‘Learnt’ may not be the fully right word to use here as I’m still learning the things I’ve ‘learnt’…
After 2 years and 4 months of getting shat on, peed on, anal gland squirted on, drooled on, also, dripping sweat after restraining a 20kg dog, discovering random blood stains and discharges, scratches and bite wounds, being screamed at by clients, bursting out crying, having random joyful moments while entertaining patients… I’m glad to say, “Cheers to more years of experiences like these!”
Just kidding, bad experiences shouldn’t repeat themselves unless I don’t learn from them. So yes, cheers to a rollercoaster ride of learning and failing! What’s the fun of life without the random burst of surprises?
The learnings I’ll be listing below are unique to my personal experiences. The ‘you’ I’ve written below refer to how I’d talk to myself. However, it depends on how you’d see it. They can also refer to my advice to you – what I think would be helpful to you. So take these learnings to your own discretion.
I’m still on this learning journey and hope to be alongside you as you pave your own road. I like to keep an open mind whenever I read this kind of reflection, hope you’ll do it too! Here goes, 15 things I’ve learnt after 2.5 years of vet nursing!
1. Find the right workplace with a culture and environment that suits you.
This is one of the most important learning points I’ve learnt. Finding a culture that nurtures the best in you will allow you to be your most authentic and happy self. And when you are in your most authentic self, you will never feel truly exhausted or burnt out. Even if you do feel tired, it’s a satisfying kind – fulfilled. Find a management that values you as a person, not an employee. One that respects your personal life as much as your professional life.
But before you are even able to find the right workplace with a suitable culture and values, you have to know your own. It starts from within. Be clear what your values are, and only then you are able to know what work culture and values you want your workplace to have.
The right work environment means to me having a reliable, honest and empathetic management that does not promote or ignore the toxic, competitive and unhealthy work culture. It will be one that actively promotes lifelong learning and education. I have to say, I have not found or been in a workplace that has the right culture and values for me YET.
It is rare to be able to find the best workplace for yourself in your first couple of jobs. Thus, go easy on yourself, learn as much as you can each day, really try to understand what work culture and value suits you, what you can’t stand and what you respect or love about the management and people around you.
Not Another Vet Nurse shares amazing content about the realities of the toxic vet industry and mental health. Follow her if you’d want to be inspired to look for a change and that you are not alone in this.
2. Have hobbies outside of work (to keep sane)
Don’t just spend your off days sleeping (but go ahead with a little nap if you really have to!) or wasting time scrolling through social media and watching random videos on youtube and tiktok. That’s what I did during my first year as a vet nurse at my first animal clinic. Even though they’re my rest days, I felt tired at the end of them, feeling guilty of my wasted time. Some days I might have trouble falling asleep because of all the mental and visual stimulation from the gadgets.
Engage in energising activities. Yoga, run, swim or rollerblade. Play the guitar, ukulele or piano. Learn painting, do some gardening, make a scrapbook or adventure an hour away from home. Engage with nature, go forest bathing. Do something completely unrelated to work. It’ll stimulate your creativity. It’ll rest your tired work mind and work the creative part of it. Everyone needs a little creativity in their life, it’ll open up your mind and spark some form of ‘aha’ moment some day.
Yoga and meditation brings me so much spiritual and mental strength. It has become part of my morning routine. Learning the ukulele just makes me smile in contentment. Rollerblading brings me the feeling of freedom and tranquillity.
3. People skills and teamwork are important
When you are working in a clinic, it involves working with a team of people. Many things cannot be done alone. Though as a vet nurse, you are supposedly working with animals, you are actually mostly dealing with people – your colleagues and clients.
Again, having the right work culture and values (point 1) will naturally help with teamwork. You cannot have teamwork without a team of people with a common goal and shared values. It is the foundational block, once shaky, other blocks cannot be placed on top of it, it’ll crash ultimately. Thus, having the right work culture that values people’s strengths and respects their weaknesses will have a resilient team with excellent teamwork.
Of course, you have to work on yourself too. It does take a lot of personal soft skills when it comes to teamwork and communication. Having the self-confidence to communicate your point, courage to admit your mistake, humility to question and patience to listen… the list goes on. I’m honestly super grateful for the opportunities I got from leadership positions and Co-Curricular Activities (CCA) in school to gain these soft skills.
Nonetheless, there is always room to improve these soft skills and be a more effective communicator and team player. Having role models to learn from would really help. Sometimes you just need a little observation to realise how some people are such great team players!
4. Be genuine to people
Genuinely trying to understand clients’ concerns can help. Only then can you appeal to their emotions which can open them up to your advice and persuasion.
