When we polled young veterinarians about what their career concerns were, more than half of the respondents listed worrying about making mistakes as one of their biggest problems.
This is not surprising, and not altogether unwise, considering the myriad of things that can potentially go wrong. However, making decisions based primarily on trying to avoid stuffing up can have very negative effects on our working lives.
So, how can we think about mistakes in a better way?
Impairing growth
The anxiety that comes from a fear of making mistakes – that ever-present uneasy feeling of “what have I forgotten?” – is a big enough problem in itself, but a more insidious and possibly more damaging consequence exists that arises from an “error avoidance” based approach: you run the risk of not becoming the best possible version of yourself.
Avoiding all risk of failing by never undertaking anything challenging might protect you in the short term, but it also keeps you weak. To allow growth, you need to continuously push yourself – even when it puts you at risk of making mistakes.
To be sure, making mistakes will be painful, and our natural inclination is to avoid pain, but pain is a very good teacher. When you do make a mistake, you will think you’ve failed, but you only really fail if you give up. The pain will eventually go away, but the lessons will remain.
Feeling good
The flip side of pain is the pleasure of success. The rush of positive emotions you experience when you succeed at something hard creates positive feedback loops that will drive you to challenge yourself again and again. This will increase your general sense of self-worth and accelerate your professional growth. In the absence of this kind of stimulation, it is likely you will become bored and dissatisfied, and eventually stagnate.
While it’s easy to be philosophical about it, we need to be realistic about the fallout of actually making a mistake. Besides the immediate deleterious effects on the patient you are trying to help, we also worry about the effect on our future careers – not to mention the havoc this can play on our self-confidence.
We worry about losing the respect of our colleagues and peers. We want to feel and appear smart and capable – after all, most vets have a long history of success and achievement, so to suddenly be in a position where we’re faced with the embarrassment of failure is an uncomfortable new space to occupy.
So, how do we get past these fears? Well, for a start, you can get over the idea you are above making mistakes and that making errors is a sign of weakness or inferiority.
Forget about pretending you know everything. When you acknowledge to yourself and to others that you have room for improvement, you will make it easier on yourself and those around you. You don’t always need to be right. In fact, you almost certainly aren’t. And that’s okay.
This way, when you do mess up, it’s much easier to see it as an inevitable part of our profession and an opportunity for learning, rather than a personal failure. Reframe “mistakes” as “lessons” and take comfort in knowing that, if you are making mistakes, you are operating at the edge of your abilities – and it’s at that edge where the fastest growth will happen.
Ride bigger waves
Big wave surfer Shane Dorian once said that if he’s not regularly wiping out, it’s a sign that he’s not pushing himself enough, and that his surfing will suffer for it. Instead of sticking to the easily makeable waves at work, we need occasionally paddle for the ones that have the potential to give us a beating. It might be scary, but this is where you’ll get the ride of your life.
Instead of sticking to the easily makeable waves at work, we need occasionally paddle for the ones that have the potential to give us a beating. It might be scary, but this is where you’ll get the ride of your life.
Of course, you need to recognise which waves can hurt and which ones can kill. You also need to be fit and prepared, and know your limits – and if you end up in a big wipeout, you need to know how to get yourself out of trouble so you don’t actually drown.
In the next post we’ll look at some practical tips on how to best deal with the consequences of making mistakes.
In my roles as hospital director and performance coach, I frequently hear: “I want to have work-life balance”.
This is a statement I have seen time and time again ruin people’s perception of their careers, and their sense of happiness. Why? Because not one person has been able to answer the question I follow up with – and that is: “What does work-life balance look, feel and sound like for you?”
I get a stunned silence – which, to me, highlights the fact they are chasing something they have no clarity about.
Here are some things to consider:
Work-life balance is individual
If you are happy doing something and love it, but someone else tells you that you don’t have work-life balance… ignore them.
What work-life balance means for him or her has nothing to do with what it means for you.
Discover what it means to you
Think about the main areas in your life that are important to you. The most common things said by people I coach are family, friends, adventure and health.
Now, think about how often and how much time you need to spend in those areas to be fulfilled, but not overindulged. If, for you, it is catching up with your friends once a fortnight and exercising four times a week, then schedule it in.
Make it happen.
