Countdown to Fourth Year

In less than six months, I will start my fourth year of veterinary school here at Texas A&M University!

As I look forward to jumping into the last, clinical phase of my education, I am also looking forward to the first experiential phase of my career. Very soon, I will be rotating through different specialized departments in our large and small animal hospitals for a full 12 months, taking on real cases from real clients who bring their cherished pets here for care.

In preparation for this, my classmates and I are making the final decisions about our tracks, or paths, we will complete during those rotations. I plan to choose the mixed animal track and split my time between the large and small animal hospital.

My hope is that this prepares me and gives me confidence to treat any animal that walks into my clinic, no matter if I become a rural mixed animal practitioner or suburban small animal practitioner.

I also must make decisions about which rotations I will participate in—there are exciting opportunities like emergency and critical care, cardiology, orthopedic surgery, equine sports medicine, or even oncology.

I feel I have learned so much during my first three years and am starting to feel competent during case discussions when forming diagnostic and treatment plans, but there is still so much to learn.

As I plan out this final stage of my time here, I worry about fitting in all of the information I need in order to be a competent veterinarian. I worry about my first year after graduation and feeling knowledgeable enough to treat animals while continuing to learn.

Very soon, I will be the doctor in charge of medical decisions, responsible for the life and health of my patients. That’s equally exciting and anxiety-inducing!

Another part of fourth year preparations is arranging a few externship experiences off-site. These externships can take place in private general practice, in a specialty hospital, at another university, or even at different animal refuges, as long as you are working alongside other veterinarians.

One way that the CVM provides opportunities for us to network and arrange these experiences is through their annual job and externship fair. This weekend, more than 130 practitioners will converge on our school in the hopes of setting up externships with veterinary students and finding new graduates to hire. (https://vetmed.tamu.edu/dvm-job-fair/ ) 

It’s quite possible that one of these practitioners or externships will flourish into a job opportunity after graduation!

As I edit my resume and look at all the practices that will be in attendance, I have been thinking about what I’m looking for in a veterinary practice. What kind of team do I want to be part of? What type of mentorship am I looking for? Do I want to do emergencies after hours or live near an emergency hospital I can refer my patients to?

There are so many possibilities that I’m excited to explore!

Finding a New Home

This summer, I went on an adventure. Really, I went on many adventures, but one of them was completely veterinary related and I loved it a lot.

To better understand my adventure, you should know that I would like to move to the mountains when I graduate. I love the mountains and snow, and I don’t like it being summer until October.

So, this summer, I decided that I should try to figure out where I want to live when I graduate.

The best thing about being a veterinarian is that the entire U.S. is open to you when you graduate—everywhere needs a vet.

The worst thing about being a veterinarian is that if you have no idea where you want to live, it is hard to narrow it down—the entire country is open to you. I had narrowed it to the mountains, but there are so many mountains, so I needed to figure out more.

On July 5, I loaded up my car and started my three-day solo road trip to Idaho. Solo road trips might not be everyone’s favorite thing, but I love them.

I downloaded some books on tape and drove through areas of the U.S. that I had never been to before, like Utah and northern New Mexico. It was quite an adventure, and I am grateful that my 21-year-old car made it to Idaho. I think I worried my parents, but I was having a great time.

In Idaho, I rode with a few dairy veterinarians in the area that I was in. I had never been exposed to dairy medicine, so it was quite a new experience.

I got to see the difference in working for an operation versus having many large dairies as clients. I also had the opportunity to work with pregnant cows and got to see what the role of the veterinarian was in large-scale operations. It was a great experience that opened my eyes to the different roles of vets in different industries.

I was only in Idaho for a week, so after that week was done, I packed up my car again and drove to Bozeman, Montana, where I spent two weeks at a clinic.

Let me tell you, Bozeman is gorgeous. I loved it there. I would wake up in the mornings, and it would be 45 degrees. To put that in perspective, it is the middle of October in Texas, and I don’t think that is has gotten into the 40s yet.

I really enjoyed the clinic in Bozeman. They were willing to teach me and give me opportunities to work with them.

I really appreciate the veterinary field as a whole because most vets are willing to teach; that means that as students, we have the unique opportunity to reinforce what we are learning in class and learn about what it will be like when we graduate.

My adventure ended with my dad flying to Bozeman and driving to Yellowstone with me. We camped and hiked and saw one of the most beautiful places that I have ever been. The bison that were on the side of the road were also great!

We stayed for three days, and I was sad when we had to leave. I hope to move somewhere that will allow more access to gorgeous outdoor scenery like that.

My adventure ended on July 31 when we got home. I drove 4,330 miles in 26 days on this trip. I had so much fun, and I am so grateful for the time that veterinary students get off during the summer, which allows us to have time to choose what we want to do, whether it is veterinary related or not.

This was my last summer off before I graduate because next summer, I will be in fourth year, when we spend an entire calendar year working through the different services in the Small and Large Animal Hospitals.

