RANT: Okay, just graduated vet school, and I am COMPLETELY miserable.
1) I have spent the last 4 years of my life pushing myself to do really well, to be the best that I can be, only to be average on scores. When I say push, I mean on the last final exam of 3rd year before clinics, I am the last person in the library reading through as much LA medicine as POSSIBLE because I still care! ...while EVERYONE else is in the lobby chatting it up, in I-do-not-care-land. Yet, I am not able to keep my A/B+ range that I had earned. Clinics did not go much better. All I did was try to strike that delicate balance of be prepared for your cases while have a bunch of cases while trying to still sleep enough so I could pass as a normal-ish human being (HINT: not really possible with a serious case load).
Summary: I became that person they worn about at the beginning of vet school, the person who cares so much that they become completely miserable holding themselves up to some impossible expectation. Okay, well for some people that expectation comes so easily, they are just so impossibly smart. No amount of studying could consistently make me lead the class on exams.
2) The "virmp" (aka "the match") was a nightmare. I spent 5 weeks at a practice that I ended up getting really good feedback on, that every year before me preferentially selects students from my school. Alas, NO, I did not match there. That painful surprise of "OH-no...-that-does-not-say-____" at 5am in the morning was excruciating. Then I find myself at my #2, which I had not had a chance to visit in person. I ranked them #2 because of the match description, but when I arrive, it is a VERY DIFFERENT program. Other places I had visited but ranked lower would have been much better for me, but that is 20/20 hindsight now (MATCH = BUYER BE WHERE). This practice is so unpalatable, that there were 12 interns/residents last year, but only 5 finished the year (it was highly unlikely that everyone left for "personal" reasons). I decide to cut my losses after finding myself at a very poorly managed practice, and move back PDX where my husband is.
3) I have multiple offers from practices before I move back, and I am thrilled. The practice that IS THE RIGHT FIT is too far away (2 hr drive) from where I live, and my husband is not supportive of more long distance, even if it is only part time (like in school). I kills me turning down the offer. Then I accept a position at a practice in the area, which sounds decent, but is low cost (I can work with that). Alas, I get there and the owner is very nice, but the medicine is like "trump's presidency" ... there is just so much wrong (borderline choking patients, patients waking up while having a mass excision during sedation and then being forcibly restrained through the rest, extreme examples of non-aspetic technique, far out dated medicine galore, mystery drugs from mexico, and etc.) that you cannot remember all the things that upset you and that you disagree with. Now I feel like I HAVE to work at a place that has very little overlap in medical ideology. I literally woke up this morning at 4:30am, and tried to do something productive... instead I just end up crying on the couch, hating the idea of having to go back to a job where I feel like the way the animals are handled borders on animal-abuse.
I do not want to become one of those whiny it-never-works-out-for-me people, but I feel like I am lost and alone in this profession. Honestly, I would NEVER consider suicide, but there gets to be a point where you just do not feel like you have any more will power, you just do not want to keep trying. I feel dead on the inside and I just do not want to be a veterinarian anymore. I just want to be happy again.
NOTE: I am very sorry if offended any Trump enthusiasts, that is not my goal. I am just trying to relay my frustration using a description that clearly comes from a left-ist perspective.
Although they're still saying it was an "unprecedented acceptance of admission invitations"