Be realistic
If you have just finished university and started your career, an internship or residency, then you have to work hard to apply what you have learned, and learn more – that’s just how it is for the first couple of years.
If you want to achieve more for yourself, then just accept that classic work-life balance may not be realistic for a period of time, but also know you are preparing your future self for success.
Next time you hear someone mention work-life balance, remember it is personal – you have to define it, communicate it, then schedule it, and be realistic for the stage in your career and the pathway you have chosen.
True work-life balance takes action, consistency and commitment.
In one of the last decade’s most influential books on motivation, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, author Daniel Pink argues that the traditional motivators of the previous century – reward and punishment – mostly fail to deliver when it comes to keeping people engaged, fulfilled and happy in their careers.
According to the research that Mr Pink cites, the things people crave most are:
autonomy
mastery
purpose
If those are the goals, then we should have it pretty good in veterinary science: for the most part vets have a large amount of autonomy (the freedom to make our own decisions) and opportunities for achieving mastery in veterinary science are just about limitless – but purpose, defined in this book as “working in the service of something larger than ourselves”, can be less obvious.
The question as to whether what we, as vets, do for a living serves a larger purpose is one you’ll often hear – and it’s one I’ve certainly asked myself throughout my career.
And it’s a valid question: is it really that important, in the greater scheme of things, that I treat all those itchy dogs, while others are changing the world and amassing fortunes?
Even within the veterinary profession we see individuals pioneering new science, teaching and inspiring thousands of people, or reaching positions of authority and influence. Am I wasting my time and talents in practice, treating one sick animal at a time? Do my days have purpose?
The answer
I’ve found the answer – or at least my answer – in the simple realisation that, on multiple occasions throughout the average working day, we have opportunities to relieve suffering, show compassion and provide some peace of mind.
Reminding yourself of this can provide a protective shield against the forces of compassion fatigue (or just simple fatigue), high stress, and sometimes just sheer boredom that relentlessly try to chip away at motivation.
When you can turn work into service, chores turn into privileges.
This is my truth
Here’s another quote from Drive I think applies beautifully to vets and our purpose: “The question is not how to be successful, or how to survive. It’s how to be useful.”
Don’t forget how useful you are.
And remember that every time you work towards relieving suffering in your patients or your clients, however minor or imagined that suffering may seem to you, you are doing something that transcends your own needs. In that simple truth lies purpose.
My recent trip to India comprised two weeks of intense sun, gorgeous beaches and delicious food that truly tested the constitution of my stomach. The majority of my time, however, was spent doing what I had gone all the way out there to do: surgery – lots and lots of surgery!
After 10 weeks of my clinical EMS was shut down by the pandemic, I had felt the desire to both travel and gain extra experience wherever possible, and so a surgical course based in Goa sounded like the perfect solution.
Spays for days
Image courtesy Animal Rescue Centre, South Goa.
For my friend and I, the holy grail of all surgeries was the dreaded bitch spay. At the end of our placement – after what we presumed would initially be just watching, then maybe some helping, probably followed by a whole lot of cat castrating (the gateway surgery for newbies) – it was our hope that we would maybe (maayyybe) even be allowed to attempt a bitch spay for ourselves.
It didn’t ever occur to me that I would be executing my first bitch spay, from start to finish, by day three. Nor did I ever imagine that I would leave having done a total of 10… essentially one per day (although on some days we did two each).
Ironically, cat castrates were few and far between – even dog castrates for that matter – and of the 25 total surgeries I performed in those weeks, 16 were spays.
Left in the dark
The main thing I took away from the trip (aside from sore fingers) was a newfound appreciation for the fundamentals of surgery.
As was initially advertised to us, the clinic we found ourselves working in was charity based, and so lacked many of the facilities I think I’d learned (without even realising) to take for granted back home. Instruments were sterilised in an autoclave, there was no inhalant anaesthesia available, and no patient monitoring beyond CRT, pulse and breathing rate.
Plus, since there was no surgical lighting, and only one table was directly beneath the light, it meant a really deep-chested bitch spay on the other end of the room felt like operating in the dark.
How does it feel?
With no surgical lighting and only one head-torch to share between the two of us, the vet monitoring us joked towards the end of the placement that I could perform surgery by braille.
