Turns out that my last post was my 200th post on this blog - woo! I'm glad I've been able to stick with it throughout vet school...I imagine one day I'll want to look back at my old posts and chuckle at my perceptions of the future. It's cute enough to look back at my pre-vet self trying so hard...imagine how I'll feel looking back at these posts about rotations, residency, etc. Life never goes according to plan, but I can hope it at least goes in the general desired direction.

Community practice is coming to a close this week. We have a day off tomorrow for Canada Day (the equivalent of the Fourth of July) and Friday will be a "Cat Action" day where we spay and neuter a bunch of cats that are either feral or owned by people who don't have the resources to get their pets spayed or neutered through the school "normally". So really, it's two days left of the rotation, one of which will be consumed (for me) by a "normal" cat spay.

I don't know if I've said this (I probably have, more than once...) but I really don't like surgery. I don't mind anesthetizing animals and I don't mind the sight of blood, guts, tissue, etc. I just don't like doing something so flipping important (removing internal tissue, causing bleeding) when I have very little experience with it. I like to see what I'm doing, have someone more knowledgeable confirm that I'm doing it right, and then do that thing very, very carefully. Keeping the incision small and reducing handling of the tissues is important for the animal, which means breaking tissue (the suspensory ligament, in a spay) that you can't actually see very well. Yikes. And when one of the biggest goals of surgery (aside from you know, removing the important parts) is to get in and out as quickly as safely possible...well, that doesn't jive with my approach to new skills. I like to go slowly and ask, "Is this right? Are you sure?!" at least forty-seven times. I'm sure my clinicians are going to be driven to the brink with my need for confirmation and assurance. I've promised myself I will try so very hard to be confident (and part of that will be a ton of preparation, reading, etc) but I'm freaking out about it on the inside. And I will continue to freak out about it until I either do a bunch all at once and finally feel confident in my ability...or I'll just always freak out about surgery ;)

At times like these, I repeat what has become my rotations mantra: fake it 'til you make it. Have I ever done an abdominocentesis in a cow? Hells no. But I will pretend as though I'm not mentally freaking and I will do it. What about a cystocentesis in a cat? Haven't done that either, but here's my cool-as-a-cucumber mask that I shall wear to perform this procedure. Can you run these QATs for me for this unstable emergency patient? OhmygodIneverlearnedthisPANICNOW says my brain, but outwardly I smile and nod and figure it out. And I've found that clinicians have yet to ask me to do something I can't figure out; it's all in my brain and it just takes pushing myself to get it done. I've surprised myself plenty of times and it's only been five weeks!