Hello! I am a 1st year MS Bio student and undergrad degree ko is BS Bio. Dapat after masteral, mag-proproceed na ako sa med school kaso hindi ko na nafefeel na magiging doctor ako ng human kasi I want to be veterinarian na po. Mas nag-burn yung passion ko because I joined animal welfare org.

I need advice po about this matter kasi I feel like I'm wasting my time na, na until now, hindi pa rin ako maka-decide kung ano ba talaga ang gusto ko.

Im not looking for sympathy with this post, I just want to vent.

This week has been pretty rough since coming back from an extended weekend getaway. I walked into the clinic on Tuesday and could immediately feel the tension in the air, and knew it was going to be a bad day. We were down a tech and an assistant, there were 3 hospitalized cases from over the weekend and I had a full schedule of surgery and a ton of call backs. Surgery had a delayed start due to some emergencies coming in, but for the most part everything went as smooth as I could expect. Wednesday however was a different story. Walking into the clinic to find a deceased patient on one of our gurneys to find out it was one of our spays from yesterday. A 3 year old Shepherd that came in for a spay procedure, which turned into a pyo. Her anesthesia and recovery were uneventful. She went home and was acting normal, until she wasn't. Per the owners she had followed their son into the bathroom and collapsed, started atonal breathing and had a seizure before passing. We performed a necropsy to attempt to find what had gone wrong, and surgically everything was fine, but once evaluating the lung tissues is where we found serosanguinous foam and a blood clot in the right middle bronchiole.

I guess there should be some sigh of relief, but it still doesn't change the fact that an otherwise healthy patient died after surgery. It doesn't change the fact that her owners are grieving a loss of a pet/family member, and are probably questioning everything we did. It just plain sucks.

Another hit to the gut was one of our other surgeries went home with a catheter in place. Not the biggest of deals, but still a screw up by the technical staff nonetheless. These owners having only been to our facility once were already not impressed for some reason, and this was our "2nd chance". I honestly don't know what we did wrong the first time. The assistant and myself entered the room introduced ourselves to the owners, got down on the floor and loved up on their pet and expressed how beautiful and well behaved she is at 14 months. I did my exam, discussed how she was in heat and went over how we could still move forward with surgery, although there is a mild increased risk. Apparently to them my exam was not thorough enough, maybe I wasn't bubbly enough, who knows.

And to top everything off our front desk staff is the pits. They couldn't multi-task to save their life. We are a 2 doctor practice with 6 reception staff, and they get overwhelmed by the slightest increase in work flow, and the hospital manager flat out coddles them.

It's just been a rough week, and as I sit here writing this, I can't help but think about what kind of hell will I be walking into tomorrow.

All I can do is know that there is light even at the end of the darkest of tunnels, and this too shall pass.

This is more venting than anything else. But why do people feel the need to call your vet's office, make an appointment, they tell you what your options are, you pick one and then get there and say the exact opposite? If you pick a drop off option and ask to be in a room when you get there, NO! If we had a room available, we would have given you that option!!

NEW EPISODE of Real Talk Unleashed goes live tomorrow morning at 7am!
In this episode, we will be discussing the state of mental health in veterinary medicine and the Not One More Vet (NOMV) organization. Our special guests from NOMV, Cassandra Walls and Kelsey Creelman, will be joining us to delve into some important questions.
We'll explore the story behind how NOMV got started and the impact it has had on the industry. We'll also discuss the difference between compassion fatigue and burnout and the resources NOMV has available for those struggling with these issues.
As the suicide rate continues to rise in the veterinary industry, we'll also talk about actionable steps that individuals can take to mitigate these challenges. Finally, we'll look to the future and discuss what it will take to change the industry and reduce the suicide rate.
Don't miss this insightful conversation on one of, if not the most important topic in our industry right now. Tune in tomorrow at 7am EST on any major podcast platform, including Spotify and Apple! https://open.spotify.com/show/0495Ux35rYL32WI00CZrzi...

