Somewhere over the weekend, I developed a sore throat. This only seemed to worsen and now is to the point of waxing and wanning. I now have a slight cough and sneeze. It sucks. I never get sick. What's up with this?
Today, we went to a farm to see their manure management system. As boring as that sounds, it only gets more boring as it became an ag econ lecture and a lecture about how to live my life as a veterinarian.
This is the thing that has been bothering me since the first week. While for the most part all of the things that are being presented to us at SDI are important to know. They are not going to directly improve my clinical skills as a veterinarian. I do think its important to understand all the nutritional aspects, understand the manure management systems and how the crops have to be grown to feed the cattle. However, unlike most of the participants here, I did not go to vet school to become a consultant.
I do realize that being a consultant comes naturally with veterinary medicine be it large or small animal medicine. People are always going to come to you with questions and expect free advice. That's just how it is. I just don't want that to become my main focus of my career.
I went to vet school because I enjoy treating animals. I enjoy medicine and making animals feel better and in turn do better for their owners. I want to cut DAs, treat mastitis and pull calves. I want to get my hands dirty. I don't want to spend a majority of my time formulating diets and telling people that they did this or that wrong unless they asked for it, I need to because its glaringly obvious or it will help my client and patient.
I feel that if I wanted to become a consultant that instead of going the DVM route, I could have just worked on a Masters or PhD in Animal Science. I know that those people know just as much about nutrition and all other aspects of dairying that I do/will. No one can argue that (though they try). Besides, you don't even need to be a vet to cut a DA. Lots of large farms have a Mexican trained to do it.
We all admit that once we start out no one is going to be looking to us for the answers. There will be years of cutting DAs, giving calcium for milk fevers, pulling calves and checking for pregnancy. But as I see it right now, that's where I want to stay. If it means staying an associate and being paid less, fine.
I'm becoming a veterinarian because of the medicine. I already have a degree in consulting.
[EDIT-Originally posted to Blogger on 6/21/11]
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