I’ve known for a long time I wanted to be a vet. This has meant that, since a very early age, a lot of my big decisions were pre-decided; GCSE and A-level options, university course, etc.
My choice in universities was narrowed down to a one-digit figure before I’d gone to my first open day – and even then I could only apply to four of them, while all my non-medical friends applied to five.
Even in the vet school itself, there’s very little wiggle room or chance to apply individuality to the curriculum. I don’t see this as a negative, as I understand why that is: when professionals graduate, an assumed blanket level of knowledge for everyone, the same playing field, same skills and knowledge base so that we can all perform equally in a career that requires us to do so.
That being said, it’s the ability to self-direct my learning in a way I’ve never had a chance to before that’s made me jump at the prospect of intercalation.
A year out
Intercalation, for vets at Bristol, involves taking a year away from their studies between years three and four to pursue something related to their course and/or future careers, but that they wouldn’t have had the opportunity to learn otherwise. You can choose to do these at your current university, or somewhere new, and there are a variety of different intercalation courses you are briefed on in years two and three.
It essentially allows students to broaden the depth of their knowledge in a specific area, either one they’re particularly interested in or that they feel will benefit their chosen career paths.
For me, it’s a bit of both. I don’t see it as a distraction from the veterinary course and what I’ve learned, but as a way for me to figure out how I best want to utilise it.
How long is too long?
I know for a lot of people, especially non-vets, taking an intercalation year in the middle of a five-year-long degree might seem a little unnecessary – do you really want to double the length of the average degree? And is it really worth it?
Looking back, though, the idea of a five-year course never fazed me; it was just another decision I took for granted as not really being a decision at all, and to be honest I wanted to be a vet so badly the course could have been a decade long and I’d probably have been just as keen.
Worth it
In terms of worth, I think it all boils down to what you want to get out of your degree, and indeed your career. It’s also worth thinking about money, as well as time management – although, of course, it’s never too late to keep learning. If you wanted to return for another course at university after graduation this would take you longer than a year, and currently postgraduate student loan funding isn’t as easy to navigate as the undergrad scheme.
I know it’s not for everyone, but I personally find the idea of intercalating and looking beyond what I need to know and a little more into what I want to know so, so, so exciting. And if it helps to give me the time and self-insight to figure out exactly what type of vet I want to be when I graduate, then I feel like that’s going to make me a better vet all around.
As a veterinary student, I’m certainly no stranger to stress.
There’s a running joke within my friend group that “diamonds are made under pressure”, which helps us all to feel a little better when the pressure on ourselves begins to rise.
But, whether it’s a coursework deadline or juggling my work-load with my social life, there’s always something going on in the back of my mind like an internal, manic hamster wheel.
Duck feet
I’ve grown up wanting to be a vet. This obviously came hand-in-hand with an admiration for those in the veterinary profession – and the medical field as a whole.
Saying that, I don’t think my younger self was ever fully able to appreciate all the time, energy and exertion that went on behind the scenes. When you’re greeted by a medical professional – whether at your local GP or veterinary practice – the (hopefully) calm and collected individual you meet across the desk is only one half of the story.
You know the popular analogy of a duck, peaceful and composed on the water’s surface, but frantically kicking underneath? Well, you can be sure, 9 times out of 10, there’s some heavy paddling going on behind every good doctor or nurse that you meet.
We’re in this together
I really don’t think it matters what kind of medicine you practice or study – human or animal – it all comes with its fair share of stress. There’s a reason my course and my future career are commonly associated with poor mental health, and it’s sad how careers that do so much good have the potential to cause such harm in the process.
I think this really highlights the importance of “clubbing together” in the work place, whether that’s the university common room or the staff room of a first opinion practice. Medical degrees, along with the jobs they lead to, are demanding – there’s no getting away from it. But there’s no reason we have to do it alone.
A little bit of kindness goes a long way, so if you see a colleague or fellow student struggling – even though you may have a lot going on in your own life – maybe try to ease their load a little, and one day they will return the favour.
If you make sure to be kind to yourself and have a good work-life balance then stress can be your superpower, rather than your downfall. It can be a great motivator if you don’t let it get on top of you and keep you focused on your goals through all the distractions life can throw at you.
