Part 3

The speaker discusses their career choices and why they could never work in surgery or the emergency room. They talk about their experience interning at a veterinary clinic and how they were able to witness surgeries and euthanasia. They also mention the importance of talking about emotions and the high suicide rate in the veterinary field. The speaker expresses their interest in pathology and the sense of duty they feel in their chosen career. They also discuss the lack of empathy in certain medical professions and their desire to bring empathy to their own career. with people and their career choices because I could work and do autopsy on dead people that doesn't freak me out but trying to do like surgery on like a live animal even like a sedated one I could never I can never do that job so that is so impressive to me. I agree definitely agree with you guys on that yeah I could never do autopsies on a person like yeah I just could not do it surgeries used to scare me like I think when I first decided that I wanted to be a vet like that was the one concerning part I was like I don't know how I'm going to get like the thoughts of surgeries like on an animal very scary that and euthanasia. My senior year of high school though I spent the last two hours of my school day of that clinic as an internship so I got like a couple hundred hours of experience and because sometimes I did stay later than two sometimes I stayed till closing so and insurance-wise I was covered by my school which meant that I could do a lot more in the clinic then I could have done if I was not covered by insurance so if something happened my school covered it you know so I got to experience like a lot more than like a normal internship probably like would have if I wasn't covered and there were times where like I was scrubbing up and I got to go into the surgery room and I like was over the dot like there was one time a cat was getting spayed and I was like watching it happen I was all scrubbed up and the doctor who's doing the surgery is just showing me she's like we do this and this and like here you can see like this organ or whatever like on the cat and I thought like eighth grade me was like like the thoughts of surgery scare me but like being there in person like it did not bother me um also use euthanasia scared me um obviously extremely sad event like when an animal has to be put down but you do also learn that you don't have an emotional attachment to the animal so it's a very sad event that like the animal is passing but it's also not your pet so you don't have so it's hard for the family if I think that's the harder part is seeing the family handle it if that makes any sense and I know that sounds kind of morbid because when you're euthanizing a pet you are killing it essentially which I know it just sounds so morbid that I'd be wording it like this yeah but you're more like your emotions are more with the family who are struggling I can like with the animal itself because it's not like I have never I've had multiple pets throughout my life and when you have pets it's always some quality of life over anything else so I've had like some pets put down in the past I've never been I do not want to see it can't handle that emotionally but your emotions are more with the family who are struggling I think I get that because I think it's one of those words like in the moment it's very sad because the situation in the moment itself is sad but when you go home it wasn't your pet you put down so at the end of the day like that was a sad moment but it's not something that lingers with you you're not the one going home and grieving a lost pet at the end of the day right I also feel like as part of your job you kind of just you have to force yourself to get over it yeah you can't like put that emotional face in front of you it's kind of like you have to just like move on you know like because you got another task come in another person come another animal come in just like I think it's that and it's also I think one thing that's very I've learned just even during my internship if there's something that bothers you in the field you need to talk about it with someone whether it's a family friend therapist like something veterinary once again sorry a little morbid veterinary the veterinary field has a very high suicide rate which also scares me there is a whole like movement called I know MD not one more vet so I've learned if there's something that bothers you you just have to talk about it I think instead like trying to bottle it all up or like lock off the emotions which is also not a very healthy thing to do so I think it's so important to like if you have those emotions and stuff like that to talk with someone about it I know at my internship there was a couple things I saw that were kind of like oh okay like there are definitely like sadder things in the field and I just talked about it with my friends and family and that definitely helped a lot so I think that's one of the other important things going along with that yeah I I agree there was a point I wanted to make and I I'm gonna be so much guys it actually slipped my mind the moment you stopped talking I did want to point out that I also we talked about the veterinary thing but the emergency room I could never I do want to put that in the chaos of the emergency room I could never you know that's one of the things I do I'm looking forward to about pathology is it will it's not the same exact thing like the cause of death is going to be different and and the device are gonna be different you know different you know composition levels and things like that but oh the pressure of like the high stakes emergency situations which freaked me out like I like the idea that this is a person who yeah we have to do them like someone and it's timely manner because yeah body will decompose but it's not as like I mean it could still get called we do get called they do get called at like 3 a.m. to come in and do like an autopsy so there's crazy hours but it's not like somebody who's actively dying where it's like I have to save their life like they're dead already I just have to get the autopsy done at my pace yeah and I think that I like the idea of but like emergency room could