Getting Experience 4

I've been shadowing at the same clinic now for a while and have gotten to know the techs and a couple of the doctors pretty well. One of the doctors in particular seems willing to spend some time with me, show me cool things (like what a normal canine prostate feels like), and answer my endless questions (I never ask half of the questions I have because it would be entirely too intrusive; the techs and vets have a job to do, after all). I am extremely grateful to her for this.

There's an odd line that one walks as a pre-vet shadow. You aren't a tech or a vet, and you spend far more time with the techs doing what can best be described as routine scut work. You see and hear things that sometimes even the vets don't know about, or don't bother about anymore. Vets had to do this scut work too, during their college training, internships, and residencies. But once that is behind them, most of them seem perfectly happy to let the techs do all that stuff. I figure you can't know how something is to be done properly unless you do it yourself so I am quite happy at the end of the day to clean cages, scrub exam room mats, and clean ear cones.

I keep a small notebook with me at all times and track my activities, which I transcribe later in a spreadsheet under the headings "performed" (vet-like things I actually did), "observed", and "additional learnings" (like not to say "ew" in front of a client).

I'm always very excited to record a "performed" activity (like a jugular blood draw or the prostate exam). Those don't come around very often because there are some very reasonable legal restrictions on what I, not an employee or certified specialist, can or should do.

Today I got to take down the history of a new client. The clinic uses a fairly clunky patient management system and I'm not authorized to use it. So I had to write everything down by hand then type it into the system later under someone else's ID. I was sort of nervous when the lead tech printed out the list of questions, handed it to me, and said, we are behind, go collect this info from that client who's been waiting far too long. But as soon as I stepped into the room, I slipped right into a familiar mindset. I had heard these same questions a dozen times or more, they weren't surprising. All those years marketing geoscience project proposals and those short but intense years teaching the dog classes while I was in Dhahran armed me perfectly for this sort of interaction. I realized I was nervous only because I was excited--excited that the lead tech trusted me enough to do this task and not screw it up (it was her client so all the info would be transcribed under her name). But I wasn't nervous about speaking to this young man about his dog.

I won't say I have the gift of gab. I am painfully socially awkward. But put me in the right context, and everything flows like water.