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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

JCC General Thread for Veterinarians and Technicians

Discussion in 'Community' started by Aravis Kenobi, May 10, 2014.

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Veterinarian or Technician?

  1. Veterinarian

    1 vote(s)
    20.0%
  2. Technician

    1 vote(s)
    20.0%
  3. Assistant

    1 vote(s)
    20.0%
  4. Practice Manager

    1 vote(s)
    20.0%
  5. Other Member of Veterinary Team

    1 vote(s)
    20.0%
  1. Aravis Kenobi

    Aravis Kenobi Jedi Youngling

    Registered:
    May 8, 2014
    As a licensed veterinary technician, I'm always interested in 'meeting' other technicians and veterinarians who also happen to be Star Wars fans, Trekkies, etc. While we all love our jobs, wouldn't it be nice to have somewhere to discuss non-work related items with fellow fans who are also members of your professional field? I would love to meet other fans who are also members of my field, and to know a little bit about your work! Also this is open for other members of the field, such as practice managers and assistants.

    I work in a small town in North Texas, pretty much so close to Oklahoma that we can shake hands with someone across the river. My practice is a 2 doctor, 1 technician (myself) practice that does mainly companion animals, food animal, and equine. We also have some clients who own pet birds. So we do everything. We've even seen a squirrel or two! I graduated with my B.S. in Veterinary Technology from Mississippi State University. I've considered going into a specialty, but have decided that it most likely wouldn't be worth it since my practice is small enough that I probably couldn't get the certification requirements done.

    What about y'all?
     
  2. Jabba-wocky

    Jabba-wocky Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    May 4, 2003
    No baiting
     
  3. Aravis Kenobi

    Aravis Kenobi Jedi Youngling

    Registered:
    May 8, 2014
    Also, feel free to post fun stories about experiences you've had at work. I've been head butted by a goat before...not really the goat's fault, it was more of an incidental thing. Haha.
     
  4. Only-One Cannoli

    Only-One Cannoli Ex-Mod star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Aug 20, 2003
    I went to school at UPenn and also got my BS degree. Have been working 5+ years now. Great to meet someone else in the field. Definitely a love/hate sort of profession though...a lot of help and a lot of hurt.
     
    Zapdos, harpua and Aravis Kenobi like this.
  5. Aravis Kenobi

    Aravis Kenobi Jedi Youngling

    Registered:
    May 8, 2014

    Yes, definitely a love/hate relationship. This gets punctuated when you work so hard to save a patient and the end result is not what you wanted. It's completely understandable why suicide rates in this profession are high.
     
  6. VadersLaMent

    VadersLaMent Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Apr 3, 2002
    I misread this as vegetarians and technicians and wondered what the correlation was.
     
  7. Darth Guy

    Darth Guy Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Aug 16, 2002
    That makes me want to get into the field!
     
    Lord Vivec likes this.
  8. Only-One Cannoli

    Only-One Cannoli Ex-Mod star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Aug 20, 2003
    Yeah honestly, and this is hard to admit, I've been on a back and forth between wine and antidepressents since my 2nd year working. It's just a nonstop back and forth, whichever is easier to cope with it. It's a really tough job that most people don't realize the burden of.
     
    harpua likes this.
  9. Aravis Kenobi

    Aravis Kenobi Jedi Youngling

    Registered:
    May 8, 2014

    I'd be lying if I said it's not a reality, but unfortunately it is. Low pay, long hours, ridiculous clients, unsocialized pets who are aggressive to anyone but their owners, the reality that you just can't save every animal...it can all be incredibly depressing. As Sith Lord said, most people don't realize the burden that veterinary professionals and staff carry from day to day. To anyone considering the field, you should do your research. If you become a DVM, you most likely will NOT get paid the big bucks. If you're lucky enough to graduate with as little debt as, say, $100,000, you're doing really well. You really can't work when you're going to vet school because it's just like a job, especially when you get into doing clinical rotations (a job with no pay). If you become a technician, don't do it because you think you are an 'animal lover', because that won't and can't carry you far at all. Now I love animals, and I will say that it's my love of animals that helped to put me into this field. BUT, I also was very aware of the stresses put on technicians AND doctors long before I went to school and actually became a tech. That's what I suggest to anyone considering any part of this field. Shadow a technician and/or a doctor at a veterinary clinic. Learn what they do day to day. Learn that death is just as much a part of veterinary medicine as life is.

