So the end of Veterinary Medicine is nearing ominously.
I’ve officially started last semester of lectures and seminars before I embark on a year of working in the field. This is to sure up my skills, take my state exams and finally become a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine. Less than 18 months now. In fact closer to 12 months. Yikes.
The normal furore of second and third year students asking me ‘do you feel like you are ready?’ is already becoming a mainstay in the day to day chatter that surrounds me. Even on one of my bi-annual nights out, two starry eyed students ran up to me and somehow managed to sneak into the conversation, ‘you are so close now, you must be really understanding everything so well’.
And that’s just it. The two words that so many vet students at this stage are asking themselves and are pretending don’t exist.
Do I?
Amidst the rabble and rush to get certain obligations signed, particularly certain skills our university aptly names ‘Day One Skills’, I feel like I have flickers of really expansive knowledge. When asked, I can fire back pockets of information that roll off the tongue to give that allure, I know whats going on. Disparately, I can be a Pokédex of diseases and yet somewhere in my brain, my know-how feels diminutive and lacking. What goes in, *feels like it* comes out often just as fast. The babble of the professors, specialists for many years, sharing terms that trigger something but can often wash over me with so much ease could have me worried. An endless juggling act of wanting to be healthily pessimistic about my own skills whilst also appreciating that it happens when it happens.
No one needs to be an arrogant vet – that’s when the mistakes happen. I’ve seen it in practice. Senior vets giving flouroquinolones (quite aggressive antibiotics) to kittens and pups (a big no no). I know this happens and with humans comes human error. But somewhat interestingly, not wanting to afford myself that same privilege, of just getting things wrong. “Fake it til you make it” attitude seems to be commonplace in the burgeoning vet student and newly graduated vet psyche… Truthfully its because we are taught what to do and not why. A procedure in memorise and regurgitate. Not always but quite often. An elaborate hoop jumping exercise parallel to expecting you to just start understanding. This is not an approach that I naturally work with but after 5 years nearly of medicine, I have grown to accept it. Practice makes perfect ultimately… I guess.
And for much of the advice I have been given by vets, they all decry the misgivings of new graduates and yet in the same breath lament about learning the “art of medicine”. Well I say to that… maybe a more conducive and caring environment will help that learning process? especially during one of the biggest issues around mental health in our field.
But that is a different topic for a different day.
The art of medicine is this hallowed moment. Not to far from the first time you dream in a different language to your mother tongue or the first time you drive a car without having to think like a robot about shifting gears. For medicine its the just knowing when you see X Y and Z in a W aged dog or cat that your differential list can start to come from its airy hiding place and cosily place itself in your now well attuned brain. This way you can think about your diagnostic steps and suspicions and with luck, you have a probable answer. Very Poirot.
It comes with hours at the clinic, years of working and growing intuition. All variables that I cannot account for personally because everyone’s process is different. But the truth seeker in me wants to know exactly the skills first before I end up trying them out. Mock dog/cat can only do so much. It just doesn’t seem reasonable to be 10000% comfortable with that however before I start my process of looking for jobs. It’s so thick and fast sometimes that even when I know I am good, sometimes great, the vet in my head says… but do you really?
Going into the next couple months, I have one aim. Finish my obligations, which with luck and some strategic timing, I will be done within next few weeks *touchwood*. I feel as if, once I have this done, I can be more assured with the others. I am pretty polar when it comes to my organisation, you see. It’s either I have to tick my list off or I just do what is in my head at the time. Both have a time and a place. Currently, I am currently Mr List and keeping myself centred enough to not get caught up in ‘what haven’t I done’ is important. Positive affirmations to tell myself it will get done is my current mantra, focusing on being productive when I can.
On top of this, I have a commitment to the Worldwide Veterinary Service in India on a training course for surgery. Being as most vet students don’t get the time or opportunity to do many of these prior to practice, I need to be home and ready to think forward to that. Most students have the whole summer to finish exams because we have to before final year. I having committed to being away however, don’t have that luxury! So books, books, clinic, books and… probably more books too until the end of semester. Lovely.
The end is coming though. With that looming feeling of expectation I can also start to feel more comfortable that, for now at least, the stresses of university are coming to an end. Soon I will be eligible to earn, have some more dominion over my own life and even settle into the career I have worked for since a toddler. That has got to be exciting right? To be finally Dr Rivers, have my patients come in with their animals and I finally get to see and work to help in what way I’ve always felt natural. I need to not be so adamant to finish a process because I am ready for it to end. The journey is what matters, not the result.
To add some insult to injury, there has been a recent spate of illnesses that has been floating around at university. Name an -itis, its there.I have one very beady eye on my health as well. Tentative and mindful socialising, ready supply of vegetables, doing my best to eat healthy has all helped thus far so I am willing it that I can squeeze into summer relatively unscathed. Health means my mental status too. Striking a balance between work and introducing a life (because by now I know it is secondary to this degree) is essential. An advocate for having a diverse life (somehow an issue in Veterinary Medicine) I am hoping I can still take photographs, read and write occasionally, where veterinary medicine isn’t the only choice of topic. Maybe… Hopefully… Probably not…
Batten down the hatches, pull up your trousers and don’t panic.
Easier said than done.
Dready Vet 