Staying Positive

This week I sent a puppy back home with her owners. Happy and boisterous, there was no sign of the virus which had ripped through her body and left her on deaths door less than a week before. The smile on her owners face was only slightly less enthusiastic than the wagging tail and tugging on the lead as I walked her to the front of the clinic. It was a great experience to have a happy ending after the hard work I’d put into nursing and caring for her over the previous days. Quite simply, it made my day.

The same day I checked the messages sent to me on my tumblr and got one from a biology major asking me if vet school was worth the stress. It’s a good question, vet school is tough, anybody who has done any searching online knows that. There’s no shortage of blogs and posts on social media about the sleepless nights, tough classes, and emotional challenges. I’ve posted my fair share. The question made me think about the perception that people looking in to veterinary medicine as a career have about being a vet, and the message we are putting out about our profession.

Articles about the high rates of suicide, burnout, and compassion fatigue are important, engaging, and fiercely relatable for veterinarians. It’s a reality of the profession that there are serious lows. It’s important that we talk about those things and establish a healthy dialogue so that we can support each other. But for each of those deep dark lows, there are also cloud-tipped highs.

My Story

I recently had to fill out a scholarship application which asked the question: “What’s your story and what are your plans with your degree?” What I wrote surprised me, not only because I managed to sum it up in less than 500 words, but also because it drew my focus back to what I’m actually at University to do. All too often we get caught up in the here-and-now and we lose track of what we are aiming to achieve. The exercise in remembering how I got here and also where I’m (maybe) going was really rewarding, and I’d encourage everybody to take some time to think about your answer to this question,

“What’s your story, and what are your plans for your life?”

My answer’s below the cut.

This is a part of what the future definitely holds for me – lots more dog population control. – At WVS India

How To Get Through Studying: A Sort-of-guide

In one week’s time I will be sitting the first of my final exams for this semester. And it sucks.

After the best 6 months of my veterinary career to date which included attending my first state and national conferences, spaying my first cat, seeing practice for 3 weeks at my local clinic, learning a huge amount of clinical skills and booking my trip to volunteer in India, I’m back to reality. With that reality comes stress, and my failed attempts to deal with it. So far I have re-hung three doors in my house, watched a season and a half of House M.D., cooked some incredible meals, and made half a dozen study schedules. Up next on the list is painting my bathroom and finishing the next six and a half seasons of that terrifically amazing medical drama.

I don’t know what it is about impending academic doom that makes me shut off, maybe it’s the hope that if I ignore it for long enough it will go away, or maybe it is a subconscious mechanism for avoiding stress, or maybe I’m just lazy. Whatever it is I know it’s bad and isn’t a healthy way to approach exams. But, is there a healthy way to approach exams? I’ve tried to figure out the keys in the past, and here is my best attempt:

Getting In

The morning I got accepted to Vet School is one I will never forget.

It was early January in 2011 and I had just recently gotten back from spending a few weeks with my grandparents in central Queensland on their fruit farm over Christmas.  After a few days of alternating between the pool and the beach, the holiday period was winding up. My diet needed to begin changing from prawns, wine, and mangoes back to regular food like ‘salad’ and ‘vegetables’…

The shock of being removed from this tropical paradise and my battles with travel fatigue meant that I spent the night before I received my acceptance letter I was fighting a battle between sleep deprivation and nervousness This left me in a zombie-like state, and I ended up watching Disney Channel re-runs until the early hours of the morning! Eventually I succumbed to sleep so deeply that I completely forgotten what day it was when I woke up – so I carried on like a normal holiday morning. So much so that I was sitting in my parent’s room saying good morning when my mother said off-hand:

“So Zach… when do you find out about whether or not you get in”

“huh” I grunted in my typical teenage vocabulary, preoccupied with thoughts of breakfast – and then it hit me! “Bloody hell! Why didn’t you tell me earlier!!! Oh  my god oh my god oh my god!!”