Anyone that has been following along knows that I started this blog about a year and a half ago because, a year into the pandemic, I was feeling a little lost in my career. I was stressed, not entirely happy or sure how I ended up exactly where I had in terms of my relationship to veterinary medicine. I wanted to share stories of animals, mostly my pets, that helped to shape me as a human and as a doctor over the years. To be honest, I haven’t figured it all out yet. I don’t really recall all of the small changes that got me right here, right now, nor do I quite know where I’m heading next in this field.
What I do know is that I’ve used student loans as an excuse to be static for quite a long time. I am lucky in that I didn’t need to pull out any loans for my undergraduate degree, mostly thanks to my incredible maternal grandparents, a little help from my mom and part time jobs (and living at home while attending an inexpensive state school). I knew all along that vet school was going to cost me a lot of money, money that I did not have and no one in my family had to loan or gift to me. The government will give you a ridiculous amount of money for grad school loans, no questions asked. Then they’ll charge you insane amounts of interest on those loans. I signed on the dotted loan knowing that the total after four years would be high and that they would affect my life for years after I graduated. Knowing that in theory and knowing that in reality are not the same thing, for anyone that hasn’t experienced a quarter million dollars of educational debt.
I signed off on all of those loans ($227,000, to be exact) because all I ever wanted to do with my life was to be a small animal veterinarian with the ultimate goal of owning my practice. There was no alternative for me. I applied to vet schools three years in a row before I was accepted. The first year, I stupidly only applied to two schools. They gave me some feedback to build a stronger application, but I had already made most of their recommended changes before talking to them. The second year, I made it onto a wait list at the University of Minnesota. The third year, Minnesota didn’t even invite me for an interview. When I called them and asked why, I was told that there was actually nothing wrong with my application; different people had reviewed it from the previous year and, unfortunately, I just wasn’t selected to fly out for an interview. When I told them that I was just wondering, as I had been accepted to Penn and would be going there, they paused for a moment before offering congratulations. If you want to know the truth, vet school is terrible, from building your application, to actually applying and interviewing, to figuring out loans, to the overload of information and lack of life outside vet school for four long years to trying to find your home in the field once you leave school. Nothing about the process is easy.
I always thought, before working as a vet, that I would always LOVE everything about it, that I would never want to retire because I was SO excited to join this profession and save all of the animals. Things happen along the way that you didn’t see coming. Things like miserable, narcissistic bosses where you learn a lot more about how not to be as a human and as a doctor than about how to behave as either. You meet bosses that just come across as greedy and may still owe you money for the last 10 days of work you put in for them 8+ years ago. You work for corporations that sometimes make decisions that baffle you. You have clients with unreasonable expectations or that try to tell you that you don’t care about their pet or that can’t follow your instructions, no matter how many times you go over them or see the pet for the same problem. You end up stuck at work for hours after the practice was supposed to close because your boss insists that the phones stay on for 15 minutes AFTER closing time and then have to drive 45 minutes home and still eat dinner. You try to practice the best medicine that you can during a pandemic, when no one knows what to do or how to handle anything and the rules keep changing every week. You eventually just get to be exhausted by everything.
Since I started this blog, I’ve had good weeks and months and bad weeks and months. Sometimes, everything seems to be going along just fine, I feel good about myself and about life and about me in veterinary medicine. Sometimes, I have several nights of stress dreams in a row, and I’m tired and grumpy and short with people I shouldn’t be short with either at work or at home because my tank is empty and there doesn’t seem to a chance for recovery on the immediate horizon.
I know, in the grand scheme of things, that my specific job is good. As far as jobs in veterinary medicine, especially in these times, go, mine is “easy.” I have a great schedule with lots of time outside of work. I don’t have any on-call duties and rarely get asked questions from the office when I am not there. We are good about not accepting more patients in a day than we can comfortably handle and do not answer the phones after hours. I get paid well enough (and have other wonderfully helpful things in my life like Justin) that mean my loans will be gone in 7 weeks. I will not financially owe anyone anything at that time. In 7 weeks, I can no longer use student loans as a reason to just continue doing exactly what I’m doing now. It’s exciting and scary at the same time. What do you do when you could do anything because you’re not paying $4000-5000/month to get out of debt?
I don’t know. I really don’t. There’s part of me that still wants to work for myself, but then the part of me that’s seen how crazy the pandemic has made everyone isn’t sure. I don’t know if I’m prepared to single-handedly deal with all of that emotion from everyone else. I don’t want to leave veterinary medicine. I enjoy the vast majority of my patients and some of the people they’re attached to. I love my coworkers. I love surgery and some of the appointments I get to see. I take pleasure in helping to keep dog and cats healthy. At the same time, I can’t help but feel that it’s time to expand some. Again, I don’t know what my long-term looks like. I’m not looking to leave my current job right now because I need to breathe some without student loans hanging over my head. At the same time, I need to start taking some steps to grow as a doctor.
I’ve always been interested in rehabilitation medicine, but it’s not cheap for that continuing education. Because my student loans started off so high, and because I hate owing anyone money, I always said I wasn’t going to take any other loans for anything else or persue anything with a significant price tag until they were gone. This morning, I signed up to start taking classes to become acupuncture certified. They start in January, about a month after my loans are off my chest and right on time for everyone’s New Year’s resolutions. It’s as good a time as any to commit to learning a new skill. Where I go with it remains to be seen, but I took that first and hardest step by filling out the application and paying my deposit to hold my seat. I’m excited, but nervous to be a student again. It’s been a long time since I’ve had any quizzes or tests that actually matter, and I don’t know that I’m looking forward to that part of it.
“Life is like riding a bicycle, to keep your balance, you must keep moving.” ~ Albert Einstein
