Braden with Juniper
After the article in last week’s newspaper about suicide in vets, I wanted to share a bit of a personal story about my experience as a new graduate.
During the first year or two of practice, most vets will lose a patient either as a result of getting something wrong, or even have a patient die because of what they did. I was no exception to this.
My first job was down in Esperance. It’s a beautiful place to work and the practice owners there were fantastic bosses. They gave me all the support I needed, and took really good care of me. Unfortunately, when working in mixed practice, you don’t always have a senior vet supervising you, and in those days we didn’t have great mobile coverage there.
On one particular day, I was called out to a “downer cow”. This is where the cow can’t get up at around the time of calving, and is normally due to some electrolyte imbalances.
I drove the 150km out to the farm (we covered a large area down there), and found the cow down in the paddocks and unable to rise. She looked like she was in the process of calving.
When I got out the car, she tried to charge me straight away. Aggression in a downer cow can be a sign of low blood magnesium, so I thought I had my diagnosis.
Because she was so aggressive, I couldn’t do a proper examination on her, so happy I had my diagnosis I decided to treat her with some magnesium into the vein. I drew up a big dose, got the stockmen to hold her head and gave her some intravenous magnesium. Five minutes later she still couldn’t stand, so we repeated the process, with the same result.
I decided to give her a third dose. The stockmen held her head, I injected once more into the vein, and the cow died as I finished giving the third dose. I had got the diagnosis wrong and the cow had died as a result.
The drive back was horrible. An hour and a half drive with the farmer’s angry words still ringing in my ears. It was one of the worst moments I have ever experienced as a vet.
I got back to the clinic, and as soon as the boss saw my face he knew something was wrong. I asked to have a chat with him, and I burst into tears as soon as I sat down in the office.
Luckily the boss was very understanding, explaining that something like that happens to many vets in their first couple of years. We talked through the case, discussed what could be done differently the next time, then he called the farmer and organised to pay him the value of the cow out of his own pocket.
I think if the boss hadn’t been so supportive I would have considered leaving the profession, as I couldn’t have faced that feeling again without a god support network around me.
Since then, there have been a few cases where I wonder if I could have done something different and saved a pet’s life. There are also the patients which I get very attached to (we’re not meant to get attached, but I think if you can’t love your patients then you’re in the wrong job), and when I have to say the final goodbye to them I still shed a tear. Some days, being a vet is incredibly hard, though most days I absolutely love my job.
Braden.