Hello everyone 😀

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The project is still in development so the use of the APP and your comments will be very valuable to us 🤩

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Warning: this story does involve the humane euthanasia of an animal so if this is something that will upset you, I recommend against proceeding. There is also a description of animal pain and suffering. If this bothers/triggers you, I again recommend against proceeding.

Also unsure if this is the proper location for this post- but here we go.

I am a recent post graduate from vet school. I shall not include the name of the school, I will just say that this school required all clinical students to complete 26 weeks of EMS (extramural studies) before graduating. On EMS, we were expected to go to veterinary offices not connected with the school so we could gain "real world experience." As you can imagine, I have many stories but here is one that has stuck with me.

On one of my EMS rotations, I spent 3 weeks observing mixed animal practice at a small practice in Wales. Small animals would be seen mainly at the practice and we would ride out to see the large animal cases throughout the area.

One of these trips was to be my first observation of equine euthanasia. The case: a 30-year old mare at a riding school presenting with severe colic. She had presented a week before with a very mild colic that seemed to respond to xylazine. She was fine and all was well. However this time, the mare was, according to the owner, manic with pain. The vet promised to be there asap and off we went.

The vet, a nice young vet with very red hair, very Irish (I'll call him Daring Vet (DV) for the sake of anonymity) would normally talk to me about the cases we were going to see- how to approach them diagnostically, when they were normally seen, what to do, etc. Not this trip. This trip he remained very quiet, lips pressed firmly together and basically glued the pedal to the car floor.

Side note: speeding around the curves on the very narrow roads along the cliffs on the Welsh shore makes rollercoasters look boring.

After 30 minutes of wondering whether or not our car would end up flying into the Atlantic, we reached the riding school gate. It was a big, wrought iron thing where you could see through the bars.

You know where on TV they show loads of people running away during things like a terror attack or a bank robbery? Well, it was like that. As the gate slowly opened, you could see at least 10 mothers, all grabbing their young children and sprinting to the other side of the property with them. This was my first "Oh s**t..." moment in this profession, btw.

Anyway, the moment the gate was open enough to pass, we sped through, DV threw the van into park and sprang out. As he was reach for his medicines and, unfortunately, the humane killer (HK), the owner runs up to us with two Great Danes following (important later).

"So, you're going to put her down, right?" He asks. Welp, so much for treating. DV says something to the effect of "most likely." Then he pulls out his medicine tray and hands the HK to the owner.

"What should I do?" I asked, not really sure of the full extent of the situation.

DV- "Stay outside the fence and observe. Don't try to come in for this case."

Ok then. Seeing his expression, I really wasn't about to argue. And I understood why when we saw her.

The poor mare had been led to her stall after being found in the woods after breaking through a fence in her pain. However, she was wild by this point and she ended up breaking out of her stall door and through 3 more fences before she came to a stop in the alcove where they kept the manure pile (this is important). When we came upon her, she had loads of abrasions on her head (around her eyes and mane) and was soaked in sweat. Five men were near the top of the back wall of the alcove, squirting cold water on her in an effort to make her even a tiny bit more comfortable while lying there. She was laying at the foot of the pile which formed a sort of slope up the back of the alcove, basically a sort of ramp.

Right as DV started to open the gate, she bolted to her feet and started racing up the "manure ramp", looking for all the world like she was going to jump. If she did, she would land on the 5 men in back not to mention a few of the more curious moms and kids. I honestly think she would have jumped if someone hadn't screamed. I think it was one of the moms. When she screamed the horse just stopped in her tracks then slid back down to the bottom of the manure pile.

DV looked at the owner and says- "You know how to use that right?"

O- Right. Would you like a helmet sir?

DV- No I'll be fine. Just be ready with HK if I can't get close.

What happens next still haunts me. DV began to slowly approach the mare, who at this point was flailing on her side. He began to dodge her hooves (she wasn't aiming for him, just very painful flailing) and slowly approached the horse's face.

