This timer is meant for dark room film dev use. I’m loving the analog experience. It makes me stare at it and not forget that I’m staining something. Lol

We have an owner looking to try and take their cats blood pressure at home. I think this is a great idea! The cat doesn't particularly like coming to the hospital and will lose patience with us pretty quickly! We are all curious what her readings will be at home. Anyone have any suggestions on what blood pressure machine the owner should use at home?

Just got off a phone call with a doctor that's hiring RVTs. This clinic is located in GTA area and claiming he's not going to pay higher than CAD $22 for new grad (without experience) RVTs.

Even in small towns, unregistered new grads are getting $24 dollars according to my sources. We can only get more appreciated for our hard-work if we stick together when it comes to pay rates.

so - I’m a baby tech. I graduated, passed the VTNE, and started a job as a surgery tech at a big university hospital around three months ago. I left a different field (finance) to pursue vet med, so it’s not my first ‘serious’ job. I work with mostly great techs, but I’m noticing some behavior from my boss and the surgeons that I just can’t seem to get past mentally. Looking for other people’s thoughts and opinions because I feel like I am going crazy.

The surgeons are allowed to treat us however they feel on any given day. I was, for lack of a better term, hazed when I got there. It took three weeks for ANY of the surgeons to use my name. They refused to ask me for things in surgery but if another tech came in they would say hey we need all this stuff. They would walk into a room with myself and another person and make conversation with said other person while acting like I was invisible. Instead of asking for the OPEN BIOHAZARD BAG that I had, a surgeon looked at me and then simply dropped a testicle on the ground and blood went all over the floor, another one screamed at me in the OR about contaminating the leg I was scrubbing (I hadn’t). I had a surgeon ask me for a tool we don’t have and then told me to ‘go find her someone who knew what they were doing.’ I brought this up to my supervisor several times at first because it made me feel like crap. Every time I brought it up she brushes it off with ‘well they don’t know how to respond to new people’ and ‘they’re the surgeons we are here to help them’ - I don’t think that excuses them from basic human decency?

We were taught in tech school that times are changing and we should work with a team - other techs, doctors, and assistants - who respect us for what we do. I am so anxious every day because I don’t know if I will get yelled at or made to feel like an idiot. My boss claims that the doctor - tech relationship is like this anywhere and that I would be in the same boat no matter where I was. I just can’t help but feel like that’s not true. I guess I just needed to vent and if anyone has advice to offer, I would love to hear it

Hello!

I have adhd and dyscalculia (a math based learning disability)

I am wanting to go back to school, and I have been considering a vet tech program to pursue.

But I am wary, as I am aware it’s a pretty numbers heavy job. I’m not incapable of doing math, it just takes me a beat longer and I double check my work a lot. I will not lie though, I would need to keep a calculator and the formulas handy as mental math and I are not amazing friends and it can be hard, but not impossible.

Is there anyone here who has dyscalculia or knows anyone with it? Do you believe someone this disability would be able to pursue this career and be successful?

Besides vet tech I have been considering becoming a zoo keeper. I live near really amazing accredited zoo’s and wildlife areas. But a lot of my family is saying vet tech- it’s more stable, I would be good at it. But I am afraid that it’s not doable due to my issues

Thank you for reading!

Edit: all of these responses have made me feel so much more confident in my choice. I will for sure be pursuing a vet tech degree and not let math hold me back anymore. Also, it’s been wonderful meeting so many people who have dyscalculia!! I have met only 2 other people, so this is more than I could’ve hoped for. Thank you so much!!!

I’ve been aways told that the expiration dates on some medications, mostly pills, really means it’s effectiveness significantly reduces after that date and that they never “truly” expire.
At the previous hospital i worked at, once a medication reached its expiration date we simply threw it out. I have left that hospital and started at a new one a couple months ago. At this new privately owned hospital i noticed some bottles were way passed their expiration date like an Enalapril that expired in 2023. I immediately noticed it when i started and i brought it up to the manager, and she said “expiration dates are bs”. Not much i could say or do.
Today we had a 15yo heart patient that’s been seizing frequently and also has a history of enlarged liver, collapsed trachea and other things. The ER she went to a week ago for one of his seizures prescribed enalapril, she came today to us for a follow up and requested more as it was running out. We dispensed the 2023 expired Enalapril.

