Best Advice Essay Contest (Again)

Here's the submission from the runner-up in the SAVMA Education and Professional Development Committee's Best Advice Essay Contest. This is some good advice to remember as February 14th is coming up soon.

“Don’t date any professors-or clinicians-or residents-or interns-or classmates”

By: Jacqueline Devoto

University of Tennessee, Class of 2013

Prior to beginning veterinary school, I worked at an eight doctor small animal practice in west Tennessee. Like most southern veterinarians—and I can say this because I’m an aspiring-veterinarian from the south—each one thought their way was the right way and wanted to everyone to hear about it. Don’t misunderstand me—they are an amazing team who compliment each other superbly, each with their own, unique style and methodology. However, one piece of advice I received was unanimous across the board, which truly was a miracle in itself; and this is why I find it necessary to share it with you all today.

This advice, in summary, was to not date anyone that might be associated with my education in anyway.  In reality this means don’t date anyone since we all know we don’t interact with people outside of our own masochistic species, aka the veterinary education community. Veterinary school is its own universe, revolving around our sun—our professional drive to succeed. The stars orbiting around this central goal are the students, moving in constant, steady synchrony.  It’s the natural rhythm of our world. The gods of our universe are those bearing the mark of omniscience—DVM. They are the veterinarians. We dance to their music, jump at their commands, and pay unfathomable amounts of money to live lives of sedimentary studying and sleepless nights to pass their exams and gain their approval.

Since before the time of Greeks and Romans, man has been intrigued by the relationship between immortals and mortals. However, these worlds are not meant to combine. They revolve around each other and shape one another, but their intermingling breeds confusion and changes what was black and white into grey, the ultimate horror for the Type A veterinary student. My former bosses’ previous adventures through this pseudo-world enlightened them to the results of disrupting this hierarchy.

Now does this mean every story has an unhappy ending? Definitely not. Many people find amazing love in vet school. It’s a beautiful thing and great for gossip. Nonetheless, vet school is complex and our focus should be directed toward our career and what we can do for it, not what our instructors are doing this weekend.  Beyond the amusement I enjoyed when one doctor called his graduating class “an incestuous family,” I know that my mentors just wanted me to have the most positive and rewarding professional and personal experience possible during my 4 years at UTCVM.

Relationships are messy. School is challenging. Mixing the two is potentially catastrophic and prone to scandal. Who wants to be “that girl” when she gets down to clinics? So why did Katie Holmes marry Tom Cruise? Why do people keep signing up for The Bachelor/The Bachelorette? Why do insanely wealthy, withering old men always have young, gorgeous wives? Why do some veterinary students always take advantage of that “open door office policy?” I wouldn’t know, because I’m heeding my mentors’ advice and dating law students instead.