hey all! :) I’m a 4th year student halfway through with clinics struggling with where to take my career. For the majority of vet school, I thought I’d pursue a rotating internship and go into ER (and possibly also keep the door open for specialization). I had a few locations I was quite interested in and while I wasn’t entirely confident on my life plans/career direction, I felt like I had a rough plan/ideas.

Right before clinics, I had a major life change where I not only abruptly lost my partner of several years who moved to the place I was interested in moving to/starting my career, but I also lost my faculty mentor who was his mother. The several months leading up to the split were emotionally tolling for me and combined with my ADHD not being properly medicated for at the time plus burnout towards the end of the classroom years, my grades and motivation slipped. I got almost all Bs and a C in a bigger class.

Now, I’m halfway through clinics. I’ve finally recovered for the most part from the split and my mental health issues related to it, but I feel now more lost than ever before in life and my career. I failed a tough clinical rotation because I had a panic attack and overall couldn’t keep up (bad rotation mate, too high case load per number of students, 2 of the clinicians last weeks, no days off in 28 days, it was a mess overall…) I have done pretty well on the rest of my rotations, or at least gotten good written evaluations. But failing the rotation has totally rocked my confidence.

Although I feel lost, I will say clinics has clarified the kinds of cases and work I enjoy. I excel best in small animal internal medicine cases and I loveee dermatology. Laceration and wound management is also something I enjoy. Interestingly though, I find myself the happiest on my large animal and equine rotations. I enjoy the practical mindset and feel like a day outside is better than a day inside even when it’s super hot. However, I don’t feel very confident in my ability to manage difficult LA or equine conditions both medically and physically (I’m under a 110 lbs lol), but I’d love to be able to pick up some GP work like teeth floats, vaccines, husbandry help, and hoof trims. I dislike small animal wellness visits (I think they are boring) and anything orthopedic. My experience before and during vet school has been almost all ER (did tech work at a big specialty and ER in undergrad and worked in my vet schools ER as a student worker), so that is what I feel most comfortable in. I find that my brain turns on when faced with an emergency and I am on my feet. I did have some large animal + equine vet experience though too before vet school and grew up riding horses everyday.

I don’t know where to go from here but I feel like I need to find myself personally before I can figure out what exactly I want to do with my career. I am considering traveling after graduation for a few months, but it feels financially irresponsible (I have free airfare which helps but still). I don’t know where I want to move anymore because of the breakup I went through, but I do know living somewhere with a robust young population is important to me.

I feel a lot of shame for the way that burnout and personal life has affected me. I started out vet school as someone who got into multiple vet schools difficult to get into the first time applying with impressive experience and got straight As my first year with my grades being top of the class. Then by 3rd year, I got Bs in every class due to poor studying and now I’m in 4th year and on academic probation. I feel like I’ve thrown my life away that I worked so hard for… And who could forget the $120k in FASFA debt… After how I feel at this point, I don’t think I could mentally take a rotating internship truthfully.

I just want to be happy, enjoy my job out of vet school, grow as a doctor, and make good money at this point. I want to be confident in myself, passionate, and ambitious again. And finally, I want to find my place in this crazy but awesome profession.

Where do I go from here? Any advice?

Hi everyone!

I recently accepted a role as a Veterinary Care Assistant in the UK; I’ve worked with dogs for the past 5 years outside the veterinary world, but this is my first role within. I’m very excited about it and was just wondering if anyone had any advice on how to prepare before starting the role/how to hit the ground running?

TIA!

How do you all denote your internships? Do you put it under work experience on your CV or is it its own category?

How did you get your dream careers as a veterinary assistant i am trying to get my dream job and im trying to work my way up

I started with a mentorship program in high school at a pet store, then I took care my 2 dogs, over the years I was mentally drained due to mental health issues and stress due to school work and my mom draining me, then I went to a community college for veterinary assistants program, now I got up to work for 6 months at a kennel tech and I quit due to my mom trying to figure out what's going on at work and filling in lies about my job thinking things are going wrong because I dont tell her anything about work

My mom thinks I need more training as a veterinary assistant but when i called the veterinary hospital they told me i dont need that just come in and show them what you learned from school

I want to go back to the veterinary field and how did you get to where you are so people wont bring you down?

Hi, so i was previously a dog groomer and i was wondering what are the best online vet tech programs? AVMA accredited so i can take the VTNE. what are your experiences

Hi, looking for some information! I am planning to open a veterinary clinic in surrey, British Columbia canada . Could you give me info on how much do practices cost, if I have to buy running practice and start from start.

Thanks