RANT HERE thread

[supershorty]

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First phone call with a potential practice after vet school didn’t go great. Just didn’t feel like they wanted an intern, so back to the drawing board

Are you wanting to do a formal internship, or just have heavier mentorship as an early associate?

 

[honeypot999]

Are you wanting to do a formal internship, or just have heavier mentorship as an early associate?

It was a formal internship on their website. But they said if they made an internship position available I’d have to commit to doing a fellowship that’s 2 years long.

 

[Shiloh47]

I’m looking into clinics for “externship”-ish shadowing opportunities at potential areas I’d be interested in working post vet school during the summer between my 2nd & 3rd year but by god I do not know how people do it financially. I had to work full time all summer doing manual labor but would really like to gain more actual vet experience in the rural side of things I’m interested in. Problem is this takes time like taking 2 weeks off doing unpaid shadowing experience and makes keeping summer work more complicated. Idk I just don’t know how people have the time and money to get these cool experiences without being burdened by the constraints of needing to work to pay bills

 

[battie]

I’m looking into clinics for “externship”-ish shadowing opportunities at potential areas I’d be interested in working post vet school during the summer between my 2nd & 3rd year but by god I do not know how people do it financially. I had to work full time all summer doing manual labor but would really like to gain more actual vet experience in the rural side of things I’m interested in. Problem is this takes time like taking 2 weeks off doing unpaid shadowing experience and makes keeping summer work more complicated. Idk I just don’t know how people have the time and money to get these cool experiences without being burdened by the constraints of needing to work to pay bills

They use the loan money

 

[katiemcat]

They use the loan money

Yeah I remember eating the cost of my airbnbs (pain) and reaching out to friends of friends for housing

 

[couldhavebeenme]

Yeah I remember eating the cost of my airbnbs (pain) and reaching out to friends of friends for housing

I stayed for 2 weeks in a shack in the woods that had no running water/a literal outhouse 100 feet away, but it was like $60/night so I feel like I won. (Honestly it was fun, kinda like camping.)

 

[kitzsuna]

I’m looking into clinics for “externship”-ish shadowing opportunities at potential areas I’d be interested in working post vet school during the summer between my 2nd & 3rd year but by god I do not know how people do it financially. I had to work full time all summer doing manual labor but would really like to gain more actual vet experience in the rural side of things I’m interested in. Problem is this takes time like taking 2 weeks off doing unpaid shadowing experience and makes keeping summer work more complicated. Idk I just don’t know how people have the time and money to get these cool experiences without being burdened by the constraints of needing to work to pay bills

I am also wondering this. Also, what do I do with my pets at home? There’s a career/externship fair at my school next weekend but I only have a few places on my list because of location or type of work. Like hopefully if I do have to go out of state I can find someone local to take care of my pets??

 

[Shiloh47]

They use the loan money

Yeah, as someone with out of state tuition I find it hard justifying taking out more to pay for summer costs w/o working. Guess that’s just how it is

 

[Shiloh47]

I stayed for 2 weeks in a shack in the woods that had no running water/a literal outhouse 100 feet away, but it was like $60/night so I feel like I won. (Honestly it was fun, kinda like camping.)

Finding a campground was my first idea…water bottle shower anyone?
Car camping might not actually be a bad idea too

 

[apoptosis09]

I am also wondering this. Also, what do I do with my pets at home? There’s a career/externship fair at my school next weekend but I only have a few places on my list because of location or type of work. Like hopefully if I do have to go out of state I can find someone local to take care of my pets??

You may have to pay for house/pet sitting, but often students will trade pet/house sitting for each other while on clinics. Or take them to family if they are close enough.

 

[JaynaAli]

I had my parents keep my dog for a couple rotations I managed to schedule sequentially. I also got to take him to one...it was 10 hours from home and I was staying with strangers (who were friends of a friend of a friend), but they were professors (non vet med) and let me stay in their basement for three weeks for free AND bring the dog. But yeah, trading with classmates or paying an underclassman was pretty common.

I got pretty lucky on housing for rotations. Several were back at home where I could stay with my parents. That rotation at CSU I found that friend of a friend of a friend who let me stay...found that one just by asking a random girl I'd never met who was at my friend's house party if she knew anyone in Fort Collins. And she did know ag faculty there, and hooked me up with them. I left them a little money when I left (like $200 because I couldn't afford much) but they mailed it back to me. Another rotation I stayed with the clin path faculty at the school I was visiting...a week and a half with one lady and a week and a half with a different family. They let me stay for free. The only rotation I had to pay for housing was in Kalamazoo...I was supposed to stay with someone associated with the rotation there too, but their basement flooded and was uninhabitable so I had to scramble and stay at the sketchiest extended stay hotel in Kalamazoo (which is a pretty sketchy city at baseline, imo). 0/10 would not recommend but I survived. This was in early days before AirBNB was really a widespread thing.

There used to be a SAVMA rotation housing group on the book of faces, not sure if that's still a thing?