Besides working with your colleagues, you need to work with clients. You are the one handling their dog, cat, rabbit or hamster who they love as dearly as their own family member. Imagine seeing your loved one vomiting, limping or crying in pain, or finding out that he/she has a high kidney value…
People tend to act rashly when they are overwhelmed by their emotions. Their emotional response overpowers their logical/rational response. However, once you try to understand where they are coming from, listen to them, acknowledge their concerns and provide support and care, you’ll notice a positive change in their response. Most of the time, they just want to be heard and understood.
A big part of speaking to clients involves education and raising awareness. But before that can be done, before you can even get them to accept your explanation, you have to reach them emotionally. Only then you would be able to put out your point to them in a convincing manner. Acknowledge their concern. Share a personal experience.
5. You can’t please everyone
If you try to please everyone, your life will never be yours. You’ll be too busy trying to live the life you believe others expect of you. It could be a miscommunication or disagreement with your colleagues or clients, don’t let that overwhelm you. Do whatever you can in your control. People’s beliefs, assumptions and judgement of you cannot be controlled (you can’t always be there to eavesdrop other’s conversation about you) if you have already done your best to rectify the issue. So let that be, move on.
There will be days when you have tried your best but things just don’t turn out the way you’d hope. Go easy on yourself, remind yourself of this.
6. You never know until you try.
There will always be a first time. Your first time will lead to 2nd, 5th, 10th, 50th, 100th times of doing it. But there will never be a first time if you never try. Only by doing more will you gain more experience and thus increase your confidence. Things become less scary and more familiar. Sometimes, after just doing it once by yourself, you’d realise that it is not scary at all!
You can start by observing how others do it and then do it yourself. For example, observe how a more experienced vet, vet nurse or vet receptionist speaks to a demanding or emotional client. Then try to step up when the time comes to convince a client to your way of thinking or advice, for the best of your patient’s health and welfare.
Just do it. Take action.
7. Quit when your heart tells you to.
Your first job is rarely going to be the best job you have. It takes time. It involves letting go of a few or many jobs to finally land yourself in a job that you feel best identifies with you.
As an 18 year old when I first started working as a vet nurse, I thought the many challenges I experienced there were normal. Having to work long hours into the night and barely having any breaks – I thought it was the norm, a part of my job and responsibility, and that all vet nurses had to go through this. However, after working at my second vet nursing job, I realised it doesn’t have to be this way. The same can be true for many other beliefs and assumptions.
It depends on your goals too. Is it the right environment for you to achieve your goals? Does your workplace value your goals and be able to provide the support you need? Do your beliefs and the company’s beliefs align? Is it exciting to come to work?
If your answer to the above questions is ‘No’ for any of the questions, it may be time to listen to your heart to quit and look for better opportunities.
8. Mistakes happen for a reason, it’s how you respond to it that matters.
“Don’t fear mistakes – fear only the absence of creative, constructive and corrective responses.”
Stephen R. Covey
Mistakes and failure are part of success. Reaching your destination is not the most important part, it is enjoying the journey. Once you enjoy the journey, you’ll learn to appreciate failure. How I wished I saw failure differently earlier. Though it is a small tweak in perspective, it will have a major impact on how you see your life opportunities.
Come to think of it, people don’t really remember your mistake, they remember how you respond to it. A mistake or failure is a chance to demonstrate to people and most importantly yourself, the ability to be flexible, creative and calm. It is an opportunity to change people’s beliefs and assumptions about you.
Firstly, take responsibility for the mistake, be genuine in your apology. Secondly, reflect on what exactly went wrong. Lastly, find a way to rectify the problem, be creative. There are definitely more sub steps to the above, but the 3 steps are a general rule of thumb I follow.
9. Animal restraining is more of an art
The animals you’re helping do not know who you are and what exactly you are going to do to them, it’s only natural that they are nervous, scared, and protective of themselves. On the other hand, some animals may be too excited and think that you are playing with them so they can’t stay still.
Animal restraining is more of an art rather than hard rules. There are countless ways to restrain an animal. Some do well with a towel wrap, some can easily be distracted with noises, some with treats and others with head scratches and taps. While sometimes, they prefer a ‘less is more’ approach.
Those methods listed above are for the wriggly animals. How about the nervous, flighty, bitey, aggressive or vicious animals? Sometimes a muzzle would work fine, other times, you need protective gloves, thick towels, a cone, a net… And sometimes, as simple as moving slowly and steadily does the trick.
It does take lots of experience and creativity when it comes to animal restraining. Each animal reacts differently to different handling methods. Ultimately, do it in the best interest and safety of the animals and the people who are restraining them.
