I have been on blog hiatus since graduating veterinary school in 2011. In my prior blog life, I authored lifeofaveterinarystudent.blogspot.com. This blog logged my jounrney from getting accepted into vet school as a second career through graduation. My hiatus has been due to a number of factors, including a veterinary internship in small animal emergency and internal medicine 2011-2012, relocating to Phoenix, AZ and starting a career as a small animal emergency clinician, and writers bloc. As I began to settle into my career and make my way up the learning curve, I found myself entering 2013 thinking, "is this it?" While I pursued veterinary medicine because I found finance an unrewarding career, I would not say that I found emergency medicine unrewarding, but something was missing. So before my previous fans get too upset, let me explain.
I enjoy small animal emergency medicine and become more confident each day. There are frustrations, however, and after 4 months in practice, I started to revisit my long-term career goals. I realized that I missed my connection to the broader veterinary community, as well as veterinary students. I signed up to be a mentor through the AZ VMA and joined their Young Leaders Advisory Council and PR task force committees. These groups have been invigorating and enabled me to network with veterinarians in the local community and have an impact on the larger community outside of my practice.
While hiking with my husband, I was mentioning how I'd like to compose another blog, but I had nothing to write about. Writing a blog in vet school was easy, there was always something new and exciting happening or an exam to stress on. Daily practice, even emergency, is not always that exciting once it becomes a job. He came up with many ideas such as discussing transitioning from school to my internship into practice, inspiring cases, and the list kept going. The foundation for Veterinary Brainstorm was forming.
The excitement to start typing, however, occurred on a trip to Mississippi State veterinary school as a field representative in training for Veterinary Pet Insurance (VPI). This position will be discussed in a future blog entry, but it made me realize that a new blog would further my connection to prospective veterinarians, students, and others in the profession beyond the local level.
My prior blog inspired many people who reached out to me via email, telephone, and even spawned some in-person meetings. I hope this blog will inspire similar connections and discussions about relevant topics in veterinary medicine and my new career as it takes shape.
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