How Far We’ve Come

By Anne Chiruvolu, DVM

Throughout vet school, we were warned that fourth year was a big learning curve but that the toughest curve of all would be our first year in practice. My first six months as a DVM have felt at times like a roller coaster, from an initial “I can’t do this! I’m not ready!” to “I guess I know more than I thought I did…” to “Wow, I still have so much to learn.” I watch my mentors who seem to know the answers to nearly any question at the drop of a hat, and the gulf between their level of expertise and mine sometimes seems insurmountable.

Yet, does the owner of the husky with refractile chronic diarrhea know that I spent 40 minutes researching next steps before returning her phone call? Does the owner of the pit bull with the mast cell tumor know it was my first time diagnosing one myself on cytology? Does the owner of the cat that presented on urgent care with difficulty breathing know I had never performed a thoracocentesis before I tapped their cat’s pleural space? No, they didn’t— they just thanked me for my help. And I’ll be able to help the next pet with the same condition even more efficiently.

In the course of a busy clinic day I learn and implement many new things, but I was also recently fortunate enough to spend four days at a continuing education conference specifically designed for new graduate veterinarians to build our skills. We spent long days soaking in as much knowledge as we could. We studied anesthesia and dermatology with a renewed fervor; now that we have actual cases of our own to manage, the concepts were no longer abstract, and we peppered the specialists with questions ranging from management of arrythmias during anesthetic induction, to where to biopsy a footpad, to the preferred skincare regimen for hairless cats. Then we spent a day practicing dental nerve blocks and extractions on cadaver heads, dreading the snap that heralded a broken tooth root. During our final, whirlwind day of surgery, we learned a dozen new surgical techniques over the course of eight hours. At the end of the day, after sweating through our first resection and anastomosis on cadaver bowel that had grown soft and rather “fragrant” after a full day out in the surgical suite, my colleague and I sat on the bus back to our hotel reflecting on our progress.

“I’m so slow—and my sutures kept failing the leak test.”

“I kept perforating my gingival flap while I was trying to elevate it off the periosteum.”

“The specialists make it look so easy!” “But think of what our selves from three years ago would think of where we are today…”

We reflected on those past versions of us, bleary-eyed from late nights studying anatomy and physiology. In those days, when I had the opportunity to shadow fourth-year students, I was amazed at how much they could do and how much knowledge they had at the ready. At that time, the ability to formulate a strong list of differential diagnoses or perform surgery felt impossibly out of reach. And yet, by trusting the process (and working really hard), we got there, right on schedule. So if we just keep putting in the effort, I expect that in a year (or two, or three), we’ll be amazed at how far we’ve come since that conversation on the bus.

JANUARY 24–26, 2023

Veterinary Medical Board Meetings

FEBRUARY 12, 2023

CVMA RVT Committee Meeting

FEBRUARY 28, 2023

CVMA Finance Committee Meeting

MARCH 1–2, 2023

VISC Board Meetings