I will look back on this adventure fondly, and, thankfully, I think it helped serve the purpose of learning more about the veterinary field and about where I want to move.

 

Summer in the Panhandle

Ashlee “on the job” during her summer externship through the Veterinary Education Research Outreach (VERO) at West Texas A&M University.

This summer I had the opportunity to do an externship close to home and apply the knowledge from my first year of veterinary school.

I joined in on the Veterinary Education Research Outreach (VERO) externship program at West Texas A&M University that is offered for second- and third-year veterinary students. During this time I worked closely with Dr. Dan Posey, clinical professor of veterinary science and the academic coordinator of the VERO program, who provided more opportunities than I could experience in one summer.

Though I am from the area, this was a new experience for me because it was more focused on the veterinary side of the industries available there. 

Ashlee is teaching a 4-H student how to do a physical exam on a dog.

Every new experience I have makes me more excited for my future as a veterinarian, and this one was no exception.
Sometimes it’s easy to get caught up in school, but these opportunities outside of class put everything into perspective.

Even with only one year under my belt, I was able to talk through diagnostics, surgery approaches, and treatment plans without feeling like I was listening to a foreign language. I had the privilege of teaching 4-H veterinary science students how to perform a physical exam on a dog, horse, and cow.

Now, beginning my second year, I have already applied the things I learned this summer, and I know I can expand on the areas I didn’t fully understand.

Ashlee is doing physical exam on a cow.

Every day was different, just like it will be in a mixed animal practice, and if I enjoy each day and challenge as much as I did this summer, I don’t think I will work a day in my life.

OK…I can do This

Cortney P.My experience in veterinary school so far has been an exhilarating, eye-opening, challenging journey. While I’ve had its extreme highs and lows, I can honestly say that I have enjoyed the ride.

At the end of my second year this past spring—the halfway point in the veterinary program—however, I had a mounting fear growing in the back of my mind. I was afraid that I had spent so long in the classroom that I wouldn’t actually know what to do in a real clinical setting in which people are looking to me for answers.

To some, this may seem like an irrational fear, but to me and other veterinary students, it is a very realistic fear that we frequently struggle with. I remember thinking, “I’ve literally been in school my entire life; do I even know how to do anything other than be in school?” So that was how I ended my second year, full of self-doubt.

I didn’t intend to waste my final summer vacation, though. I reached out to numerous veterinary practices in my hometown area and asked if I could do an externship at their clinics. Many of them said yes and were very happy to have me. I was very excited to spend time in these clinics, but also still very nervous.

Once there, though, I was surprised to find that at the clinics I went to, I was treated by the veterinarians and their staff not as a student who didn’t know anything but as a future colleague. Veterinarians and technicians alike were happy to answer all of my questions and teach me new skills, as well. Many of the clinics I went to even allowed me to get a large amount of hands-on experience doing different things, which really helped my confidence.

Among all of the vets I shadowed this summer, their years of experience in practice ranged from one year to 42 years! This was very helpful to get to listen and learn from years of wisdom but to also get to hear from someone who was just in the same situation as I am now.

As the weeks went by, my confidence grew and my fear diminished. I realized that I was more capable than I initially thought I was.

I also realized that while I still have room for improvement in certain areas (and likely always will), there is no need to try to be perfect or even to know all of the answers right away. That is what colleagues and mentors are for—to help you along the way. And sometimes it’s important to know when you need to ask for help.

I realized from watching and working with all of these vets that I will get there someday, too, and until then I will just keep working hard and worrying less.

“Never be afraid to try something new. Remember, amateurs built the ark, professionals built the Titanic.” —unknown

What’s in an Externship?

Mary Horse Externship
Mary Margaret takes a look into the eye of a horse that was being examined for a complicated ocular disease during her second summer externship.

What does a veterinary student do during their limited summer breaks? Anything that looks a lot like school without actually being more school, of course.

I chose to work in a few hospitals and also extern in a few hospitals. What’s an externship? Well, it’s two or more weeks of total immersion into a practice, which allows students to try and figure out if that practice or career path will be a good option for them. All fourth-year students at A&M complete somewhere between two and 12 weeks of externships at clinics all over the state and, sometimes, the world. I picked three different equine hospitals across the state and spent a few weeks this summer trying to figure out if being a horse vet is a good idea.

The first externship was still technically during breeding season and, as with most things involving babies, very little sleep was had. Every mare that came into the hospital was outfitted with an alert system so that the doctors and interns would know when she was starting to give birth. The process is pretty quick in normal horses, so when that alarm went off, it was “throw your boots on and run to the barn” and “hope you make it in time in case anything goes wrong.” The first foal delivery I was involved in decided to arrive at 4:00 in the morning. It was adorable and everything went perfectly, but it was a good reminder that horse vets (and horse vet interns, in particular) don’t really know the meaning of the word sleep between February and April. Having said that, it felt like I learned more in those few weeks than the entire previous semester.

