At the end of my journey through veterinary school, there is undoubtedly celebration, excitement, happy tears, goodbye hugs, and the list of great things goes on. However, to me, the almost more if not equally important thing is to let those who have helped me know how immensely grateful I am.
It seems it was just yesterday that I took my first anatomy exam. “Don’t panic. Say hi to the specimen. Hi, dog; hi, horse…” One can easily see how encouraging and inspiring our anatomy professor was. She is the one who first welcomed us to the veterinary profession and opened the gate of veterinary medicine (AKA anatomy) to us as freshmen. When I did not have anything to cover my iPad during dissection lab, she gave me a plastic zip bag. When I turned in my exam sheet, she gently asked if the question asking to translate Latin into English was too harsh for me as I am not a native English speaker. Even after our anatomy course of first-year, she never ceased to support us in every way that she could. I learned things from her just from a small talk in the hallway or in the classroom after the class was finished.
I was fortunate to have had great professors in many of my courses; physiology, oncology, feline medicine, just to name a few. Whenever I felt self-doubt, I regained my confidence by thinking about how great my teachers were and that they deserved for me to put forth my best to make them proud! I know it seems odd to think like that but it helped me through a lot of rough times. Years and years from now, I may not remember the grades I got on the exams, but I will remember these wonderful moments I spent with great people that created the best parts of veterinary school for me.
