It was 20 minutes before lunch when the lecture ended early for a brief announcement. An upper-class student walked into the room and did not speak. Instead, she approached the whiteboard and started writing. Disjointed conversations wound down as a series of words appeared on the board: Xanax, Prozac and several other drug names. She paused, turned around and looked at me and my first-year classmates.
“These are all the drugs I’m taking to get through vet school.”
My jaw dropped, and I saw a handful of classmates react with surprise.
She then proceeded to talk about her tumultuous mental health journey in veterinary school and shared words of wisdom she thought would help us.
Her presentation captured our attention and instilled fear in some of us, including me. The episode is etched in my memory as I write about it nearly six years later.
While my advice will not be as dramatic as what I learned that day, here are six things I wish I had known when I started veterinary school. Be warned: Some might surprise you.
1. Everybody Struggles
A wide variety of hard-working, intelligent students enroll in veterinary school, and while each person is amazing in different ways, comparing oneself is an easy trap.
Some students stood out during my time at Oregon State University. For example, on the surface, Adam seemed an absolute genius. He got a 4.0 in the first term and tutored on the side. He also earned a master’s degree before entering veterinary school and was in great shape from working out at the gym every day at 6 a.m. It was like veterinary school was easy for Adam.
After the first term, things got more difficult for us, and by a little, I mean, “Oh, my goodness, make it stop.”
One day, between lectures, Adam walked into class, clearly frazzled. “I’ve never been so stressed in my life!” he exclaimed.
I and the few classmates who heard him were shocked: Adam struggles, too!
It’s a cliché, but it’s true: Comparison is the thief of joy. While some people might appear to glide through veterinary school, rest assured that everyone who graduates will struggle at one time or another. Among the biggest struggles is believing that you are not stupid.
2. Intelligence Can Be Developed
A major struggle of mine as a first-year student was doubting my intelligence. Even though I graduated magna cum laude from my undergraduate university, I barely passed (and, in some cases, failed) many tests.
That experience led me to an identity crisis. Was I intelligent if I had C-average test scores? That led to cognitive dissonance and self-defeating thoughts about whether I lacked the mental capacity to get through veterinary school.
Thankfully, substantial evidence reveals that such beliefs are unhelpful and untrue. Data shows that a growth mindset — believing one’s abilities are not innate but developed over time — can radically improve outcomes.
I learned and understood the growth mindset years later, but if I had known about it earlier, I could have saved myself a lot of frustration and self-loathing. I also could have saved a lot of angst in my first year as a veterinarian if I had taken the next piece of advice to heart.
3. The Real World Doesn’t Follow Textbooks
One mistake I made early in practice was expecting my clinical cases to match what I learned in school. My rigid expectations came from all the multiple-choice tests I took over the years. Grouping things into tidy boxes is a convenient mental tool, but that’s not how life works.
In my first year of practice, I had to unlearn clinical rules and doctrines that seemed to be espoused as absolute truths in veterinary school.
Sometimes, the biggest part of learning something new is unlearning something old. When I graduated, I had a black-and-white perspective that served as a mental roadblock in adapting and adjusting to complicated medical situations.
Medicine and life are messy sometimes.
4. Boundaries, Boundaries
Veterinary medicine tends to attract compassionate, generous individuals. However, the long hours and life-and-death experiences can lead to burnout, psychological distress and, in some cases, leaving the profession.
Developing healthy personal routines is critical in school, though deciding where to start can be challenging. Should I exercise daily? Talk with my significant other on the phone for an hour a day? Sleep in on weekends?
Those were some of the questions I struggled with. It took much frustration and failure for me to realize that staying mentally and emotionally healthy started with one thing: boundaries.
At first, I tried to go to as many lunch talks as possible to get free food and learn more. (As if being in school for eight hours a day wasn’t enough, I tacked on another hour.)
My mental health (research supports this) greatly improved when I took control of my life and started protecting my boundaries. That meant I turned down 90% of the lunch talks. Opting out of them might seem insignificant, but doing it had a cascading effect on other areas of my life. By saying “no” to nonessential things, I gave myself the opportunity and power to say “yes” to truly important things.
5. Vet School Is One of the Hardest Things You’ll Do
An often-used analogy says the amount of work and study in veterinary school is like drinking out of a fire hydrant. As a graduate, I affirm that this is true. The studying and upper-class clinical obligations are so intense that they can feel like drowning in a never-ending torrent.
Looking back, I am amazed at all I overcame to become a veterinarian. The tests, study materials and clinical rotations were seemingly endless. But perhaps even more significant were the mental health challenges I had to overcome. My classmates and I would say we came close to having breakdowns at various times in our journey.
I wish I had known how incredibly difficult veterinary school would be and, even more surprisingly, that I would miss it one day.
6. You Will Miss It
I never thought I would say this, but I miss veterinary school. OK, not every bit of it — I’m looking at you, neuroscience — but parts of it.
I miss hanging out with my friends.
I miss the awesome professors and clinical staff.
I miss cracking veterinary jokes with my classmates.
Veterinary school pushed me beyond my limits. I couldn’t see the effects at the time, but many of my struggles were some of the best character- and clinician-building experiences of my life.
Before I enrolled, a veterinarian mentor advised me: “You won’t recognize yourself after vet school.” The line didn’t make sense then, but now I can see it is true.
My medical knowledge and skills have increased exponentially since graduation, but it’s more than that. You grow so much through veterinary school that you can’t possibly imagine the person waiting for you on the other side.
Veterinary school is an incredible opportunity and one of the most stressful experiences in a student’s life. You’ll have a lot of anxiety and frustration. You will doubt yourself again and again. You will try, fail, complain, swear, cry, bleed and feel stupid.
And then you graduate and move away. Soon afterward, you’ll think, “I miss vet school.”
STORY ARCHIVE
Dr. Peter Weinstein documented his daughter Brooke’s journey through the Oregon State University College of Veterinary Medicine. Read his final report and earlier chapters at go.navc.com/Brooke-Weinstein.