This is a reply to that post which has gone viral about people leaving dogs behind for euthanasia’s and guilt tripping them for not staying.

It’s bullshit.

In my experience less than 10% of patients actually look for their owner after they’ve left the room, and they get endless cuddles from me and my nurse as we perform the procedure. I always heavily sedate them as well so they are relaxed and calm.

Lots of people have very valid reasons for not wanting to be there. For example the owner with four children all different ages climbing all over her and she just doesn’t want any of them to experience it but can’t leave them unsupervised, or the lady who’s just lost her husband to the same cancer. Honestly I don’t judge people for not staying. It’s a traumatic thing and some people just aren’t cut out to experience it.

For me, the shittest part of my job is people thinking I’m some kind of sales shark leeching them of money when I just want to do the right thing by their animal, or treating preventable diseases (like paralysis tick, heartworm, pyometra etc).

Don’t guilt trip people about not staying for a euth. It’s not the worst part of the job, and it’s not up to you to decide what an owner can cope with.

Uggggghh

I get that “C = MD” and “what do they call the lowest graduate from med school? Doctor” is often used with scorn for people who like, maybe really shouldn’t be in the field but…

Those phrases are something my dad has always used to encourage me. Because I’m not innately good at math and science even though I want to be a veterinarian. I’ll study my absolute hardest and still not reach the level of my peers who are more naturally inclined to it. And whenever I felt most distressed about my shortcomings my dad would always tell me that even if I could only graduate at the bottom of the class, I’d still made it. I was still good enough, was still competent, was just as deserving of the position as anyone else.

It wasn’t until I was older that I started to realize those words of comfort are actually meant to imply that some people aren’t to be trusted. And I get that it applies more to the people who goof off and scrape by grade wide, not someone who tries their goddamn hardest and still isn’t above average… but I still hate hearing it. Especially from people I respect.

Saying “C’s get degrees” or “the lowest graduate in the class is still called doctor” is NOT used to imply that some of us shouldn’t be trusted as clinicians. Believe me, I know quite a lot about bovine gastroenterology and am telling you that’s bullshit.

We say it to each other to comfort those of us that are burning out, that are driving themselves insane, to remember that vet school was targeted at the top 20% of academic students. If you’re there, then you’re already smart. It’s supposed to challenge you.

I was an A+ student right up until I hit vet school, then had the shock of my life. I finished high school with an ENTR above 96%, which means I was in the best performing 4% of that graduating year. I did not graduate vet school in the top of my class. In Australia we don’t rank our uni students that way, but I know I was not in the top 20%. Should anyone trust me less because I wasn’t the best of the best in a challenging course? Seriously?

And employers don’t care what your marks were, only that you passed and you can work.

We say these things to keep ourselves sane. Goodness knows THAT is an issue we all have ongoing trouble with.

Aaaand I’m crying (happy tears).

I just…. really, really am glad to hear that. Because aside from my dad, and now you, I’ve only heard it recently in a negative light. Sometimes spoken BY teachers in the medical school where I work at a comparative anatomy lab. Which is obviously, extremely disheartening because these are the people I look up to and admire and work under and are of equivalent standing in human medicine to the kind of people who will be teaching me once I get to vet school. 

But I know that I have the drive, and the genuine interest in veterinary science, and the genuine desire to devote my life to the craft, same as many of my friends. I know I can be a goddamn good vet because I personally, expect nothing less from myself. Its irritating that the school system has me doubting myself simply because it has reduced my accomplishments to ‘my numbers’ vs ‘their numbers’ in a cutthroat competition against my peers and keeps telling me that finishing the race- even if I’m a straggler towards the end- isn’t good enough, even though I did finish and thats’s ultimately the important thing- as you mentioned with employers not caring about my marks.

In other words, this has been a long ramble because there is no way to verbally express how extremely freakin’ grateful I am reading your response and having what my dad told me confirmed as words of hope and I’m just really emotional right now, thank you thank you.

You are welcome little vetling. Take care of yourself.

The vetblr community is here.

The Veterinarian's Prayer

Guide me in medicine. Please let me find the tiny, dehydrated vein of the ancient kitty when I am asked to perform euthanasia under the emotional eye of her owner. I ask for this first, Lord, because it is my single most common reason for prayer, so let’s start there.

Lord, help me be a good doctor. Not even a great doctor like House, MD, but at least a doctor who will not space out and miss the glaringly obvious stuff that every veterinarian should know.

Lord, let no other doctor look at one of my medical records, shake her head and think, “What an idiot.”

If I do make a mistake, please let the lesson find its way firmly into my memory and not onto Google reviews or Angie’s List.

Grant me patience and understanding

Grant me a future that includes someday not having to work on weekends. And until that day, I beg you for a few Saturday shifts that are not completely insane.

When the anal glands express erratically, may their contents find my coat and not my face or hair.

It is not lost on me that the truly wonderful pets seem to have a significantly greater chance of getting an incurable illness at a young age. If these pets have memorable names (Professor Snacks, Captain America, Chipper Donut, Jabba Bear, etc.), live with children and have delightful owners, their long-term survival rates are even worse.

While I do not seek to understand your reasoning for this, and I am grateful for those pets that seem to be too bad to die, I would really appreciate it if more of the great ones could live nice, long lives.

Give me self-control

Bestow upon me the strength to eat heartily from the holiday veggie trays that clients send and to merely sample the brownies.

And when my strength fails (as it will), please guide me to be more reasonable in my goals and aim at least not to eat the entire batch before the technicians know the baked goods have arrived.

Make smooth my dealings with staff

Please make me the kind of veterinarian other people enjoy working with. Please let the technicians and receptionists like me for the right reasons, and if one or two of them decide not to like me, let that be for the right reasons, too.

Also: Might I request to be scheduled to work when the staff training meetings involve free lunch—and off when they do not? Speaking of schedules, please smite the technician who calls me at home early Saturday morning when it is not really, absolutely, without a doubt, critically necessary. Smite him good.

Give me wisdom in handling clients

I thank you for all the wonderful clients you send into my life each day. When it comes to those few who are less wonderful, help me to recognize the cases that I should refer away immediately. In extreme cases, feel free to strike me with an illness so I am not in the building when the true nightmare cases come in. If I were able to choose between getting pneumonia or getting sued, I’d take the former.

When I call the mean owners to check in on their pets, let my call go to voicemail. Likewise, please do not let the mentally unbalanced breeders find out where I live. I don’t want to have to choose between moving and changing professions.

Finally, please give me the wisdom not to ask any pet owner when she is due unless I am absolutely, 100 percent sure that she’s pregnant.

Amen.

Reindeer Parking

There are two types of people in veterinary medicine

Those that hate abscesses,

And those that love abscesses,