Saturday, January 15, 2011

Small Animal Med Take 2: Better and more tiring than ever!

Confession: I love small animal medicine. Despite the intense work that a critical patient requires, so far every case I have seen continues improving. This is quite a change from the usual depressing outcomes I have experienced this year. It has also made this a very rewarding and exhausting 2 weeks.

Confession: I need a work-life balance; I need to exercise, I need to get 8 hours of sleep, and I need to have some time with my family and friends. All of these things make me a much better vet student and person. What is amazing to me is that I have found the right career. In finance, I couldn't wait to leave to have "a life." Now despite being tired, run down and wanting "a life" I willingly sacrifice these things to my detriment for the benefit of my patient and I don't mind. It does make me cranky without the other aspects of life trickled in.

I have learned a lot this block. I have learned new material, more about patient care and decision making for critical patients. I have continued to confirm that I heart critical care, the challenges, the heartache and the reward. The cherry on top was passing the NAVLE!

Becoming a vet has never felt more real. It will become more real in a few weeks when I find out if I got into a match internship program that will confirm where I will be working as a doctor. While I am looking forward to some less intense blocks, I couldn't have asked for more out of my second small animal medicine block. 1 week left then onto cardiology!

2 comments:

Katie said...

Congrats on passing the NAVLE! I'm in class of 2012 at Mizzou :) I just started my internal medicine elective and then will go into cardio ^_^ So I really enjoyed reading your post. I can strongly relate to it!

Unknown said...

I AM SORTA DESPERATE AND JUST WONDERED IF YOU KNOW OF ANYWHERE CLOSE TO IDAHO THAT MIGHT EXPERIMENT ON A HORSE. HE HAS osteochondroma. We can't afford the surgery and wondered if anyone would be willing to do the surgery as an experiment due to the fact that is sorta rare they say. Just trying to figure something out vs putting him down. Thanks Rachel