The second externship was a whirlwind of surgery, lameness exams, and pregnancy checks. It was at an enormous hospital where each doctor is given their niche, and the sheer volume of patients they see meant that there were too many things going on for me to see them all. I generally tried to live in the operating room, as equine surgery was something I’d never really gotten a chance to see before. I saw surgeons work on colic cases, angular limb deformities, cryptorchid castrations, kissing spines, subchondral bone cysts, laryngeal hemiplegia, and on and on. In the short time I was there I was able to witness and assist with more and more diverse surgeries than I’ve ever seen in small animal practice or at school.

One day, a boarded veterinary ophthalmologist came by to take a look at a few patients with more complicated ocular disease. On a patient with unilateral glaucoma, he was able to take a good chunk of time and show the other extern and me how to do a thorough eye exam and the signs of disease in that particular horse. It was really nice to have that detailed explanation and hands-on experience before coming back to school to study equine ophthalmic diseases in the fall.

The third externship taught me more about herd health than I expected equine practitioners needed to know. Several clients owned dozens, if not hundreds, of horses, and managing them from a veterinary perspective became less about the needs of the individual horse and more about how to keep then entire group healthy. We spent an entire day driving around one property checking on different age groups of horses. Each little herd got a thorough distance exam, and those that stood out as being abnormal were inspected more closely and scheduled for diagnostics or treatments, as needed. This way problems needing medical attention were taken care of, but every individual horse did not have to have a full workup.

Every externship is different, and each of these taught me something new about being an equine practitioner. I’m still not sure if I want to be an equine vet, but now I feel like I have a good idea of what the day-to-day life involves.

Looking Back and Ahead

Sydney M.Wow! This semester has just flown by! It seems like I just started classes again, but, instead, I just completed my finals.

In my last block for the semester, I took two electives, “Clinical Pathology” and “Emergency Medicine.” Clinical pathology is understanding disease processes and how they commonly present themselves using diagnostic tests such as blood work or cytology. Knowing how often veterinarians in practice read bloodwork, I was excited to be able to practice those skills and increase my confidence level before my fourth year. Emergency medicine was great because it helped me create a plan for the worst outcome, in hopes of saving lives. Having a basic idea of what to do in emergency situations helps give you a framework and the confidence to face those challenging cases head on. I have really enjoyed my electives this semester because I love how clinically relevant they are and how much they are preparing me for not only fourth year, but when I am out in a regular, practice setting.

Also during my last block was the Veterinary Job and Externship Fair. The Dean’s Office is great at making sure we are given a ton of opportunities to meet veterinarians and find great places to work for summer jobs, fourth-year externships, or even potential future employment! The fourth year of vet school is the clinical year, which means you work at the Small and Large Animal Hospitals to get tons of on-the-job training from the clinicians who work there full time. However, we are not confined to just one hospital for training; we also do externships for two weeks at a time at other veterinary clinics. I found one externship in New Braunfels, but I need to find another clinic to work during my fourth year, so this job and externship fair was a great way for me to do it.

While I have been able to do some hands-on and exciting things this semester, I still have a lot to look forward to during winter break, not only because I get to see my family and get some much needed rest, but also because I have an elective over the break at a clinic in Seguin, where I will focus on the client-communication aspects of veterinary medicine, as well as hone some basic veterinary skills. A veterinarian will be my mentor and will help me work through cases and put all of my lecture knowledge to good use. This winter break elective counts toward the total amount of elective hours I need to fulfill my veterinary degree, so the veterinarian at the clinic will evaluate my progress and send it back to Texas A&M.

There were so many fun and important things happening at the end of this semester and more that will happen over winter break. I am excited to be a part of it all!

Looking Forward to my Last Break

Michelle C.This upcoming Christmas break will be my last as a student, as my peers and I will be entering clinics immediately after the conclusion of the third-year veterinary curriculum. I have been meticulously planning to get the most out of the four-week break, during which I will be spending two weeks doing a veterinary externship in Dallas and the remaining time traveling with family and friends.

Externships offer students an exciting opportunity to spend two to six weeks under a direct doctor mentorship to apply the clinical skills obtained during the first three years of veterinary school and ease the transition from classroom to clinical practice. I am really looking forward to the externship experience, as I feel more confident interpreting blood work and other laboratory data than I have ever been.

Needless to say, I am also very excited to travel! My advice to all future students is that you should use your free time to travel spontaneously. Whether it is visiting distant families out of state or going on a road trip with your significant other, it will greatly enhance your soul! I definitely plan on spending a lot of time with my family this winter break, since I wont be able to visit them very often during my fourth year.

But until then, everyone is buckling down and preparing for our final exams. Stress is high, but I am grateful to have such great, supportive classmates and faculty members who are always there to help us succeed. Good luck on finals, everybody!