This isn’t how it is supposed to be.
When we first started hearing about the coronavirus, everything was staying the same, at least in the hospital. But very quickly, everything changed.
The underclassmen went on Spring Break and were sent home to finish the semester online.
Talk began floating around the hospital – would they go to emergency only? Reduced caseload? Close entirely? Veterinary colleges around the country began sending their clinical year students home in rapid succession.
And all the sudden, Purdue joined those ranks.
One day we were spending 14+ hours in the hospital writing records, tending to patients, scrubbing into surgery, mixing up medications, calling clients, researching cases…and the next – we were on our couches rounding for maybe a few hours out of the day.
And that was it.
It wasn’t long into the quarantine that it was announced the main university campus graduation commencement would be cancelled and moved online. Our Oath and Awards Ceremony, hooding and Gala the evening before graduation quickly joined the list of terminated events.
And as we spent more time at home, all I could think was, This isn’t how it’s supposed to be.
Our graduation regalia was paid for by the school so we could still get pictures in our gowns. Our graduation was sent to us in a box with the trinkets we would’ve been given and the program and awards announcements that would’ve been a surprise for us on the day of graduation. The administration got to work planning an online graduation on Facebook Live. Our diplomas arrived before our rotations were even over.
This isn’t how it’s supposed to be.
Once it became clear we would not be returning to the hospital, many of my classmates decided to make the move from Purdue back home or to wherever their new jobs were taking them. We wouldn’t get to celebrate as a class unit.
We would not get to cross the stage in front of our family, friends and colleagues. We would not get to be hooded in person, to recite the veterinarian’s oath binding us to the profession we had worked so hard to enter. We would not get to celebrate with our classmates the last night before becoming doctors. We would not get to take obscene amounts of pictures with our family, classmates and clinicians around the hospital and campus.
This isn’t how it’s supposed to be.
Instead of a day filled heavy with celebration, pomp and circumstance; littered with the achievements of a class of brilliant young doctors, the biggest day of accomplishment for many of my peers and I…what our administration has the ability to offer us (through no fault of their own) is hardly a compromise.
We will be scattered across the country as we graduate: some of us 5 minutes from campus, coast-to-coast, and everywhere in-between. Some of us will be able to celebrate in-person with family while quarantining at home; others will receive an influx of congratulations on our phones and on social media.
This isn’t how it’s supposed to be.
Like a petulant child, that’s all I could think. For many of my classmates, this has been a dream for the majority of their life, and its fruition was about to look so different, so subdued to what it deserved to be.
And yet.
This is what veterinarians do.
They are adaptable. They problem-solve. They sacrifice.
We are being inducted into this profession at a time of essential workers. A baptism of fire as we quietly add a few letters to the ends of our names.
Our class has always been united through adversity; whether it was difficult courses, scheduling, applying for externships, advocating for student wellness, commiserating about the grueling days in the hospital, tricky clients or tough losses, our class has been there for each other.
This is not how it’s supposed to be.
But it is who we are supposed to be. Resilient. Versatile. Adaptable. Persistent. Persevering.
And while it won’t be how we imagined it, I know my class will be there – from their respective screens around the country – supporting each other the way we have for the last 4 years, and the way I know we will for many years to come.
