Hi friends!
How is it going with you? I hope you are also sitting in your favorite coffee-shop on your day off. I hope you (like me) are contentedly nestled next to the only outlet amongst a herd of adorable, curly-haired, (probably) lesbians. Perhaps you are sipping a delicious mug of chai, watching the delightfully charming parade of queers go by.
Anyways! It's time for a list of things you can do to make your internship less bad:
1. Cultivate an appreciation of some sort of morning beverage.
Mine is herbal tea. I'm a naturally energetic and weirdly hyper person, so caffeinated drinks upkick that and make me frenetic and/or wacky.
It should be a beverage that is easy to make, and you should make it yourself. Yes - obvs it would be faster to buy it, but if you're an intern you probably don't have money for that nonsense.
Make your coffee/tea/smoothie/whatever and sip it before you begin your day. This sounds quite simple, but having a routine and a comforting beverage will settle your mind - no matter how crazy your day is about to be!
If I don't have time to finish my tea during rounds, I leave it by the front desk - it makes it easy to grab a drink between patients.
2. Be kind to your future self.
You are absolutely, 100% not going to want to listen to your voicemail, check those lab results, or read that blood smear tomorrow morning before rounds. You are going to want to sleep in. I know it's probably 11pm, but just do [whatever it is] before you go home. Your future self will thank you.
3. Make a daily list of your tasks.
This does not have to be extensive or complicated or take a long time. Grab a piece of paper, write down your shit, stick it in your pocket. Mine looks kind of like this:
[Patient 1] - treatment sheet, SOAP, call owner, get biopsy results.
[Patient 2] - treatment sheet, SOAP, call owner, get rDVM records, check bloodwork, mass removal.
[Patient 3] - treatment sheet, SOAP, call owner, neuro exam, get neuro consult, check coags.
Daily list = improved efficiency = go home sooner = sleep more = less suck.
4. If you need to ask a specialist several questions (i.e. get advice on more than one patient), have all of your ducks in a row so you can have one (hopefully short) conversation. This will make your day go faster (this is good, see point #3), and the specialist's day go faster - meaning s/he will probably be more inclined to help you in the future because it wasn't particularly onerous this time.
5. Take cases that scare and/or confuse you.
Okay, so I have a hard time managing patients with diabetes. I don't know why. I think it's because I never know what insulin dose to start with, they often have numerous other problems, and there are approximately a zillion factors that make one more or less insulin-resistant.
So, I signed up to take care of a patient in DKA with Cushing's disease, hypothyroidism, and financially constrained owners. It was an endocrinology adventure, and I learned many things. Now managing patients with diabetes is a bit less frustrating for me.
Look, if you're doing an internship, your colleagues (hopefully) assume that you are trying to learn and are quite willing to teach you. If you somehow manage to avoid all the cases that are uniquely confusing to you during your internship, they will still pop up for you later in veterinary life (still as confusing as ever!) and I'd imagine that's going to suck.
Hooray for internships! By the way, if you are on the conventional US veterinary internship cycle and are reading this at time of posting, you are approximately 1/3 done with your internship. Also, go sign up for the match if you (like me) are doing the match again for residency/specialty internship purposes. The time is now.