What do I want to be when I grow up?

Hi there; Birdie here!

Particularly as I'm still in Intro to Vet Med, listening to different speakers talk about different areas you can go into with a DVM, I'm feeling like writing about the Blog Topic of the Week this week: what career path/specialty are you pursuing, and how did you become interested in it? All these talks in class and at the CDC about how you're so much more creative and better and more important if you work outside of private practice make me feel almost bad about wanting to go the "traditional" route, but I think I have some pretty good reasons for my decision.

Right after graduation, I really want to go into private practice. My undergrad major is psychology, and I want to be helping people too. Yes, I am going to deal with the crazy people and their pets. ;) Really, I want that doctor-client relationship. I am getting a DVM so that I can treat animals, not to go into research or government work or food inspection. I'm really glad people go into those other things, but that is not what I'm getting my degree for.

Years ago I thought I wanted to go into equine medicine, mostly because I've been riding since I was 7. When I spent a summer in Ireland at an equine clinic, though, I decided that isn't what I want to do. I would rather do spays and neuters every day than look down endoscopes at cricoaretynoideus dorsalis muscles every day. And in that experience I really missed the owner interaction. Kind of one of the reasons I don't want to go into food animal medicine, too--I want to work with owners who care about their individual animal's welfare more than the money they're bringing in, or the herd in general.

I also don't really want to work in a regulatory capacity, either; I want to practice medicine! I want to diagnose what's wrong with the animal and understand what went wrong so I can make it better (or probably sometimes the latter without necessarily the former). I want to palpate the animal and look at the radiographs and listen to the lung sounds and put it together.

I am worried about the job outlook, though. I don't want to do an internship unless I'm going to do a residency and I'm kind of worried that I won't be able to find a job, in which case I want to get an internship just so I can have some work. So I guess what I'm saying is I know what I want to do right after graduation, but I'm not sure at this point how feasible that is.

Years after graduation, there's a ton of things I am thinking about doing. I would consider going back for a PhD and looking for a position in an academic institution. I might be interested in specializing or even working in a more industrial capacity, but I definitely want to work directly with animals first. For a specialty, at this point I'm most interested in either radiology or clinical pathology (aka the two clubs I'm an officer in), which fulfill my passion for figuring out diagnostics but which don't so much involve the actual animals. I've also recently (since starting vet school) started to consider owning my own practice. I really never wanted to, but since I've been going to the VBMA meetings I've started thinking I might make a great practice.

So what do I want to do when I grow up? Be a veterinarian. Beyond that, I'll figure it out when I grow up. ;)