My classmates and I were talking about a shift that we’ve felt in the past month or so. The reality of being veterinarians in less than three months is here. We’re no longer scared of failing out of school. It sounds really depressing to spend three and a half years paranoid about failing out, but it is true for some of us. We feel like we walk around on eggshells. Making this situation more stressful is the amount of debt we are in for this education.
Finally, we have made it this far. Sure, we could still mess up and not graduate, but that isn’t on our minds as much. We are not as timid as we were eight months ago. We are taking charge of our cases and our patients. We want to put effort into our paperwork because soon, there will not be someone else checking it.
It is both a liberating and intimidating shift, and one that is hard to describe. I feel really good when I take a stance for my patients and their welfare. I still have a lot to learn regarding the medicine. That does not change the feeling of progression, however. It is a really good feeling when you make a diagnosis on your own. I recently diagnosed a pathogenic stifle in a heifer. I did not know what exactly was wrong, and that was when the help of the doctors was needed.
Even if you might not be able to diagnose the details, you can be really proud of figuring out part of the picture. Our goal is to build upon this in the next three months. We have a solid knowledge base from the first three years, and it is time to capitalize on that.