Although I wouldn’t recommend this approach to anyone, it gave me an incredible appreciation for the feel of normal versus abnormal anatomy – and that’s something no amount of revision or surgical observance could ever have given me.
Anaesthesia was purely parenteral, with top-ups being given as needed. We were all quite surprised by how well this worked for the majority of surgeries, with only a few hiccups along the way (and by hiccups I mean that, on one occasion, my patient turned around to look at me while I still had my fingers inside its abdomen).
The EMS placement’s main advertising pull had been as an opportunity to gain “incredible surgical experience”, says Eleanor.
Expect the unexpected
No matter how much they teach you, or how well you learn the steps, there will always be a surgery – usually a bitch spay – that throws you a curveball (unfortunately, our patients haven’t read the textbook and are under no obligation to behave).
Whether it’s a ginormous blood vessel masquerading in a portion of facia, or a large glob of fat obscuring your view, every spay (even every castrate) has the potential to be entirely different to the previous one; surgery is not an endeavour for people who can’t roll with the punches or adapt their plan to a new situation.
I’ve heard the phrase, “no plan ever survives first contact with the enemy”, but I think my own proverb would read: “No surgical plan ever survives first contact with the patient.”
Well taught
One of the best instruments a vet can have at their disposal is support. My friend and I could not have asked for a better teacher, and the skills taught to us will undoubtedly be invaluable to us during the next stage of our careers.
I wouldn’t say that surgical programmes like this are for the faint hearted, but it provided me with experience that I simply would not have been able to gain had I not stepped out of my comfort zone.
From the moment you decide to become a vet, the road before you – from the start to the end of your course – is paved with decisions.
From where to go, to what to look for in a job (although vet students do get to put off the dreaded entrance into the “real world” for a couple more years than the average student), the next choice to be made is always around the corner.
Where to study
When it comes to picking the right veterinary degree, my opinion (which is by no means gospel) is that it’s:
10% course content
90% location, location, location
For students having a tough time choosing where to attend vet school (although, understandably, most are happy to go anywhere they receive an offer), it can be important to look above and beyond the curriculum. After all, the veterinary course in the UK is heavily standardised and, as much as every school wants you to believe that theirs has something special that nobody else’s does (and maybe they do), at the end of the day, you will leave each university with the same qualifications.
I’m not studying where I am today because I fell in love with Bristol vet school, I fell in love with Bristol itself.
I still remember getting off the coach with my dad for an open day and having the biggest smile on my face from the moment I stepped on to the cobbled streets. To this day, I’ve no idea why – perhaps it’s the multi-coloured Balamory-esque buildings, or the accents and calls of “my lover” that made me feel like I’d stumbled into a remake of Hot Fuzz, or maybe it’s the fact there are sheep and cows roaming just a stone’s throw away from the clinical campus.
Whatever it was, it wasn’t the labs, the course brochures or the lecture theatres…
For some, staying closer to home is what’s important; maybe for childcare, financial or emotional support. For others, moving away from what is familiar and stepping out of your comfort zone can play a vital part in learning independence and gaining a wider perspective.
What to study
Selective/elective weeks, while only making up a small component of your final year, are a rare opportunity to tailor your education in what is otherwise a very nationally homogenised learning infrastructure.
Work experience is another excellent outlet through which vet students can customise their teaching opportunities and prioritise what is most important to them. Practices where we feel most immediately at home are the ones that reflect our values around the profession, and the teams and individuals we bounce off easily are often indicative of the type of professional that you would/aspire to be.
Where to work
With the average retention of a veterinary professional standing depressingly at just seven short years, there’s been a massive drive from the ground up to improve the quality of the profession, and to make the career more mentally and emotionally sustainable.
We’re taught about developing resilience and mindfulness from the first year of vet school, and in the past half-decade, four-day weeks have become the standard for a lot of vets up and down the country.
With vets in such high demand, new graduates currently have a plethora of jobs to choose from. Considerations over commute times, staff retention, caseloads, OOH work, and weekend rotas (let alone salaries) are now luxuries that are becoming more and more affordable.
I would personally love to see a day when vet students can take modules in their final year – and with mixed practices decreasing in number, there may eventually be separate institutions for small animal and large animal vets.