To be honest, no matter your profession, course or lifestyle, stress is inevitable. It’s how you cope with it and what you choose to do with it that counts, and, ultimately, helps you grow.
On my course, in a year of 300 students and with a timetable of mostly nine-to-fives, it’s safe to say I spend a fair share of my time with other vets. However, in the first few weeks of university I was warned by older vets to beware of the “vet bubble” – and I understand what they meant.
Long and professional courses, such as medicine, law and veterinary science, have a bit of a stigma for being slightly closed off from the rest of the academic world – at least at my university.
I’m not sure it’s a conscious decision on behalf of those students concerned; without even realising it, the past few years have seen me cultivate and maintain friendships that are, predominantly, with other vets.
Incidental acquaintances
While I live in a household of eight, with only one other vet student, the majority of vets I know live in houses comprised solely of classmates.
I think it’s only natural to gravitate towards those you can’t help but spend so much time with. There are weeks when it feels like I live and breathe my course, with barely any daylight hours spent at home. Truth be told, I’m sometimes lucky to find the time to make it to even two society events a week.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining – I’m one of those people who like being kept busy – but it does explain why such close bonds are formed with people living the same hectic life right alongside you. When you’re crammed into the same four walls of a lecture theatre for three or four hours straight, of course you’re going to turn to your left or right and make connections.
Alternative associations
The vet bubble does have its downside, though. Obviously, all that time spent with vet students means potentially missing out on connections with people outside of your course.
In my experience, veterinary programmes tend to attract a certain type of person, and I think it’s important to surround yourself with a multitude of personalities and attitudes – particularly for people like myself and my course mates who are headed towards a career where communication and understanding is key.
Necessary alliances
On the other hand, the bonds forged with our “comrades in arms” might be just what we need to get through what is one of the most stressful courses out there. Leaning on those friendships and learning from each other at this stage in our careers helps prepare us for the years after we graduate when we’ll be doing the exact same thing in practice.
The vet bubble is something to be aware of, but you don’t have to give in to it.
On days where work is all I can think of, my friends on other courses are the ones who really keep me sane and remind me there is a world outside of my own.
Christmas is almost here, which means a much-awaited and deeply longed-for break from the 9 to 5 pattern of university life. The holiday period for Bristol students is starting a little later than normal this year, so, naturally, my friends and I are counting down the days until we get to retreat to the festive comforts of home.
This is my second Christmas coming home from uni and I remember the same time last year being quite a culture shock; the jump from student accommodation and rationed toilet paper to a house that is too hot – though you never believed there could be such a thing – and surprises in the form of presents rather than re-timetabled lectures and unexpected
deadlines.
Post-Christmas examinations
“It’s important to engage with whatever holiday traditions your family takes part in, and not lock yourself away behind your bedroom door with only text books and highlighters for company.”
Over it all, though, loom the post-Christmas examinations, which can’t help but make the season a little less jolly.
This is when all students must learn to juggle enjoying the well-earned rest and respite as well as finding time to work, a skill that vet students will likely have to draw on for the rest of their careers.
The task is not an easy one – ever since GCSEs kept me inside, revising on sunny summer days, post-holiday exams have been a bane of mine. It can also feel quite unjust and confusing when your university and lecturers both tell you to “have a relaxing holiday” and “take some time off”, but still expect the same quality of work you’ve been producing all term.
The same demand is made of most students, veterinary or otherwise, but for those who are also trying to fit two weeks of work experience into the bargain – such as my, perhaps foolish, self – the challenge and strain on time management become greater.
Staying motivated
Treading the line between work and play can be a daunting prospect, especially at a time when all you want to do is kick back and enjoy yourself. Staying motivated is really important. Being back home can feel like living in a whole other world, and it can be easy, especially if you live miles away from your university, to forget exams really do exist and are around the corner. On the other side of the coin, it’s important to engage with whatever holiday traditions your family takes part in, and not lock yourself away behind your bedroom door with only text books and highlighters for company.
Exams aside, and as patronising and impossible as it sounds, it is important to take some down time over the Christmas holidays with your family and friends. Mental health can take a dive during exam periods and working endlessly isn’t healthy. Of course, it’s important to study for those tests, get good grades and be the best that you can be – and if your joy stems from doing that then great.