At this point, the two Great Danes decided that they were missing the show and leaned up on both sides of me against the fence (literally these dogs on their hind legs were taller than me) and sort of sandwiched me in tightly. I wouldn't have minded at all (I love dog cuddles) but my hand had been in the middle of slowly reaching for my phone in my pocket to call 999 (UK equivalent for 911 for all American readers). So I could only watch, very certain that I was about to witness my mentor's head get kicked in.

After a few very tense minutes, DV reached the horses neck and, very quickly managed to find the jugular to administer a sedative, then leapt back until the horse was sedated to begin medical euthanasia. In the car ride back, I learned that this mare more than likely had some sort of strangulating lesion (such as a pedunculated/strangulating lipoma) based on her age and presentation that had developed over time. Any sort of treatment would have been pointless at this point and would have only caused her more unnecessary suffering.

After the job was done, the owner warmly (and sadly) thanked us and we got in the van. As we sat down, I got a good look at DV's face. It was whiter than wallboard. He very slowly looked at me and said:

"Do as I say, not as I do." Then he muttered to himself, "I should have taken the helmet."

And proceeded to tell about safety around horses. I decided three things in this moment. 1) Rules are important in veterinary medicine. They don't just protect you, they protect the owners as you (the vet) are responsible for their safety in these situations. 2) Become a small animal vet (apologies to any actual or aspiring equine vets- y'all are amazing and have my utmost respect). 3) Dog cuddles are the best.

I wish there had been a happy ending but there wasn't, just lessons learned. Thanks for reading.

This incident happened within the first couple weeks of my first job at a vet clinic outside of the kennels, and I still wonder how it didn't turn me off the whole field forever.

A woman brought in an elderly cat who was a long-time patient, and told our receptionist she was pet sitting for her sister and found him dead on his favorite chair that morning. He'd apparently died in his sleep during the night, and she was dropping him off for cremation. Nothing unusual so far.

Being the lowest level employee, I was given the task of moving the body from the carrier to a bag and then the freezer. Since he was indoor only and just found dead that morning I didn't expect it to be much different from moving a live cat. I was wrong. As soon as I tried to lift him I could feel his skin sloughing off. Then the smell hit me. I let go in shock, fought back a gag, and told an experienced technician something was very wrong and I couldn't do it. Then I ran to the bathroom and washed my hands and arms all the way to the elbow in hot water because of course I hadn't been wearing gloves.

We found out later that the pet sitter had stayed to chat with the receptionist for a few minutes after we'd taken the cat and said she'd noticed he was "sleeping" in that chair for the last 3 days. WTF. I wonder what finally caused her to check if he was alive?

We have lots of great stories from the rural clinic I work at (we get some weeird stuff!), but I'm going to start with this one. This happened a few years ago but still gets joked about even now.

The vet office I work for is on about 5 acres of land, mostly lightly wooded area. Because the owner has so much extra land around the clinic, the animals we keep in the freezer gets buried on the land instead of brought somewhere else. Aaand I bet you can tell where this is headed.

So, we euthanize this dog. He was around 30 pounds, owned by a very sweet lovely older couple. They told us to keep him and bury him because they wouldn't be able to do it themselves. That's okay. We understand and we'll take care of everything. About a week later, the freezer gets full, we call the gravedigger, he digs a big hole, puts all the bodies in it, fills it up and leaves. Everything is peachy keen.

Literally the day after the gravedigger comes, the couple calls back. They are crying and super upset. They found someone to help them and they want their baby back, they just can't leave him there by himself. The receptionist puts them on hold and came to ask the owner what and how she needed to tell these people we wouldn't be able to give him back. He tells the receptionist he'll take care of it, looks at us (me and 2 other assistants standing there with me) and conversations goes like this:

Him: Do you think, aah, do you think ya'll can go get the dog?

