STILLWATER, OKLAHOMA — MARCH 1999, SENIOR YEAR.
I remember the moment like it was yesterday. While resting on the bed in my veterinary student trailer house one afternoon, I heard my faculty adviser’s message on the telephone answering machine: “Lou Anne, this is Dr. Monin. I see that you made a D on your anesthesia rotation. I need to talk to you.” I had failed. Head spinning with shame, I made an appointment to see Dr. Monin.
This story is for two sets of people: veterinary students and veterinarians. Things will happen in your professional journey that seem catastrophic at the time, but you will look back and know that few, if any, of them left a permanent gash in your true destiny.
A Painful Lesson
The anesthesia rotation at the Oklahoma State University College of Veterinary Medicine was three weeks long at the time. Several classmates had told me how easy the stint was, compared to other rotations, because they were allowed to leave for the day once they finished a case. Embarking on the course with that preconception, I looked to my right and left. Everyone seemed to have the same understanding.
When it came time for the first exam, I studied the written material we’d been assigned and, to my surprise, did poorly on the test. Only later did I learn that most of my classmates received a study handout to prepare them for the test. How did I miss it? Where was I when they got it?
Miscommunication
Everyone had to take a turn on emergency calls at Oklahoma State. These were the early days of cellphones. As I lived 20 minutes outside Stillwater and was worried that I might be too far away should a call come, I stayed at a classmate’s house in town and asked the emergency service to dial my cellphone rather than my landline.
I returned home one Sunday morning to repeated messages on my answering machine telling me I was needed at the teaching hospital due to an emergency. On each successive message, the caller grew increasingly frustrated and agitated about my apparent irresponsibility. Listening in horrified disbelief, I felt helpless and angry since I thought I had left my contact information everywhere I needed to.
Delayed Satisfaction
My anesthesia rotation nightmare wasn’t over. Scrambling to connect a coding patient to the monitor that would track heart rate, blood pressure and oxygen level, I plugged the wrong cords into the wrong outlets and broke an expensive machine. I wept in shame as the instructor later told me how seriously he considered my mistake.
I had to repeat the course that summer, which meant I would receive an empty diploma cover when I walked across the graduation stage in May. My family and friends who came to the commencement were nonetheless proud of me. I was probably harder on myself than anyone else who mattered in my life, including Dr. Monin.
Meanwhile, at our senior banquet, I was joking with my best friend when I heard the emcee call my name to receive the World Animal Care Foundation award for human-animal bond activities. Stunned, I made my way to the stage to accept a large and beautiful signed print of a woman veterinarian examining a mother cat, with two children and a basket of kittens on the floor nearby.
“See? I told you,” Dr. Monin beamed as I carried the trophy to my seat.
I entered my last anesthesia rotation with the Class of 2000 and passed with an A. The school mailed my diploma to Minco, Oklahoma, where I was working on a hog farm. I never framed the diploma but have successfully anesthetized hundreds of dogs, cats and pigs. At one job, I even developed the anesthesia protocol for cat surgeries.
Crossing the Finish Line
In 1999, veterinary students took two board exams. The first was a comprehensive test of knowledge. The second was a multiple-choice test of clinical competency in which one was presented with case scenarios, and the test-taker had to choose the diagnostics she wanted to perform.
I flunked both exams on the first try. Younger classmates did not. Walking the halls of the teaching hospital as my 44-year-old self, I shrank inwardly at their smiling faces and felt like everyone knew I had fallen short. I passed the comprehensive on my second try and the clinical competency on my third.
Returning home one day to yet another trailer house during my job at the hog farm, the message on my answering machine was music to my ears. The executive director of the Oklahoma veterinary board notified me that I was now a licensed veterinarian. My three dogs and I clapped, danced and capered about the room in joy.
Back on Track
Unfortunately, my first boss didn’t seem to like me much. I had always dreamed of mentors who would take me under their wings, but I learned that if you want something bad enough, you can become your own mentor. You have a true compass. It might take you on a circuitous route, but you will end up where you belong. More than that, setbacks usually make you stronger and better.
When I drive to work nowadays at Marina Animal Clinic, I often think about everything that happened on my journey and what I know now. I cherish working at a place that feels like home, with colleagues and staff I like and respect, and doing something new and challenging every day. That’s priceless.
FAMOUS WORDS
During a 1910 speech at the Sorbonne in Paris, President Theodore Roosevelt said something that resonates with me. Here it is:
“It isn’t the critic who counts; not the man who points out where the strong man stumbles or the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement; and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails by daring greatly so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”