But, at the same time, if you’re miserable because you have no time to spend with important people or to clock off then what is the point? It’s also important to recognise if you’re not at your best mentally, your capacity to revise is going to be low; so taking breaks isn’t detrimental to your studying, quite the opposite.
I love what I study, so a small break from learning recharges my batteries, but also makes me itch to start learning again. A work-life balance is a part of every course and every career, and it’s important to find something that works for you.
In the 1990s, this disease resulted in the mass culling of hundreds of thousands of livestock, devastating the farming community and causing ripples throughout the British economy.
Soaring meat prices, a ban on UK beef exports and sizeable public concern arising from the last outbreak led to extensive media coverage on a topic many people not involved in the medical field rarely entertain.
Not all puppies and kittens
Although you might not think it, food safety and public health are two of the most vital roles vets perform for society.
I feel there’s a common misconception all vets are bound to the same path; when speaking to my uni friends about future careers, they never seem to assume I’ll end up anywhere other than small animal practice – and this may be true for the majority or veterinary graduates, at least those from the UK. Mixed practices are dwindling and veterinary food safety workers are predominantly sourced from overseas.
That aside, veterinary involvement in the food industry is vital in keeping the public safe. Meat having the stamp of approval by professionals trained in parasites and pathology gives the British public – as well as importing countries – confidence in our farmers and serves to strengthen our economy, and build up domestic farmers and their businesses.
Only the beginning
Within the meat industry, the job of a vet is not over once the animal is slaughtered – they are just as involved in death as in life. Zoonotic diseases and parasites can be spread between people and animals, and vets ensure these never reach your supermarket shelves.
At food crisis moments – such as the events that occurred over two decades ago – vets have two main responsibilities:
A duty of care to those animals who must be put down with a delicate combination of haste and humanity.
To work with farmers during the financial struggle they will most likely suffer following the loss of a large proportion of their livelihood.
For the many, not the few
Medical bills make up a substantial amount of costs when running a farm, and any vet going into the industry will quickly realise treating a herd animal is a far cry from treating a pet. They need to master the art of putting the needs of the herd over any individual.
Of course, what might be the greatest responsibility of any farm vet is to aid farmers in preventing further outbreaks. To pool the resources of all field areas – researchers, clinicians, food technicians and farm workers – to improve productivity and ensure the continued safety of the public.
Millennials are stereotypically considered lazy, entitled and always wanting something for nothing. And having previously discussed the many advantages of employing new graduates (and, therefore, millennials), this sort of labelling angers me.
The choices our generation makes are not due to lack of work ethic and naiveté about the future, but rather a reflection on the hand we have been dealt by society.
Recent statistics show the average baby boomer had to save for 3 years for an average-sized house deposit in comparison to the predicted 19 years it would take for millennials to do the same. By the age of 30, the number of millennials still renting is double that of their predecessors in “Generation X”.
At my age, my mother owned a house, had her first child (yours truly) and had been married. I can’t even comprehend the possibility of being able to afford one of those things at this stage in my life, let alone all of them.
We may prioritise our meagre disposable income in different ways, but, despite all the jokes, our love of avocados and lattes are not the reason we can’t afford to get on the property ladder. (For the record, I can’t stand avocado).
It is excruciatingly impossible to save enough in today’s financial climate to even consider a house deposit, while pouring money into the unyielding abyss of renting.
One of the biggest snags in the rental black hole is the deposit and associated agency fees. Shortly after leaving university, I had to magic £1,500 out of somewhere to rent a place close to my first job (and that’s a lot when your bank account hasn’t been above zero since you started uni).
Six months after that, I was faced with having to do the same again because I quit that job.
As vets, we bang on about being happy, having a supportive first job and leaving if it’s not right. That’s all very well, but what if you’re trapped financially?
I didn’t give much thought to my financial situation at the time because I was too unhappy to carry on. While I think it was ultimately the right decision for my mental health, I would carefully consider my situation before doing it again – two months of no salary left me in a very vulnerable position, and if it had been much longer, I would have been in serious trouble.
Luckily, I was offered accommodation for my second job, which was an enormous help, taking the burden of having to find a deposit again off my mind. This is one of the benefits of being a vet as a millennial – very few other jobs would offer a house as part of the package.
If you have to repeatedly uproot and keep forking out for rental deposits every time your circumstances change, it’s easy to appreciate how quickly you can find yourself in a mess.
