Why become a vet?

Dr. Rashid gave us an assignment last week, to write a letter to him, telling him why we wan to become a vet.

Surprised, it sounds childish, like an essay topic for a primary school kid. It’s interesting though and spent me quite some time to write. The letter was not long, but I spent a lot of time on thinking, flashing back, trying to remember and wonder what actually had made me to become a vet.

My letter was like below:

To Dr. Rashid:

There are many reasons that I wanted to be a vet. Although I’ve had many different ambitions before, becoming a vet was a decision made since many years ago, and had never been changed.

My father, who is doing an ornamental fish trading, has influenced me a lot. I spent a lot of my childhood time in the aquarium. There were also other animals like mice, rabbits, dogs, iguanas, snails and tortoises. Therefore, I was exposed earlier to colorful fishes and exotic animals since young.

However, I have yet become an animal enthusiast until I got a pet puppy from a friend when I was in secondary school, form 2. He is a mongrel, named Dino, and looks a lot like a beagle, very cute but temperament. Due to our carelessness, at the age of 4 months old, he fell down from a sofa when we were playing with him and somehow broke his both hind limbs. He became paralyzed and was bearing weight on only his front limbs. We sent him to a well-known vet in Johor Bahru for check-up and had an x-ray. According to the vet, Dino had fractures and dislocation of pelvic bones. The brief explanation of the vet did not make me understand what actually happened on my dog’s hip. I could not even figure where exactly the fractures were by the flash of sight of the radiograph. The suggestion of the vet was: the dog had to be on cast and there will be inconvenience at mobilization for at least 3 months; if economic condition does concern, we were recommended to put the dog to sleep. Given a few days for reconsideration, we brought our dog home. The choice of putting our dog to sleep was really hard to make for us, and we were upset and cried for the whole next 2 days. All we did was giving Dino a lot of massaging gently everyday. Now, Dino is over 8 years old and approaching 9, healthy and standing up right, running. Dino miraculously stood on foot on the third day after the visiting to vet, before we could ever make a choice. What really did happen, we never know, maybe it was a miracle of the massaging, or the bond we had with the dog, or the strong will Dino had to keep living on.

Apart from these, I also like to watch documentary shows about wild life. I admired the beauty of nature and the incredibility of wild life. I especially like to see tigers a lot. By becoming a vet or a zoologist, I will be able to approach these animals which common people can never do.

I want to become a responsible vet. I want my clients to understand what problems actually their animals are having. I also want to encourage them to become responsible owner: do not simply put their pets to sleep; neuter their pets for non-breeding purpose; care for their pets. I wish to have wild life approach one day in the great land of Africa, to see animals living freely in nature and their welfare taken care of.
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There are also things that I did not mention in the letter…..

After all these years, I’ve already long forgotten when was the exact date that I’ve made the decision to become a vet. Since then, I suddenly became enthusiast in animals, I started to read about how to become a vet, where to study vet, what can a vet do.

Sometimes, I don’t really think I’m a very caring person to animals. I do like them very much though. But I will occasionally think that I’m actually a cruel person. I have no fear every times when coming in contact with blood and flesh although I don’t anyhow kill. Shouldn’t every single normal human being be scared upon the sights of blood and flesh?! I wonder how does a human medic student think in this point of view. Do they have to kill as many as we do? Do they see blood as many and often as we do?

For the day of becoming a vet, I’ve actually trained myself by playing guitar, doing a lot of crafts. All these years, I’m quite confident that I have a pair of steady hands and fingers that I hold scalpels and needles like holding drawing brushes and craft knifes.

It’s kinda conflict when I started to realize of the border line of killing and saving life that I’m standing on. On average, I’ve been seeing deaths every day, by nature, by accidents or directly through my hands. Life is so fragile, and we will never know what would happen next. I will feel death is sore now, but will I still do in the future?

Another conflict is that of animal’s welfare. The reality is the situation that made the mission of animal’s welfare impossible. So what actually can a vet do? Why become a vet? All these are still confusing as long as publics have no realization and cooperation.