Vet Med Titles

We get a lot of questions about what the different letters after our names mean, so here’s a summary:

DVM stands for Doctor of Veterinary Medicine, and it’s the degree given out by the majority of vet schools in the United States and Canada. Despite the occasional bout of confusion, it has nothing to do with the Department of Motor Vehicles! (Please don’t ask me to work on cars, they don’t have fur.)
VMD is the latinized version of DVM, Veterinariae Medicinae Doctoris. It’s the degree given out exclusively by the University of Pennsylvania, and is identical in every way to the DVM except in Latin, because UPenn wants to be fancy.

BVMS stands for Bachelor of Veterinary Medicine and Surgery, and it’s one of the degrees given out in the United Kingdom, Australia, and a few other countries. Alternatives to this include BVSc, which stands for Bachelor of Veterinary Science, and VetMB, or Veterinary Medicine Bachelor. Several of these universities that give out these degrees are accredited by the AVMA (the American Veterinary Medical Association), and their graduates can practice in the US as long as they pass the same boards that DVMs and VMDs are required to pass.

For specialists within the veterinary field, you may see additional letters after their veterinary degree. These usually start with DACV, which stands for Diplomate of the American College of Veterinary—, with the final letter or letters being the specialty itself. So a DACVIM would be a Diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine, or an internist. A DACVO is a board-certified ophthalmologist, a DACVS is a board-certified surgeon, and so on.

Other initials you might see related to veterinary teams apply to our technicians!

CVT stands for Certified Veterinary Technician. This means that the technician in question has passed the board exam for veterinary technicians, and is licensed in the state.

Alternative terms for this depend on the state; some use LVT, or Licensed Veterinary Technician, or RVT, Registered Veterinary Technician. All of these are equivalent titles that fall under the umbrella term of Credentialed Veterinary Technicians, and indicate a high level of expertise in the field. Essentially, these are our equivalents of RNs, or Registered Nurses.

Some technicians get additional specialty certifications from the National Association of Veterinary Technicians in America (NAVTA), either the VTS (Veterinary Technician Specialty) or VNS (Veterinary Nurse Specialty. These are generally applied to certain disciplines within veterinary medicine, and require quite a bit of additional education.

Lastly, there’s another set of initials all of us here at Pawsome Vet Care earned, and that’s FFCP—Fear Free Certified Practitioner. This is given out to veterinarians, technicians, groomers, and other animal health care workers who have completed the extensive Fear FreeTM training, designed to provide calmer, more positive patient care.

So there you have it! A quick guide to all the initials after our names.