And for me and my classmates, this is while holding down a respectable job with supposedly “good pay” for someone of the same age. But is the pay all that “good”?
Non-vet friends
My non-vet friends earn varying amounts dependent on their careers or jobs, but these certainly include plenty of non-professionals earning far more than me. However, multiple factors need consideration here.
Those who didn’t go to uni have six years of “work experience” and climbing their respective career ladders more than me. Those who did go to uni have a two or three-year head start, which is significant in certain industries.
While it’s understandable they have had more time to progress in the world of work, that doesn’t entirely quieten the resentment at having put so much money, blood, sweat and tears into a professional degree without the remuneration to reflect that.
And while we may have a decent starting salary in comparison to other graduate roles, we are very quickly overtaken.
The ceiling salary of the GP vet is a much-discussed topic, with an increase in salary seen early on, but thereafter very little difference is seen, despite further years of experience. In the current financial climate, the traditional partnership route becomes less and less tangible for the millennial veterinary graduate.
I struggled to be approved for a credit card, and with the very real possibility of never owning a house, I wouldn’t dream of asking for a loan for the kind of money needed to buy into a practice – and I think I’d be laughed out of the bank if I tried.
For my generation, the type of career, and therefore salary progression, is just not what it has been for previous generations.
Enjoy life in present
Perhaps this is why we value work-life balance more than our predecessors – for them, they worked hard in their early careers because there was a light at the end of the tunnel, being partnership.
Many of my millennial colleagues don’t even consider that as a possibility, with many of us not really knowing what we want to do long-term career-wise, and so we take each day as it comes, not just trying to survive, but striving to enjoy life in the present.
It deeply upsets me that vets are still perceived as rich money-grabbers. I am not a rich vet, I’m just a millennial, struggling to make headway in an economy set up to put young people on the back foot.
The difference between me and my desk-bound friends, however, is I have the privilege to do a job that I love, and while it comes with all manner of stress, it’s worth it for being able to care for someone else’s beloved pets.
At the end of the day, though, millennials are all in the same boat – we’re still young adults driving battered cars with bleak property-buying prospects.
We didn’t choose to inherit this situation. We’ve drawn the short straw in the birthdate lottery, so all we can do is live the millennial lifestyle and enjoy our lattes and avocados.
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 few months previously, when we were still students?
A noticeable shift certainly occurs to being an actual vet, rather than someone who always has a supervisor to have the final say, or take the brunt of the backlash of a mistake.
However, is it the accountability or the responsibility worrying us the most?
Pressing concern
Mistakes are inevitable, but rarely catastrophic. IMAGE: pathdoc/Fotolia.
As soon as we swear the oath enabling us to register as veterinary surgeons in the UK on graduation day, we become accountable to the RCVS.
In the past year, I have witnessed more than one speech telling us a) not to be scared of the college, and b) not nearly as many complaints, disciplinaries or registration removals occur as we think.
Exact figures aside, the take-home message has been: if you don’t knowingly do anything wrong or illegal, the likelihood of serious consequences is very low. You can’t get struck off for making a simple mistake.
The veterinary press, however, seems to over-represent those who are struck off or reprimanded; after all, you never hear about how many vets were not struck off this month or doing their jobs as they should.
Perhaps this is where the unease stems from? And why the RCVS seems so keen to tell us these individuals convicted of misconduct are a very small minority of the profession?
Are new grads really scared of the RCVS?
Talking to my colleagues, the general feeling is we understand we won’t get struck off for making a mistake. However, if the fear has anything to do with our regulatory body, it’s more the confidence knock we would have as a consequence of having a complaint against us made to it.
Of course, an element of worry surrounds being banned from practising as a vet, but I don’t think I would rank it top of the “things to be afraid of as a new graduate” list.
Instead, in that list, I think responsibility carries a greater weight. As students, we were always supervised and, ultimately, the fate of an animal’s life never truly rested in our hands. Any decisions we made were either backed up or steered in the right direction by clinicians.
Now, it’s down to us. Yes – other, more experienced colleagues should be in each practice with whom to discuss cases or reaffirm decisions, but when it comes to the consult room, you’re on your own.
Experience is king
Jordan, pictured during her final-year rotations.