never see I was gonna say the same thing about you and you like animals no I can't I have two cats at home and like seeing them like the other day one of them was like limping I was like oh man like oh like I could never like do that with animals and then more I went there I went I had to go down there like multiple times because we have to take what we do is like we bag patients like I don't feel anything like so emotional like a lot of people do but it's like like we end up bagging people cleaning them I'll put it in the white bags and take them to a morgue once I enter the morgue area I feel this like I don't know like this weird like it's like all these kids like boxes of people around me just like and then you have to reopen one I was like I am NOT doing that I will say it is a heavy feeling but I talked about this with Maddox the one time where we were talking about when we discussed specifically not being able to do each other's career like I think for me and what I've experienced around specifically like for me it was like family members who like I love during life who are now dead like for me there is a sense of disconnect between when somebody's alive and when they're dead like when somebody's alive like there's so much life in them and like you know like there's a there's there's a difference I feel like and so for me it I'm able to like separate it it's like this isn't that person like it is it's their body and like obviously like still was once a person and so much respect for that but there's a sense of like it's not them anymore so yeah I was worried like there's no worry about like this is a person that like I'm gonna hurt or concerned with that it becomes like a duty kind of thing where it's like yeah you know I owe it to to just figure out what's going on or why they died or help maybe like bring to justice or give peace to the family or whatever is needed that was actually the point to make earlier is a sense of I know for me I feel like one of the things that keeps me going even through some of the darkness of the job or you know what will be the darkness of the job is a sense of duty of like it is a public service job and somebody does have to do it and so as much as like it's kind of sometimes it's like oh my gosh like what an intimidating job or you know imposter syndrome or this is going to be something that could weigh heavily emotionally there's a sense of like public service job somebody needs to do it at least like if it's me in that position there's somebody who doesn't have to do that job now and I can do something good from the position and maybe help the world a little bit I like that I mean that's how I think about it sometimes and I didn't know if maybe you guys had something similar that you thought about a lot it's it's like yeah I want to like save people so bad it's like that sense of like comfort like yeah you did something for somebody's like family like whole family's like waiting outside the waiting room and the person's dying what are you doing right so it's kind of like yes like I gotta like I have to like who else is gonna do it then right exactly and it's like yeah you're gonna say like I am like good at this position because I have a certain way of doing things and you know like you have something to give off and you could say also like I know like I don't know how it is down there but like in the emergency room it's like a lot of doctors don't have empathy anymore like even as a tech when I go and talk to them they kind of just like throw you off it's like whatever really go just give me a paper and go they don't like sit there and talk to you they don't do that I feel like that's the one thing that's missing and I feel like I can probably put out there type of thing I have noticed that and I do think that's a beautiful sentiment and I hope there are more people going into that of like noticing that like hey there may not be a ton of empathy sometimes in this career but maybe I can bring that empathy here I think that's actually such a beautiful sentiment going back to like quickly before I know like you mentioned like you have two cats at home like you see one of them like one thing it's like oh my god one of the other reasons like I want to do this feel like yeah I'm helping animals but I'm also going to be able to bring relief to the owner of the pet I know like when one of my cats that I used to have was having like medical issues and stuff like that the sense of relief I had like with the vets doing like everything in their power to help her like knowing I could do that for someone else you know like or like a family made me feel like yeah this is definitely like what I want to do I'm going to the topic you guys just covered I think like having that empathy is like really important and kind of like with what I was saying earlier like don't obviously tough career do not block off like your own like emotions and just like bottle everything up or like trying not to feel anything because I think it's important to not just be like oh yeah whatever gives your information that you need and then like that's it like you want to make sure and seem like sure that you're empathetic towards the family is no matter whether it's from like a human relative or something standpoint or like a pet that they have I think that's a very important thing to have yeah I feel like the whole thing was like empathy it's also like you have to be that person that's different like still like be you literally like be you you don't have to be like everybody else because everybody else is doing the same thing what makes you different then you know what makes you stand out yeah yeah yeah and like with empathy I think specifically in the field I want to go into like when you're working with that people I think it's really easy to fall into this idea of like oh it's just a body it's just you know there's no person there and so I feel like that's why especially when I talk about this is like there is a disconnect between like a live person and like a dead body for me that I point out that like I still can recognize that that was once a person and it's sad that it's not a person anymore it's sad that there's not a life in there anymore and I think it is great and important I'm