Help for every stage of your veterinary career
A foundational concept you NEED to understand is to Aim for Zero. I encounter so many students who aim to be a +1 and end up being a -1 as a consequence. At the end of the day, the students I most enjoy working with are the ones who are quietly competent. The students who
I have some bad news. Life is not a meritocracy. We all wish we lived in a world where, if you are the best candidate for a position, you get the position. Unfortunately, that’s not the world we live in. In our world, who you know has a tremendous impact on your ability to get
I do not represent every veterinary professional. I think that should be obvious, but I have to make that VERY clear for this particular post. I have spoken with many veterinary professionals and academics, and I have trained dozens of house officers and thousands of students, and there are numerous ways to approach success in
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.”
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.
You just have to decide what kind of crap you can put up with. By that I mean: there is no perfect job. There may not even be a perfect job FOR YOU. Every job, every position, has its issues. Your goal is to find a position where the positive aspects greatly outnumber the negative