The Call to Action

If I could go back to 2020 and tell myself that I would spend a summer studying in Bulgaria, I think I would have laughed at myself. As a pre-vet student, I will admit that I was not completely sold on my friend’s elevator pitch as to why I should join him on this trip to Sofia. As someone who is pre-med, I could see how this program aligns with his human medicine career, but for me… not so much. Additionally, I was having trouble seeing why we had to go to Bulgaria (someplace I knew very little about) to get some medical experience. I decided to hear the program out and soon found myself on a plane to Sofia with some doubts about whether this would help my career. Nevertheless I decided that at the very least I was guaranteed to emerge with some good memories and some neuroplasticity.  Lucky for me, I would return to the states with much more than that. 

Veterinary Applications 

I have so much to talk about, but first I’d like to get all of the academic stuff out of the way. I did not apply for this program to vacation in Bulgaria for a month. This was supposed to bolster my resume and give me a leg up in my career. In hindsight, I entered thinking there would be a greater focus on medicine, and at first I was disappointed when I realized most of the program would be covering communication (spoiler alert, it was in the name of the program: ‘Communication in Healthcare’). On the surface, we covered topics like how to explain pathology to a client, how to break bad news to a patient, and what the best ways to communicate data are. These hit a little closer to home than I had anticipated. Having worked as a veterinary technician for many summers, I learned that to be a vet, you need to have more than a big brain and a steady hand. Good vets are empathetic because the client’s feelings matter just as much as the patient’s health, and they are efficient communicators because important medical records are often shared between veterinarians. Good vets are prepared for the reactions of upset pet owners and need to keep their cool and diffuse the situation. The lectures at the New Bulgarian University were a master class in laying the foundation for these things. I am very pleased with the applications this program had for my career in veterinary medicine. Digging a little deeper, it was invaluable to experience the implications of healthcare communication between different cultures. In class, pre-med students from France, Poland, and Germany joined us. As we discussed the techniques of client and colleague communication, we learned about the differences in our cultures values. Some groups of students advocated for very blunt, and objective communication, while others argued that empathy wields just as much weight as facts. While spending time shadowing in clinics, I learned that the people of Bulgaria based many of their medical decisions on traditional values and sometimes even superstition. I have experienced my fair share of difficult clients while working at animal hospitals, and upon my return I think I will be better equipped to communicate with them because of the ways I observed doctors responding to these values and superstitions. The Bulgarian doctors responded with empathetic words that had concrete medical facts at the core. Many times the doctors would offer solutions that attempted to compromise the patient’s values with the objective treatment they needed to recover. For example, in an adolescent behavioral clinic, some parents were reluctant to offer their children treatment due to the stigma that would come with accepting they produced a child with a disorder. In response, many doctors had success in rewording the diagnosis and educating the parents about discrete and convenient behavioral therapy opportunities. This strategic use of rewording and compromise gives me confidence I will be able to serve clients much better at veterinary clinics. 

 

Personal Rediscovery 

At its core this program was meant to be educational, but I would be remiss if I did not talk about the non-educational developments I endured. In the semesters leading up to this trip, I had been experiencing social withdrawals because I was placing more value on my studies. This led to a lot of internal turmoil and I felt a lot of guilt as the time I spent by myself began to grow. I feel like I used to place a lot of my value and self worth in the relationships I had with others and how I saw myself was linked with how I thought others saw me. Landing in Bulgaria, we were informed that other than breaking the law, there really weren’t many restrictions to our stay. Attending class was encouraged if we wanted to pass, but no one was going to force us. I found myself halfway across the globe in an unusual country, and while I was with my close friend, and 8 other students who I could befriend, I felt a lack of the social impulse whose absence previously haunted me. I didn’t ignore my classmates and avoid their social plans, but I made my favorite memories with the time I set aside for independent exploration. With the well developed public transport of Sofia, many days and nights I set out into the city by myself without guilt. My studies and guilt had made me forget how much I liked hanging out with myself. I began to find myself making friends at billiard clubs, trying new beers and laughing with my neighbors at local bars, and reliving my high school high diving days at an old outdoor Olympic natatorium. It took an entire city for me to explore to find that I had an entire person within myself to explore as well. 

 

A Very Chilly Night 

The VMBS program had outlined the educational and recreational excursions planned for the students, and many of them were really cool experiences. But my favorite of course, was the unplanned and unexpected one. ‘Field trips’ were planned for 3 of the 4 weekends: coastal resorts, regional flower distilleries, old monasteries, etc. But one weekend was left open for the students to make their own plans. Having spent the last 3 weeks listening to one of my professors – Ivan Ivanov – talk about various aspects of his fly fishing hobby, I asked if he would be willing to take me out into the Bulgarian wilderness for a weekend of camping. After some emails to the VMBS headquarters we got the green light and the two other men in the program joined us. Gearing up at Decathlon (basically Academy), picking up fishing licenses, and purchasing the train tickets left us ready to set out the next day. Aboard the train we watched as the surrounding buildings morphed from urban to suburban, and finally rural. The further we went into nowhere, the older the buildings got. It was like taking a train ride back in time as we passed old stone homes with smoking chimneys and wooden farm equipment. Arriving at a small junction used for mail distribution, we disembarked and began to hike into the woods. We followed a creek and set up camp a few miles in. That day Ivan taught us how to trap and capture the insects we would use to fish, as dusk set in the fish began to bite. We didn’t catch much but I really enjoyed wading in the river with my friends and sharing primitive camping connections you feel in survival situations.

To keep my pack light I brought a hammock so I would not have to trek in a tent or sleeping mat. Long after the sun had set and the embers of a dying fire had finished warming our canned foods we retired for the night. I found an old bridge and strung my bedding up between the rafters. I was high off the ground, safe from bears, and feeling very cozy. I had brought a thin blanket and was enjoying the warm 70 degree air. I have quite a bit of experience in camping in hammocks, but rarely in the cold. By midnight my cozy cocoon turned into an icebox as the temperature dropped into the 40s. Worse yet, I forgot that when using a hammock in the cold, you have to insulate underneath yourself or else all of the heat will fall out of the bottom. With only a blanket on top, I was unable to hold onto my heat. Making matters worse, the dark sky opened up and it began to rain. Cold, wet, and shivering I did not sleep much through the night and in the morning I found that a tent had not been much help to my friends either. Ivan had slept on a mat in an open field and had covered himself with a waterproof tarp. He reported a full and warm night’s sleep. Despite the hardships, I still look back on the experience fondly and wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. I returned with some new survival knowledge, and stronger relationships with a new and an old friend.