    Have I ever come to the point where I think, "Man, it would just be better to quit and end it all?" Not really, but I've also only been working about 8 months. I can tell you, however, that there have been times I've come into work in the morning and think, "I really hate my job today," because I lost a patient through the night. I've been there during euthanasias, and I'll be honest as tough as it is, it's a blessing to be able to provide a humane solution to an animal's disease or suffering. But it doesn't make it easy, even knowing all that. My latest incident with really thinking if I had chosen the right career was when we had fought for a week to keep a dog that was RMSF positive alive. He survived two transfusions of blood, and died two days after the 2nd one. I came into work and found him dying. The hardest part of it, even though it would have really been better for that dog to have been euthanized sooner (he was incredibly sick but the owners insisted on keeping him alive and trying), was knowing there was nothing I could do but sit there with him and watch it happen. If I had been able to stay there with him all night, could I have prevented his death? Was there anything any of us could do to change the outcome? I doubt it, because he'd been sick for 6 weeks BEFORE the owner brought him in. It was just too little, too late.

    sometimes the blame doesn't rest on you, the veterinarian or the technician. And it shouldn't. But I digress, and this thread has become much heavier than originally intended. Okay. Maybe onto something lighter? Like...I dunno. The best part of your job? :)
     
    Saintheart likes this.
  10. Aravis Kenobi

    Aravis Kenobi Jedi Youngling

    Registered:
    May 8, 2014

    Haha. Well..I suppose some vegetarians are technicians. ;)
     
  11. Harpua

    Harpua Chosen One star 9

    Registered:
    Mar 12, 2005
    SLG... do you enjoy neutering?
     
  12. Only-One Cannoli

    Only-One Cannoli Ex-Mod star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Aug 20, 2003
    It is for the greater good harpuah, otherwise the streets would be full of wanton rumpus kitties.
     
    Aravis Kenobi likes this.
  13. Aravis Kenobi

    Aravis Kenobi Jedi Youngling

    Registered:
    May 8, 2014
    Agreed.

    I don't enjoy spaying or neutering in the sense that it causes pain for animals, but that it keeps unwanted animal populations from, well, existing. It's not necessarily an "enjoyment" so much as I think the procedures are tangible; you know for sure that you're preventing something bad later on (unwanted kittens/puppies, various cancers because of intact organs, etc.). Also, wild animals are so often the catalyst and reservoirs for various diseases, a lot of which are able to be passed to humans (rabies, leptospirosis, etc.). If you're able to curb the animal population then you're able to help curb disease and infection for not only other animals but humans as well.

    And should I even go into all the trouble that an intact male dog or cat can get himself into when he isn't fixed? Seems like all the big issues we have with dogs are related to them being intact. :rolleyes:
     
  14. VadersLaMent

    VadersLaMent Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Apr 3, 2002
    An ex GF showed me the vid of her dog being neutered. I...i..i cannot unsee it. :_| :_|
     
  15. Harpua

    Harpua Chosen One star 9

    Registered:
    Mar 12, 2005
    Who the **** films that?


    That's awesome... do you like it when Scraps grabs your leg and rubs up and down?
     
  16. Aravis Kenobi

    Aravis Kenobi Jedi Youngling

    Registered:
    May 8, 2014
    I would appreciate it if, you're going to participate in this thread, you keep the discussion polite and respectful. Posts like the one directly above ^ are unnecessary and crude. Veterinarians and technicians work hard to be in their respective positions in their practices, and posts like that are demeaning and ignorant.

    And for the record, some people, like myself, don't mind watching videos of routine procedures done in a vet clinic. Often those videos are for educating future veterinarians on proper techniques for doing the surgeries correctly.
     
  17. tom

    tom Chosen One star 8

    Registered:
    Mar 14, 2004
    hey aravis kenobi, welcome to the jcc. i'm afraid that "polite and respectful" isn't for the most part the way we do things around here. it might not be the place for you if you can't deal with some crude language, bluntness, and good-natured ribbing. but by all means i hope you'll stick around and see if you can adjust to the place. that would probably make the most sense, rather than showing up to a 16 year old community and immediately expecting it to adjust to your expectations. you know? it's actually quite a friendly place, but it's quirky and has its own sense of humor that comes with many years of getting to know each other. that's probably a bit intimidating, but it is always nice to see new faces.

    anyway, i'm not involved in veterinary work but as an animal lover i do greatly admire it. you provide a very valuable service.
     
