Friday, June 7, 2013

Prime Time

Summer is always the busy time of year in veterinary medicine. Pets go outside more often and therefore get into trouble more often - snake bites, heat-related illnesses, plant foreign bodies like foxtails, cat fights, and so on. My appointments have been booked nearly full most days, which is great considering the other 2 (senior) doctors on duty get priority for appointment bookings.

I've met a lot of nice pets and nice people and am really enjoying this job (which is a relief considering the $106,000 in educational debt I still carry!) Yesterday is a good example of why I like general practice. I had a huge variety of cases such as:
- Annual exam and vaccine visit
- Inappetance
- Back pain
- Vomiting
- Eating dirt
- Euthanasia (very old pet with multiple chronic diseases)
- Foxtail in ear
- Snotty nose/upper respiratory infection
- Diarrhea

I know that probably doesn't sound exciting to a lot of people. I LIKE the "boring" visits where the pets are healthy and I can just chat with the owners and pet the dog or cat. It's gratifying to do a relatively simple procedure like removing a foxtail and watch the pet immediately feel relief. Although there are common themes the variety of things I see in any given day is great. I would be sooooo bored if I only saw GI cases all day, or cardiac, etc.

Who knows, maybe in 10 years I'll be totally sick of well pets and vomiting/diarrhea/itchy skin cases. If that's the case maybe I'll switch to emergency.


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