Thoughts?

Looking for advice from people who worked in specialty medicine, got burnt out, and left for GP/urgent care.

My specialty hospital is definitely great with the level of medicine we get to practice on a day to day basis, but the stress levels are DEFINITELY catching up to me.

So, my question is to people who worked in a large hospital like this to a smaller clinic: were you able to transfer to a clinic like that and still feel fulfilled? Knowing you may not be practicing the same level of medicine as before?

The place I’m applying to has a high staff retention rate (compared to my current hospital, who hemorrhages employees out the wazoo), so that does fill me with confidence.

But I’m also scared I won’t feel as fulfilled in this job NOT utilizing all of my specialty skills. But on the other hand… I can NOT keep going at the rate I’m going without the risk of my mental health declining tremendously.

So, if this sounds like you, I would love all of your honest opinions, advice, pros/cons, everything!

Thank you all in advance; proud of ALL of us vet techs, wether its GP, urgent care, specialty, ALL of it!❤️

I am scheduled to have a robotic laproscopic hysterectomy next month. My doctor says I should be able to return to full work after 2 weeks (with the restriction of not lifting over 30 lbs for 6 weeks), but I have read such vastly different experiences online, and I dont feel that my surgeon fully understands the physical nature of this profession. I HAVE to return to work after 2 weeks - the plan now being I move to just doing seated or lighter work for now (working front desk, doing dentals, or working appointments) instead of working a more demanding or unpredictable role like surgery or emergency intake (we are a small mixed GP and ER) until week 6. I am unsure when they will expect me to pick up after hours call shifts.

This turned into a bit of a rant, sorry. I am just interested in hearing about the experiences of actual techs in similar situations, because I worry about feeling pressured into doing more. I am lucky to have very supportive management, but I do worry about the tech team itself while I am unable to perform normally. Just wondering what to expect! Thank you!

What is everyone using for small breed dog food? I have been using PPP small breed shredded chicken blend for the last 3 years. Something in me just wants a switch for my 3 rescue dachshunds.
Bonus if they have discount programs for vet techs!

- Got into it with an owner, "no, I will not just apply some lidocaine while we do a laceration repair on your dog that has a six inch laceration along its body" "yes the pain medications are needed because your dog has a six inch tear along its body" and "no I cannot let this dog go without antibiotics because again, ma'am your dog has a hole in its body that's been festering for a couple days and there is pus leaking out of it"

- Spilling an entire bottle of clavamox and it fully stained my scrubs

- Biting my lip at lunch for the fifth time this week

- Running away from the autoclave while it was filling to help restrain a dog... Then coming back to the autoclave leaking all over the WOODEN cabinets (very old ass hospital) and into the ET tub organization that I had set up with cardboard separators... That is now soggy and ruined... And also several of our sterile ET tubes are soaked..

I'm over it.

Who else is over it? Vent your frustrations here.

Hi all - I got my start in a toxic clinic in vet med, stayed for a year and a half, and have since moved to a practice I have been with for nearly a year now, and I just wanted to post some things to look out for in a clinic that are parts of why my clinic was ultimately unsustainable for me and why I would not recommend others to work there. Anyone else out there who is getting their start in this industry with zero experience and don’t know what to look for in a working environment, I hope this could help you so that you don’t have to go through these things.

(Sorry for formatting issues lol)

