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.

#HeforShe for Vets

If you have been on the internet in the last few days then you’ve seen Emma Watson’s inspiring and poignant speech in her new role as a goodwill ambassador for UN women. In her speech she calls out for men to take up their end of the bargain in the fight for female equality and empowerment. It’s an inspiring speech and if you haven’t seen it yet, you can watch it here. After signing up to the #heforshe pledge I started thinking to myself what role sexism played in my life and I kept coming back to my place as a future veterinarian.

 Anybody in vet school across the world can attest to the fact that more females are entering the profession than ever before. In my class alone, 85% of the students are female, and this is universal across western countries with a similar trend across the rest of the world. This is in stark contrast to the male-dominated profession that has been the norm historically. There are a whole assortment of theories as to why this is the case, and these range from increased academic commitment of females to more males pursuing high-income professions. In the end though the ‘why’ isn’t the important part, it’s how it’s approached which is the issue.

 I remember that in my first years of vet school, on visits to clinics in regional Australia, that I was treated differently to the female student I conducted the visits with. It wasn’t every clinic, and it certainly wasn’t every vet, but it was enough to be noticed. Comments like ‘Geez it’s great to see some male vet students coming through’ were fine – we are definitely few and far between! It was comments like ‘you had better pull this calf instead’ (when my partner had grown up on a dairy farm and was definitely far better at pulling calves than I was -and still is) that really stuck out. When it REALLY got uncomfortable was when I heard numerous theories about the failure of the profession due to there being too many women unable to run businesses. As a young student I listened to these comments come from good vets, employers, pillars of their communities, and I found it more perplexing

The Power of a Cow

The phrase ‘But you’re not a real Doctor” is one that every veterinarian has no doubt heard within their career. I’m only a student, yet if I had a dollar for every time I’d heard it I’d probably be able to pay off my student loans!

What this question suggests is that there is something inherently more valuable about the role of a veterinarian in comparison to a human physician. You may be thinking right now ‘of course, a human’s life is more important than a dogs.’ On this point I would be forced to agree with you. If I had to choose between giving life saving medication to a small child or to a kitten, the child would win out every time, regardless of how cute the kitten was or how adorable its little tiny paws were. This scenario is a convincing one, however it fails to capture the true nature of what a veterinarian is. A veterinarian’s role does not end with their patient; after all, a horse can’t use an ATM!

In all seriousness, the animals that we treat are not individual entities. They are members of families, sporting partners, loved and loving companions, and for many people around the world they provide a livelihood. The production of food and fibre from animals is an essential part about what makes us human. The value of these animals is the reason why veterinarians came about in the first place – the word veterinarius in latin means ‘having to do with beasts of burden’. For many veterinarians, these ‘beasts of burden’ make up the majority of their work and they can have a huge impact upon the lives of the people whose animals they work with. This is my story about how these veterinarians can change lives, and why not being a ‘real doctor’ doesn’t change the impact we can make.