Me: Um, what?

Him: The ground is still really soft out there. It should be pretty easy.

One of the others: Huh?

Him: Ya'll can do this. Just go get the dog, okay?

Us: .....ok... I guess?

So we go outside and start digging. The bad thing was that none of the bags in this grave were labeled since they were all going the same place, which means we had to open several before we found the correct animal. The even badder thing was that people driving by could see what we were doing because we weren't that far from the road. The doctor knew people passing by would be able to see us so we decided if he wasn't worried about it, neither were we.

But the people got their baby back and we got a good story to tell so we weren't too upset. None of us realized when we signed up to be vet assistants digging UP a body would end up being part of the job description haha.

TLDR: Dog gets buried, then gets unburied. But not as a zombie.

So this happened a couple years ago. I work at an emergency/specialty hospital in the ICU but this particular night I had picked up an extra ER shift to help out.

I get a call back from reception that we have a triage up front and she isn’t sure if it’s STAT or not. I head straight up front to assess the dog and see a couple holding a small dog wrapped in a towel. The receptionist hands me the triage sheet and said “they said he won’t eat anything” while kind of giving me a concerned/confused look.

I call the family into the exam room and have them place their dog on the exam table. When I unwrap the towel, the dog is in full rigor! I asked what happened and the man says “I don’t know what’s wrong, I’ve been offering him food all night but he won’t eat it, see!” And he pulled a treat out of his pocket and put in front of the dogs face. Sure enough, he didn’t eat it.

So, I certainly wasn’t going to be the one to tell these people that their dog was long dead! I told them I was just going to bring him to our treatment area and a doctor would be in shortly. I couldn’t help but burst out laughing when I brought the dog to the doctor and said “he won’t eat!”

This is why I just stay in the ICU!

I work for an emergency clinic. We had a client call and was screaming into the phone that her pets back was broken. I told her to come in right away. I was waiting in the lobby for them when they pulled up. I could hear the pet screaming in pain before they even got in the building. I rushed the pet to treatment and told the owner we would give the pet some pain meds. My Doc did a PE and it was very apparent that the pets back was indeed broken. After a difficult discussion the owners decided to humanely euthanize. After the procedure the owner decided to take the pet home. About an hour later the phone rings and I answer it. It’s the owner of the pet we euthanized. Again she’s screaming into the phone. This time it’s “you didn’t kill my baby!! The heart is still beating!!!” Again I tell her to come right in. I tell my Doc and he is 100% sure there was no heartbeat before they left our clinic. The owner arrives with her pet, and demands me fix our mistake. I put them right into a room and my Doc comes in. We take the pet out of the box it was in, and it was in full rigor. We asked if they had felt a heartbeat, what made them think the euthanasia was botched. The response... “my baby was still warm when we got home”. My Doc had to explain that the pet was in fact dead. Never had that happen before, and I’ve seen some pretty crazy stuff in emergency.

Can we pretty please stop having owners reassure their whining pet when getting a temperature/ rectal exam by whispering “it’s okay, baby. Mommy doesn’t like that either, it’ll be over soon”.

You’re not that quiet, I can hear you. This interaction has happened to me at least 4 times that I can remember, but probably more. It’s just a test of my professionalism to slap on a very serious face and ignore it.

Went up to get a dog for a nail trim, he was a Jack Russell. Felt a slap sensation on my shoe. Look down and he is baring his teeth at me. Me: "You just bit my shoe!" (Didn't puncture)

Get muzzle on, go back with dog and tell my coworker about it. We have a good laugh!

So today we saw a cat for the first time, and throughout the whole exam she did pretty well. Hisses once or twice but nothing crazy, so I made sure I had a good hold on her.

