veterinary technician

veterinary assistant

veterinary nurse

customer service representative

emergency room technician

Metropolitan Veterinary Associates

As a specialty assistant I spent most of my day in my specialty and the remaining time, usually 3-5 hours, on the treatment/emergency floor.
I learned skills and terminology specific to my specialty, and was given 7 weeks of training with another specialty assistant. 
Management promises a lot of support and understanding, but if you’re having conflict with someone they will ultimately choose to side with whomever is more useful to them, regardless of the situation. (yes, that includes someone yelling verbal abuse at you for making a mistake or asking the wrong question). If you’re sick, they’ll happily send you home, and they follow covid procedures to a T - if you catch it, you’re out of work for exactly how long the CDC website says you need to be. That being said, while they’re very outwardly understanding, someone’s keeping track and they’re not happy.
There are a LOT of very good and supportive people among the nurses and doctors and other support staff, and if you can find them in time and gain their support or ask them for advice you might be ok. On the flip side there are as many equally uncaring and opportunistic people. Pray you either befriend your trainer or they’re a good person. 
The hardest part of the job is figuring out what to do when all the stocking and cleaning has been taken care of on the treatment floor. I hardly received any training in this area, other than in the lab, and when I asked anyone about helping them with a large task or having them join and help me (the favorite assistants often stood around chatting with coordinators or nurses or each other) they made excuses or were openly rude. If it’s a task you’ve never done before, they over simplified instructions and took the opportunity to criticize you afterwards rather than train you on the proper way to complete the task. I spent a lot of time bored. On bad days - who knows why - emotions ran high and assistants and nurses were openly hostile towards others.
The most enjoyable part of the whole experience was the opportunity to learn. You may not be taught much, but all the information is at your fingertips and I was able to teach myself a LOT. If you can stick it out and don’t get hazed out of whatever position you take - it really matters what department or specialty you pick, there’s a wide variety - you’ll have the chance for tuition reimbursement and many furthering education opportunities.
For someone with an invisible disability such as PTSD, the emotional and physical stress from the raised voices, lack of forgiveness for mistakes, and general apathy many of the employees have towards the new hires made it impossible to stay, even if I had wanted to.

While working here, I found that the environment was not what was initially presented during onboarding. In the beginning, the workplace seemed supportive and well-structured, but after a few months, significant issues became apparent.

There is a noticeable lack of consistent training, and employees are often expected to be fully independent without having received proper guidance. Communication with management is also challenging, as supervisors are frequently unavailable in person and primarily communicate through email or messaging platforms.

The workplace culture can feel negative at times, with frequent gossip and a lack of team cohesion. Scheduling is very rigid, with little to no flexibility once assigned. Additionally, employees are required to complete extra training tasks without dedicated time during their shifts.

Overall, this role may be challenging for someone looking for a well-supported, team-oriented environment with clear structure and communication.


The CSR team at Metropolitan is NOT located within the actual hospital and has No interaction with animals whatsoever. Your entire CSR "career" consists of talking to hospital employees over Microsoft Teams and answer calls, to the point where everyone is mostly an avatar and you go home and hear the phone ringing in your dreams. The CSR building is a call center, consisting of rows of cubicles of ringing phones, where you sit at a desk answer/direct tons of calls a day or scan paperwork... to the point where you really are just answering phones and not having any interaction with the pets themselves. 

This job has ZERO interaction with pets or humans, and will hire anyone and everyone who applies (you could be a line cook, an ex-cop, a pet store employee, a former cheerleader, etc). MVA promises growth but does not listen to innovative ideas and does not listen to its employees, but rather ignores everything that would make them better.



For such a beautiful and expensive hospital, their treatment area was often a mess - most nurses assuming that the assistants would deal with the mess they left behind. The other nurses were generally unpleasant to work with and desperate to prove their superiority. Emergency service doctors, with exception of one, did not examine their patients when coming in shift and often responded to things like “my patient is throwing VPCs” with “take a blood pressure” rather than turning off their TV show and examining them. Doctors are exhausted and burnt out. Best practices are rarely considered either for human or animal safety (as an example, lepto suspects, or confirmed positives, don’t receive urinary catheters so god help you if you’re assigned to isolation for your shift). 

I thought this was going to be my dream job from the description and my interview process. It was not.

MVA is a great place to work, it is education focused, you get a lot of experience from top tier care, they have a lot of employee activities (appreciation days, holiday parties, catered lunches, water ice days,etc) they have free therapy, a bonus earning review system run by employees, an excellent free latte machine, You can move around the hospital to other departments if the opportunity arises. High level of respect for nurses. It’s overall an amazing place to work owned by practicing doctors (not corporate) and the managers are previous nurses that have worked there for years, so they truly understand how the hospital works. 

They make it seem like a dream job before you start, but then day one you will findout it's sadly not the case. People weren't bad individually but definitely cliquey and alot are extremely burnt out and seem unhappy here. Lots of hostility about new hires and pay/schedule/bonuses. Very stressful at times, long hours, very short lunch break. Management seemed extremely immature and even inappropriate at times. Training extremely inconsistent and at times non-existent depending on the trainer. 

Training was non-existent. Those who were supposed to train me were overheard talking about how they didn't feel like training and weren't going to do it.  I was expected to be in two places at once, and do 2 to 3 people's worth of work by myself, all while running from one end of the hospital to another all day. Then, when I make one mistake, they throw you under the bus in a big way. I was also blamed for overdosing a pet when in fact the tech who did it took no responsibility and was glad to let the new person take the blame. This place is extremely cliquey and if your primary goal at work isn't to make new friends then save yourself and don't waste your time being shunned.

Great veterinary medicine and they care about their patients. I also like that they really care about their employees learning experience. They have meetings and write down employees concerns and try their best to fix problems. There’s lunch provided at least once a month, even more often than that. There’s a lot of opportunity to work in different specialties and advance your way up.

You will never have a set protocol and not everyone will know the same rules. It’s a lot of winging it and hoping everything works out. However, if you make a mistake prepare to be harshly criticized (without actually learning from the mistake). The environment itself is very unhealthy. Everyone talks badly about everyone regardless if that person can hear them or not. There’s a serious lack of empathy in almost every department. This is the first job I’ve had where the majority of client complaints are 100% valid.

I have been working at MVA for a very long time.  The door has always been open for growth and advancement and is strongly encouraged.   I enjoy working hand in hand with the clinical team as well as the admin team and every person is treated equally.  Our job can get pretty stressful, but everyone has your back as everyone is going through the same thing, and will help in any way they can.  Our management is approachable and open to suggestions/ideas, and being privately owned is a HUGE bonus.  Benefits are very competitive also.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Veterinary technician 27 salaries reported	$23.96 per hour
Veterinary assistant 3 salaries reported	$19.00 per hour
Veterinary nurse 10 salaries reported	$22.20 per hour
Customer service representative 7 salaries reported	$19.07 per hour
Emergency room technician 2 salaries reported	$19.50 per hour

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