Gaining Experience as a Vet Tech Assistant
Before becoming a veterinary technician, I worked for a year as a kennel assistant at a small-animal hospital. I had dreams of becoming a veterinarian one day, and I knew that experience as a vet tech would help me, so I expressed interest in tech work right away. I figured I would learn from others and adapt quickly. Nobody told me how wrong I was!
On my first day, I didn’t even know how to place the probe cover on a rectal thermometer. There was so much to learn about vaccine schedules, medications, cleaning protocols, software usage, and lab work. I needed to know how to ask the right kinds of medical history questions, and I always seemed to forget some small but important detail. For the first few months, I was outside of my comfort zone. There were times when I had to ask myself if I was cut out for this kind of work.
Taking On New Challenges
In time, I became more proficient. There were many exciting “firsts” like my first intravenous catheter and my first surgery day. Scarier “firsts” were the kinds of emergencies where everyone in the hospital stopped what they were doing to help a critical patient. There were some days when we were so busy that we would work straight through our lunch break. With each passing day, I learned something new and became a little more confident in my abilities.
Nobody prepared me for the physical and mental exhaustion that I felt after some of my shifts. On the busiest of days, my tired feet would carry me back to my apartment where I would pass out on the couch in my dirty scrubs. My stomach would rumble because I had forgotten to eat while I was working. There were some days when I came home and cried, usually because of sad scenarios like owners with no money for their obstructed cat or someone saying goodbye to their best friend of fourteen years.
The Blood, Sweat, and Tears Are Worth It to Become a Vet Tech
Despite the bad days, there have been so many more rewarding days, and nobody prepared me for how full my heart could feel. My favorite days were the ones when the doctor would buy us all pizza for lunch because nobody could clock out on time, or when a client would bring us baked treats in gratitude for saving their dog in an emergency.
There were moments that could make you feel like a superhero, like when you were the only tech to get that much-needed blood sample, or when you came in on an afternoon shift and jumped into a full appointment schedule when the team needed you most. It felt amazing when all the puppies from an emergency C-section survived (and their mother), or when a parvovirus patient was doing well enough to be discharged from the hospital.
After six years of being a vet tech, I graduated to become a veterinarian. The tech experience was crucial to my success as a doctor because some of these skills simply aren’t taught in vet school. I consider technicians my esteemed colleagues because I know how hard they work, and I couldn’t do what I do without their help. Veterinary technicians make a world of difference to pets, owners, and co-workers. They are literally saving lives every day.
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