Author: Kele Harris
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Occupational hazards
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Before I started vet school, I attended a workshop for aspiring vets where students shared anecdotes about the various occupational ailments they had experienced or witnessed over the years. Despite having to defer the start my veterinary degree due to a horse-related incident, I got through university largely unscathed by veterinary-related disease. I contracted a…
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Look after yourself this Christmas
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When an owner walks into your consult room with his or her pet for its annual vaccination and check-up, what are the basic questions you ask? How is Fluffy? Then, if the owner does not immediately launch into why his or her darling furry friend is “just not himself”, you’ll probably reel off a list…
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Breaking away from a vet’s diet of fast food
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A while ago, I wrote about anorexia in vets… the stripped down, bare meaning being the clinical sign of “not eating”. As a student, I witnessed vets on placements routinely forgoing lunch or existing on a diet consisting entirely of Pot Noodles or fast food – one vet I shadowed had either a McDonalds or…
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Social media – a blessing or a curse?
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An experienced vet warned me to stay off social media as a new graduate, because comparing yourself to others “drains your confidence”. I’m not sure I agree. As with anything, there are pros and cons to the new age of communication, advertising and sharing information that is social media. Not just in veterinary, but in…
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What to do when on call
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When you’re on call during the week, by the time you’ve got home (if you get straight home without being called), eaten and vegged out in front of the TV, you do not have much time to be bored before heading to bed. However, weekends on call have a lot more time to fill between…
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Aggressive patients
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I’ve discussed before the massive emotional shift that seems to occur in the transition from a student to a new graduate – namely due to the responsibility – but the transition to being an actual vet also means being on the front line when it comes to aggressive patients. As a student, you are often…
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Cats reunited
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The day-to-day working life of a vet can be tough for a multitude of reasons, but sometimes it’s the simple things that make it all worthwhile – for example, something as simple as a microchip. While dog microchipping is now compulsory, cat owners retain the freedom to decide whether they wish to chip their beloved…
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In at the deep end
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Being a new grad is scary. And, although I don’t think I’ve been dropped in the deep end as much as some of my colleagues may have, I feel entirely overwhelmed the majority of the time and question several times a day whether I actually went to uni. Starting in practice has made me realise…
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Language: lost (or gained) in translation?
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We spend five years at vet school learning a myriad of vet jargon; a whole new language, with a fair bit of Latin thrown in too. When you think about it, even the “simple” descriptive and directional words – e.g. caudal/cranial – were alien to us before vet school. The funny thing is, just as…
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Accountability and responsibility: which causes more fear?
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It’s very daunting standing in your first consult as a real, qualified vet – even if it is “just a vaccine”, which invariably turns into “actually, this has happened“, or “now you mention it“, and so on. But why is it we have that constant feeling of being on edge – more so than a…