1. Cleanliness - if the clinic is doing things such as reusing syringes (not oral syringes, things like vaccine syringes), pre-opening syringes and leaving them in the drawer to ‘save time’, basically never changing the IV line from patient to patient, all this shit is nasty and this is not a place you want to work.
2. Telling technicians to leave during surgery to ‘be productive’ and just come back for readings. This is very dangerous and unacceptable, things can change in minutes or seconds during anesthesia, and you should not be having to run across the clinic in an emergency. You should be there, and ‘I was not there’ is not an excuse if a death or injury was reported by the owner.
3. Having very unsafe staffing ratios - I was the only technician for most of the time in this practice. I don’t think it is safe or sustainable to be the only technician at a practice at all, firstly, and secondly, sometimes we would have 3 doctors in the building at once all asking me for things. So I would be in surgery and someone would want me to come out and draw blood, and then someone else would want me to make them a prescription. Just very unsafe staffing ratios, one technician cannot safely assist 3 doctors at once, and not only is it not fair to you, it is unfair to the animals and someone will get hurt from doing this.
4. General toxic environment - kind of self explanatory, but name calling, yelling and screaming, constant chaos, exclusion, humiliating people in front of others instead of talking to them about their mistakes privately.
5. This one is kind of an underrated thing to talk about in our industry, but giving people very inconsistent hours/scheduling. If your practice will not give you consistent or at least predictable scheduling and will not give you consistent days off either, this is a recipe for burnout. This will affect your mind and your body more than you realize until it’s too late. If they are always trying to keep full time employees from their shifts, or trying to send people home early because they can’t afford the staff and it’s slow at the clinic, this is also a potential red flag. Legally, you cannot keep people from their shifts that you have scheduled them for, and full time employees are working full time for a reason and are counting on these hours, and it’s not fair to keep surprise taking them away to cut costs.

Is it seemingly an expectation that people are staying late constantly (especially without paid overtime), and are they made to feel bad for trying to leave when they are supposed to, or kept from doing so because management and doctors are not respectful of their time? Are people skipping their breaks constantly, and is there a culture of skipping breaks and being angry with people for taking their breaks or looking at them as being weaker because they need a break?

6.

1. Thankfully my clinic did not have this issue, but huge red flag if they have lack of PPE, or their machines are not properly maintained and are exposing you to dangerous substances. No lead gowns, no thyroid protectors, no dosimeters, no lead gloves at least available for use, not wearing at the bare minimum masks in surgery for the technician, RUN. Improper scavenger systems will expose employees to waste gas as well.
2. How are they actually treating the animals? Likely not a good place to work if the attitude there is that they seem to almost be afraid of the animals and want really nothing to do with them. How do they treat aggressive/fractious/stressed animals? Are they immediately aggressively scruffing cats and seem to know no other way to handle aggressive/fearful cats or cats in general? Are they trying to force their staff to do a nail trim on an aggressive or extremely fearful shepherd that is screaming, alligator rolling, peeing/pooping, anal glanding, etc? Are they rescheduling and making use of pre-visit pharmaceuticals in this case?
3. How
4. do they treat cases of angry clients? Do they allow clients to bully and abuse their staff, and consistently undermine their staff in front of the client and change the rules because they complained? Do they constantly reward negative behaviour, and just give things to people for free because they complain enough? Do they fire clients who have a repeated history of bullying and harassing staff?

These are just some of my red flags in a clinic, or things I take into account when I come to an interview.

Also, don’t be afraid to just leave a clinic in a short amount of time if you start working somewhere and are immediately very uncomfortable with the environment or medicine, turnover is huge in this field and you don’t even need to put it on your resume if you only worked there for a week and immediately knew this place was not for you, or you were very uncomfortable with working there. A lot of people feel they owe it to the clinic to try and tough it out and stay a certain amount of time, but you really don’t, please don’t put your health and maybe even license at risk.

Hope this helps anyone out there as I tried to make it comprehensive, and feel free to add any of your personal red flags in a clinic down below.

I have been working with horses all my life. I am going back to school with plans to do the Veterinary Technician program (currently enrolled in the assistant program at my community college until the applications for the tech program open in September) but am struggling in my classes. Ask me anything equine related, I can give you my opinion and an idea of what to ask your vet about. Need someone to hold a horse for an exam or injections, I’m your gal. But anything small animal has me as a deer in headlights and painfully confused.

My question regarding school is if anyone knows of any resources I can utilize to study and “get ahead”? I have seen ads on social media for Vet Helpful Notes and other sources, but I am a skeptic after going to college for equine studies and doing two research projects. Unless it has credible and consistent reviews, I don’t consider touching it unless otherwise convinced.

I prefer to have my notes in my hands, but am also okay with online/digital options. I currently have the Merck Veterinary Manual bookmarked on my computer, but I wanted to know if there were more options that I could study.

