I Almost Cost The Clinic $2000 On The Fourth Day

Part 1: The lows and highs of my first clinical rotation

My first clinical rotation started in May. The weather was acting like a moody teenager, swinging between freezing rain and warm sunny breezes like it couldn't commit to either. It was also baby season for wildlife, which meant chaos, cuteness, and a whole lot of squirrels. Seventy of them, to be exact. And that was just one species.

One particularly hectic day, while juggling three things at once, I was tasked with spinning blood for PCV and TP. Not to blame the busyness, but it’s very easy for one’s mind to scramble when the entire place is in full chaos. Though I was trained to thrive in chaos (I’d worked at an emergency clinic before), I was a little rusty. After all, this was my first time back in a clinical setting in three years.

I carefully put the blood tubes in the machine. These tubes are so tiny you have to handle them with the delicacy of a British person holding their teacup, pinky out preferably.

I checked the orientation. Checked the balance. Closed the lid.

And I forgot one crucial thing: to screw on the plate (dun dun dunnnn).

Something (is it you God?) must have made me linger a few seconds after hitting start, because what followed was an alarming symphony of shattering glass that absolutely should not come from a normally functioning centrifuge.

Step 8 & 9 were unfortunately not followed carefully. Credits: University of Bristol

Did I panic? Hell yeah. My heart was probably spinning at the same rate as that centrifuge. I felt sweat dripping down my face, a sensation I hadn’t experienced in days (you can tell I’ve been skipping the gym). Did I feel like an absolute idiot? A hundred percent. But mistakes happen, and I wasn’t going to let one (almost) broken centrifuge turn me into a broken person. So I asked the vet how to disassemble the machine, carefully cleaned up the shards¹, and moved on.

Or so I thought.

Just when I was about to feel relieved, I made ANOTHER mistake (one, apparently, was not enough for the universe). I grabbed KimWipes to clean instead of regular paper towels (again, dun dun dunnn). If everyone treated KimWipes like ordinary tissues the way I did, we’d have to sell some (human) kidneys to keep the wildlife centre running. Again, my fault entirely. My vet, bless her, simply said: "You've done it once, you never do it again."

In another environment, I might have been scolded, or worse. Heck, if I were a paid worker, some places might have shown me to the door. Maybe they considered it here too, but the beauty of being an unpaid student is job security by default. But everyone here has been so kind, patient, and encouraging. My vet let me draw blood, take X-rays, assist in surgeries, and give injections via multiple routes. I was learning constantly, and more importantly, I was having fun. The kind I hadn't felt since the surgical spay and neuter labs last year.

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The view was so beautiful, I couldn’t resist pulling over to take photos (safely, of course).

The drive to placement is an hour each way. I used to dread it. Turns out it’s actually a blessing in disguise.

Words can't quite describe the beauty of what I see on the road. Rolling hills (make me go WEEEEE), endless green fields stretching from one side to another, rivers catching the sunlight like iridescent fish scales. There's a bridge I cross where water stretches out on both sides, sparkling and serene on sunny days, moody and mysterious on misty ones. One day I stumbled through a town called Rockwood, and the houses were ENOURMOUS! Absolute mansions! Beautiful place, officially on my list to explore someday.

Geese were filling them streets!

The wildlife sightings alone make the drive worth it. Turkey vultures and Canadian geese soaring in the sky above. A bald eagle, once. A red-tailed hawk, perching on a tall tree like it owned the whole town. Goslings waddling after the parents with their tiny little webbed feet, my absolute favorites! And so many cows and horses dotting the fields. I’d changed up my routes just to see what else is out there, because an hour of the same road gets boring fast.

Now, I’m gonna be completely honest. I love horses, but I have no business working with them. They’re majestic and beautiful. But to tell a 1,100-pound animal what to do, you need a stern, commanding energy, a “no-bullshit” demeanor which I completely lack. I came to this difficult conclusion after a long period of careful reflection (I totally lied; one hard fall and a trip to the ER was enough).

People, on the other hand, I think I can handle. Maybe I should have gone the medical doctor route—actually, I take that back, can’t deal with that. Again, it’s a me problem, not a them problem. Human blood makes my knees go weak.

All that aside, for the first time in a while, I understood something I’d been too tired to feel in three years of vet school: this is the job. The animals, the mistakes, the colleagues’ support, and the hour of rolling hills whilst watching hawks sitting on trees like they owned everything. All of it, on the same day.

To be continued…

1. The blood tubes (or what remained of them) were fortunately salvageable for another run. Correctly done, this time. TP and PCV successfully obtained!