What if I miss a heart murmur? What if miss signs of glaucoma, a pyometra or a lump? The list goes on. What if I could have done more investigations earlier? What if I misdiagnose something and prolong pain because I didn’t prescribe the right treatment first time?
These questions going on in our heads, coupled with a niggling feeling we have forgotten something or misread a dose, are the root of the fear. I believe this is what scares us, more so than the RCVS.
The animals – and us inherently wanting to do our best for them – makes us worry. We worry our lack of experience could be at the expense of an animal’s health – or even their life.
The only way to get past this is to gain that experience to have confidence in our decisions and learn from the mistakes we will, undoubtedly, make.
My mum said to me this week: “This is the only time you’re ever going to feel like this,” and she’s right. (But don’t tell her I said that). Even if we start a new job in the future, we will have a lot more experience under our belts, so shouldn’t, in theory, feel as lost or scared as we do now.
Being a new graduate vet is a unique position for a myriad of reasons and we need to embrace it. The fear that comes with this newly found responsibility will ease with time, and we can take our careers in whichever direction we choose.
We’ve barely had a day of news in the past year that didn’t include Brexit. Yet, do any of us really know what the real consequences will be?
Within the veterinary profession, specific factors are undoubtedly going to be influenced by Brexit, even if we don’t know the extent of these yet. They do, however, include a great deal of legislation on welfare and meat hygiene, but also the future of the UK veterinary workforce.
It has been suggested the proposed coalition of Keele University and Harper Adams for yet another UK vet school may help boost numbers of veterinary professionals in the UK post-Brexit, especially when it is suspected we may be facing a shortfall.
I disagree.
Not a new problem
Is training new vets going to be of detriment to the health and well-being of those in the profession already? IMAGE: GianlucaCiroTancredi/Fotolia.
Sure, post-Brexit, it is likely to get worse – for example, the uncertainty surrounding the whole situation is (anecdotally) already seeing some of our EU vets searching for jobs overseas and leaving. This isn’t just “vet news” either – the BBC (despite the ambiguous statistics quoted) also recognised the effects of Brexit on the veterinary profession in an article this week.
But opening new vet schools isn’t the answer. For example, there is increasing awareness in the veterinary profession of the importance of mental health and a resultant expanding of the resources available for those who are struggling.
We also frequently hear buzzwords such as “compassion fatigue” and “burnout”, which we need to do more about.
My point is: we need to look after our current vets. This would prevent them getting tired and fed up, and ultimately leaving the profession – or, at least, leaving a clinical practice role.
Sold the wrong idea?
The Voices from the Future of the Profession report produced by the BVA/RCVS Vet Futures initiative in 2015 stated 50% of recent graduates thought their working lives did not meet their expectations. This disillusionment, set among a feeling of being undervalued, overworked and lacking a good work-life balance (something I’ve written about at length) leads to vets turning to other careers before they have a great deal of experience – this is what should be addressed.
We need to focus on the well-being of the vets we have instead of luring even more school leavers into a profession they have false preconceptions of.
More new graduates will not solve the problem – and this is coming from one. They will simply dilute the profession and struggle because there are less “experienced vets” to mentor them and help them hone their skills and knowledge. Ultimately, a large proportion of these will become stressed and leave within a couple of years – the vicious cycle is thus complete.
Teaching tussles
On a vet school level, irrespective of Brexit, this announcement is too not welcomed. At Glasgow, I have met clinicians that have chopped and changed between vet schools because there aren’t enough experts willing to teach, resulting in a bidding war between the universities.
We now have nine vet schools across the UK and Ireland. The Aberwysth-RVC programme (for which updates on their plans were announced earlier this week) and the Keele-Harper Adams course are only going to add fuel to that fire. Where are we going to suddenly magic up so many more diplomats and EU specialists to teach? Or, for that matter, clinical skills and first opinion teachers?
Couple-of-years-qualified graduates aren’t going to have the same breadth of experience to prepare students for a variety of surgical or clinical scenarios – they are not an adequate substitute.
Reasoning questioned
Is it simply a case of money, as Jordan claims?
The plans for new vet schools is not about saving the profession, nor is it about Brexit. It is down to academic institutions seeking high-achieving school leavers to attract more undergraduates and gain more funding.
