How I finally fell in love with my job

I’m Ami, and I’m a farm vet. I first wrote for Veterinary Times as a new graduate – wide eyed and enthusiastic, with a hint of terror that comes from not quite feeling ready to fly the nest. I’ve been a vet for seven years now, and it’s taken about six of those for me to actually enjoy it.

Somehow, I don’t think I’m the only one who struggled to get to grips with this all-consuming vocation – and that’s not just down to some entitled millennial unrest.

Avoidance techniques

I graduated in 2011, straight into an internship I applied for because I wasn’t ready to leave the comforting confines of university life. Hoping this would give me a gentle grounding in my new career, I instead found myself in a limbo between first opinion practitioner, student taxi service and professional getter-in-the-way in a referral hospital.

Thankfully, the internship no longer exists in this form; it’s evolved into a much more structured job. I feel strongly (at least where I work) that new graduate programmes are developed with pastoral care, stress reduction and retention in mind, and am happy vets can look forward to a supportive first year in practice.

Out of the frying pan, into the fire

After my internship, I didn’t feel equipped enough to be “useful” to anywhere in grown-up practice, and opted to do research with a view to a PhD.

Let’s preface this by saying I did not sail through my veterinary degree, so why I decided to put myself through one of the toughest academic challenges universities can muster, I genuinely have no idea.

Maybe I thought it would make me good at something. Maybe I was avoiding the front lines by learning statistics. I don’t know, but it didn’t suit me; three years of battling full-time impostor syndrome saw me come out the other end with heaps of corrections and a diagnosis of chronic fatigue syndrome.

Was now the right time to get a full-time job in practice? Probably not, but I had rent to pay and a willing employer.

Achieving balance

I’ve worked in a few posts in different areas, but none have suited me as much as my current one – and there are a few reasons why:

1. I chose the feel, not the geography

I was lucky to have few attachments to specific areas; while I would love to be closer to my family, I chose a practice based on the team, and where I thought I would fit in. No regrets on my part, and they’ve yet to change the locks.

2. I leaned in

I love an opportunity to get my grubby hands on more letters or certificates.

Luckily, I have an employer who does not see CPD as an excuse for a day out of the office. After years of being terrified to ask for funding to do what I wanted, I finally figured the worst someone could say was no.

3. I (politely) stood up for myself

I made it clear I needed reduced hours on account of my fatigue. I still do full OOH, but my day off each week provides essential recovery time – and that makes me more focused and enthusiastic about work when I’m there.

Now, I’m more about where my next challenge is coming from, rather than my next nap.

4. I offered assistance in non-clinical tasks

I’m into different things. I firmly believe nobody talented enough to get into vet school suddenly becomes “just” a vet on graduation.

I’m interested in marketing, education, knowledge transfer and social media, so offered help in those areas – they took me up on it; I feel useful beyond the realms of an occasional animal fixer. Result.

Make a change

Of course, this is not an exhaustive list of everything one must do to achieve perfect balance, but I can’t have been the only person crippled by anxiety over asking for the most basic of considerations.

I hope even making one small change could help vets stay in the profession long enough to actually start enjoying it for what it is – something that makes you much more interesting at dinner parties.