off. The DC metro area is fun to explore, with Washington DC about 15-20 minutes away by car or convenient public transportation. There are numerous free museums, monuments, parks, and an amazing variety of restaurants. This area is also great for exploring outdoors- there are several great biking/running trails in the area. The Shenandoah mountain region is about 90 minutes away and the Potomac river nearby is great for fishing/boating/watersports. Please reach out to us with your questions or for more information!

Ability to obtain a Virginia Veterinary licence

Ability to work within the United States