AMC celebrates graduation of new veterinary professionals
Bottom line
Schwarzman Animal Medical Center (AMC) in New York said it celebrated its 62nd class of more than 50 interns and residents at a June 24 graduation and award ceremony at Rockefeller University, marking another year in one of the country’s longest-running postgraduate veterinary training pipelines. AMC’s own materials show the institution has trained postgraduate veterinarians since 1963, and its internship and residency programs sit inside a large specialty hospital that handles nearly 60,000 patient visits a year across 20-plus services. The graduation news also fits into a broader expansion of AMC’s education and research footprint, including a new conference space and a resident research poster session launched in 2025. (amcny.org)
Why it matters: For veterinary professionals, this is a workforce story as much as a ceremony. AMC says about 95% of its interns over the past five years have gone on to residencies, underscoring how major referral centers continue to shape the specialist pipeline at a time when practices across the profession are watching access to advanced training, mentorship, and burnout support closely. AMC also highlights structured mentorship, daily rounds, and dedicated veterinary social work support for interns, which reflects the growing expectation that postgraduate programs address both clinical rigor and wellbeing. (amcny.org)
What to watch: Watch where this year’s graduates land next, especially how many move into residencies, specialty practice, or stay within large referral systems. (amcny.org)
Schwarzman Animal Medical Center has graduated its 62nd class of veterinary interns and residents, celebrating more than 50 early-career veterinarians at a June 24 ceremony at Rockefeller University, according to coverage cited by Pet Age and AMC’s own education materials. The milestone highlights the scale and staying power of one of the best-known postgraduate training hubs in companion animal medicine. (amcny.org)
The graduation sits within a long institutional arc. AMC says it has trained postgraduate veterinarians since 1963, with the original intern class completing training in 1965. In prior years, the hospital has publicly detailed the size and structure of those classes: its 59th graduating class in 2023 included 30 veterinarians, eight specialty interns, and 10 residents, and AMC said at the time that more than 2,500 veterinarians had completed postgraduate training there since 1963. Its 2025 impact report described the 61st graduating class as more than 40 interns, specialty interns, and residents. (amcny.org)
AMC’s current training environment helps explain why this graduation matters beyond the ceremony itself. The hospital says its rotating internship exposes doctors to nearly 60,000 patient visits a year across more than 20 specialties and services, with repeated rotations in surgery, internal medicine, and emergency and critical care, plus electives and selective specialty blocks. Interns work under direct supervision from senior veterinarians and more than 40 board-certified specialists, with formal and near-peer mentorship built into the program. (amcny.org)
The institution has also been investing in the infrastructure around education. AMC’s 2025 impact report says the hospital completed a four-year, $125 million transformation spanning 83,000 square feet, and that new space helped support its first in-person resident research poster session in June 2025. AMC said 13 graduating residents presented research posters there, and the annual Connie Leifer Resident Research Award was presented at the graduation ceremony the following night. That matters because residency training at AMC is positioned not just as clinical service, but as board-prep plus research development tied to outside partners including Memorial Sloan Kettering, Mount Sinai, NYU Langone, Weill Cornell Medicine, NewYork-Presbyterian, and Rockefeller University. (amcny.org)
Industry reaction in the narrow sense was limited, but AMC leaders and affiliated commentary have consistently framed the program as a leadership pipeline. In AMC’s 2025 intern welcome post, internist and oncologist Ann Hohenhaus wrote that the end of June marks the handoff from one class to the next, and said roughly 95% of AMC interns over the prior five years had gone on to residencies. Earlier graduation coverage from dvm360 similarly emphasized AMC’s role in preparing graduates to become leaders in their specialties. (amcny.org)
Why it matters: For veterinary professionals, this is a useful snapshot of how large referral hospitals are shaping the workforce. Graduations like AMC’s don’t directly solve the profession’s broader staffing constraints, but they do show where advanced clinical talent is being developed, socialized, and often retained. Programs with high caseloads, strong mentorship, and clear research expectations remain key feeders into specialty medicine, emergency care, academic roles, and leadership posts in referral practice. AMC’s emphasis on wellbeing support, including two full-time licensed clinical social workers for quality-of-life programming, also reflects a shift in what competitive postgraduate training now has to offer. (amcny.org)
There’s also a practical takeaway for general practitioners and hospital leaders. As more pet parents seek specialty care, the capacity of referral centers depends in part on whether they can keep attracting interns and residents into advanced training. Hospitals that can pair complex caseloads with mentorship and sustainable support structures may have an edge in recruitment, while referring veterinarians may increasingly look to these institutions not just for specialty access, but for collaboration, continuing education, and future hires. (amcny.org)
What to watch: The next signal will be placement data, whether AMC releases where this year’s graduates are headed, how many enter residencies versus private practice, and whether the hospital continues expanding the educational model it began showcasing in 2025 with research programming and upgraded facilities. (amcny.org)