Monday, November 13, 2017

Saturday, November 11, 2017

Diary of a Third-Year Vet Student: The Journey

It's been a busy term with exams and surgeries nearly every week. It feels so much like first year--we are buried in mountains of information, don't have much time to process it before being tested on it, and no time to reflect on it afterwards because we are looking up at the next mountain of lecture notes that we need to go through. Even so, I've had a post queued up for over a week, but after thinking it over, I decided to ditch it and go in another direction. 

Vet school is incredibly stressful. Part of it is learning minutiae of the physiology, anatomy, diseases, parasites, and reproductive habits of 8 to 10 species (at a minimum), and how to alter or repair those things with drugs, nutrition, surgery, husbandry. Part of it becomes so much more real in the junior year when we do the dog and cat neuter/spays in our surgery lab. Cutting into a living, breathing animal is amazing and terrifying by turns. 

This fall term has not gone well for many of us. People who make it this far in vet school are typically not the kinds of people who react calmly when things don't go well. In other words, when someone who is used to performing at a high level in all things encounters failure, it's not pretty. Oh, of course, let's be rational: nobody can be good at everything. But that is not good enough. We vet students reject that almost to a person. The result is lots of stress, lots of tears. I don't want to give the impression that every day at at school is filled with day-care toddler meltdowns. Not at all. The stress and tears fill the interstitial spaces. 

Sadly, veterinarians are more likely than other adults in the general population, even adults in other medical fields, to experience depression and have suicidal thoughts

There is increased awareness of this situation among vet students. It helps that professional organizations like AVMA are publishing results of studies like the one linked above. However, there is still reluctance to talk openly about our stress and anxiety. It is as if, by saying, I did not do this thing well, we are saying, I failed at this thing. I hope you can see that there is a universe of difference between those ideas. The problem is that vet students (and ultimately, veterinarians) are a tiny subset of the population that were selected by a vet school precisely for a particular combination of traits. I think that one of those traits is that we can't admit failure. When you combine that with the fact that death is a daily component of a veterinarian's job, it is an explosive and toxic situation. 

 I think that our class is getting better at talking to each other. We all need a bit of prodding to get started. But give one of my classmates a poke, and suddenly she is telling you about fears and anxieties that are exactly yours as well. And you realize, you are not alone in this. We are getting better about looking after each other, even if we don't talk about things openly and easily. Sometimes a hug is needed. Sometimes we need to check in on each other a little more directly. Sometimes we need to give affirmation: I see you, I value you as a person.

None of us had illusions that the journey to becoming a veterinarian would be straightforward or easy. And I don't think we are complaining that it's too hard. Learning how to manage the stress properly is now part of our routine just as much as learning about the medicine.