It is ludicrous a university can just decide to open a vet school off its own back and threaten the resources of current vet schools, which include teaching staff and the availability of EMS placements, especially since many of the new course models (Nottingham, Surrey and the two proposed courses above) do not have their own teaching hospitals and, instead, use external practices.
It is true the new courses will be monitored and analysed once they have an intake of students to assess whether the graduates will be allowed to practice as veterinary surgeons, but by then, it’s too late.
There needs to be regulation to prevent it getting to that point, for the sake of the profession and the disillusioned school leavers applying en masse to these new courses.
I used to consider myself a bit of an anti-feminist – but before the majority of the profession tear strips off me, let me explain…
There are a number of very strongly opinionated feminists around – on your Facebook feed, in the news and also friends or colleagues – you know the type; those who rant on and on about how a builder whistled at them when out running or how it’s disgusting women can’t walk home alone at night without fearing some sort of assault.
Don’t get me wrong, these are issues that shouldn’t be ignored – but by the time I’ve read the 17th Facebook essay about an objectifying song lyric, it starts to get a bit boring.
Keyboard warriors
In my opinion, these sort of things need to be considered sensibly.
Yes, it’s horrible we live in a world where a female is less safe than a male at night in a city, but what are you going to do about it?
Moaning on Facebook isn’t going to save your life. Swallowing your pride and spending a couple of quid on a taxi, instead of walking, might.
I hated being associated with these hardcore, self-proclaimed feminists, because I think those who aren’t campaigning for equality – but are just man haters – give the rest of the female population a bad name.
The ‘real’ working world
I also used to be naive to things like the gender pay gap, because it didn’t affect me at the time. However, now I’m about to enter the “real” working world, in a predominantly female profession, a recent headline caught my eye.
An article in The Guardian regarding the gender pay gap of university graduates stated: “Women who studied veterinary science experienced the widest gap, earning about half as much as their male counterparts”.
I’m not really sure about the accuracy of the study they refer to, and I’m certainly not aware of such a drastic gap among any of my colleagues, but it did get me thinking.
For new grads, I struggled to see how there could be such a gap, where so many internships and graduate programmes having standardised remuneration packages. However, concerning those who are a few years into their careers, there is the theory women are less likely to ask for pay rises than men.
In this day and age
Hardcore, self-proclaimed, man-hating feminists who aren’t campaigning for equality give the rest of the female population a bad name, says Jordan. IMAGE: dundanim / Fotolia.
The pay gap is undoubtedly noted across the profession as a whole, with the SPVS Salary Survey in 2014 noting a gap of 10%.
This begs the question, why? How on earth, in the 21st century, despite being a predominately female profession, can there be this difference?
This does, of course, depend on what is being taken into account.
Do men progress quicker to partnership roles?
Are there more men than women in these senior positions?
Is that accounting for the increased number of women in part-time veterinary work compared to men?
We have a private profession where salaries vary so much depending on the employer, the value of an employee to a practice, location, and other benefits or job perks. Therefore, it is hard to speculate without being able to compare colleagues with similar abilities and experience in like-for-like roles.
Unacceptable
All that aside, there certainly is a pay gap in some form within the veterinary profession, and this is unacceptable. It should be unacceptable in any profession.
Maternity leave may well be inconvenient and expensive for employers, but that should not result in discrimination, purely for being born female.
To all the veterinary feminists out there, instead of getting angry at the world, do something for yourself and for the rest of us in the profession – ask for the pay rise you deserve and do not allow yourself to be undervalued purely because nature made you this way.
Don’t put up with financial discrimination. There are enough women in the profession to drive a change, and that we should do.
While a documented shortage of graduates does not exist as in previous years, significantly less fuss has been kicked up about the announcement of the new Aberystwyth-in-conjunction-with-RVC vet school, compared with the opening of the Surrey Vet School in 2014.
Surrey vet school: a bolt from the blue?
Is this because we knew Aberystwyth was in the pipeline so are not shocked by the announcement, or has the profession kept quiet because we do need more vets?
The problem is not a lack of graduates, but a lack of “experienced vets” and a shortage of vets staying in the profession after a few years of graduation.
This begs the question: why?
The simple answer is, as shown in last year’s “Voices from the future of the veterinary profession” survey conducted by Vet Futures, the profession, in its current state, does not meet expectations of those entering it.
