Help for every stage of your veterinary career
I feel like everyone is posting retrospectives. I don’t usually hop on the bandwagon, but I think there are a few things worthy of reflection in the domain of veterinary academia in the time of the pandemic. Here are my observations, some of them unique and some of them well-documented. I write when I travel.
I was having lunch with a colleague of mine a while ago and we were discussing vet students. They were lamenting about one student who was really struggling. They said, “We need to stop telling kids they can be anything they want to be. Some are just not smart enough to get through vet school.”
Dr. Fogelberg is an education expert AND a veterinarian, a small but slowly expanding cohort of experts in academia. I met her through the Southeast Veterinary Education Consortium and we have been working on a research project together for about a year. Listen and learn more about this intriguing new combination of expert education and
Two years ago, March 2019, I launched The Vetducator blog. Let’s take a look at what we’ve done in the last 24 months, similar to what we did last year! I love statistics. Numbers are so wonderfully illuminating. When I am running statistical analyses, I am in my ‘flow’ state and time just drifts by.
I am NOT talking about managing sex workers. In 1989, Dr. Brancati published a tongue-in-cheek article in the Journal of the American Medical Association titled “The Art of Pimping”. It is a true classic which I think anyone bound to be a specialist would enjoy. Pimping is the term used when the senior clinician asks
I believe our culture has a problem. The problem is that we have a simple narrative : “If you work hard enough, you will be successful.” I think this is a problem because it’s not entirely true but it’s not entirely false. Making success seem so simple is reductionist, doesn’t credit the efforts of millions
I was working with a student recently and I gave them some feedback along the lines of, “Please make sure to pay attention to detail and make sure everything is ready for your case.” I could tell, as I was speaking to them, that their eyes were glazing over. I like to think I am
I think this piece of advice is pretty simple. If you can live close enough to walk or bike to work or school, I think you should do so. I have had this luxury for the past 3 years and I don’t ever want to live outside of walking/biking distance again. This simple step helps
When I did a Master of Science program in Sport Pedagogy, I was exposed to all sorts of interesting literature outside of veterinary medicine. One of the articles was about athletes’ choice of where they decided to go to university. I was struck by the simplicity of the methods but also how elegant they were.
The original idea for this post was “don’t commit to something you won’t be able to do,” but that is proscriptive and I am aiming more for productive on this site. The sentiment stands, though. I see this time and again with students and interns who start research projects (with me or someone else). It’s