r/VetTech

Pretty simple. I remember when I was in school I went to a dog show in Detroit and an Irish Wolfhound won best of show. He was absolutely massive but I have no clue how much he weighed. I'm gonna say that dog was the 2nd biggest dog I've ever seen. What's funny is the following year I went to the same dog show and a Whippet won best of show. Talk about going from one extreme to another.

I want to say about 5 years ago I was working in a clinic that had massive bay windows in the front reception area. But, the reception desk wasn't facing the windows it was facing an adjacent wall. I was standing in the reception area and saw a very, very big dog coming into the clinic. I couldn't help it, I just yelled holy shit! Receptionist came out running because she thought something was wrong. She laughed and said that's Walter.

Walter was/is an English Mastiff that was coming in to get his staples taken out due to an emergency torsion surgery.

I like to play games to keep myself from going crazy. I like to pour out just the right number of medication that's been prescribed. The amount of times I've been 1 pill off drives me insane.

I also like to guess the weight of animals before we actually weigh them. I'm usually pretty good. But not always. So I originally guessed Walter was 200 pounds.

I put him on the scale and he was exactly 260 pounds making Walter the single biggest dog I've ever seen. I was kinda pissed that I was off by exactly 60 pounds. That was a terrible guess.

So with that said, what is the biggest dog you've ever seen? And was his name....Walter?

I’m currently an assistant with 4 years of experience at a small privately owned GP. I am OTJ trained and developed basic skills such as blood draws, iv catheter placement, rads, anesthesia monitoring/surgical assistance, running in house diagnostics, and reception. I am currently looking for a new job because I’m getting bored of GP work, want to develop more skills, the culture of my clinic is not the best, utilization of assistants is poor, and I don’t work with any licensed technicians.

I applied to an ER position and ultimately didn’t get the job because I lack ECC experience. I decided to apply to an urgent care/IM clinic as a bridge between GP and ECC. I had a video call today with the hospital and I think it went bad.

I was very nervous and struggled to communicate my experience without rambling. They asked about skill set and dug into specifics like triage protocol, treatment sheets, and medical math which I don’t have much experience with and it highlighted how capped out I am in my current role as the doctors I work for do these things. One of the doctors I work with likes technician work and I am mainly a glorified animal holder when I work with her. My current clinic also lacks structured training protocols and investment into staff development. I’ve had to ask to learn to place IVs, blood draws, in house diagnostics, etc. and wouldn’t have learned it if I didn’t ask or make an effort to learn. My “training” and skill set feels half-assed compared to what these higher volume hospitals expect.

I am so eager to learn/improve on skills and desperately want to break into urgent care or ER. I enjoy sick cases far more than routine wellness exams, but I feel like I'm practically back at entry level when it comes to standard ER workflows. I don't want to badmouth my current practice in interviews, but the structure and standards there are just so much lower than the places I'm applying to.

I would love some advice on how to professionally frame these skill gaps in interviews without sounding negative and whether applying directly to dedicated UC/ER hospitals is realistic or if I should target larger GPs with strong UC components first to bridge the gap?

So I'm new at this job, I took it because I was desperate for a career and the other opportunity I had didn't align with me as this one did. I started as a kennel tech a few months ago and have been training for Medical Aide, I was told I was going to be "restraining and restocking" and I said okay that sounds chill (making 12 fucking dollars an hour btw)

Since they decided I'm not learning VA stuff yet, my trainer for weeks has spoke to me the first 30 mins of every shift then immediately tells me he's too busy to teach me and to "ask somebody" if I have a question and that I'm "basically done with training" despite him spending probably an hour with me one on one in the few weeks I've been training, therefore I am not capable of doing a lot of stuff they now want me to do, that was not specified to me in the beginning to begin with. There is no other MA so I am literally learning from VAs.

Well today they put me with someone different, and everything was fine until the doctor came in to do boarders. They told me to get one, doctor took like an hour to come back so I was told to put him in a separate room for Hospitals across the hall, 5 steps away. As soon as she walks in she goes "so you guys texted me and don't have the dog?" I told her he was across the hall and that my trainer was grabbing him. Well whatever she starts looking at the dog and I know how she is so towards the end of his exam I asked if I should go get the next, they said yes. I go get the dog and chill waiting for her to get off the computer and come look at this dog.

She immediately screams at me telling me I should not be standing around holding a dog waiting on her that I should be packaging this dead cat up and all this other shit and I'm like (in my head lmao) dude you told me to hold this dog, and if I leave this dog somewhere you will refuse to see him because we "don't have him ready". So I put this 90lb dog in the wall cage she told me to cram him in and start doing the other crap she wants from me. Whatever I guess.

Then later we start trying to get blood from this little Maltese with me handling and the guy is flipping out also marked aggressive, pawing at his face trying to rip off the muzzle and alligator rolling the whole nine. My trainer decides to call it and tells me to put him up, well when the doctor from earlier saw someone had gotten blood for a heart worm test but not all the labs she tweaks out again and decides she's "retiring to her office". They made me go get the dog again this time with my trainer holding and the practice manager getting blood.

After they were successfully able to get the blood the manager goes "he wasn't that bad." And my trainer goes "because I'm holding him." Obviously being shitty towards me. I have gotten very minimal practice with handling because Ive never done this before and they never let me practice because I'm obviously the weakest on the team. That's not even to mention what it's like actually in the room because again they do not let me practice. I said something also shitty like "damn thanks guys" to which was responsed with "don't wear your feelings on your sleeve" from the practice manager. But then they immediately wanted me to help hold for a cysto so make that make sense. Doesnt help right before I had to ask the practice manager to help get pee from a cat and she started chewing me out for some bs I can't remember and I told her it had been a stressful day, she goes "this is stressful? This is stressful? You wouldn't have survived how it used to be" and starts cutting up with my trainer how I thought today was stressful. I said that to get her off my ass and just come do this fucking cysto why am I now the butt of the joke.

I'm just frustrated, embarrassed and lowkey over it. I made more making coffee at my last job and it had not even half the stress this job does. My bf makes over double what I make and is having to pay most bills because I "want" to work here. (I don't know what I want I just want to feel like I am genuinely helping in my role whatever it is and not just there taking up space). I feel like I am a burden on my team with no way to learn these skills by myself and no one has enough patience to actually teach me. I also feel like fuck you guys you guys made a decision to shove me in the corner of course I am not capable or even know what y'all want from me. It doesn't help the moment I try to voice a grievance or set back I've experienced they jump to tell me that person "isn't like that" or try to get me to say something point blank so they can scream at whoever trained me that day. I was told "restocking and restraining", why am I filling meds, doing follow ups, putting people in rooms, taking tpr, putting dead animals in bags and everything short of sticking the animal for 12 dollars an hour. I ask myself every day what am I doing here

Anyways just a vent, I basically can't quit because this place is so fucking greedy they'll garnish 1/4 of my check for the work shirts they issued me if I quit before a year is up. They also will not give us jackets and expect us to pay 90 dollars for one from them. 7 and a half hours for one jacket (before taxes come out of that hourly btw so over a whole day of work for one jacket). I'm just so over it. I love animals and have a ton of compassion for them I just don't know how far that will take me here. Also if you read this far thank you, I love you and really appreciate any advice you may have <3