    Zapdos, Healer_Leona and harpua like this.
  18. Aravis Kenobi

    Aravis Kenobi Jedi Youngling

    Registered:
    May 8, 2014
    No, I suppose it's not. I don't expect it to adjust to my expectations, but I'm already disrespected as a veterinary professional. People like harpuah are, in my mind, trolls and should be dealt with as such.

    that being said, maybe I will say bye-bye to this forum because frankly, if people can't have discussions without resorting to being crude, cursing, etc. then they aren't worthy of having discussions with. I'm fine with 'good-natured ribbing', yet clearly my definition is starkly different from some.

    but thank you for your last sentence. It's something I hardly ever hear in my line of work. :) Most people just complain about how high prices are for services we don't get compensated for through government assistance (such as human hospitals do).
     
  19. ZanderSolo

    ZanderSolo Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    May 18, 2007
    My family has been breeding AKC labs for a good 15 years now, not because its profitable but because we have always loved our dogs to and wanted to share that love with others. I originally set out to become a DVM when I started college. That was well over 10 years ago. After spending several months of weekends shadowing a local vet who tended my dogs, as well as 3 months working at the local Humane Society where I lived at the time, I decided it was not the correct path for me. Between the sheer helplessness feeling of working at the Humane Society, where you would get the sweetest and most lovable animals show up half starved and beaten (I actually worked at one that got some of the @**hat football players fighting dogs back when) and slowly bringing them back to health only to have to shove a giant needle on a stick in the cage while you cry because they weren't adopted in time....its freaking crushing. I thought shadowing the actual DVM would be better and my first day they got a litter of pups from a breed that generally has no tail when you see them. "Oh gee," I thought, "They have tails when they are puppies, wonder why they are here since they already have shots." And then she got the bone clamp out and cried as she did as was requested to keep her business afloat.

    I don't work with animals because I love them too much, and the things that are necessary on a daily basis I can only stomach doing to humans. So I did Surgical Tech rather than Veterinary Tech when opportunity presented itself.
     
  20. Harpua

    Harpua Chosen One star 9

    Registered:
    Mar 12, 2005
    Interesting that you registered here on Thursday, and used the spelling of my name that changed over a year ago. From Texas, too.... hmmmm.

    Anyway... I was having a conversation with SLG, because I'm genuinely interested in her take on what it's like to be a veterinarian. I'm considering going into the field, and figured a well-seasoned pro like her would be the most qualified to give me the guidance I need.
     
    jp-30 and Healer_Leona like this.
  21. Jabba-wocky

    Jabba-wocky Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    May 4, 2003
    Well, the tone of your posts certainly didn't reflect the professionalism that is standard for these practitioners. I think there's a reason why he wanted this thread exclusively to people who had actually made the cut.
     
  22. Only-One Cannoli

    Only-One Cannoli Ex-Mod star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Aug 20, 2003
    Harpuah where do you want me to start? I'd love to educate people about this field, it's the biggest passion of my life right now. I know there's a lot of crude jokes that go along with it, but hey let's be real - we're snipping the bits of kitties off for a living. Best to have a bit of a laugh about it, it's for the greater good anyways.
     
  23. Harpua

    Harpua Chosen One star 9

    Registered:
    Mar 12, 2005
    Do the balls go straight into the garbage, or do you use them for composting? You should use them for composting if you don't. I bet cat and dog balls are wonderful for soil.
     
  24. epic

    epic Ex Mod star 8 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Jul 4, 1999
    yo aravis, why you only wanna talk to other vets who like star wars about crap eh? how many vets who like star wars you think there are in the world, besides you and SLG? hey i'm no vet, but i have opinions too ya know.
     
  25. Only-One Cannoli

    Only-One Cannoli Ex-Mod star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Aug 20, 2003
    We have to take them to a special place to dispose of, otherwise the homeless behind the building will eat them.