I recently read a book about what students learn in and take away from vet school and how their perspectives change between matriculation and graduation. The researcher met with and followed a small cohort of students throughout their veterinary education at an unnamed university in the Midwest. I think this group of students graduated in 2019, and she tried to get a varied group- some male students among the large number of females, an international student, some interested in companion animals and some looking to go into practice with food animals. Depending on their backgrounds and interests, the students, of course, had some differing ideas about animals and their relation to humans.
One of the points that the researcher kept coming back to was that, in the beginning, all of the students talked about the animals. They wanted to help animals or humans better care for their animals as either pets or as part of the food supply. Some spoke about animals as companions and family members. Some viewed them more in the context of how do animals work for humans or how can humans utilize the presence of animals to make our own lives better. During the course of their education, they were exposed to things that went against some of their personal beliefs, like snaring pigs or bonding with a chicken to learn about handling only to have to euthanize that chicken via cervical dislocation and then perform a necropsy on it. Some of the students rationalized the death of their chicken as it was going to die anyway (based on what they were told). Some felt that this was the only way to receive the education they would need. Some struggled with the way that different species were treated, based on their intended human use.
After clinics, many of the students didn’t speak of the animals. They instead focused on their stressors, their human interactions, how those human interactions were a main source of their stress. They spoke of developing anxiety that had never before plagued them, but they see that it’s just an accepted part of the profession. They were tired. They moved from caring very much about what residents and clinicians thought of them to not giving the opinions of their superiors a second thought, so long as they made it through their rotations and were able to graduate. The researcher mentioned repeatedly that there was no place within the context of the veterinary education for students to express their thoughts and feelings on complex moral issues or to grapple with those thoughts and feelings. The students mostly just repressed them all, accepted what was presented to them as something they just had to do, performed the task at hand and moved on to the next checkbox for graduation.
Of the 20 students that participated in the initial round of interviews with the researcher, she met with 18 as they neared graduation. The way she presented them, they all sounded battered, run down, disillusioned, and they hadn’t even made it out to practice yet. Maybe that’s why, when I was talking to a relief doctor at our practice last week, she mentioned that she keeps meeting new graduates that come out of school with a list of demands for their schedules- no nights, no weekends, no on call, etc. I get it: nights and weekends are when the rest of your friends and family are off, and you want that time to rest and recharge and maybe spend time with some of those people. On call sucks, especially if you like sleep and/or hate emergencies like I do. Depending on where you live and practice and the type of practice you’re in, maybe you don’t have to do on call. I have only worked at practices that don’t require it of their associates, but I practice small animal medicine in an area where there are at least a dozen emergency and specialty hospitals within 40-60 minutes of my current hospital. The no nights and weekends though- that’s a tough one for me to swallow.
Care needs to be an option at times that people can bring their pets to you. A lot of people have had a lot more flexibility over the past couple of years because of the pandemic and work-from-home situations, but that wasn’t always the case. I’m unsure that everyone is going to get to keep the same level of flexibility they have had since March of 2020. If people that are supposed to be fresh, excited to learn and get out there and practice in the real world won’t work those hours, who is going to work them? The people with 10-20 years of experience who are still trying to survive the effects of the pandemic on practice definitly don’t want those hours. I’m not even saying that I’m unwilling to work them entirely. I work one night a week. I work a rotating Saturday schedule. I’m at a point in my career though, where I am not willing to give up more than one night a week or an average of one Saturday a month. I worked every other to every third Saturday for years. I’ve worked multiple nights per week for a few years. When I started my current job, I worked two nights until 8pm and one until 6pm, each of those closing shifts on those specific days.
I realize that I sound a little bit like an old curmudgeon, saying that I used to walk 5 miles in the snow, uphill, both ways to and from school. Maybe I am after 9 years in practice and COVID. I don’t feel like my current stance on my hours is unreasonable, but I didn’t graduate feeling this way or expecting to not put in time working less desirable hours until I had aquired some experience and seniority somewhere.
Obviously, I fully support a good quality of life and work-life balance. I also believe that by going into veterinary medicine, you have to understand and expect that living animals will not only be sick between 8am and 4pm on Mondays-Fridays. Accidents happen. Even for wellness care, it should be anticipated that not every owner can make an appointment within your preferred working hours, and routine exams and vaccinations and lab work needs to happen if you want to try and avoid as many animals becoming acutely ill as possible.
Yes, the job can be hard and tiring (both physically and emotionally). It can be inconvenient. You may be late for dinner or miss someone’s birthday party or a great concert from time to time. You will have rude, ungrateful and even flat out crazy clients that you need to deal with, sometimes multiple times in a day. Some of them will compain about the wait time or the cost or even attack you personally. Some of the animals are scared and/or aggressive or completely untrained. I often don’t feel like I’m “saving lives” because I’m a general practitioner in a wealthy area where standard of care means offering referral, and most of my clients take it. (Plus, I really do hate emergencies; they stress me out and make my brain shut down.) I do know, though, that I also have some truly wonderful clients that are always pleasant, compliant, happy to see me, ask how I have been, thank me for seeing them and caring for their pet(s) and tell me that I’m wonderful/appreciated. I also have pets that seek butt scratches from me, offer me kisses and try to sit in my lap on exam room floors while I talk about their health and care with their owners.
I’m trying to remind myself more of those positive interactions than the bad ones. Some days, it’s really hard to remember them because one bad exchange or appointment somehow sticks harder than the good ones do. I don’t have the solutions for veterinary education or for veterinary practice. I don’t hate my job, but there are weeks I can’t wait to get to the weekend or where I really need to take it one day at a time and just get home for that evening to try and reset. I could be happier in my professional life, and the more I think about it, the more it’s clear that it’s up to me to make that happen. I think it needs to start with a mindset shift, which is anything but easy. As for everyone else, new to the field or seasoned veteran, we’ll just have to try and support one another while we figure out this profession in 2022.
“It isn’t what you have or who you are or where you are or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about it.” ~ Dale Carnegie
