The Journey Of A New Graduate

As I settle into my new job and find a routine, I’m finding my confidence and joy in veterinary medicine. I’m not performing life-saving surgery or diagnosing rare illnesses at a glance, but I am making clinical decisions which I have confidence in. Trusting my instincts isn’t easy, but there is an art to veterinary medicine as well as science and sometimes there is more than one right answer. After one particularly tough day in which everything I did ended up a bit of a bodge job I went upstairs to speak to my clinical coach about my general feeling of uselessness.  “My skin sutures were awful”, I wailed. “I had to put staples in my stitch up”, I sniffled. She sat me down and looked at me square in the face, “Did you remove the dog’s testicles? Did you do the job you set out to do?” I did, I reluctantly agreed, but it could have been better. She cut me off, “On this day, for this job, were you good enough?” Good enough. Initially I bridled at those words, being good enough is ...

Welcome to the latest BEVA blog! Max Hannan graduated from the University of Glasgow in the summer of 2017 and we will be following her journey over the coming months as she begins her career in mixed practice in Jersey.  After a whirlwind weekend of graduating, Grad Ball, entertaining the family, packing up my life and cleaning my student flat I find myself on a ferry bound for Jersey. “Oh sh*t, what have I done?” I think to myself as the English coastline recedes into the distance. While most of my friends chose to remain in Scotland or the north of England, I took a job on the island of Jersey (total area 45 miles 2 , population 100,000) over 550 miles away from my university home in Glasgow (city area 56 miles 2 , population 600,000) with the aim of doing a mix of small animal and equine practice.  I was met by the friendly face of the practice manager at the ferry terminal who helped me back to the practice flat where he promptly got stuck in unloading my car and int...