any on your list of places you'd really like to intern/match........so I’m looking for another externship (private practice ideally, SA ER focused w/ an internship program).
IllinoisI’m looking for another externship (private practice ideally, SA ER focused w/ an internship program).
It's funny because it's so relatable (this morning I freaked because I couldn't get on zoom... nether could ~70% of my classmates)
YES I have four hospitals that I’m looking at to match (so far). I have externships at three of those four places! I’ll pm you the locations- I just don’t want to say them all here bc I like the teensiest pretend of anonymity
Private practiceeeeeeIllinois
pfffffffffffffffft
EVERY DAY
Luckily I don't have this problem, I say as my elective livestock class is the hardest class I'm in right now and I need to study for it to pass the test I have to take in the next two days
It's okay. Vet prep is making me feel better about my life choices as I do substantially better on dog questions and suck at everything else.
What is a hoers?
Or a small elephant
Or a small elephant
I struggle doing this because in my last rotation a lot of the people were shy and I wanted them to have a chance to speak. Even if I knew the answer, I would let it hang because I can't be the only one speaking. Sometimes someone else would pipe up and others the prof would answer their own questions. I'm trying to find that balance.Welcome to rotations, where everyone is too afraid to say anything for fear of being wrong
All joking aside, especially when you first start clinics, this is how it will go. It's worth speaking up even if you're unsure because professors appreciate students who at least try to interact and solve problems. And you'd be surprised how often you're right!
I hope I'm not that person
I agree with most of that however I just need to point out that there is a certain point at which you're just blurting out answers and not giving other people a chance to even think or formulating an answer. I think there is a balance. I spit out answers that are wrong all the time. I have no problem letting there be silence for a few seconds before saying what I think because we are being evaluated and the evaluations will be negative if I'm overly dominating the conversation. Like I said I think it's a balance.On the balance thing...I am more in the camp of "let's all capsize the boat in the harbor now, so that when it happens for real out on the open ocean, we don't all panic and die."
Helping people unlock their individual potential and then leveraging that momentum to build high functioning teams is one of my passions, so if anyone ever wants to talk about this stuff (or have a debate about why you think I'm wrong or lodge a complaint about how many business buzzwords I just used in one sentence), I'm game. Please PM me so I don't take over this thread.
Ditch the brand of politeness that results in everyone hushing up and sitting in collective silence. It seems empathetic, and I know that's where it's coming from, but in my mind, it doesn't accomplish the intended goal of promoting equal participation.
We help others the most when we create safe conditions for everyone to take risks and then encouraging them when they step it up. Allowing people ample space to come into their own seems like the nice thing to do, but it places a limit on the success that could've been collectively achieved in the end.
Not only does the deference option allow the least comfortable people in a group to sink further into the background and become more lost -- if everyone stays quiet to defer to each other, that becomes the new norm. Eventually, individual & team growth will enter stasis, because there is no drive to try anything new when everyone is comfortable with the status quo. Social culture in a school/workplace/whatever establishes itself quickly, and it's harder to break out of an established pattern once it exists.
For those of us on clinics, this is the time when the stakes are lowest. If people don't feel comfortable blurting out the wrong answer now, what will happen when we're 10 months into this and the difficulty has ramped up? Practice where you want to be before things get hard, not when you're already there.
As an example: I am an introvert IRL (I PROMISE). I do not advocate for myself. There is a lot of personal guilt and self-shaming that goes on. But as much as possible, I have been opening my mouth and blurting out ridiculous **** you wouldn't believe on these rotations so far, because I know that's the fastest and best way for me to become better doctor. And if I am wrong a lot (which, spoiler -- I am)...so what? Worst case, all my mistakes start to blend together because my memory is honestly not that good. Best case, maybe it will help a few of my friends realize it's ok to look like a dummy sometimes, and no one's going to laugh at them or think less of them for trying things out in a learning environment.
For people who are already confident and/or extroverted -- go further to connect with people who are not there yet. Each clinical rotation is essentially a mini-team, so treat it like a team. Reach out to people now -- while things are still in a formative, low pressure state -- and be genuinely encouraging.
