Thank you very much for your responses. I considered that some would question my motives. However, it's my fault for not clarifying properly - I wouldn't make a decision without shadowing...and I assumed an application without at least shadowing would be nothing. My stance in my post was that based off the science; I'd be surprised if I found myself un-interested. Finances, for me, aren't a deciding factor. I haven't abandoned human medicine - and is still very much a strong possibility - I would like to have all my options together. Make a nice table and weigh pros and cons.
Essentially I was shadowing a physician a few months ago, one of his patients was a vet, and it got a good conversation going. Interesting perspective from two different doctors, who both only had good things to say about veterinary medicine but were hesitant with human medicine (yes - even the M.D!). I'm not sure if I just don't have enough experience yet but it's disappointing to meet all the doctors who are telling me they were just like me and then got burnt out in E.R medicine (insert another specialty here and I'm sure I've come across it...those in the ROAD specialties don't seem to complain, though). Anyways,
veterans day home and sat on it, and thought that it'd be worth looking into based on what they had to say. I do like human medicine a lot, but I wanted to have something to compare to. So many people act like your just suppose to have this inherent attraction to the field - and I'm sorry but that's a reason why so many people end up in the wrong field. They don't collect the data points and comparison shop! You can't base a decision on instinct. Without a doubt medicine is my only route though - the thought process, investigative work, and clinical interventions can be fun for a days work.
Just a little bummed out, but not surprised, at the barriers . Mostly on the pre-req side; a lot of schools are straight up requiring public speaking!? Not even recommended... I Well I know from here the most logical route is to get a first-hand look.
Beyond shadowing, how do most garner experience? Volunteer at a veterinary clinic?
I recommend working as a tech/ assistant if you can (It often pays much less than EMT jobs because they assume we really love animals and want to be there and they don't make enough to pay as well) so, you could get volunteering and shadowing hours in during time off. I've personally worked with 2 current vet school graduates who started out as EMTs. They both took a drastic pay decrease to work as techs. One regretted the decision and was debating between specializing and returning to EMT work. (He swore he would make more, but I think he was a life flighter in the Rockies, so I don't know if that counts.
I nearly went to med school and have some decent human medicine experience both job shadowing and in my day to day life. My first job shadow was with a neonatal/peds dr. The first human patient I saw was a Crack baby (I know this is not politically correct now, but it is how I saw it then, so give me a little leway) who had been abandoned at the hospital by her mother. More precisely, mom left to score from her abusive boyfriend who she had a restraining order against. She had tried on and off to stay clean, but the baby was born a month early and going through serious withdrawal. These babies are difficult to foster out and have (had?) low survival rates. The doctor was unsure whether the child would survive with agressive treatment and at that point, the state would only pay for minimums unless the doctor did some serious paperwork magic and even then it was iffy. She was trying to get me to understand the challenges of medicine by asking me if it would be right to just let the child die. Easier on everyone, right? Even if mom came back, she's not fit, and the suffering this child will go through...
Not the same as outright euthanasia, but you are closer.
I've seen the trauma and drama of the ER and the "joy" of childbirth firsthand. I've volunteered in elderly homes. I understand, at least a bit, what human medicine is about. I love the puzzle of diagnosis, the struggle to help someone survive, the dignity that you can give to a child with cancer or the old man in his final days, but I KNOW it is not for me.
My daughter has Down Syndrome. (I told you I understand the politically correct language!) I have spent days, months of my life agonizing over the right treatments and surgeries for her. For example, I am not sleeping right now because I HATE THE DAMN OXYGEN COMPRESSOR that she has right now as a temporary hold over until we fit her for CPAP. (****ING NOISY) If we were food animals, both she and I would have likely been culled. No heart surgery for veal. No chances for Bessie to pop out another reject. As small animals, chances are much better for me, assuming I wasn't a puppy mill dog. As a breeders' bitch, I might get spayed and rehomed as a pet. But my daughter, she would have been euthanized unless she became a lab animal or was owned by someone crazy and rich who also was an influental friend of a vet school. So here, not the same.
I've seen a lot more. My daughter's cardiologists fight over who gets to talk to me because I can compare heart defects and treatments. My daughter's other doctors often want to swap stories so they can compare and see what life might have been if they had followed their "whim" of veterinary medicine. I've told them the stories of dogs tangled in nasty divorces or kittens shot through windows whose owners can't afford the bills or the farm puppy with a clean break in the hind limb whose owners would prefer to take it home and shoot it to us doing anything that cost more than the exam, all of which we were being asked to euthanize. Her doctors all say they couldn't handle putting down a healthy patient and they are glad they have both the courts and the medical associations and the malpractice law insurance that say they would never need to. That is the other big difference. Human medicine is heavily watched over and scrutinized. It means you have to follow insane rules for HIPPA (sorry, I sign all the forms, but apparently never thought I'd need to spell it at 2 am), but if you do that and watch out for your patient, drama might ensue, but you are still covered and have guidelines for every situation. In vet med, we are starting to get pulled into court, but the AVMA is a joke in comparison to the medical associations and half the time they seem to still follow the rule of the "customer" is always right. 2 people fight over a dog and one pays to put it down to get back at the other? You better have put the damn dog down! If you hid it and let a tech take it home since it was a sweet healthy, perfectly adoptable chocolate lab, hell will rain down on you. If that was a child, even we vets know the rules!
Sorry, I carried on way too long. I just thought you should hear from someone who has seen both sides. I don't do human medicine because humans do these things to themselves. I don't think I could handle talking to the diabetic about insulin and his diet for the 80th time before I amputate his foot. I hate talking to the cat owner about it, but we both agree that giving the cat it's meds will help. The diabetic human might have mental issues or just needs someone to talk to and finds the only way to get it is to hurt himself and then doctors get some crazy secret kind of blame for making the problem worse by being nice to him and not referring him to an advocacy group... nope, not for me. Our clients are still nuts, I mean who else owns 20 cats but someone crazy or lonely (or a shelter vet
😉)? But I help the owners when I heal their pets... see rambling...sorry again. I hate that damn O2 concentrator...
Anyway, the vet schools loved both the EMTs' experience, but they definitely had a hundred to a thousand hours in a vet clinic.