 

[kewpieketchup]

Over the last few weeks, I have just been struggling with comparing my life to my close friends' lives. I feel almost "left behind" in a way. One of my friends had a baby, the other got engaged, etc. Several of my close friends at vet school are engaged or married. I would not change being in vet school for the world, I love it here. But I just can't help but feel like my life is on pause while theirs are moving forward. I don't think it helps my own relationship is in shambles either. Idk, just really struggling with these emotions. I try not to compare because we are all on our own paths but sometimes it is hard.

 

[MixedAnimals77]

I stayed for 2 weeks in a shack in the woods that had no running water/a literal outhouse 100 feet away, but it was like $60/night so I feel like I won. (Honestly it was fun, kinda like camping.)

Please tell me this rotation was in Idaho 😂

 

[vampyrica]

all this talk of -ships and rotations has me biting my nails. i only get one summer off and i’ll be working at my gov internship for it because i have a required amount of hours to complete…

and then the summer between second and third year i start small clinical rotations at school. i guess i can only do outside externships during 4th year? gulp

 

[_rae_]

i guess i can only do outside externships during 4th year? gulp

The externship I got is for my fourth year. I have not gotten the chance to do a single externship outside of that because I’m also working. It’s okay if that’s how it turns out.

 

[thenontraveler]

Last night I had a potential apartment break in. I am okay and so is my cat. But things were moved around and doors I know I closed before I left for clinicals were standing open. Needless to say I did not stay in my apartment and I immediately got the locks changed today. But I just feel anxious about being there now. Like I had friends with me all day, but the instant they left. I did not want to be there alone anymore. This week I will be adding a ring doorbell and a door sensor. I hate this.

 

[supershorty]

i guess i can only do outside externships during 4th year? gulp

This is very common. It's not a big deal.
I only did externships as required in my 4th year and I chose locations based on where I knew I'd get to do things, not as an audition for ultimately working there, and I turned out just fine.

 

[katiemcat]

My kid was sleeping through the night for the last few months and last night he just decided to wake up every few hours for some reason?

I am v tired. He’s not though! At least I don’t work today

 

[katiemcat]

My kid was sleeping through the night for the last few months and last night he just decided to wake up every few hours for some reason?

I am v tired. He’s not though! At least I don’t work today

Oh I guess he was just mentally preparing to full on crawl

 

[_rae_]

Drive-by outside of my apartment this morning. Automatic weapon, no one was hurt thank god. We moved from our last place because someone fired shots in our parking lot. Is this just the normal? I grew up in an area with almost no gun restrictions and lots of hunting and we never had this. I lived in Boston for three years and never heard a shot from my neighborhood or the area I worked in. Minnesota it feels like it’s every week.

 

[soupshark]

Drive-by outside of my apartment this morning. Automatic weapon, no one was hurt thank god. We moved from our last place because someone fired shots in our parking lot. Is this just the normal? I grew up in an area with almost no gun restrictions and lots of hunting and we never had this. I lived in Boston for three years and never heard a shot from my neighborhood or the area I worked in. Minnesota it feels like it’s every week.

I would say so. I think it's uncommon to live somewhere with no gun violence in the US.

Also, Boston is one of the safest cities in the US so that's not surprising to me.

 

[_rae_]

I would say so. I think it's uncommon to live somewhere with no gun violence in the US.

Also, Boston is one of the safest cities in the US so that's not surprising to me.

I don’t think it’s the gun violence that surprises me. I think it’s my proximity being measured in yards instead of miles. Obviously my ideal is nobody experiencing it, but I’m definitely tired of experiencing it myself. I don’t want to move again before I graduate. I don’t want to worry about what’s waiting for me when I move for my rotating. I think I had the privilege of living in areas that allowed me to say “I would never be where that happened” until now. It’s a weird thing to confront.

 

[battie]

I think it's uncommon to live somewhere with no gun violence in the US.

It's more common than you would think. 44k gun deaths in the US with most being self-harm (62%), approx. 3 million US deaths per year.

MN has some of the lowest numbers.

Granted, that doesn't capture stats of people harmed but not killed by gun violence. That number seems to be in the 75-85k per year. So somewhere in the ball park of ~130k US individuals physically directly harmed by gun violence.

What the data says about gun deaths in the U.S.

The number of gun deaths in the U.S. fell for the third consecutive year in 2024 but remained among the highest annual totals on record.

www.pewresearch.org

Don't mean to bring up the stats to be argumentative. But it's how I deal with my existential dread for Child Bats on a daily basis. I compare it to car safety. If something is more dangerous than putting him in the car to go to the coffee shop, it's a no go. I'm a proponent of many / most gun restrictions. We don't have guns and wouldn't without taking classes; parents have their guns behind two locked doors with separate keys when we visit; etc.

 

[_rae_]

Wow. That number seems SHOCKINGLY lower than I thought it was going to be.

 

[katiemcat]

It's more common than you would think. 44k gun deaths in the US with most being self-harm (62%), approx. 3 million US deaths per year.

MN has some of the lowest numbers.