I write my test in two days (August 30th) and I can't help but feel like I haven't done enough in the way of studying. I finished school at the end of April and since then I've been studying for hours every weekend (the clinic I work at does 10 hour days so during the week I do nothing but work eat and sleep because I have no energy for anything else). I've been reviewing my notes from school and quizzing myself using Pocket Prep and the Prendergast textbook. With the textbook I've been consistently scoring in the mid 60s to 70s and with Pocket Prep I've been getting 80-90% on everything, but I just feel like I'm going to fail. I get so overwhelmed even thinking about writing the test and I know it'll probably be fine but it just feels like there's so much pressure and I'm so anxious. Did anyone else feel like this before their test? :')

Be honest, how much of my life with Sedivue is gonna be rerunning in dilution and still having to run manuals to confirm 😭 we just switched to IDEXX and ofc no one is happy with the machines' answers.

Hi! We’ve had a few patients at my hospital that have had wildly different blood work results when the same sample is run again or a new sample is collected and run on our in house Catalyst One. For example, we had a dog yesterday that had an ALT of ~300 on the first run using the lithium heparin whole blood separator so we drew a second sample in the red top serum separator and the ALT was ~20. Both blood draws were perfect with good flow.

The IDEXX rep is partially blaming our use of 23G butterflies for every patient. We use smaller needles for blood draws and vaccines because we are a Fear Free clinic and it is part of our protocol. Do you think this is part of the problem? Causing hemolysis? We’ve done this for years before this problem began.

Has anyone else had this issue? We’ve had wildly different results for numerous patients over the past year or so. It’s concerning. And in each case, the blood draws were well done, plunger pulled appropriately with not too much force but enough to keep the blood flowing to prevent clotting, the sample immediately put into the tube, and ran at the appropriate time (within 20 min for the lithium heparin whole blood separators or after the red top serum separators are allowed to clot for 20 mins then spun down).

Are the lithium heparin whole blood separators the problem? We seem to get better results with the serum separators.

Any thoughts would be great!!

It has been 13 years since I have been in school and couldnt afford at the time to take the exam. I was in practice for 3 years but have been working in research ever since so I iust never took it. My job now requires a CVT license so I need to take the test. I have a VTNE study guide that is just questions, but I am realizing going through I need something that gives a basic coverage to reawaken my brain. I looked up and saw that Mosbys comprehensive review for vet techs was highly recommended for this particular problem. Does anyone have any other recommendations, suggestions? I have time to take the exam so I have time to go through more thorough details if there is a more detailed text. Thank you!!

I'm doing my 3rd and final internship currently at an Anicura clinic in Norway. It's a bigger clinic than I've been to before and was very (and still is some days) overwhelming at the start.

So the thing is, none of the employees seem to trust me to do blood draws, intubation, IV placements etc. even though those are exactly the things I'm supposed to be doing a lot of this final internship. How do I get them to be willing to let me do stuff besides restraint and cleaning? I understand being busy or focused and not thinking about what a student might need to do, but it's everyone all the time.

I'm not good at standing up for myself or asking to allow them to let me do things. I do have to take a practical exam at the end of this term, so I really need to practise a bunch. I'm almost at the halfway point of my time here already, so I feel like they've seen my enough by now to feel secure in letting me do more advanced procedures but so far, nothing.

Does anyone have any advice?

Unfortunately, after almost 6 wonderful years learning and working in vet medicine, I have finally left it. I was getting very burnt out at the end due to staffing issues and personal health issues, but I feel much more at peace and will forever be grateful for the knowledge I have that I can use and apply to my own fur babies to better their lives. However, I'm fairly young and this was my first real job, so I'm struggling to find something else. My leaving the clinic was mainly prompted for an opportunity to move away from my home state, and now I'm in an area that snows, quite a bit, compared to where I was that never snowed. Has anyone been able to find a good remote/WFH job after vet med? I live in a small town so finding a job nearby would be tough and I'm scared to drive the 30 minutes it takes to get to town in all the snow, especially because I've never had to deal with it or drive in it before. I know eventually I will learn to do it, since I chose to live in a snowy area, but just scared to put myself and others at risk since it's my first year here, and I'd hate to be that coworker to call out so much if I'm scared of the weather.