As somebody soon to be entering the job market, I can tell you that decision paralysis is most certainly real, but I still believe that the more choices we are able to make, and the more control we have over our careers, will make us better and happier professionals.
Veterinary nurses – the doting advocates and voices for the pets in our practices and hospitals.
As a vet in a busy emergency hospital, I have the utmost appreciation for our team’s incredible hard work and the compassion they show – not just for our patients, but towards each other.
Special thanks, this month, has to go to the incredible veterinary nurses of this world. The compassionate way they carry themselves in the clinic and all the hard work they do always leaves me feeling inspired.
Thank you
“Optimistic, thorough and empathetic.”
Nurses are optimistic, thorough and empathetic – but, most of all, they are the doting advocates and voices for the pets in our hospital. The love, care and kindness they display every shift is incredibly inspiring and, as vets, we really couldn’t do our job without them.
So, rather than a tip this week, I would like to say thank you to veterinary nurses – thank you for supporting us, supporting owners and, most of all, supporting the pets in our care.
In the spirit of Veterinary Nursing Awareness Month, I decided to ask the nurses from where I work – Animal Emergency Service – about their experiences; what they think about being a veterinary nurse and what keeps them coming back day after day.
VN views
Together, we will discover what they find most challenging, how they overcome these obstacles and what tips they have for nurses around the world to make the most of their nursing careers.
Over the next few posts throughout May, I will compile a collection of useful tips our nurses find important in maintaining good mental health, a gold standard of veterinary nursing and positive client communications. I will discuss useful tips on how best to overcome the physical and emotional challenges seen in so many clinics worldwide.
As the new academic year begins, veterinary schools across the UK are welcoming student vets on their journey to their chosen careers. While we all hope this year will be less eventful than last year, there’s little doubt that many large lectures will continue to be recorded or put online to minimise the spread of COVID-19.
Learning with technology is fast becoming standard practice for vets. There are eye-catching new tools, like simulation models that mimic arrhythmic heartbeats and augmented reality videos to demonstrate catheterisation, but there are also more subtle technologies many students may not think about. Lecture recording – the practice of capturing audio and visual representations of the lecture – is now common in many universities across the world.
There is a temptation to think about lectures as they were in James Herriot’s day, with a lecturer standing in front of a chalkboard drawing complicated anatomy diagrams while students squint and try to capture as much as they can on paper. Now – with smart boards, PowerPoints and recordings – students can have a much more complete record of the material covered – and fewer hand cramps.
While some lecturers have been concerned that recordings will stop students learning how to take notes, research at the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies has found many students use recordings very effectively in their study strategies.
In this work, some of which was funded by Echo360, a video-based teaching and learning platform, we have identified five top tips for students who want to make the most of studying with lecture recordings.
Whether your lecture is on campus in a bustling lecture hall or on a screen from the comfort of your bedroom, these tips will help you to get the most of your time at vet school (and we won’t lie, they are good for online CPD, too, for those qualified vets among you).
TIP #1: Know what the lecture is for
Most lectures will have “learning outcomes” or “instructional objectives”, either clearly detailed at the start of the lecture or highlighted as part of your course material (such as the course handbook).
Learning outcomes are a great way of making sure you have understood the purpose of the lecture and met its aims1. Learning outcomes usually begin with a statement like “at the end of this lecture, you should be able to…”. Unsurprisingly, these are the skills you should be able to do after you’ve finished the lecture!
Imagine a lecture designed to teach you how to make the perfect cup of tea. The learning outcomes might be:
Identify the sugar caddy, tea caddy and milk jug in the kitchen.
Describe how you would assess a person’s tea preference.
After the lecture, you should be able to go into your kitchen and point to the relevant equipment, and ask your guest how they like their tea to be made.
If you haven’t been able to achieve these things after the lecture, you might want to revise the topic again, review the recording, or ask the lecturer clarifying questions (“can you describe the sugar caddy again, Doctor?”). If you’re not sure what the learning outcomes are, be sure to look in your course handbook, but also don’t be afraid to ask your course organiser or lecturer.
TIP #2: Lectures as the diving board
Although it can seem as though you’ve just had an ocean’s worth of material dumped on your head in a lecture, your lecturer will be thinking you’ve barely dipped your toe in the water.
