It has been a rough and busy couple of weeks. I’m just rounding up the last of 3 weeks in my first selected rotation. I’m now (almost) a third of the way done with selected rotations. I can’t believe it. Within that time frame a bunch of results came back for us final years. Here in Edinburgh we sit our finals early on in the year, so there is time to resit the exam if needed as well as it gets it out of the way before graduation. I love that its done early, so you can just enjoy the rest of your rotations and not have to worry about studying at the same time. We got our final results and our NAVLE (North American Licensing Exam), which was sat by all of us planning to go back to North America within the next few years, back within the same week. On one hand it was nice as we all knew our “Fate” early on. If you fail you get a second chance at both exams before graduation.

Finals

Finals are split into large and small animal sections. Two exams on two separate days, both lasting 3 hours or less. There were 100 questions per day which was reasonable I thought. We had large and equine together the first day, then small animal and exotics the second. I’m not sure if these exams felt easygoing because I had already taken the NAVLE which is much more strenuous, or if they really were that way for everyone. I can only speak for me. Once we sat these we waited a couple weeks and results came out. If you didn’t pass then you would resit the exam again in June time so you could graduate in July.

NAVLE

Now this is the bugger of an exam that most of us hate. It’s 6.5 hours of staring at a computer screen answering multiple choice questions. You can get questions on anything and they have it broken down into how many questions per category. For example there are more dog and cat questions, than pig questions. I can’t for the lift of me remember the exact percentages for the categories at this moment. You need to know information from every species as this exam has it all. Even if you know you are only going to do small animal medicine, you need to learn equine and all the rest too in order to make it through. This exam is not only about random trivia and knowledge retention, but also endurance. Sitting there for 6.5 hours with small breaks in between is enough to get to anyone. It’s rough and tests you in more ways than your knowledge. Most people choose to take this exam in December of the year before they graduate. This gives you the option to sit it again in April if you don’t pass. You cannot work in North America if you haven’t passed this exam. It is not only a rough exam, but also costs a fortune as well to take, especially for those overseas.

My Experience with failure

I’ve never had any doubt about my profession. I’ve known from a young age I wanted to go into veterinary medicine and have been striving for this goal forever. As you go through your studies its interesting how perspectives change. In high school my goal was to get into my undergraduate program with the best chance of getting into vet school. Once I got into undergrad my whole focus was on just getting into vet school. It took me three tries, but I did it. I remember the first rejection not being as bad. The second rejection hurt a lot worse. It knocked me back a little, but I was still positive this was the direction I wanted to go with my life. I got in on the third go and was so excited. I considered those first two times failures at the time. I felt like maybe these wasn’t the way for me to go.

I then failed one of my exams in first year. It was my fault for not studying enough as it was the easiest exam of the year, and I didn’t think it required very much of my time. I passed it the second go around and moved forward. I then failed another exam in second year, which was a rough one. This was one of the hardest exams and I was worried about not passing it the second time. I did it though and moved forward. Two fails in two years was not my ideal situation, but I pushed through and even though I felt a bit bad, I still was positive and knew I was in the right place.

Final year I passed everything except the NAVLE, and it shook me to the core. I have never had doubt about being a vet until final year. I never thought that I couldn’t do it, until now. It wasn’t just the NAVLE, but also the looking for jobs and doing some shadowing I realised I don’t know near as much as I need to. Getting the Fail result just broke the damn that was already cracked. I was mad, sad, and really disappointed and down. I’d already been having the “Can I actually do this whole vet thing?” doubt in my head for a few weeks after a rough placement. I lost a lot of confidence in myself and was facing imposter syndrome like no other. It made me appreciate the burnout that is associated with the profession so much more.

So what changed? Basically I’m still a bit down, but i’m on more of an upswing these days. It took me a good week of feeling sorry for myself before I finally came round. Now I’m still sad, I’m still disappointed, and I wish I didn’t have to do the stupid test again. The difference is, I’ve decided to come out of my slump and actually try harder. I will fully admit that I have been a bit lazy and not giving my all lately. Which is probably why I failed. It’s also why I don’t know answers to the questions that clinicians ask, because I haven’t put in the time to learn the material. Now part of it is that you can’t know everything and the NAVLE is just hard. Vet school is hard, but I am stronger and can come back from anything. Which reminded me of one of my favourite poems.

As I’m writing this I got a delivery in the mail. Some good friends sent me flowers and chocolates with a note that says “Setback: a delay or reversal in progress, not failure nor final outcome” Thank you to those who believe in me and help me see that this is indeed a setback, and not a failure. A support system and people who believe in you are so good to have when you are struggling to believe in yourself.