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The Exam RoomBy The VeterinaryPracticeNow Desk3 min readSeptember 16, 2026
225 Veterinary Sites Volunteered to Host NC State's First 100-Student Preceptorship Cohort
The Class of 2028 is the first cohort to complete the requirement under NC State's competency-based curriculum installed in fall 2024.
More than 100 third-year NC State DVM students completed four-week practice placements across 27 states, the first cohort to fulfill a new requirement under the college's competency-based curriculum installed in fall 2024.
The Class of 2028 is the first to matriculate under NC State's revised curriculum. When Dr. Katie Sheats, associate dean and director of professional education and admissions, explained the preceptorship requirement during the redesign planning phase, listeners would ask whether the college could find enough sites willing to take more than 100 students simultaneously.
The 225-site response and where students landed
NC State reached out to practices through the NC Veterinary Medicine Association, the NC State Veterinary Hospital, specialty area leaders, externship hosts, and students. More than 225 veterinary sites across the country responded, according to Sheats. Sixty-five students worked at North Carolina sites spread across 30 counties, often with NC State graduates as mentors.
The preceptorship is for academic credit and requires specific learning outcomes, so site representatives completed online training modules before hosting students. The training, offered asynchronously, included a message from Dean Kathryn Meurs and qualified as RACE-approved continuing education.
What the four-week structure required
Students spent four days each week working with clients and one day journaling and attending Zoom seminars with classmates. The college listed learning outcomes students were expected to achieve but did not detail the full competency framework in the announcement.
Sheats, who won the Board of Governors Award for Excellence in Teaching this year, said the course design matters as much as the workplace experience. The structure lets students be mindful of their learning as it happens and turn observational experience into what she called impactful learning.
The feedback practices and students gave after the first cohort
Sheats hosted a debriefing session last week for returned students to share feedback. Jeff Meier, who grew up in La Grange, North Carolina, said his placement at Truss Vet Urgent Care in Cary changed his career direction. He arrived convinced he would pursue general practice, but the emergency care experience turned his head after seeing the variety of cases and the challenge of stabilizing patients without long-term follow-up.
Meier said he appreciated the mentorship from Dr. Colin Stone, NC State Class of 2022 and a medical director at Truss, who asked about his goals on Day One and gave him space to shape the experience. Stone challenged him in a thoughtful and respectful way because he knew Meier could grow and be better from it, Meier said in the college's announcement.
Student feedback included a request for closer review of housing options at out-of-state sites and whether site representatives could receive more information about what third-year students are capable of doing. A few students felt underutilized, and at least one felt overutilized. All students will complete formal reviews of their preceptorship sites, and Sheats will provide aggregated feedback to practices.
Our read on the pipeline math
The 225-site response suggests practices see value in early access to potential hires, even when it means workflow disruption and training time during a four-week placement. For owner-DVMs, hosting a third-year student is a low-commitment way to evaluate a future associate before the scramble for new graduates begins, and if early clinical training produces more practice-ready DVMs, onboarding friction and the cost of mistakes in the first six months drop.
For associates, the curriculum change may reset what job-ready means when you graduate. If NC State's Class of 2028 performs measurably better in first jobs than prior cohorts, other colleges will adopt similar models and employers will expect Day 1 competencies that today's recent graduates don't have. That raises the floor, which helps the profession long-term but also means the associate two years out will be compared to graduates who spent a month in practice before fourth year even started.
Sheats said challenges students experienced during the preceptorship, balancing work hours with personal priorities, navigating difficult cases, and aligning expectations with workplace culture, are representative of clinical work in general and will be ongoing discussion topics for student professional development. With more than 200 potential hosts available, the curriculum team will use debriefing feedback to refine the program for the Class of 2029.
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