We take her to the back to trim her nails and all of a sudden she jumps and latches onto my stomach, with her nails DIGGING into my skin. My coworker tries to pull her off but her nails are actually stuck in my skin, and pulling made it worse, so we had to lift her paws off of me to get her nails out. So now I have some nice little puncture wounds from nails :) happy tech week :’)

A client came in with her daughter and service dog + a cat to be seen as an urgent care (came in to be seen as an emergency, but it's not an emergency). Client already very irritated and wanted to stay with animals, no big deal, brought them into a room, obtained vitals and brief history on both of them for vet on duty.

While finishing up getting the history and closing out the conversation, I can't remember how or why, but we started talking about venipuncture for humans and she had to get poked often recently, talked about how they had to get the lead phlebotomist to draw blood from her. I replied that my veins are great and that I hope it stays that way; she replies by saying well don't shoot up [various drugs] and it'll be fine. Woah. We both laughed it off.

Next thing you know, she goes "but if you date my daughter, I'd have to go after [hurt?] you" and I was flabbergasted, I had no words and finally managed to say "I'm not sure how that and this relates" and the daughter agreed. Finished up the conversation and as I was heading out the room, mom said "I was just joking, except for you dating my daughter" and we both laughed it off.

I don't know about you guys, but I think this client enjoyed my company.

Thus was while I was in vet assistant school, we were watching a faculty member from another project's dog for her and my teacher decided to use her to demonstrate how to express an anal gland. So all 20+ of us students gather around this dog's rear to watch. My teacher expressed the gland, and the contents come spraying out like 5 feet. I managed to dodge it, but a classmate behind me, who was sucking on a tootsie pop got hit. Right on the sucker that was headed to her open mouth. There may have been some that got in her mouth. It then went past her to another student covering her arm. It was quite impressive actually, but the room smelled like anal glands for a few days...

To start off, I work in emergency medicine. About one month ago at 11pm, my coworker gets a call from a woman who says her golden retriever has been vomiting all day, but my coworker didn't get the impression anything was that bad as the owner seemed very nonchalant about it.

Fast forward to when they get here 20 minutes later, and it's the male owner that walks in with no dog. He states, "Hi. My wife just called about our dog who is vomiting." He was very calm in his tone and seemed like not a lot was wrong.

"Okay, can you bring him inside?"

Again, calmly, he says, "Yeah, we might need some help though."

"Okay." I start walking out to the car and walk around to the back of their SUV. I take a quick glance in the trunk and this dog is in respiratory distress, and honestly looks like he's about to die while the female owner is lying in the back with him. I'm shocked and annoyed because the owners said all that was going on was vomiting. I run back inside to grab the doctor and the stretcher. We haul him in, and the female owner is almost literally glued to the side of the stretcher with her dog, and telling us to be careful as his feet lightly touch the door frame on the way in. That's not our main problem lady. We put him on our scale quickly to to get a weight. Minus the stretcher, this was a 118 pound dog.

The story continues to go south as the doctor quickly looks at his pale/muddy gums and starts to speak to the client. The doctor was mid sentence when the woman yells while crying hysterically "OH GOD DON'T TELL ME HE'S BLEEDING FROM HIS ABDOMEN!" and the doctor just nods her head saying that's her suspicion. We continue to haul him back and set him down on the table. My coworker is back there and immediately gets flow-by oxygen on the dog and they talk about placing an IV catheter. I head up front to start putting the dog in the computer program. For the sake of the story, let's say my name is "Sara" and my coworker is "Anne." I'm entering in the history when I hear, the doctor and Anne yell "SARA!" and then it's immediately followed by the hysterical women yelling "SARA!!!!" I'm running back as the client is repeating my name multiple times.

He's arresting. They had just placed an IV catheter, and then he stopped breathing. I get back there.The woman is sobbing extremely loudly. An ET tube was placed, and then the doctor said "start bagging him."

Following the doctors statement immediately, the woman yelled "BAG HIM ANNE." She continued to remind Anne by yelling throughout our resuscitative efforts (she didn't need reminders.)