Essentially, we feel undervalued, underpaid and overworked, and lack a sense of life outside veterinary.
Undervalued
The profession has an image problem, in many respects. It is becoming more commercialised, not just because of corporate takeover, but because clients expect more.
We seem to be moving away from the respected professionals who have dedicated their lives to helping animals and, as such, are praised for performing little short of a miracle in medical and surgical feats, and towards the providers of a service that, if not absolutely perfect and costs next to nothing, will only be complained about and bad-mouthed to other customers and competitors.
Sadly, the economic climate has caused much scaremongering, bringing vets to the absolute disposal of the pet owner for fear of losing clients and, therefore, not being able to balance the books.
I feel very strongly part of the reason our services are so undervalued is the NHS (See Jordan’s July 2014 blog post, “I Blame the NHS“).
The everyday person has no concept of how much medical procedures, diagnostics and therapeutics cost. I’ve done the research – prices for private medical care are found fairly easily, but NHS costs? Nigh impossible.
So how can we blame the public for not having a clue how much a radiograph costs? The public perception of veterinary in this country needs to change and I don’t think it will without transparency on human medical costs in conjunction with our veterinary ones.
Depending on the kind of practice you’re in, or going into, the relative feeling of being overworked will differ. I realise my points won’t apply to every practice in the country and this is sweeping general opinion on the UK profession as a whole. However, I struggle to see how many full-time vets’ hours fall within the legal limit.
The legislation is complex, with loopholes in the Working Time Regulations 1998 (WTR) possibly allowing certain practices to skirt round some of the “rules”, such as the designated 11-hour consecutive rest break in each 24-hour period and the minimum 24-hour rest break in each 7-day period.
On-call work is difficult to classify, but, in essence, the signing of a workforce agreement (probably as part of an employment contract) means the employee is agreeing to to provide out-of-hours cover that impinges on these designated rest breaks.
Some final year rotations at university I know are well beyond the limits set by the WTR (although the legality is sketchy since we’re not employed while we’re students).
“It’s not a nine-to-five job,” was a comment given with regard to rotation hours. That’s tough love: you’re going to be worked into the ground when you qualify, so you may as well get used to it now. But why? Why can’t veterinary be a nine-to-five job? It certainly is in other countries.
The profession is changing and I really hope this is the kind of change that comes about nationwide. With the increasing popularity of outsourced out-of-hours cover and shift work, why can’t a vet clock off at 5pm, enjoy some exercise, cooking, social activity, whatever and come back to work refreshed the next day ready to put in 110%?
Achieving work-life balance
We have numerous talks at uni about mental health awareness and the importance of work-life balance. But how is it possible to achieve a work-life balance if you’re working from 8am to 8pm and, even on the nights you’re not on call, you essentially only have time to grab something to eat and sleep.
It’s all very well lecturing us on being conscious of having a work-life balance, but what if it is beyond our control, as in so many cases?
I know for a fact, if the profession remains stuck in its ways, I will become just another statistic and leave the UK, if not the profession entirely, within a few years.
Don’t get me wrong, I have loved my rotations so far and the sense of fulfilment when I’m actually getting a handle on things is excellent, but I know I will resent my job if it does not allow for some enjoyment outside of veterinary.
But will it ever change? I think something has to give soon, or the profession will find itself in dire straits before long. How would change come about? If we wait for one practice or chain to provide a great work-life balance and rely on the trend to catch on, I think we’ll be waiting a lifetime. But what if the regulations changed?
I don’t really want to talk about Brexit (I’m sure a little piece of me dies inside every time that word is uttered), but the potential change to employment law (which has mainly been derived from the EU) could allow for changes specific to medical professions to protect us from “burnout”.
Overtime pay should exist in the veterinary world, as it does in any other “normal” job, allowing for those maniacs who want to work 24 hours a day to do so at their leisure (or those who need the extra cash), but not at the detriment to those who don’t wish to. Working out a vet’s base salary as an hourly basis is just depressing. And it shouldn’t be.
I keep hearing phrases such as “the profession is changing” and “it’s an exciting time”. I genuinely hope that is the case and we become the progressive generation we like to think we are, and drag the profession kicking and screaming with us into the modern world of enjoying life outside veterinary and moulding our careers around our lives – not the other way around.