Often, the lecture is an introduction to the subject, a diving board that helps you find the right materials to study further. We’ve seen in our studies that students can use lecture recordings in all sorts of inventive and useful ways to support their learning.
Photo by Markus Spiske from Pexels
It might be tempting to put lecture recordings on while doing the dishes, like your favourite Netflix series, but studying should be a dynamic activity. In one study2 we found vet students would watch recordings, pausing often to look up references or clarify concepts from their own notes.
We’ve also seen that students like to revisit their lectures on EMS3 – particularly to reconsider tricky topics that may have come up on placement, or just as a reminder that they do know this material really.
TIP #3: Make good notes
While it’s easy to say “make sure you study actively with recordings”, it can be a bit harder to imagine what that looks like. Here are some of our recommendations for making the best of your notes.
Remember that your notes can (and maybe should) begin before the lecture. You will most likely know the topics in advance, so outline what you think you’re going to learn, and even some potential questions before you review a lecture recording or go to class.
Leave gaps in your notes where you might want to revisit important phases or concepts. This is particularly useful in recorded sessions, because you can concentrate on listening to the lecture, knowing you can revisit the recording and look up the spelling of “blepharorrhaphy” later. We all know that’s suturing eyelids, of course, but if you weren’t sure, you could test yourself when you’re filling in your notes after class by researching the answer after you’ve made a guess.
It’s important to remember that the best notes aren’t just a transcript of the lecture. The recording is there to help make sure you don’t miss the details, but you need to return to your notes and expand on them. There should be more in your lecture notes than what was said by the lecturer.
The notes you have at the start of class won’t be the same notes you have before the exam. The notes should evolve with you and your understanding of the subject. You may find it useful to reorganise your notes as you study. It might not be logical to you to have them in the order of your lectures. Most importantly, your notes are for you and don’t need to be pretty, or make sense to anyone else.
One of the great things about recordings is that they give you the freedom to experiment.
Let’s say you wanted to try a new way of taking notes, like the Cornell system4, you can pick a recorded lecture to experiment in. If you hate it, you can use the recording to fill your notes in again. Perhaps you feel you might concentrate more if you take notes on pen and paper instead of on a laptop – why not try it out?
You may also find it useful to take and store your own notes online alongside recorded lectures or, if your institution has one, use a dedicated chat thread to discuss them with your lecturer or fellow students. It can be helpful to supplement your own understanding of the topics being covered by drawing from different perspectives.
Vet school can feel very pressured, but experimenting is a really important part of learning. Taking the step from school to university can be a great time to figure out what works for you, and what you might want to change.
This tip is also especially useful for graduated vets who are working on CPD recordings – what worked for you before you graduated might not work when you’re also running a practice and dodging children underfoot.
We’ve heard that our students like to use recordings in group study sessions. Think about sharing your notes in sessions like these, be they in person or over an e-conferencing platform. Can you get any tips on organisation from others, or help each other to get a better understanding of the topic? These kinds of group discussions are so important, both for learning the topic, but also learning how to become collegiate vets.
My final tip is to try to relax. The last 18 months have been tough on everyone, and you might be worrying about sitting formal exams again, anxious about leaving your family dog behind or simply concerned about how you’ll balance all the clubs you’re trying to join.
Everyone needs a sick day occasionally, and one of the big things we’ve heard from our students is that having recordings and virtual learning environments can help take some of the pressure off.
Ultimately, the way you study will be very personal to you. The tools and technologies are there to help, and they are worth exploring and experimenting with. Most of all, take the time to enjoy these lectures. They are the first step on the path to becoming the vet you’re going to be.
The nature of the vet course is inherently competitive, with the odds stacked against you from the very beginning.
During our A-levels we are told that only 1 out of every 5 to 10 applicants make it to vet school, and that you’re lucky to get a single interview or offer (any more than that is just greedy).
In university, when students on other courses are totalling up their grades to calculate if they are getting 1sts or 2:1s, vets are given a pass mark of 50%, which has the paradoxical effect of making it seem like you should be sailing through the course when, in actual fact, the bar is set so low because – yes – it really is that hard.
Negative feelings
The majority of vets and vet students, I am sure, can report to experiencing some form of impostor syndrome at some point in their careers – if not throughout.
