Life on the Wild Side
A new grad trying to figure out life after school. |
Everyone’s heard the old adage “If a tree falls in the woods, and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” In today’s world, we are constantly adapting, so I’ve adapted the adage to “If something happens, but it isn’t posted on social media, did it really happen?” You must all be thinking, if that’s true, then this girl has been sitting around doing nothing the past few months. Sorry to disappoint, but I promise I’ll share some stories from Oncology and Radiology (and maybe even some vacation stories!) soon. For now, I want to share a few stories from my first week in the ER that highlight just how amazing and crazy our profession truly is (and maybe touch on the power of social media while I’m at it.)
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My two weeks on shelter medicine were a combination of "What my friends think I do" and "What I think I do" (albeit on different species in each instance.) Kitten season hits shelters hard during the spring and summer months, and that means lots of adorable animals to cuddle with. When I arrived at the shelter each day, there was a new batch of kittens to cuddle with. What a tough life, I know. From the chill orange males that wanted to cuddle in your arms to the playful calicos that were sweet on the outside and feisty on the inside, there was always something to look forward to.
These kittens posed a unique challenge though. Because California has a law that requires all animals to be spayed or neutered prior to being adopted from a shelter, and the fact that kittens are at an increased risk of catching life-threatening diseases the longer they stay at a shelter, we were tasked with the important job of sterilizing the kittens so they could find their forever homes. Male kittens are easy to neuter. They don't even require a completely sterile surgical field. Kitten neuters themselves take less than 5 minutes to complete. On a day we deemed "Testicle Tuesday," I neutered five male cats in the span of less than 30 minutes. (The time constraint involves a lack of multiple technicians to anesthetize the kittens, not my surgical skills.) The kittens wake up from anesthesia in a matter of minutes, and when you check on them at the end of the day, you can hardly tell they even had surgery! Each female kitten poses a unique difficult and learning opportunity. Because we spay the kittens at a really young age, some are only 1.5 pounds at time of surgery! Tiny kitten means tiny incision, and that doesn't give you much room to maneuver around the abdomen! On one kitten, I clearly remember making the skin incision, but when I got down to the body wall, I saw her abdominal organs! Her body wall was paper thin and translucent. I called the supervising doctor over to confirm that I hadn't already cut through the body wall, and she guided me through the most nerve-wracking 30 seconds of the entire procedure. In veterinary school, we perform one dog neuter, one cat spay, and one dog spay over the course of our third year. At the shelter, I performed 30 surgeries in 2 weeks. I made every mistake a novice surgeon could make: I accidentally cut a blood vessel that I wasn't supposed to, I dropped a pedicle (ovarian blood vessels that could potentially cause a lot of bleeding), I made incisions too long, I sutured things incorrectly, and many other mistakes. Each mistake helped me grow and by the end of the second week, I felt like a more competent and confident surgeon. I can't wait to get back into the operating room (in 2 months...) For now, I'm hoping to partake in "What I wish I could do," and I'll leave you all with a kitten mountain from the shelter! Adopt don't shop! "Pop Culture and Fashion."
Those were the two categories of topics standing between me and the surgery that I was hoping to perform. While I watched the surgery video and performed the surgery on a cadaver in lab in my third year, all the preparation in the world came down to whether I could answer the resident's questions about Pop Culture and Fashion. We started scrubbing at our respective scrub stations. I had asked my friends during anesthesia prep time about current pop culture, and we came up with "Justin Bieber sang a song about babies." That's how much time we had for pop culture in our clinical year. One minute of scrubbing passed. Two minutes of scrubbing... She asked me about the structure that I'd want to avoid cutting. Angularis oculi vein. She asked me what the first thing I'd want to do in surgery is. Make sure we are removing the correct eye. What the first step was? Lateral canthotomy. Five minutes of scrubbing... Davis Vet School is unique in many ways. One of the things that makes Davis particularly unique is the amount of career preparation you receive, regardless of what path you want to go down. Last week, I participated in a 1 week business rotation. We learned important life and job skills, such as interview tips, how to negotiate a salary, and how to communicate with people in your workplace in an effective manner. We also received tips on financial planning and loan repayment. While many pre-vet students don't think about the massive amount of debt that most veterinary students face at graduation, that debt burden is now about to become a reality for many of my colleagues. Luckily for us (and future generations to come), the profession has a bright future! Here are some of the interesting tidbits I learned from my business course.
