Iron Mountain Animal Hospital is accepting applications to complete a veterinary externship at our clinic. We are a progressive state of the art, AAHA accredited, multi doctor, privately owned practice nestled on the border of northern Wisconsin and the upper peninsula of Michigan. You will enjoy our friendly, easy going, yet very qualified team. The Iron Mountain area offers a beautiful place to live with year-round outdoor activities, a lower cost of living, and a wonderful sense of community. Interested externs must have a desire to practice medicine, surgery, and preventative care. While our typical patient will be canine or feline (about 95% small animal), we will see any species that the veterinarian is comfortable seeing - most often this would be birds, rabbits and other small mammals, goats, and pigs, but could also include large animals if they are trailered to us (we do not do farm calls). Our externships are hands-on.

Gain Experience with an Experienced Team. Our doctor team has 62 years of experience between them, and are eager to pass the knowledge they have gained through that experience on to the next generation of doctors! We employee a Certified Veterinary Practice Manager with over 15 years of experience, and our staff members, on average, have been employed here for 9 years. 

While we are a general practice clinic, we also are the largest, most progressive hospital in a 2 hour radius - which allows us to perform more complicated and advanced procedures than you would typically see in a GP clinic. We also have a board certified surgeon who performs TPLO's and other more specialized orthopedic and soft tissue procedures twice a month. We perform daily - and if a doctor is performing surgeries that day, that is their sole focus - they do not also see exams that day.

Dental procedures are a strong focus at our clinic, with doctors performing 2 to 3 dentals per surgical day. Our technicians and assistants are very proficient in dental radiology, which we require for every dental cleaning and dental surgery patient. We have virtual CE specifically in dental techniques with Dr. Brett Beckman as part of our standard doctor onboarding process, and we have sent all of our doctors on additional hands-on training for dental techniques as well.

Work/Life Balance is part of who we are. Our full-time veterinarians work 4 days a week. Did you know that according to a study done by the AVMA, the average veterinarian in small animal practice works about 43-45 hours per week? Ours work about 36 hours per week. The proof of our commitment to work/life balance is in the numbers. 

We are not open for regular appointments on weekends, giving our staff more time to unwind between work weeks. We do not have after hours/emergency requirements, and we are closed for all holidays. Our schedules are flexible, allowing for your weekday off to be moved if you have a special need in a given week, without having to use vacation or sick time to do so. We also allow some flexibility in your lunch time period if needed to go to scheduled appointments or for family events like school plays and performances. 

During a normal weekday, we have 3 exam room doctors, 1 surgery doctor, 8 veterinary technicians/assistants, 5 client care specialists, 1 practice manager, and one assistant office manager on staff. We pride ourselves in team-based medicine.

We have a full in house lab (Idexx), ultrasound, digital radiography, digital dental radiography, and radio wave frequency surgical capabilities.  Our medical records are 100% electronic. We are committed to staying ahead of the medical curve and bringing the best possible medicine to our community. We encourage our doctors to seek out continuing education in topics that interest them and benefit the practice. Our drive is to have your medical interest become your “specialty”. Doing so allows for further growth and development for both the doctor and the practice.  

Mentorship, done your way. We have experience mentoring new graduates, and welcome them to our team. We have a strong clinic mentorship guide in place that is based on forming a personalized mentorship plan together with the mentee, and recently passed the new Mentorship section in our AAHA evaluation. We listen to what our new vets need, and allow them to participate in programs like virtual internships if they feel that would help their confidence in those first few years in practice. We also partner with MentorVet for associates that are interested in third party mentorship. Being flexible like this allows an associate vet to earn a salary they deserve, while bettering their clinical knowledge - a win/win! Read more about our mentorship program here: IMAH's Mentorship Program for Veterinarians

Our management team is committed to offering the best employee experience possible. To support this, we employ a Certified Veterinary Practice Manager (CVPM) and an Office Manager both with over 15 years experience each, who partake in continuing education each year in topics surrounding mentorship, leadership, HR, and other key areas of management. They are committed to staying at the forefront of management strategies and methods. 

Since we are a privately owned clinic, you don’t have to wait to get the answers you need or feedback on ideas that you have. There is no “management chain” here - simply talk to the decision makers in the clinic directly, and have your voice heard. Being privately owned means there is no “cookie cutter” medicine here - you get to be directly involved with our clinic’s protocols and future direction of medicine.

Salary that exceeds benchmarks. Externships are a great way to open the door for future job opportunities! Our professional package offers a $120,000 base salary and includes production bonuses of 22% of gross, along with a very competitive benefits package. Our associate vets typically earn around $130,000 to $145,000 per year with this model. We offer a retention bonus of $30,000, for veterinarians that stay with us for three years. A portion of which can be paid towards student loans tax-free - please ask us for details of this program! We offer group health insurance, a 4% match to a 401K plan, continuing education benefits, paid sick and vacation time, a gym membership stipend, pet care benefits, and more. Please inquire for a full list of details. We also offer a relocation/signing bonus once an offer is signed.

Click this link to view a slideshow about our clinic: Life at IMAH Slideshow. At the end of the slideshow, you can click a link to take a virtual tour of our facility! 

Enrollment in an accredited veterinary school is a requirement for this externship.

About Iron Mountain Animal Hospital

The Iron Mountain Animal Hospital clinic's mission is for our clients and patients to look forward to visiting our clinic because of our staff’s dedication to deliver excellent client service, high-quality medicine, and compassionate care. We strive to fulfill this mission by maintaining beautiful, modern facilities and hiring and training the best staff possible. Our goal is to continually improve our clinic by investing copious time and capital into staff development, continuing education, and modern procedures and techniques. The Iron Mountain Animal Hospital has been in operation since 1972, and our new building was built from the ground up in 2010. Our area is an extremely beautiful place to live with year-round outdoor activities. Hiking, biking, camping, skiing, snowshoeing - if you can do it outdoors, you can do it here! We enjoy a low cost of living and a wonderful sense of community. There is a large focus on downtown beautification and more community events are organized each year, including half marathons/5K's, beer festivals, music festivals, biking events, and more. We even have a community outdoor lunch event with bands downtown every Thursday! Our schools... are rated at higher than average quality for the region of the country, and offer small class sizes and dedicated teachers. Michigan offers "school of choice", so you can choose which school would be best for your family. And, because we are right on the border, you can choose which state you want to live in (Michigan or Wisconsin), based on what is best for your family!

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Connections working at Iron Mountain Animal Hospital