I’ve learnt the hard way that it’s definitely okay to ask for help if I believe that the animal is too difficult for me to handle, be it getting more people to help restrain or asking others for their creative ways of restraining that I didn’t think of. That’s what makes this work so exciting, you never know what you’ll encounter each day.
10. Blood draw and placing IV catheters
“It’s never too hard to draw blood from an animal, it’s the right technique and positioning that matters.” This statement stuck through me as I continue learning to improve my skills in blood drawing and placing IV catheters. It was said by one of my bosses, a vet with more than 20 years of experience.
It just takes a little change in perspective and it can truly motivate you to keep trying and improving. Blood draw and placing IV catheters are one of those skills which you have to actually do to get better at it. And it takes lots of ‘failures’ to finally see progress. So just do it.
Working in a busy small animal practice with high hospitalisation caseload helped me a lot in this aspect. It was also the trust and support I had from my colleagues that allowed me to have so many opportunities to try (and fail HAHA), and that got me to where I am now. Until now, I still look forward to placing IV catheters and getting blood samples.
11. Emergency response
Even though the clinic I work at is a general practice, not an emergency practice, we still encountered a sizeable number of emergencies.
You ever know what the emergency is and when it will appear at the clinic’s door. And what makes an emergency so critical is the response time. Every second counts.
When I encountered my first emergency, I did not know how to react and had to immediately call for a senior nurse to replace me. I felt helpless and useless in that incident. That was when I knew I needed to learn about emergency response. I watched videos and asked around about CPR techniques.
Then I went on to take up a specialist diploma course in veterinary nursing and was tested on my CPR skills in an emergency and critical care module. My skills were then put to the test when I was actually involved in the resuscitation of an emergency case that came into my clinic. Though it was unsuccessful and the animal passed on, I still felt that my team tried our best and I was able to be there to help.
12. Monitoring anaesthesia
Many things can change within a few seconds to minutes during anaesthesia. A patient’s vitals such as its breathing, heart rate, blood pressure, reflexes and thus its depth of anaesthesia are always changing. Maintaining your patient’s stable vitals and ensuring it is in the right depth of anaesthesia is of paramount importance. Knowing how to react to sudden change in vitals is crucial to ensure the procedure’s success rate and reduce complications after the anaesthesia.
Relying on 1 or 2 vitals is not reliable and thus being able to quickly assess the patient’s stability using multiple vitals and signs is such an essential skill to have. Communication with the vet and other nurses during the anaesthesia is also important as it’s a team effort to react quickly in sudden changes in the patient’s vitals.
Taking the specialist diploma helped me deepen my knowledge in anaesthesia and animal physiology. Understanding the factors of certain anaesthetic drugs and how it affects the animal physiology definitely increased my confidence during anaesthetic procedures.
It definitely takes time to get used to the whole process and certainly takes experience to know how to react calmly and quickly in unique cases. There is still so much to learn about anaesthesia. In the future, I may find myself stuck in a stressful situation but I believe as I continue to increase my knowledge in this aspect, I’ll be more confident.
13. Dental scaling and polishing
What? Vet nurses are allowed to do dental scaling and polishing? This was exactly my thought… I never expected myself to be able to learn and do dental scaling and polishing for dogs and cats. I started by learning from veterinarians the concept and techniques of dental scaling and polishing. With direct supervision from a veterinarian, I started doing the dental scaling and polishing myself.
The answer to the above question is yes, vet nurses/technicians are legally allowed to do dental scaling and polishing under direct veterinary supervision. Here is a statement on Singapore Veterinary Association (SVA) website:
Dental care is such an overlooked aspect of pet care. Being able to learn dental scaling and polishing definitely increased my knowledge in dental disease and care.
14. Sedation is not that bad
Animals get stressed or nervous in an unfamiliar environment. Some animals may even be too excited with all the new and unique sights and scents. With the creation of new and improved drugs, sedation has become a lot more safe than a decade ago.
Sedation mainly helps an animal be calm – a common fear free technique. It reduces movement or even stops an animal from moving which allows restraining to be safe for both the animal and veterinary staff.
I’ve come to really respect veterinarians who make the decision to sedate the animal in the best interest of the patient and their colleagues. Animal restraining for diagnostic imaging, blood draw, proper physical examination is so much safer and less stressful for everyone.
15. Learning never stops
What I love about veterinary medicine and my job in the veterinary field is the abundance of learning opportunities. Every day is different, days can be exciting, crazy and adrenaline-fuelled.
You are never an expert in anything, once you believe you are, your learning stops while others who are humble will keep improving.
Always keep an open mind. Change your perspective whenever you feel like you’re stuck. Change your environment if you ever need a boost in opportunities to learn.