u/Key_Emergency1131

I've been working in the veterinary field since 2006 when I was fresh out of high school. I got my LVT license in 2019 and continued to work at the same practice that had nurtured me as a complete newbie until 2022, when I left to go to specialty medicine (oncology). COVID burnt me out, as I'm sure it burnt out many people, and I was hoping a change in scenery would be better. Well, oncology was even worse, and I left there after a year and a half of misery, applied to and was accepted to a graduate program in general biology, and went back to general practice in the meantime, which did help with the burnout- much easier pace and all.

I took a year off to try and finish my degree, but it's been taking longer than expected, and I needed some income, so I applied to a traveling veterinary surgery group, and they snapped me up. How it works is that two of us (assistants) are assigned to a surgeon for the day, and we travel from clinic to clinic (in our own cars) to perform surgical procedures that regular veterinarians aren't comfortable doing. Mostly orthopedic stuff, but we'll also do mass removals, anal sacculectomies, abdominal exploratory- you name it. We bring our own equipment, including cautery (and sometimes suction and smoke evac, depending on the surgeon) and of course, our own instruments. We use the operating suite in each clinic; they are in charge of anesthesia/medicine. Literally all we do is set up, cut, pack up, and move on to the next place. Generally, one assistant is scrubbed in with the surgeon, while the other does paperwork/computer stuff for the surgeon, and we usually trade off who does what.

I like it because the hours are predictable and consistent (no emergency or on-call) and there's no weekend shifts. I work three days a week (10-hour shifts) and spend the rest of my time in lab working on experiments for my thesis. My LVT license is irrelevant because I'm not doing anything that requires my license, and since I took a year off anyway, I let it lapse because you have to pay to get it renewed each year, so I didn't bother. I've been there for about six months, but the transition has been kind of a struggle. The pace is so fast, and expectations are high, and I keep getting feedback that I'm not efficient enough. This is coming from the surgeons and my coworkers, and it's very discouraging when I honestly feel I'm doing the best I can. I work at the pace I feel comfortable with, and if I go faster, I'm going to make stupid mistakes.

I guess my question is- should I just put in my notice and look for another job? I DO like it because it's interesting (although I don't love all the driving), but I don't enjoy feeling like I'm letting everybody down by being too slow, and again- I don't know where/how to work faster/more efficiently. I just keep being told to "be more efficient". If I do look for another job, I'll need to reactivate my LVT license and catch up on all the CE (continuing education) I didn't do while I was on hiatus. Or- I guess the third option- I go back to the lab full-time and really focus on finishing up my degree. I have all the credits I need to graduate, so I'm not taking classes; I'm just trying to finish up experiments.

I've been working in the veterinary field since 2006 when I was fresh out of high school. I got my LVT license in 2019 and continued to work at the same practice that had nurtured me as a complete newbie until 2022, when I left to go to specialty medicine (oncology). COVID burnt me out, as I'm sure it burnt out many people, and I was hoping a change in scenery would be better. Well, oncology was even worse, and I left there after a year and a half of misery, applied to and was accepted to a graduate program in general biology, and went back to general practice in the meantime, which did help with the burnout- much easier pace and all.

I took a year off to try and finish my degree, but it's been taking longer than expected, and I needed some income, so I applied to a traveling veterinary surgery group, and they snapped me up. How it works is that two of us (assistants) are assigned to a surgeon for the day, and we travel from clinic to clinic (in our own cars) to perform surgical procedures that regular veterinarians aren't comfortable doing. Mostly orthopedic stuff, but we'll also do mass removals, anal sacculectomies, abdominal exploratory- you name it. We bring our own equipment, including cautery (and sometimes suction and smoke evac, depending on the surgeon) and of course, our own instruments. We use the operating suite in each clinic; they are in charge of anesthesia/medicine. Literally all we do is set up, cut, pack up, and move on to the next place. Generally, one assistant is scrubbed in with the surgeon, while the other does paperwork/computer stuff for the surgeon, and we usually trade off who does what.

I like it because the hours are predictable and consistent (no emergency or on-call) and there's no weekend shifts. I work three days a week (10-hour shifts) and spend the rest of my time in lab working on experiments for my thesis. My LVT license is irrelevant because I'm not doing anything that requires my license, and since I took a year off anyway, I let it lapse because you have to pay to get it renewed each year, so I didn't bother. I've been there for about six months, but the transition has been kind of a struggle. The pace is so fast, and expectations are high, and I keep getting feedback that I'm not efficient enough. This is coming from the surgeons and my coworkers, and it's very discouraging when I honestly feel I'm doing the best I can. I work at the pace I feel comfortable with, and if I go faster, I'm going to make stupid mistakes.

I guess my question is- should I just put in my notice and look for another job? I DO like it because it's interesting (although I don't love all the driving), but I don't enjoy feeling like I'm letting everybody down by being too slow, and again- I don't know where/how to work faster/more efficiently. I just keep being told to "be more efficient". If I do look for another job, I'll need to reactivate my LVT license and catch up on all the CE (continuing education) I didn't do while I was on hiatus. Or- I guess the third option- I go back to the lab full-time and really focus on finishing up my degree. I have all the credits I need to graduate, so I'm not taking classes; I'm just trying to finish up experiments.

So I'm in a bit of an interesting situation through work. I work for a traveling veterinary surgeon, which means I travel all over the region to different veterinary hospitals, all of which have different protocols (or no protocols at all) for handling radiation exposure for their employees. This basically means we are there to prep and do surgery on a patient that needs a procedure their regular vet can't do, so we bring our own instruments, but we use the surgical table/suite at the clinic we're visiting, and the regular vet and their team are in charge of the anesthesia and medications. All we do is cut and leave. (Ha.)

I might be in a bustling treatment room prepping our patient for surgery while the techs at the next table are doing dental radiographs on an anesthetized animal, nobody is wearing gowns, and I'm obviously not provided with a dosimeter through my job since technically radiation exposure is not supposed to be a thing for my job. And yet...

I've also worked at places where the x-ray table is in the treatment room without any walls to try and block some of the scatter radiation, and since a LOT of what we do are knee surgeries that require post-op rads, I'm often in the line of fire, so to speak.

Knowing the principles of ALARA and scatter radiation posing health risks, I wanted to know what everyone's thoughts are here. I mean, it's a daily thing at this point where I'm getting at least some scatter radiation, and short of dropping what I'm doing and running out of the room, I can't avoid it. I'm very uncomfortable with this situation, even more so since I don't have a dosimeter keeping track of my lifetime radiation exposure (which I'm sure is fairly substantial at this point thanks to the year and a half stint I did in veterinary oncology, which involved a LOT of restraining animals for chest rads.) Should I request a dosimeter from my employer? Should I refuse to surgically prep a patient if dental radiographs are going on in the room?