Four years gone so fast...

The AVC Class of 2016

I didn't write a post for over a year now.  A whole year.  I always had a goal to keep this blog running my entire four years of vet school and while I did ok in the first three years, I did not manage to keep the job going while I tackled the fourth and final year of this journey.  Many times I thought I should write a post about what I was doing- the first rotation coming to an end, the first time I had to make decisions on a case, the times I struggled or the times I felt like everything was going right.  I could have written about the biggest exam I have ever taken in my life, or the end of the final rotation.  I could have written countless number of things but the fact remains that no matter what I wrote I couldn't do justice to what I was actually experiencing.

Vet school is one of those weird places that you read about, hear murmurs about from high school counselors, then college advisors.  It's a place that is put on a pedestal- difficult to obtain for most, and yet some how for some people it remains a goal to be reached.  Once you get into that lofty institution you realize you had no idea what you were in for.  The hours of studying, the class mates who become more like family, the professors and staff who get to know you on a first name basis- all of these things are unveiled day by day as your trudge through.  I remember back to the beginning of my midterms in the first year of vet school.  The grades came back and I saw numbers I had never imagined I would get (so low, in fact that I doubted I could persist and continue this path.)  I am fortunate that those numbers, coupled with my increasing comfort level in my new surroundings motivated me to work harder and prove to the people who said I couldn't survive this new world wrong.  The academic years in vet school blow by- and when fourth year arrives it is surreal and daunting and in the end everything and nothing you imagined it to be.  

I could write this blog post as a general overview of everything that happened in my fourth year, but I would be forgetting some event or some important aspect of the experience.  There were rotations that challenged me and rotations that had lessons that will stick with me for life.  There were days where I was at school form 6 AM til 11:30 PM, nights when I would leave school at 5:30 PM after a full day only to be called back in and not leave again until 3:30AM.  There were patients that challenged me, clients I loved, and cases that no doubt were once in a lifetime things to see.  I learned a lot about what I am capable of, and I learned a lot about what I don't want to do or tackle in my future (looking at you farm animal medicine...).  I think if nothing else, the lessons about what you are made of, and what you are looking for in the future are perhaps more important than anything else you might learn along the way.

My time on this little island in Canada has been filled by school, but also by friends I have made, people I have met along the way, and new experiences.  I have walked miles on the coast line, wandered through wooded trails, watched foxes and eagles and a myriad of other wildlife enjoying the beauty around us, and I even enjoyed (mostly) the third year of my time here that saw a winter so snowy that records were broken and people will be talking about it for years to come.  In my third year I met a guy who has become a very important part of my life here on this island.  He opened up the chance for me to meet new people, watch bands and live music, and to get to experience what the island is really like through the eyes of someone who has lived there their whole life.  For all of these reasons I have come to love this little Island, and no matter where I go in the future it will always be a place I consider another home.  

Hawaiian sunset, April 2016

As I write this post, I am finishing out the end of a month and a half long vacation that began with a whirlwind trip to Hawaii and has ended with my graduation from vet school as well as some long overdue relaxation.  I recently accepted a position to be an associate veterinarian in a small rural community in New Brunswick- still in a coastal location but no longer on a tiny island.  My life will be changing rapidly over the next few months as I move, and get used to being in a position as a doctor (!) instead of a technician in a clinical setting.  There will be new challeneges, and new milestones to celebrate along the way.  I do not know if I will continue to write this blog, as it was originally meant to just cover the vet school journey- but I could always expand that and include life as a newly minted veterinarian.  As with the start of the blog, I will end it in much the same way- I don't know where my life is going to take me but I am looking forward to the next stop on this train.