It's been a busy couple of weeks for me. My family and I took our first week-long vacation in an incredibly long time, visiting my father and going to a science-fiction convention. This past week I flew across the country to California to take part in a task force identifying challenges, problems, and solutions in some veterinary hospitals that weren't reaching their potential. Today I got back into town and tomorrow I go back to work.
I haven't been in my hospital for two weeks, and it's making me a bit anxious. I've never been gone this long, and though I have a great staff and great doctors, I'm not exactly sure what I'll be facing when I get back. One of the positive things I will face is a veterinary student. I have one that will be working with us for six weeks starting tomorrow, and one doing an externship starting in another week or two. I very much enjoy teaching and mentoring, so that part will be fun for me.
While spending some time in another hospital this past week I realized that I much prefer doing that to being in daily practice. Though I am a good vet, my true skills like more in the areas of teaching and communicating. There are certainly times I would rather do anything than see patients. My hope and desire is that if I made a good showing this past week I can get more opportunities like this, and can guide my career in a different direction.
But for the foreseeable future I am still an average vet and have a practice to manage. Tomorrow it's back to the grind, back to patients, and back to normal. Not a bad life, really.
