Responding to the needs of veterinary medicine practices across New Hampshire, Great Bay Community College is offering a new course to help prepare experienced veterinary technicians who lack educational credentials for
In spring 2023, the New Hampshire Board of Veterinary Medicine adopted a new set of administrative rules outlining tasks allowed to be performed by veterinary technicians and veterinary assistants. These rules also included a clause allowing individuals meeting specific requirements who have not graduated from an American Veterinary Medical Association-accredited veterinary technology program to take the Veterinary Technician National Exam (VTNE) until May 1, 2026, to become credentialed.
Under the new rules, credentialed vet techs carry more responsibility and can perform more tasks than a non-credentialed vet tech or vet assistant. In some instances, this changed what non-credentialed technicians are allowed to do in practice. While the new rules align New Hampshire with common standards across New England and across the country, they have disrupted the routines of many veterinary practices across the state, said Deb Discher, Veterinary Technology program director and department chair.
“We’re serving the veterinary community by helping with this big transition. It impacts a lot of technicians and a lot of practices in New Hampshire,” she said. “Many technicians working in veterinary practices are credentialed, but there are also many non-credentialed vet techs, who were trained on the job. There are many excellent on-the-job trained technicians working out there, but they have not gone through a vet-tech education program. And because they do not have that degree, they have not been able to sit for the exam.”
The Great Bay course, which will be offered for the first time in the fall semester and repeat in spring and summer 2025, will prepare vet techs for the national exam, which has a reputation for being “notoriously difficult.”
To make the course convenient and widely accessible, it will be offered weekly on Tuesday evenings Aug. 27 to Dec. 10 in hybrid format, on Zoom.
“We’re targeting people who are working in the field and who need to get these credentials to continue doing what they are doing,” Discher said. “We’re trying to make this as convenient and be as helpful as possible during this time of transition.”
