Price Dickson is graduating the College of Veterinary Medicine this May and reflects back on her time as a volunteer and Team Leader in the Wildlife Medical Clinic:
Price (left) teaches one of her team members about triage. The barred owl is under anesthesia for an orthopedic exam.
I was a team leader in the Wildlife Medical Clinic for both my second and third year of vet school, and it was probably the best thing I did during my time at the college. From being able to manage real cases to scrubbing into surgeries, I had a lot of experiences there that made me a better doctor than I would have otherwise been. That being said, it also made me a better person. Here are the top 5 things I learned in the Wildlife Clinic!
5. Have patience. One of my first patients as a team leader wasn’t doing very well, and we had to have the conversation about euthanizing. “We’ll see how he’s doing tomorrow”, we said. We had the same conversation the next day, and made the same decision. Finally, on the third day, he began improving! He was eventually sent off to a wildlife rehabilitator. Drugs and fluids aren’t magic, and sometimes you need to give them time to work. This is true of a lot of things in life; sometimes, after you try to fix the problem you must give your solution a little time to make things right.
4. Hard work pays off… or doesn’t. Sometimes you can put hours of blood, sweat, and tears into a patient’s care and they make it through. That’s a great feeling. But sometimes, they die despite everything. In those situations, it’s important to remember that sometimes you can do everything right and still have a bad outcome, and it’s not your fault.
3. Teamwork is key. Imagine this scenario: You walk into the wildlife clinic and there are at least twenty baby squirrels and over ten tiny raccoons who need to be fed. You and your partner are the only ones on orphan feeding shift. What do you do? Fortunately for me, I had an amazing team backing me up. One spring when that very scenario occurred our call for help got nearly our entire team to come to our rescue, and the babies got fed! When everyone pulls together, what could have been an hours’ long job that would have negatively impacted our patients (babies can get very low blood sugar if they wait too long to eat) was done in time for everyone to get to class.
2. Being a leader can be the most rewarding job you have. When I tried out for team leader, we had to describe what being a leader meant to us. Being a leader can be teaching, mentoring, organizing, or just someone for people to vent to. And at the end of it I had an amazing team who worked well together and thanked me for it! Sure, it was a lot of work planning team meetings, organizing treatments, and teaching everyone, but in the end it was such a great feeling to see everyone progress.
1. Remember to love what you’re doing. Veterinary medicine is a stressful job. Modern life is stressful. But in the wildlife clinic, even though I was managing animals who were in pain and hated our treatments, I got to help animals recover. I will never forget the moment we opened the carrier and released our opossum back into the wild, nor the moment our duck shook his tail and swam off onto the lake. Sometimes having responsibilities in the Wildlife Medical Clinic was overwhelming, and sometimes I had to do some very unpleasant things (have you ever worn cormorant poop?). Still, in the middle of it all, it’s important to remember that you’re doing what you love. Even if you don’t love accessorizing with cormorant poop.