Granted, that doesn't capture stats of people harmed but not killed by gun violence. That number seems to be in the 75-85k per year. So somewhere in the ball park of ~130k US individuals physically directly harmed by gun violence.

What the data says about gun deaths in the U.S.

The number of gun deaths in the U.S. fell for the third consecutive year in 2024 but remained among the highest annual totals on record.

www.pewresearch.org

Don't mean to bring up the stats to be argumentative. But it's how I deal with my existential dread for Child Bats on a daily basis. I compare it to car safety. If something is more dangerous than putting him in the car to go to the coffee shop, it's a no go. I'm a proponent of many / most gun restrictions. We don't have guns and wouldn't without taking classes; parents have their guns behind two locked doors with separate keys when we visit; etc.

I think they probably mean gun violence not necessarily gun deaths

 

[couldhavebeenme]

Please tell me this rotation was in Idaho 😂

It was actually outside Corvallis for a rotation at OSU 😆

 

[battie]

I think they probably mean gun violence not necessarily gun deaths

That's why I included the extra 75-85k people injured per year as well. There's no way to count the number of people indirectly harmed (ex. of people living in areas with higher rates of gun violence who themselves never encounter a gun related event).

 

[katiemcat]

That's why I included the extra 75-85k people injured per year as well. There's no way to count the number of people indirectly harmed (ex. of people living in areas with higher rates of gun violence who themselves never encounter a gun related event).

I would say a lot of people are indirectly harmed.

I don’t like to use this as an argument - but my suburb home town had 0 murders annually usually until my high school was shot up. My siblings both have debilitating PTSD from watching people die, even if they weren’t physically harmed.

People are held up with guns, and aren’t harmed physically, but they are mentally.

I’m not trying to fear monger - but the harm of gun violence definitely spreads far beyond death or even injury.

 

[couldhavebeenme]

Finding a campground was my first idea…water bottle shower anyone?
Car camping might not actually be a bad idea too

There is a FB group called Externship Housing Locator and from that group I stayed 1 night at an OSU student's apartment for free after my rotation ended bc her roommate was out of town. I also let a student from UPenn stay at my apartment in Pullman for 2 weeks while I was at my OSU rotation. She paid me $300 to offset the cost of my AirBNB so all-in-all a pretty good deal for us both.

 

[battie]

Wow. That number seems SHOCKINGLY lower than I thought it was going to be.

I think part of it is exposure bias, ya know? With the advent of the 24 hour news cycle in the 90s to 00s, it feels we're surrounded by gun violence at all times, particularly when we compare ourselves to other countries (which is true when other countries don't allow anyone but specific people to carry firearms).

It's stuff like constant exposure to negative events that was part of my giving up social media. Gun violence drives views, which drives commenting, which drives engagement, which drives ad revenue. Which is absolutely gross to me.

 

[soupshark]

That's why I included the extra 75-85k people injured per year as well. There's no way to count the number of people indirectly harmed (ex. of people living in areas with higher rates of gun violence who themselves never encounter a gun related event).

Yea the issue I have with the statistics is events that go unreported, the distribution of people across the US (a town of 500 in rural America will have less gun violence than a major city with 1mil+ people), and the people indirectly affected by gun violence. I grew up in a neighborhood in Chicago afflicted with gang and gun violence, and I was negatively affected by it every day whether or not a shooting happened that day. That can't be counted in a stat. It's a privilege to live somewhere where you feel safe and like there is no threat of gun violence

 

[battie]

I would say a lot of people are indirectly harmed.

I don’t like to use this as an argument - but my suburb home town had 0 murders annually usually until my high school was shot up. My siblings both have debilitating PTSD from watching people die, even if they weren’t physically harmed.

People are held up with guns, and aren’t harmed physically, but they are mentally.

I’m not trying to fear monger - but the harm of gun violence definitely spreads far beyond death or even injury.

I don't disagree. My sister was in the Aurora theater shooting with my ex's sister, who was actually shot. My sister died by suicide 6 years later in part secondary to her PTSD. My ex's sister attempted suicide two years after the event (doing great now, just got married in the last year or so).

My position isn't that there isn't harm. My position is that we as a society needs to put things into context on 1) population level and 2) on an individual level. If I didn't do that, I would have to be heavily medicated with anti-anxiolytics to function. I probably would never have had children.

 

[katiemcat]

I don't disagree. My sister was in the Aurora theater shooting with my ex's sister, who was actually shot. My sister died by suicide 6 years later in part secondary to her PTSD. My ex's sister attempted suicide two years after the event (doing great now, just got married in the last year or so).

My position isn't that there isn't harm. My position is that we as a society needs to put things into context on 1) population level and 2) on an individual level. If I didn't do that, I would have to be heavily medicated with anti-anxiolytics to function. I probably would never have had children.

I’m so sorry to hear that. I’m very passionate about gun ownership reform.

 

[battie]

I’m so sorry to hear that. I’m very passionate about gun ownership reform.

Me too! I feel the three of us probably agree on the majority of the details that comes with gun violence and probably even how to mitigate it.