Diary of a Dick Vet

Howdy folks! I am very, very pleased to report that (a) I em enjoying my EMS at a small animal practice in town and (b) I have something vet-y to write about!

To be honest, I was a bit worried about starting EMS: I haven’t been enjoying classes very much this year, and I couldn’t tell if I was overwhlemed by everything, or I had fallen out of love with being a vet. Maybe, I thought, if I loved this more, I wouldn’t feel so exhausted all the time, or I wouldn’t catch myself losing focus in class and drifting off while studying. But being a vet and learning about how to be a vet are two very different things (’chalk and cheese,’ if you will), and I’ve realized that my disgruntled opinion about school does not extend to the actual practice of everything I’ve been learning. So that’s good.

I started my EMS on Tuesday, because they were closed for the UK public holiday of Easter Monday, so the first day after a long weekend was quite busy. I watched two cat neuters, several dentals, and an attempt at an insulin-response test on a very grumpy kitty during the morning operations period, then helped with consultations in the afternoon. The consultation room is incredibly small - room enough for a vet, and owner, and a pet - so I was a tight squeeze, but it was nice to get a chance to listen to a heart murmur, watch a puppy get a drip placed, and observe client-vet interaction. Sadly, a cat’s oral tumor had progressed so much that the decision was made to euthanize her that afternoon, so my first day included the most emotionally draining part of a vet’s job. However difficult this was to experience, I can’t help but see it as a learning experience.

Yesterday was marked with less sadness. There were the usual dentals, but also the removal of a retained testicle in a dog, and the oddly pleasurable experience of dematting an elderly cat. She was certainly dirty and her fur wasn’t fun to handle, but the end result was an entirely different cat. There was another cat (it was a feline-dominated few days!) that is being treated for a gastric lymphoma at the Vet School that needed bloods drawn to check that its chemotherapy was doing more harm than good, so I got to have an interesting chat about treatment options while reviewing a chemo drug. I also met one of the partner’s Border Collies, who spent all afternoon dropping his squeaky toy at my feet, desperate for an arm to throw it, despite being a bit sleepy from sedation after having an abscess lanced on his foot that morning.

There were no operations scheduled this morning and consultations ended at 10:30, so I’m back in my flat until 2-ish, when I go back to see a Great Dane and a Dalmatian and even more cats.  I’ve spent my free time organizing my summer EMS, which I’m looking forward to. This evening I will pop around to one of my knitting groups, which is conveniently located across the street from my practice, so I will still get a chance to work on the sleeve to a sweater I’ve been slowly building. Hopefully I’ll finish it before EMS is done, and there will be photos to share.