What I’m about to tell you is simple but very important. Here goes: We have a new graduate veterinarian at our clinic. She joined our team less than 2 months ago, and she’s doing great. Last week, she saw a dog that had a ruptured eyeball [I’m realizing now that maybe I should have put… Read More
Blog
Vets on a Plane!
I am on a commercial flight packed full of veterinarians. It makes sense because I’m flying to a big veterinary conference and planning to arrive right as the program kicks off. It’s not like some Twilight Zone moment where 150 veterinarians all feel mysteriously compelled to board the same flight at the same time (although… Read More
How New Graduate Veterinarians Get Measured… And How They Should Be
The first patient I ever saw as a veterinarian was a dog that had been drinking and urinating a lot. Fortunately, I had one tool I felt reasonably confident using: the ultrasound. I thought, “Let’s get a urine sample to check for a UTI.” I brought the dog into the ultrasound room, placed the probe on… Read More
Moving Chairs
In one month, my oldest daughter, Jacquelyn, will move out of our house and go to college four states away. Regular readers here will know that I have, to put it lightly, struggled with this upcoming change. My daughters and I are very close, and it’s been hard for me to get my head around… Read More
What Actually Worked in Wellness (and What Didn’t)
“It gets harder once you graduate.” A resident told me once during clinical rotations. At the time, I assumed it meant that medicine would become more challenging outside the teaching hospital. They were right, but not for the reason I expected. My work in the wellness space during veterinary school made me genuinely believe… Read More
Why You Can’t Let Yourself Relax
My father is a retired surgeon, and he recently told me that he could never fully relax until he retired. “You’re always asking yourself if you could have been a little bit better. You wonder if you could have said something differently to put the person’s mind at ease, if you could have anticipated a… Read More