Impostor syndrome is the feeling you are not as bright, or competent, or worthy of where you are in life as everyone around you thinks you are. It can be a toxic, self-deprecating and sometimes debilitating sensation, making you feel entirely alone when really everyone around you is most likely in exactly the same boat.
No motivation
From a little of my own experience, and through speaking to others in the field, I know this feeling has only grown stronger among my peers as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
After almost a year of online learning, open book exams and, in some cases, a complete lack of the hands-on practice and subsequent reassurance we should all be receiving right now, it’s only natural things don’t feel quite right.
No motivation. Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels
Being cooped up all day, and going long periods of time without seeing friends and loved ones, certainly doesn’t inspire productivity, and it can be hard to stay motivated with nothing to look forward to on the horizon – whether that’s a long holiday in the sun or just a nice catch-up with your mates down the pub at the end of the week.
Under pressure
After a year of lockdowns with nothing else to do, I think it’s all too easy to put too much pressure on yourself to accomplish everything because, look, you’ve never had this much free time before!
I’ve heard from lots of students who think – especially due to last year’s open book exams – that they “don’t deserve to be here“; that they haven’t worked as hard as they could have, or should have; that they’ve dropped the standard, so to speak.
But that’s the thing, even if it doesn’t feel like you’re working as hard as your old self used to in “the before world of February 2020 and earlier”, that’s because this is a completely different kind of work.
Marathon effort
It’s so much easier to sit down and do a day’s work with no distractions when the rest of your life is stable, but when it’s not, even the little things can become difficult – and that’s okay.
Take marathon runners, for example: capable of running for miles and miles, so of course, that first mile, or even the first 10, probably feel like nothing (as a max 10km runner I wouldn’t know personally, but I can assume).
That 25th mile, though – when they’ve already come so far, they’re worn out and their energy reserves are entirely depleted – is probably the hardest one of all. It’s likely a challenge to just put one foot in front of the other. It’s going to feel like they’re working 1,000 times harder than they had to for that first mile, even though the distance hasn’t changed – the conditions have.
Photo by Tembela Bohle from Pexels
Third and final (?) leg
As the third lockdown trickled ever so slowly onwards, I think everyone felt like they were just trying to keep up on what they hope is going to be the last leg of this unprecedented journey.
For marathon runners at least, they know how long that run is going to be, so they can go all out on that final sprint. In lockdown terms, though, we don’t really know when this race is going to be over (despite the Government’s road map out of lockdown) – and that makes it okay to not feel like you have to give it your all every single day, but leave some in the tank so you can keep going the next day and the next.
No shame
What I’m trying to say (through some very dodgy metaphors) is that we’ve all come so far, and there is no shame in taking extra days off, or extra rest breaks; that if you passed an exam or a year at vet school – open books or not – you deserved that pass.
It was probably one of the hardest exams you ever had to take, at the dawn of a global pandemic when no one knew up from down or left from right.
We all need to be proud of ourselves for whatever we’ve achieved over the past 12 months, even if that’s just making it through and being there for each other.
Belief #3: Vet science is much harder than other jobs
You’ve heard those conversations where vets pontificate about the injustice of their lot in life and their poor career choices.
We love to share stories about old acquaintances who are invariably less talented and not nearly as smart as us (we’re vets after all – the cream of the intellectual cream), yet have magical careers where they do almost nothing all day, get paid squillions and have three-month holidays every year that they spend frolicking on their yachts; while we express anal glands for 27 hours a day and get paid less than the pot plants in the reception area at the dentist’s office…
Interesting job
Well, have you ever listened to a group of people from other professions complain about their jobs – especially when they’ve had a few drinks? The bitching!
When was the last time you asked someone about the details of his or her job? About what they do on a day-to-day basis; about the politics, paperwork and bureaucracy – all the dirty nitty-gritty?
But I bet many people have asked you about your job, because guess what – it’s interesting! People love hearing about we do, while poor Kevin from accounts probably never even has the chance to complain about his job because no one ever asks…
Some individuals genuinely appear to have shimmering careers that they truly seem to love, but to me, the vast majority of other people’s jobs seem to fall somewhere on a spectrum between soul-crushing boredom and high stakes ulcer-causing, relationship-busting stress.
