The week after the match results were posted was pure bliss. Nothing could get me down, not even the back-to-back overnight colic surgeries that of course were destined to happen the night of match and following night. After that first week, however, there was a bit of a reality check. Though my ultimate dream is to be a solely equine radiologist, the radiology residency in general is heavily stilted toward small animals. In school, I was an equine major and hardly took any extra “small animal” rotations apart from my time on radiology. In the last 18 months of veterinary school, I spent a total of 8 weeks in the small animal hospital, and therefore my knowledge in this area left a lot to be desired.
Panic subsequently set in. How was I going to make it through a residency when my familiarity with the superficial digital flexor tendon on a horse far outweighed my knowledge of the hepatobiliary system in a cat? I, like so many other incoming and current residents, had a major case of imposter syndrome. I was not sure that my equine-oriented brain was going to be able to process all of the information I needed to be a functional resident, much less a successful one! The months leading up to the beginning of my residency in July were fraught with feelings of doubt and insecurity. I scrambled through what I could of various imaging textbooks, but nothing could prepare me for day one of residency.
