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Tell me a vet story! That’s typically the last request (order?) from my seven-year-old at bedtime. The lights go off, and he turns around for a back tickle and a veterinary adventure from my past. I cast back into the memory banks for a story with just the right level of gore to keep it exciting – ideally, one with a happy ending.
Here’s the story I tried to tell a couple of nights ago:
It’s the story of my first—and to this day, most impressive—dystocia case. I was a few months qualified, working in a small rural clinic where I lived in an apartment attached to the clinic, and my patient had 22 pups inside her that needed to come out.
And, of course, it was at night. By the time I saw her at 10 pm, she had delivered two or three pups over the preceding 12-hour period. I’m foggy on the details of why I didn’t do a Caesarean – I’m guessing the owners didn’t want to pay for one, but it’s just as likely that I was simply too scared to do a solo C-section. Whatever the reason, I admitted her and spent the rest of that night trying to coax 20 puppies out of a 50 kg Mastiff.
What followed was a haze of oxytocin and glucose drips and calcium and KY. Lots of KY. But pup by pup, we were getting there. By 3 am I felt that we both needed a break. I put her in a cage and crawled off to bed for a nap. An hour or so later, my alarm dragged me out of bed, and I went back into the clinic to resume my midwifery. But here’s where the story gets interesting – because my patient was nowhere to be found! Some numpty had failed to properly shut the cage.
I panicked, as you do. Probably cried a bit. In the end, she wasn’t that hard to find – it was a small clinic, and she was a big dog. The bigger challenge, though, was finding the four or five pups that she had deposited, like Easter eggs, throughout the clinic! That last jab of oxytocin, or the calcium, or something was obviously finally working because suddenly she was popping like a Nerf gun at a 10-year-old’s birthday party.
I won’t go into all the details of the rest of the night, but somehow we managed to get all of the pups out of her – most of them alive!
It’s a funny story, right?
Young vet, big conundrum, bad decisions, mistakes, resolution, happy ending. We all have stories like that. But somehow, this time when I told it, I wasn’t laughing.
I said that it was the story I tried to tell my seven-year-old, but I never got to finish it. Because midway through the telling, a lump in my throat forced me to stop. I was suddenly deeply and inexplicably sad.
It took me a while to make sense of this sudden emotion: at the root of it was empathy. Empathy for that foolish young vet, chasing around a confused dog – both of us covered in lube and placental fluids – hoping, squeezing, praying for those puppies to come out.
Telling that story snuggled up to my son took me right back there, reliving what young Hubert had felt that night. Not heroic. Not stimulated or challenged or in a growth mindset. Definitely not laughing. Just overwhelmed. Scared of fucking up.
And extremely alone.
I wish I could give that guy a hug and tell him – “you poor thing.”
I realise now how much is wrong with that story. But I’m still not sure what to make of it. I used to believe – still believe – that experiences like that teach valuable life skills and more than a few coping mechanisms. Sink or swim, and if you don’t sink, you swim away with healthy doses of resilience, self-reliance, persistence, and MacGyverism. Maybe even a bit of perspective.
But now, after thinking this over with the benefit of a bit more wisdom and the hindsight of almost 25 years in practice, I wonder if it also instilled some less-than-ideal traits – like corner-cutting, being OK with low standards, discounting, and undervaluing. And how well have some of those “coping mechanisms” really served me? Like, where is the line between self-reliance and arrogant resistance to asking for help? When does resilience cross over into a crippling lack of vulnerability? (It’s taken me 25 years to even admit to myself that I was not, in fact, OK.)
Experiences like these also almost certainly contributed in no small part to tainting my relationship with veterinary science – and to the growing desire I had for the first five years of my vet career to be anything but a vet. I’m wary of crying wolf by using the word ‘trauma’, but for many of us, there is a traumatic element in situations like these that, when unrecognised and unaddressed, can leave fingerprints.
When it’s “sink or swim” and you don’t sink, the alternative is not always swimming – sometimes it’s a near-drowning. It can take a long time to fully recover from the emotional aspiration pneumonia that results from events like these.
So what’s the point of this story?
I’m not entirely sure. The obvious thing is not to leave our recent graduates unsupported. By all means, put them in situations where they need to problem-solve. Let them do hard things. But never in a situation where they feel alone.
I like to think that jobs like my first one no longer exist. I hope I’m right.
But maybe the main thing to think about is the importance of developing empathy for yourself. You’ll have rough days – hopefully with more support than I had – but they’re kind of inevitable in this job. The ability to review what happened almost as an outsider – to observe yourself in those situations with love and patience, especially when things don’t have a happy ending – not as a victim, but as someone who is simply trying their best – is illuminating and quite freeing.
“You poor thing. I wish I could give you a hug.” (Just try not to wait 25 years!)
This post first appeared in The Vet Vault 3.2.1 email on Friday, 30 May 2025. You can subscribe to this weekly email HERE
Hubert Hiemstra is the friendly voice behind The Vet Vault and Vet Vault Clinical Podcasts. With over two decades of veterinary experience across three continents, he's on a mission to help fellow vets find fulfillment in their careers. Through his podcasts and conversations with hundreds of veterinary professionals, Hugh empowers vets worldwide by filling in knowledge gaps and boosting clinical skills. When he's not in the clinic or podcasting, he loves hanging out with his wife and energetic boys, catching some waves, going for a run, or just soaking up nature.
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