in that position to be able to separate like okay the life that was there isn't there but it's still important to recognize that that is still a person's body and that is still something that you know was a person and there's still meaning to it and it's still something to be respected and like treated nicely and you should still have empathy right like the people who are maybe being impacted by the death or even the fact that like in murders it's like it's not that that happened like somebody died somebody's life is taken from them and that is very upsetting so I just I think empathy I think empathy in any career I think we need more empathy in the world I'll say it yeah one thing I did sorry this is slightly off topic like going away from empathy and kind of jumping back to a topic we talked about earlier I just realized like the different paces of all three of our jobs like there are three different paces here it's like you know ER emergency room like very fast pace there's working in like the morgue where it's I feel like it's a lot slower of a pace in a sense because yeah like you they're not living and it's not like yeah yeah you have to do it work though it's more brain work more brain work for you it's more like examination yeah when it comes to like determining cause of death because I have to well I have to examine everything thoroughly like yeah the outside body for wounds and any like puncture marks or burns or anything like that but also I don't want paperwork because you don't know everything fine but oh then you also have to like open them up and and inspect every organ and see if you know something like that yeah is because of so it is it it's somewhat fast in that there are time limits yeah bodies will decompose even if you keep the medical temperature and so especially like if it's like a mass casualty and there's a lot of bodies that need to be processed to that especially we'll put a little bit of a restraint on work but it definitely is a slower process well yeah started and there is a little more leeway than like emergency surgery or emergency treatment right and kind of like going off my fear now it's most of these things are like by appointment so it's like half-hour hour blocks and it's like a very scheduled out day while you you never know you're you never know like I could go in and being like I have three appointments one like neuter and then like an x-ray and I know that's what my day is going to look like because it's like a normal clinic it's not an ER vet which they have those and you know could not work there I've heard stories and I don't think I'd be able to handle that like that fast pace and like that like the stress level I feel like that would come with that you know well you never know what you're both of you never know what you're going to see see and like a given day yeah that's kind of like where I was going with the pacing of it it's like my day it's going to be very sectioned off like set appointments that people have made and like some people might not come in for an appointment and like that might be the change I expect to see in the day well you could go from like working on the body to all of a sudden there's like a mass casualty or something like that you never know what to expect and you never know what you're going to see coming into an ER because there's always some interesting story coming like situation I thought about the fact that you would have appointments but you're right because even with it it is very scheduled and so it's like I have to be done this by a certain time and while I think with Maria and it's weird like we still have to be done within a certain amount of time relatively because you don't want to take forever doing things there is a little more leeway it's not like I have to be done this by this time because I'm gonna have to do this at this time like right hopefully I'll be done you know you know hopefully I'll be done relatively like yeah oh with enough time like move on and do something else because I am needed elsewhere as well but it's not like a hard cut off it's like if I go a little over or I need a little extra time because of something coming up that's not my entire day necessarily that's one thing that's also nice like in the veterinary clinic though most times depending if it's a small clinic or a big clinic you normally have more than one doctor and obviously yeah they all have their set amount of appointments for today but there's also vet techs and there's vet assistants and like vet assistants can't do as much as vet techs and vet techs can't do as much as vets but like vet techs can do like the basic like if it's just like a standard like checkup appointment kind of thing like they can do a lot of it the vet just has to like be there and like to give vaccines like certain vaccines can't be given unless you're in the presence of a vet like at least in mass like the rabies vaccine has to be given to an animal in the presence of a vet you can't just be like oh the vet tech can do it because the techs can give vaccines at least in mass I believe like rabies specifically has to be in the presence of a vet because that's one thing I learned like at my internship because I was like running tests I was going into appointments I was drawing up vaccines and one time my own pets came in for an appointment because that was the vet that they went to and so the vet who was there was like oh do you want to administer the vaccine I'm like me I could do it and so like that was so like I've administered vaccines and stuff like that already but there's always most times an extra set of hands that can help like in the clinic if something seems to be running late but yeah it's very structured that one wrong thing can throw off your entire day I think I think the one difference to that so I'm guessing you guys can like do stuff with your own pets if they come in yeah you can okay you know like yeah because in our area you're not allowed to no no yes and no it's like it's like for instance of my sibling comes in and I didn't know to and they come into ER I can't like go and help out because they their biggest issue is like your emotions are going to take over yeah yeah so it's like you're gonna mess something up so they would