I think the phrase “busman’s holiday” adequately describes a vet’s inability to leave work behind at work no matter how hard we try.
It was on a recent holiday to Greece where this really hit home – not helped, most likely, by the fact I was on holiday with four friends who were also vets.
However, despite having made a pact not to mention work (after taking the first day to get it out of our systems and share stories from our first year in practice) we found sticking to it incredibly difficult.
A clowder of cats
Perhaps slightly naively of me, I was unaware of the number of stray cats that roam the Greek isles. There were at least seven regulars that frequented our little hotel alone, and none of us could keep ourselves from diagnosing them with various ailments over a swim in the pool or at dinner when they all wrapped around our legs hoping we’d drop a scrap of food.
Some needed dentals, others looked suspiciously hyperthyroid, and we began to feel actual guilt that we hadn’t thought to pack a packet of spot-on treatments in our carry-on – they are under 100ml, after all!
All-consuming
Although it didn’t distract from the enjoyment of the holiday, it never fails to amaze me how all-consuming being a vet can be; how it is nearly impossible to escape it.
Even on days off I can feel my mind wandering to patients or clients, or thinking forward to an operation I have scheduled later in the week.
Also, when visiting a friend for dinner, it’s not uncommon to be quizzed on some weird thing or another their pet has done this week: is this normal? When should I be worried? What do you think about this weird thing he did yesterday?
I’m sure I’m guilty of doing the same for my friends in other professions, and I do actually quite enjoy being useful at last after all those years of whining to them about how tired I was at vet school – even if my #1 piece of advice is to simply take the animal to their own vet.
State of being
My own cat also plays heavily on my mind. Having decided to develop an overactive thyroid the second I left home, furthered by CKD and arthritis, she practically rattles with pills when she walks, which leaves me feeling not just like a bad owner, but a bad vet – particularly as she lives with my parents in a different county and I can’t give her daily clinical exams.
The point I’m getting at is that being a vet isn’t just a job or a means of paying your bills – despite the recent Watchdog controversies – it’s almost a lifestyle or a state of being: once you’re a vet, you are a vet wherever you go and whatever you do; whether you’re in practice, at home, or just trying to enjoy your Greek salad on a beach, surrounded by stray cats.
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