Ask them questions about their area of expertise. Showing vulnerability and asking for help is a great way of empowering people while engaging their interest. If someone does chime in when there is group-wide freeze, thank them afterwards for taking one for the team. Even if they couldn't come up with the right answer, the rest of you weren't brave enough to try, but they were, and that's pretty cool. Compliment your peers when they do something truly awesome. Have their back if they don't get enough credit for the work they are putting in. Be positive and don't betray people's trust by discounting their contributions or abilities, either in person or behind their back.
I know everyone here is kind and uplifting and supportive because I see you all demonstrate those qualities all the time. Use them to be a leader IRL, too.
I'm not usually into the "Live, Love, Laugh" style of home decorating, but my best friend in vet school has a quote by the poet Mary Oliver hanging prominently in her room, and I love it. She asked a group of students:
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"
We get one shot to go through clinics. Even with all this covid-chaos-zoom-life-gobbledy-gook going on, we have been given an incredible gift and we have worked hard to get here. It is precious and it is for sure wild, and the more we encourage each other to let it get wild and treat it as precious, the richer we will all be in the end.
...this may be one of the sappiest sounding things I've written in a long time, especially since the comments that triggered it were just chill observations about the etiquette of video conferencing ...but that's why it's in a spoiler.
I wish typing burned calories haha
And being wrong is a great way to learn things tbh. If you screw up a differential and look them up after, that's gonna stick in your head better than just throwing out one and getting it right and moving along.For real. There were many times on clinics where I thought I was pulling something out of a certain bodily orifice and it turned out I was actually pulling something very legitimate out of my brain
And there were plenty of times I was wrong, too - and that’s okay.
Very true. In reading your original comment, I was focused most on the part where you said that the clinicians end up answering their own questions sometimes and how you didn't want to take away the shy crowd's chance to speak, so that's mostly the part I was responding to.
Yeah I definitely get that. There was one clinician who if you didn't respond in half a second just plowed on. It was kind of jarring. But I totally understand that.
A year later and I still haven't fully learned this...always kick myself when the correct answer is in my head but I don't say itWelcome to rotations, where everyone is too afraid to say anything for fear of being wrong
All joking aside, especially when you first start clinics, this is how it will go. It's worth speaking up even if you're unsure because professors appreciate students who at least try to interact and solve problems. And you'd be surprised how often you're right!
Welcome to rotations, where everyone is too afraid to say anything for fear of being wrong
All joking aside, especially when you first start clinics, this is how it will go. It's worth speaking up even if you're unsure because professors appreciate students who at least try to interact and solve problems. And you'd be surprised how often you're right!
Some of our clinicians handled this by directing questions to specific people during online rounds. I thought it was a good way to avoid the uncomfortable silences or people talking over each other. It's more stressful being put on the spot, and it sucks if you keep getting asked the one thing you don't know, but it gives everyone a more equal chance to talk.
Yes but it's awful and everyone hates the person who teaches it. For us it was a mandatory portion of our Success & Wellness (later One Health & Wellness) course, they brought in a couple, uh, experts, a few times a semester to talk about those topics. I think the issue was they tended to focus a lot on like, eventual practice ownership even in some of the really early lectures, when they probably should have been focusing on personal finances and loans and things at that time. I preferred the speakers we had in transitions just before clinics, and the one (actually the guy from VIN) who spoke to us at a conference we all went to. During transitions there was a lot more focus on salary negotiation.
When I went through ISU, we had a veterinary law course and part of that was contracts and contract negotiations. We did a simulated negotiation with our peers though, so not with people who had any actual experience in negotiating a contract. I found it moderately helpful, in that it was good to discuss what's normally covered in employment contracts for vets in the course, and the great variation in how pay works.. Probably the most helpful part was that it put us in contact with a lawyer who could help us review contracts when we started looking for jobs. Except that he just happened to be the contract lawyer for the place that wanted to hire me, so... not as helpful as it could have been.