As application season gets into full swing, I often get asked "What do you think made you stand out as an applicant?" or "Why do you think you got into veterinary school?" Honestly, I don't really remember what my application looked like anymore. Getting into veterinary school is hard, but it's not the hardest part. Succeeding in veterinary school is harder. As I finish up my first month in the clinics though, I've begun to realize, no matter how unique your application is, there are certain traits about veterinary students that help them succeed. All veterinary students have them, and if you have them, you're well on your way to vet school success. What are these traits you ask? There are the basics that anyone would probably guess: you like animals, you're intelligent, you're driven. These are extremely important, and they'll serve you well through your first three years. When you get into clinics and into the "real world" you need more. Here are the top 5 things I've found to be useful in my first month of clinical rotations: 1. Team mentality. Sometimes you're swamped and you need help. Sometimes your classmate is swamped and they need help. Instead of letting each other drown, because their problems aren't your problems, helping others out means that they'll (hopefully) return the favor. Having a team mentality in clinics (and veterinary school, and the professional world) is the number one way to succeed. Unlike in undergrad, the people you work with in veterinary school are not your competition, they're your future colleagues. The sooner you realize that everyone is here to help each other, the easier school will be. 2. Responsibility. A few days ago, a classmate asked me to help her out by copying treatment sheets for her. Of course I helped out. When I was done, she asked if she could double check my work. At first I was a little peeved--did she think I couldn't copy a sheet of paper correctly? But then I realized, she was taking responsibility for her own patients. If something had gone wrong, it would have been her fault. Taking responsibility for your patients and knowing what is going on with them is crucial, especially in a hospital with many people working on many patients. 3. Ask Questions. All throughout my schooling, it's been difficult for me to ask for help when I don't understand something. I grew up with the idea that asking for help was a sign of weakness or lesser intelligence. However, in veterinary school, there is so much information that you aren't expected to be an expert in every species and every disease process. Asking questions is a sign that you're thinking about the material and that you're engaged. I learn so much more when I ask questions, because even if the response is "Look it up in this book and let me know what you find," I'll then be able to engage in a conversation about the topic, rather than internalizing it and potentially never finding out the answer. 4. Time Management. You have three appointments for the day, which are expected to last multiple hours each. All are going to need multiple diagnostic tests, discussions with owners and clinicians, and treatments performed. All need records written. How do you do all that and still make it home before dark to walk your dogs and cook dinner? From experience, it's not always possible. Sometimes the dogs go without their evening walk. But the key here is managing your time appropriately. While you're waiting for blood work results, start typing records. Make the most of the time when you're sitting. And write everything down, so when you do have time to write records, you remember how busy of a day you've had! 5. Have fun! Clinics can be stressful. Your patients may pass away. But every client poses a different opportunity to learn, and learning is fun! Find the humor in every situation and the silver lining around every gray cloud. Maintaining a positive attitude is the number one way to get through each day and make the clinic experience more enjoyable, both for you and everyone else on your service. Never lose your passion and love for helping animals! Most veterinary students I know try their best to exhibit these traits, though they may exhibit them in different ways. It's true what they say about the types of people in a profession: birds of a feather flock together! The back hallway of the VMTH is long and narrow. At 6:30pm on a Saturday, it was mostly deserted. A classmate and I walked towards each other. Classmate: "Did you just get called in?" Me: "Yeah, just did." Him: "That sucks." Me: "Yeah, well, it is what it is." And then we parted ways, me to my after-hours call and him to his patients in the hospital. The brief conversation we had reflected the views of many of my classmates: being on call on a weekend pretty much sucked. But on this particular Saturday, I was excited (if not a bit nervous) to be called in--I was going to examine a Great Horned Owl with a broken wing. Two things stuck with me with this particular owl. As I peered into the XXL dog-crate that she was brought in, I was first struck by her giant, round yellow eyes staring back at me, never losing focus. Her eyes were wise, like she knew I was there to help, yet wary of new people, new places. When we took her out see what we could do, a second thing hit me: her wing was broken. Ordinarily, we can fix broken wings, but this majestic animal had pieces of wing sitting on the bottom of the dog crate, completely detached from her body. The only thing we could do for her was put her out of her misery, and as quickly as possible. Being a veterinarian requires more compassion than any other profession. Looking at an animal and wanting to do everything you can for them, yet knowing that sometimes the most compassionate decision you can make is to end their suffering, it takes a toll on the soul. The excitement I felt initially when I received the call to help an owl quickly turned to dismay and heartbreak. I remind myself: Today I helped an animal. Tomorrow is a new day with more animals to help. I am a fourth year veterinary student and I know this is just the beginning of a long career ahead of me. I hope to never lose the excitement and wonder of treating and helping animals. But I also hope that I can show every animal as much compassion as we showed the owl. R.I.P Great Horned Owl. Thank you for teaching me one of the most important lessons I can learn as a veterinary student. |
AuthorKatie is rotating intern at Atlantic Veterinary College in Canada. She graduated from veterinary school at UC Davis in 2018. Archives
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