have to don't have to have you call out and go to something else have someone else do it yeah I think that's like the worst part cuz cuz I feel like if it's in my hand I could do more you know what I mean it's like I yeah I kind of agree um I will say I know yeah the medical field they're very big about that even in something simple like my aunt is a radiologist she does x-rays she's not even allowed to x-ray me if I go in needing them like and that's something simple it's like what is there to be like she's just taking a little x-ray you know um but yeah especially like autopsies you cannot they will not let you autopsy somebody that you which I kind of get but also kind of don't agree with because I think I think if you knew that person you probably do a little more care for them you do a little more I get the concern about like the emotions you know I think I could still do it and I think there would be a sense of like oh well I know the care that I can put into it and I know like they're getting the best job possible yeah so I agree it's like you two should really look into like internships maybe if you went down asked of that down there like oh yes he can be volunteers and suppose that your resume oh absolutely experience you know like for you I know someone that graduated last semester she did a whole forensics pathologist thing internship it was crazy she talked about like like they did she did a lot of hands-on she saw all the stuff in the morgue and all that and UNH offered that so I don't know what you could contact but definitely I think you would love that I will when I get back yeah I was looking into doing like something in my hometown like yeah that is summer doing some kind of internship but I did learn because I'm from such a small town that we have like one person who does autopsies and they only do so many and then they don't have their own office they're stationed out of like our hospital which like isn't that weird but most of our autopsies actually go down to like the capital of our state a couple hours away and I was like oh that's I don't love that information no they do um but there's somebody who does them sometimes so like there might be something at least quickly going back to what we were talking about before just because I thought of a point I don't know what the rules come come into play like for something extreme like if your pet needed surgery or something like that I'm not quite sure about that but like there were vet techs who would bring in their animals and then like for appointments and stuff and like you can help like restrain them and stuff like that yeah you can help during the appointments it's not like a no-go like you can't be around at all I'm not sure of the procedure like the rules for for more extreme situations yeah at least you get to do that though at least they offer that when you could still stay in there especially one thing I love too I'm gonna be that and if I also plan on having pets in the future so I feel like it's going to help me notice if something might be wrong yeah you know be like oh you need to go in for an appointment you'll be getting a lot of phone calls from me that's perfect I'm very nervous with my dog as it is like she any weird behavior and I'm immediately contacting someone like I'm like guys that's how my mom is um right now we have a lot of cats we're really bad at fostering and then adopting out we are foster failures where like a couple years ago I think it's about two years now we started fostering a litter of six kittens and let's just say I still own four of them and that's not all the cats I have so that's just to show you but one of them has had a couple like health issues in the past like things that were like not even the vets could figure out sometimes or like they're like we don't know the exact cause but like we can try this to see if it works and then like will magically resolve itself so like any change in like his behavior that's how my mom is there's one time recently where she thought one of my cats had lost weight and part mean coon so they're very fluffy and so like we have to trim or shave their fur in the summer so it's doesn't they don't get too hot and stuff like that also stuff can stick to their fur but we did that and then like part of his like fur like near his like shoulders never got as long as it used to be and so he looks thinner than he used to be it's not it's just he has less fur and so my mom was concerned that he had lost weight and so she brought him to the vet and turned out he actually gained half a pound since his last appointment. Your mom is so real for that. Sometimes it's something as simple as like oh she seems a little down today like my dog seems like she isn't as active today like she's a little bit more my dog you know is my dog depressed like should I be concerned it's something so simple as that oh yeah yeah so my cat gained half a pound after when he went to his last appointment that's like no no need to be concerned and it was um so the vet clinic that I internship I had an internship at during my senior year they are closed now because the revenue that they were bringing in did not like they they needed to be making more money but you also with vet clinics and pricing you have to take into account what amount of money is like the average salary being brought in from the area because you can't have prices that are like not affordable for like the people in the area this is a very small clinic so they just couldn't get enough enough like patients and appointments and stuff like that even though they have like a lot of people who go there to maintain the money that they needed to have so everyone ended up like having to go find other places to work and so we had to find like a new vet clinic and the doctor who I had done this internship with we found that where she ended up going and it's not far from where we live so now my vets go to see her still so I still get to see her um and she still gets to see all my pets that's a big issue that I realized like with vets not with vets shutting down because of stuff like that and they don't get enough attention like no one like raises their voice or anything like that so it's kind of like shut down well gotta go find another