Emotional in vet school

[Emio]

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yikes! sorry to hear that, pressmom. they should take good care in your intro to clinical studies course to address large animals in a non-terrifying way 🙂

i hope we didnt seriously scare you... most horses are big fluffy marshmellows when you're nice to them 🙂. you just gotta be smart and eventually safety habits become second (or even first) nature.

 

[traxomatic]

I have to admit that I was just bitten for the first time after working at the same place for 6 years. The husky I was holding was nervous but not unusually so and inbetween vaccines and before we drew blood he suddenly twisted out of my hands (I still don't really know how) and had my hand in his mouth. No growling, no staring, lip raising, nothing to show that he was getting pissed until he had my hand in his mouth. It turns out he is a kennel dog that doesn't get much contact with his owners other than feeding and watering him. Luckily he was restrained in his munching and only broke the skin in one place! At the time I didn't even realize he had actually broken the skin. Needless to say before we drew blood we muzzled him!

So you are likely to get bit, or stepped on, or kicked at some point in your life as a vet. Just take the precautions you can and try your best to stay out of the way.

those huskys are sneaky. i grew up with one that was so docile at home even when i was very small but had to be be muzzled at physical exams every year. last year, i received my first dog bite from a husky while working in quite the same way. we were administering the pre-anesthetic for a dentistry and before you knew it, i was bit.

 

[sundoggie]

Wow..

I dont know if you guys are making me feel better or worse!! Hah!

I dont have a huge amount of large animal handling experience from recent years. Mostly I worked with large animals when I was younger (and naive about how badly I could get hurt). So now I am nervous. But, I think it will come back again once I get in there...besides, I want to do research anyway. So, I will leave the kicking/biting/scratching to the rest of you clinicians. No one has any horror stories about people dying from textbooks do they??

 

[wivet2011]

I don't know, papercuts can be pretty nasty, or, huge mountains of books could crush you 😉

 

[Hopeful07]

I work at a small animal clinic as an assistant and people always ask my Veterinarian how often he gets bit. His answer is never. The first and most important thing that we are taught is how to handle animals so that the Veterinarian does not get bit. I wouldn't worry to much Sundoggie, the more comfortable you get with handling and trusting your assistants and techs as a Veterinarian, the less worried you will be. And I think it's perfectly normal how you handled being bit by the Cocker Spaniel. It's not fun being bit by an animal!

I'm sure you will be a wonderful Veterinarian!

 

[sundoggie]

Aww thanks! You are sweet 🙂 Good luck to you!