Will I ever be good enough?
Hi everyone. I’m 27 and I graduated at the end of 2022. I’ve been working as a vet in a small practice that sees mostly cats (80%) and small dogs (20%) since March 2023. 2 months back I resigned my job cause I felt like I was not getting enough exposure and felt like I wasn’t seeing much growth in the amount of knowledge I was gaining compared to my peers.
Since then I’ve left and joined a larger hospital for a month now. There has been SO MUCH change for my brain to process.
Moving from a place with 5 employees to 40 employees was very difficult for me as an introvert. It took me and still is taking me a long while to get used to everyone.
I feel really really dumb. One of my juniors from vet school is working there as a vet and she joined the field the same time as me but her first job was in the hospital and she knows so much. I feel very stupid compared to all the other vets. I’m constantly overwhelmed by how much information I do not know and beat myself up over how I am not smart enough or good enough or efficient enough as these people.
The vet nurses/assistants are not the friendliest. They’re extremely judgmental towards the (newer) veterinarians who they think are not “smart enough”. They don’t respect you or treat you the same way as they treat the other veterinarians and it makes me feel worse than I already do. When I try to ask them questions, they give me side eyes as if to say “you don’t even know this, how are you a vet?”. People here generally aren’t very friendly and I’m unsure if it’s because I’m a new addition to the team and they are looking at me as an outsider.
It’s just a lot that I feel like I’m going through right now but I have an amazing boss (the owner of the hospital and the head veterinarian) who takes his time to explain and teach me things without any judgement whatsoever whenever I have questions regarding any case (which is most times as the cases here are extremely complicated to what I am used to in my previous practice) but at the same time I also feel pressured to make a good impression so I could get decent increments in the future.
How do I improve myself? How do I become a better veterinarian? I work 6 days a week and I try my best to study on my off days but things that I have to do on my only off day catches up with me sometimes 🥲 despite that even at work, I’m always reading up things and ensuring I’m gaining knowledge and improving on my skills. I’ve also gotten into this mindset that I will be here only for a year or two to learn as much as I can before moving on with life (possibly sitting for the Australian Veterinary Exam to migrate) so that kinda helps a little. I’m not sure what I’m aiming to achieve by posting this but I’m just very overwhelmed right now with everything I don’t know. Any sort of tips or advice will be appreciated ❤️