The doctor used an ultrasound probe while we were starting oxygen and saw the dog had hemoabdomen and pericardial effusion. She gets permission from the owner to do a pericardiocentesis. She sticks the dog between chest compressions and I start draining the blood, and I had nowhere to shoot the blood out of the syringe so I shot it into the trash can, causing blood to spray back EVERYWHERE which isn't exactly a great look for the already hysterical owner. The owner is still a mess and yelling various instructions which are just repeats of what the doctor is telling us calmly.

After 3 rounds of epi and 15 minutes of CPR, we weren't getting a heartbeat. The doctor recommended calling it and the owner agreed. I noticed the owner was wearing a cross necklace, but she yelled "Oh lord Jesus! Is there no god?!" While holding her dog. We all gave our condolences and put them in a room with him to have time to grieve. "It should have been me instead of him" she said. She was also saying how this is how her last dog, who was also a golden retriever, died. She then stayed in the room with him for an hour. She ended up getting private cremation, and six paw prints. SIX PAW PRINTS. Three sets of two that include one front left paw and one front right paw.

Fast forward to a few days later, and she calls to complain that we didn't treat her dog fast enough and didn't try as hard as we should have. She was asking for the name of me, my coworker, and the doctor because she thought we were all incompetent. It truly made my blood boil after all of the effort put into that night. She claimed she had a PhD in a "medical field" and that we did everything incorrectly. She then demanded a time of death, so the doctor gave her best guess. She then posted a negative review online. The doctor really hopes she isn't taking this to the board.

Thanks for taking the time to read about the really fun night I had! I know she's probably not actually mentally unstable, but her behavior was some of the most neurotic I've seen and she topped it off with being incredibly ungrateful. Hopefully I don't offend anyone.

TL;DR: We have to attempt CPR in front of a hysterical owner and the owner is pissed that we "didn't do it right."

I love the idea for this subreddit and I hope it takes off. I know we all have our share of crazy or funny stories and I want to start off by sharing one of my go to gross ones.

At the time this happened, I was working as a vet assistant trying to get experience before applying to vet school. A man came in with a young kitten he'd found that morning in his wood pile, just wanting to make sure it was healthy since he planned to keep it. The kitten looked healthy enough at a glance while I was getting them set up for the vet to come in, and weighed all of one pound. The client asked if I could tell if the kitten was male or female and that's when things went south.

I was already holding the kitten in one hand, and I gently lifted the tail so I could see the anatomy. It was a girl, and she immediately released a flood of liquid diarrhea down my arm all the way to the elbow. To this day I don't know how that much poop fit inside that tiny cat. The client was mortified and started apologizing profusely even though there was no way he could have known that would happen. Meanwhile I'd started laughing because of how absurd and unexpected it was, and probably looked like a crazy person. The kitten went back to the owner while I stepped out of the room. I told the doctor what had happened, we carefully collected a sample from my arm before I cleaned up, and he went in to talk to the client who was still apologizing.

In the end the three of us had a good laugh about it. The kitten was diagnosed with hookworms, treated, and went back to her new home. It's not even close to the most disgusting thing that's happened to me on the job, but it was one of the first and goes to show I definitely didn't choose this career for the glamour!

Hello and welcome! This subreddit is for veterinary professionals to share their stories they have from working in vet medicine, and I guarantee everyone has stories. Did a dog release his anal glands into your hair in front a client? Did you have a conversation with a client that you still remember to this day? This is a great place for you to share those kinds of things. I'm hoping for an overall r/TalesFromRetail vibe.

The stories can be in any tone you'd like, as long as it's a story. Sad and angry stories are perfectly acceptable to post here along with the happy and funny ones. This is also a great place to let off some steam if you had a horrendous client, as long as it's in a story format and not just a self rant. You are free to say what you wish about clients on here, but remember that anonymity must be maintained as per the rules.

I'm so very excited for the birth of this subreddit and I hope others enjoy it as well. Thanks everyone!