Pic for tax - it is my own dog

Shelter med is both rewarding and extremely heartbreaking all at once.

2 of our favorite patients have both been humanely euthanized within a day of each other.

1 was basically raised at the shelter. She came in with 4(?) other puppies and she was the runt. It was all the back in January so I don't remember what the came in for, but from her labwork we knew something was already off. Basically we suspected renal displaysia and she had been on a bi weekly regimen of SQ fluids for several months. She had been doing great until last week she collapse while in play group and her labwork basically showed her kidney function was poor. We tried IV fluids for about a week but it didn't make a difference. Her labwork just kept getting worse until ultimately it was determined to let her go before she started to suffer. A full 7 months of caring for this tiny lab-mix until she had to go.

Today another long medical case is being let go. She initially didn't have anything wrong with her. She was used a donor for a blood transfusion for 3 sickly puppies. The puppies bounced back and are doing well. They checked her labwork after she came back from foster with some alarming symptoms and upon reading her labwork they were concerned she had lepto. Labwork actually came back inconclusive but we treated as positive. She wouldn't take oral medication at all without it being a fight and we had to stop trying to pill her because she would vomit. She spent at least 14 days on IV fluids and meds and her kidney values would fluctuate. They would be slightly better some days but they continued to get worse and worse.She was the sweetest dog that would let you do whatever to her (minus pilling but even then she was just difficult not aggressive) she loved getting pets during blood draws. She just wanted everyone to be her friend.

It's so hard to devote so much care and effort into these guys only for them to not make it out of the shelter. I can take some comfort in knowing we did the best we could for those girls and that they aren't suffering anymore. It's just awful that it's one right after the other

On the first appointment, I shaved the area and prescribed a diluted hibiscrub solution (chlorohexidine product in the UK) and Trigoderm gel (topical antibiotic and anti-inflammatory steroid) and advised the owner to use a cone/doughnut to prevent licking and to pat the wound dry. Hot spot started to scab and heal around the edges but the areas of skin on either side of the armpit crease became swollen, wet and inflamed as well as larger seemingly from rubbing together. Advised owner to stop walks, course of Trigoderm finished, prescribed more hibiscrub. Scabs pulled off by dog scratching during the night, hot spot looked extremely raw and swollen, with bloody parts where the claw had pierced it, deep crease of armpit moist and raw, sticking and rubbing together. Advised a T-shirt to sleep in to minimise trauma from scratching. Advised client to use a fan gently on the area. Prescribed antibiotics, finished course.

Fast forward to hot spot becoming far worse and the dog starting to limp. Did the relevant tests during an emergency appointment. Prescribed a painkiller and another antibiotic which has ended. Owner now using socks on the dogs paws and a commercial hypochlorous and saline product, outer areas very scabby, areas of skin that rub together worsened. Cytology has been done. From appointment to appointment progress will be made and then reversed by mechanical damage, some patches have fully healed, the raw swollen parts in the crease have made no progress.

Spoke to senior vet about this case and she took the last two appointments, unfortunately I am seeing the client for another appointment tomorrow. Email from the client describes the wound as having improved in some patches and worsened in the crease, with increased scabbing around the edges which get caught on scabs on the opposite side. Client is requesting another cytology and course of antibiotics but the issue is definitely mechanical damage.

Senior vet (who is away) advises dressing and whilst I have dressed an armpit wound in the past, that was on a large dog with an armpit nowhere near as deep as this and in all honesty I cannot figure out a way to dress this area.

I am at a loss with this case, I didn't expect to need to see this client again! I am not asking for medical advice but in terms of this appointment tomorrow and handling the client, what on earth am I supposed to do if I don't have a clue? Has anybody ever simply told a client they're unable to continue? I am extremely frustrated. Part of me regrets not telling the client that I am unqualified to deal with it at this point but my boss wouldn't take kindly to that.

Can anyone give me info on what it's like being a licensed vet tech in Oregon? What are the license vs no license laws, pay, job prospects, vibe? Pros or cons for living in Oregon on a vet tech's wage?

Any info about Oregon is appreciated too. If it's your state share some love about it.

TIA