I am leafing through my diaries of 2013 and 2014 and reading things I had long forgotten.
I spent 10 days at the Milton Equine Hospital. I had worked night shifts the weeks before to save enough money for my flight ticket and when I found out that I needed an expensive student visa I didn’t know how to pay for it. I still hear the words of a student colleague inside of my head when I told her about the visa „well for you it doesn’t matter anyway, does it?“. Today I am still angry that I only gave her a confused look instead of cutting her down to size. That was it. The believe that I am rich, just because I travelled a lot.
I decided not to get a visa, I didn’t have the money anyway, and travelled as a Tourist.
When I arrived in cold Milton, after a long flight and taxi ride (there was no bus I could take), it was already night. Some interns showed me my room and gave me my badge and cap, and I tried to fall asleep to be fit for the next days.
Day‘s schedule
The days started at 7 am with morning treatments (except when there were emergencies, then they started earlier) and were followed by different surgeries and procedures.
The team was nice but everyone seemed quite scared of the boss, tired and overworked.
When I first met the boss he ignored me. In fact it took 2 days and 3 times passing me until he finally had the “grace” to look at me and say “hello”.
Internship
The reason I did the externship was that I wanted to get an internship after my graduation, today I am glad I didn’t get it. There were nice vets working at the clinic and still you never had the feeling that they liked the place, it felt more like a prison and people were just counting the days til they could finally leave again.
I already knew one intern from my externship in Washington State.
Surgeries
Even if the text until now seemed quite negative, if you wanted to see surgeries, especially orthopedic surgeries, Milton was the place to go. And of course, for every surgery, you need an anesthesia, so there was also a lot you could see and learn about this topic.
What did I learn?
All in all it was, as every externship, an experience where I learned new things, not only about medicine but also about internships and working as a vet. Also about the point of : how much should we accept or not accept to go in for a career.
How many Christmas and New Years Eves without your family are you willing to take?How much time of your life are you willing to spend? If it’s really what you wanna do: a lot. I became a horse vet and it makes me happy. When I was in vet school I thought I wanted to become a surgeon, work in a clinic. Today I know that this didn’t make me happy, being a mobile vet does. It’s okay to change your opinion, cause the most important thing is that you do what makes you happy, and if what you do doesn’t feel right, talk about it.
I also had to start working on my own to feel the joy of the profession, after standing and watching the cool stuff for years. So give it a chance and if you wanna quit don’t torture yourself, many others have change the direction and that’s for a reason: sometimes it takes time to see what a job really feels like. Dreams can change, if this is okay.
Travelling Vet 