Guts and gory: installing a veterinary filter

I recently went on a first date and, despite messaging for a bit beforehand, he had managed to hide his anti-vaxxer ideas during that time.

I’m always happy to hear other viewpoints on most subjects, so I listened and then the conversation turned to other things. Later, he brought up the thread again and said: “you seem intelligent (thanks!) – what do you think about it all?”

I think he soon regretted asking that question…

Overly descriptive

I’d just written the blog on inoxination, so I was able to cover not only “how vaccines work”, but also “the history of related words”, as well as the current situation on COVID vaccines.

I illustrated points one and two by describing how inoculation was first carried out by snorting dried smallpox and cow pox pustules. At this point in particular the poor chap looked like he would be sick… so, maybe I was getting too graphic to get my point across?

In this situation I wasn’t too worried (there definitely wasn’t going to be a second date), but it did make me think about my veterinary filter.

Cleaning out the filter

I had hoped I had been distant from clinical work for enough time that the honesty about bodily functions and parts would have waned, but it clearly hasn’t.

As I said, I wasn’t too worried in this situation, but as the world opens up again, and I get to network in my new world of veterinary and medical historians, I clearly need to work on my filters. So, I’m here to ask for advice. I don’t want to lose my joy of the graphic description in the right situation, but I need to work on when that is!

We know we can all be a little too informative about our day’s work when asked at the end of the day by well-meaning family and friends. How can I not alienate kindly people who engage me in conversation hoping for intellectual dialogue not graphic, pus-sniffing descriptions?

Horrible history

It’s possibly slightly harder because the history I’m researching is also quite gory… snorting pus is not the worst thing from veterinary history; I’m currently in a world of glanders and other such fun diseases.

I suppose this writing has led me to wonder if medical and veterinary historians are into the gory reality of our history as much as us clinical folks? It might save any future career of mine if they are… but until I discretely enquire about that, does anyone have any tips on filtering my graphic veterinary content?