place right there's also been a shortage of vets since COVID like obviously there's been a shortage of a lot of jobs but I know vets have been like one of the big largely impacted like career fields based on COVID and like maintaining staff. That is one thing about all of our careers when we're going here. They are very on-demand jobs. There's not enough people in those careers. At least we're guaranteed a job. There's like a little bit of job security. They need more people in those careers especially because like once COVID hit like a lot of jobs I think a lot of jobs took a hit but I think these were jobs that were in demand before COVID to be honest. COVID just brought to light like how needed they are. Yeah I know even just a basic coroner or medical examiner like there are not enough in this country for how many bodies need to be examined every year especially because there are like set limitations on how many autopsies you can do a year like there's a limit. Yeah the number I can't remember the exact number off the top of my head I think it's 320 something. I know it's about a body a day but that's that to be fair though that you have to think about like if you're doing a thorough autopsy how fast should you be going through bodies and you don't work every day of the year so like being about a like one per day of the year still means like maybe two autopsies a day you know so it's still a decent amount but there are limitations on how many one person can do in a single year so especially when there's something like a mass casualty like you know you know God forbid like something like that happens like a mass shooting or whatever they usually have to fly in like coroners and medical examiners because the ones in that area can only do so many plus there are a lot of bodies to like examine within a certain amount of time. I know that's when it's an issue because like we don't know where to bring all these people from to get help because like yeah like five here probably two somewhere else seven only. Which is the one area where like there is a bit of like every day could be different for me it's like one night I could get a call at 3 a.m. and a mass casualty has happened like a couple states over and they need people to come examine bodies but for the most part it's a pretty routine thing which is kind of nice. Yeah I won't shouldn't have that issue of like getting called at 3 a.m. unless I magically decide to like work in an ER setting which I do not plan on it. I never that's the thing though that's why it's like experience. I feel like the people I see that won't do something like that they end up doing because I never they try it out and then they love it and I never thought I'd end up in the ER and I was like oh yeah no that's a lot of stress chaos in here and I'm like oh my god I actually like it. Right and I think that's when like experience is so important and that's why I like I want to do these internships and different things like that before because yeah like hours and experience is needed before vet school but like I have a friend who worked at the clinic as a vet assistant and she's in the process of like getting her undergraduate degree to go off to vet school and she's working in an ER right now and loves it but it's just like I think any type of job like the thoughts of the career can be stressful but once you go into it and get experience you can realize that you love it. One of the only I haven't heard a whole lot of stories about like veterinary ER one of them in particular was from one of the people from my internship she had worked in an ER like that office for a couple years and like one time they had to do like open chest CPR on a dog I'm like the thoughts of that's crazy like beating the heart of like a dog as like a form of CPR because of whatever type of procedure they or injury I'm not quite sure the situation that was going on like that just sounds like crazy. Yeah no I can't and so that's why I'm like like hesitant about it but like I'd also if the opportunity it rose for me to get that experience I would definitely take it on I believe. I this is kind of random but it's not because I just saw a video about it the other day I think it was like on Facebook or something like that usually where I get my pet videos but it was a vet and she had a choking dog and she climbed on top of the dog was like sitting basically on top of it because it was on its back and she had to like forcibly like put her hand on it's like esophagus and push up the ball that was stuck and I cannot imagine having to do that right I watched her do that I was like that takes skill because to climb on top it was like a pitbull so it was like it was one of those dogs where it's kind of big and it definitely could have like it could handle it and shouldn't like put her full weight on it or whatever but like being in a situation where I have to like climb on top of this dog and like forcibly like push a ball out of its throat that's crazy I was like that girl deserves so many props she needs a raise you definitely see some interesting things with animals in like a veterinary setting in it even if you're in like a general clinic because a lot of people will come in and be like this is the issue I have going on it's like actually you need to go to the ER for that like we have appointments we can't just like take you right now which is a case like a lot of times they'll call and it's like actually here's the nearest ER clinic please go dogs cats you name it they get into stuff that they should not be getting into so there's a lot of interesting stories that go along with that or like even like with them inhaling well there's probably a tennis ball right or something like that it was just like a like a toy it was a normal like a little toy ball that like dogs would have not a tennis ball that's way too big sorry no but I feel like it was relatively in that side I mean it was like a little bit smaller but so a lot bigger than it should like nothing should be yeah dog all animals honestly they can be you can be very energetic kind of crazy you never know what they're going to get up to I worked at a doggy daycare for a summer about a year ago and there were some dogs who would like to chew up the toy