Think about the positives
Yes, our job has some very real challenges, but so does any career. What we tend to ignore are all the great things about a career in veterinary science – variety, autonomy, never-ending opportunities for continued learning and acquisition of new skills, the potential for leadership positions or business ownership…
We can travel with our degree. We can work full-time, part-time or night time. We can choose to be generalists or push ourselves into challenging specialisms, or take a left turn into a completely different pathway, such as teaching, industry or government. We get to do a job that people swoon over on the media.
Living the dream
Do you have any idea how many people would give anything to have a veterinary degree? To have the privilege of actually getting paid to work with animals? True, they probably don’t fully understand what it actually involves to work with animals, but the reality is we get to do the thing many of us dreamed of doing as youngsters. How many other careers can put all of that on their CV?
I’m all for striving to improve the profession and making it an even better career to be in, but sometimes we need to see the gift we have under our noses. Yes, sometimes it’s hard being a vet – sometimes work is hard. But this is not a unique feature of our profession.
However, if your career really isn’t going the way you want it to, maybe it’s time to re-evaluate how you’ve used your veterinary degree so far, rather than the fact you chose to have one to begin with.
“But the pay is so bad”, I hear you say. We’ll talk about that next time…
Toward the end of my first year at university, a friend of mine stumbled upon a funny online student-made list of “things NOT to expect at vet school”. From memory, I think it included things we all related to such as Christmas holidays (curse you, exams), summer holidays (why, EMS, why?) and “a coolness status to rival the medics” (we are real doctors, I swear).
But what was probably the most relatable, and yet the one nobody really expects before vet school without already being in the know, is: “an abundance of men”.
Now, I’m not saying I signed up to the course for the sole purpose of a live action performance of It’s Raining Men, but, at the same time, you can’t help but be taken aback by the sheer volume of girls compared to guys the first time you walk into that lecture theatre.
While stereotypical – are women more likely to love all things cute and fluffy? – wonders Eleanor Goad.
Why, oh why?
Just to put it into perspective for you, my cohort for the year is roughly 150 students and 10% of those students are male.
According to gender statistics recorded by the Vet Futures project, it’s been like that for some time, in fact, the veterinary graduates’ ratio of female to male has only been increasing over the past few decades.
Nobody is really sure why. In human medicine the ratio is relatively even, so what is it about animals that strikes a chord with women more than men?
A maternal nature?
A love for all things fluffy?
Both these solutions seem a little stereotypical and, to be honest, we’re probably most unsure about the reason behind the numbers because nobody wants to touch this landmine of a topic with a 10-foot barge pole.
I really don’t have the answers myself, either – but it’s a curiosity I can’t not address.
Imbalance
I suppose I never noticed it growing up, or even doing work experience prior to vet school – which makes sense when you look again at the statistics as the gender gap seems to rein in after graduation. So, although around 70% of vet graduates are female, the number of practising female vets is more like 50%.
That difference doesn’t seem so odd once you’ve factored in maternity leave, but it’s not the only disparity. Despite the fact the veterinary population spewing out of universities across the country each year is overwhelmingly female, men make up the majority of those working as RCVS specialists, as farm/mixed practice vets and as RCVS fellows – the people committed to advancing the veterinary profession.
In essence, the vets who specialise outside of “general practice” are confusingly male. Positions of power in general practice, such as partner positions, are also held by men in a greater proportion than women.
How can this be?
As a veterinary student with, as yet, only a teeny tiny foot in the clinical world, I can only really speculate.
The best-case scenario for these statistics would be simple chance, that more men happen to have been interested in specialised careers than women, but this seems unlikely. It could also be down to the fact that maternity leave and childcare can unfortunately, but ultimately, lead to a lack of “career propulsion” (for lack of a better term), and can make it a little harder to advance in your profession at the same rate as male peers. More woman might choose job stability over returning to education or pursuing a less predictable career for the same reason.
These outcomes are understandable, but at the same time, nobody should be – or feel as if they are being – held back.
It’s my hope that, in future years, the gap between the genders closes, for more guys to aspire to a veterinary career, and for more practising female veterinary surgeons to pursue whatever career they chose, general or specialised.
