‘The mistake I made’

Imagine the Werther’s Original music playing in the background.

What do you mean you’re too young to remember the Werther’s Original ads?

Okay then, if that’s the case, insert some twee, nostalgic “back-in-time” background music of your own choice – and then let’s move on.

When I first became a vet, we didn’t do any of that fluffy, self-care nonsense.  We started work and just got on with it. If something went wrong, we learned our lessons the hard way. My first boss had worked on his own for 20 years and it had never done him any harm (he never mentioned the patients).

When I was first a vet, I lifted 35kg Labrador retrievers by myself and thought nothing of it, because I was scared of the nurses and didn’t want to ask them to help. Being able to lift the dogs gave me a bit of an ego trip; I needed all the ego I could get.

I’d get shouted at if I ever ran late (and I was always running late – at that place, they ran five-minute consults). I didn’t seem able to move for snarky comments that I (mostly) didn’t think I deserved.

When I’d been a vet for two months, I gave a cavalier King Charles spaniel an overdose of acepromazine (ACP), getting my pre-med dose wrong by a factor of 10.

The nurse thought I was the most useless vet in the world, but I knew that already. I kept going back and peering through the bars of the dog’s kennel; kept staring at the limp, senseless body; kept checking that it was still breathing.

The boss said it would wake up eventually and he was right. But the wait was very tense.

When I was first a vet, my boss told me that I was only as good as the last case I saw. He told me this after a messy, upsetting euthanasia where I missed the vein. He spelled out exactly how upset that animal’s owners would be and how he hoped that next time I would get it right.

Telling the truth

So, why am I telling you all this in a veterinary magazine? It’s hardly doing my reputation much good.

But the truth is that when I was first a vet, nobody would have printed these stories. They’d tell us at vet school that we were exceptional students who’d got on to one of the hardest courses in the world. Therefore, we were bound to be awesome, get out there and do our thing.

I felt like an imposter, of course. It didn’t help that I’d only passed my finals on resits. Why on earth had the vet school ever let me in? It must have been all that work I’d done to deceive it.

I hadn’t told any lies on my UCAS form, but I’d worked really hard at my exams and my music.

The vet school, I thought, must have made a mistake; it thought I was one of those clever people – one of those competent people who got things right, like all the other kids in my year.

They didn’t tell us that normal vets do struggle to pass their exams; that normal vets also do things wrong. My ACP episode became a dirty secret, even from the other vets from my year – some of whom might have made the same mistake themselves.

Learning process

Luckily, I went to work at a lovely practice soon after that, which is why I am still a vet today. During my first months at the new place, I cut through a vessel in the subcut fat on a cat spay without noticing and ended up with a mortifying haematoma under the wound. A slightly older (as I remember it, quite attractive) male vet told me the following week that he could see I was struggling with cat spays, and would I maybe like to watch him perform one?

Of course, I was mortified. I snarked at him. I thought he was trying to humiliate me.

But he was patient enough to explain that this wasn’t all about ego. He had had a rough start to spaying cats himself and knew what I needed to do differently. It was better for the animals, but would help me, too, if I’d just accept his advice.

I remember being speechless. This was a strange new idea. So, the following day – a year-and-a-half qualified by now – I let my colleague teach me that there is more than one way to spay a cat – and more than one way to deal with new-grad colleagues as well. His way was definitely best.

I made the skin incision on cats his way for years until one day, I was watching someone else, and I saw that their way was better. Of course, I switched to doing that. I’ll tell you the mistake that put a stop to my surgical career some other time.

Changing attitudes

I am encouraged by the state of vetting in the 2020s. At last, vets are beginning to see themselves as human beings. Rather than holding themselves up to demigod standards and constantly letting themselves down, the 2020s vets have started to accept that humans are flawed.

For example, I asked people on the Vet Mums Facebook group about their mistakes. At least five people posted ACP stories similar to mine, and one overdosed a dog with insulin, to which I felt a visceral reaction – in my next article, I will explain why.

I think it’s crucial that people are happy now to hold their hands up to dosing mistakes. Until people could admit to their colleagues that they were fallible then double-checking each other’s pre-med doses couldn’t get started. Double-checking pre-med doses is standard in many practices now and I wonder whether overdoing ACP is actually as common as it once was any more.

Anyway, I’m sure that you have guessed where this is going. I think it would be awesome if all of us shared our mistakes – our big ones and our tiny ones. This way, every vet, receptionist, manager or vet nurse would have the chance to learn how it happened, before they do the same for themselves – and also so that when we do make mistakes, we don’t feel quite so alone.

The thing about mistakes is that somehow or other, everyone makes them. The real tell of character is the way in which we respond.

Get in touch

Have you a hair-raising story to report? How has making an error – either clinically, career-wise or otherwise – changed you? Please contact me at [email protected] and let me know. If you want to remain anonymous, I promise to honour that – you’ll need to telephone, WhatsApp or FaceTime me about your mistake, and I’ll write down what you say. I’ll try to get it in your own words as far as possible. I’m getting experienced as an interviewer now, having made a few mistakes; if you want to see the sort of thing I usually write, check out www.peoplewithgrit.com

Sharing your stories will make someone’s life better, or possibly stop someone from doing the same thing again. I am waiting, with my fingers crossed tightly, for your calls.