What I Wish I Knew: From Vet School to Residency.

What I Wish I Knew: From Vet School to Residency, Mistakes Made, Lessons Learned : By Dr. Joe Herbert - Final Year Cardiology Resident - University of Minnesota.

When I first set out to write this, I hesitated, wondering if it was premature to reflect on mistakes and lessons, knowing full well I’m still making plenty and have many more ahead of me. But then I remembered Eleanor Roosevelt’s wise words:

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

With that in mind, I’m sharing the missteps, surprises, and hard-earned insights from my journey through vet school into residency, not as a final chapter, but as a work in progress that might help someone else along the way.

The path to becoming a veterinarian is both challenging and deeply rewarding. We’re taught an enormous amount in vet school: anatomy, physiology, medicine, surgery, and soft skills such as client communication. However, no one prepares you for the realities of the job itself, including the emotional toll, the long hours, the weight of expectations, and the constant pressure, which aren’t covered in lectures. These things shape us just as much as our clinical experience, and often in quieter, more lasting ways.

Lesson 1: Be prepared, and most things in life are not a crisis.

I still remember the day I found out I had been accepted into vet school. I was on a beach holiday with my parents, having decided not to check emails out of fear that the long string of rejections would continue and ruin the vacation. On the last day of the trip, I gave in and opened my inbox, and to my disbelief, there it was, an offer from the University of Sydney. My excitement quickly turned to panic when I realised I had only two days to submit a stack of documents. I was due to fly home the next day, and I had no remote access to anything, as this was before Google Drive became mainstream. I sent a desperate email asking for an extension and received a wonderfully Australian laid-back reply: “No worries, no rush.” That moment taught me my first lessons: how to use cloud storage, that not everything needs to be a crisis, and that people are not out to get you.

Lesson 2: Enjoy the journey

Vet school was everything I expected and more. It was academically intense, emotionally demanding, and relentless, with many weeks spent on farm placements, rotating through major referral hospitals, and externing in remote outback clinics. Long days, packed clinical placements, and tight schedules left very little time for balance. Unlike other degrees, there were no free afternoons, no sports societies, and no real downtime. Although many expect the increase in workload before starting their degree, most though do not anticipate the identity shift in vet school, as you transition from being the academic alpha of your class to just one of many strong, overachieving students, and the sense of self and confidence you once had begins to erode. Early on, I embraced the saying “P’s [pass] make degrees,” which felt like a welcome relief at the time. However, that feeling didn’t last, as I soon realised that general practice wasn’t my long-term goal, and I started looking toward internships and residencies where grades, letters of reference, and class rank mattered again. Without really noticing, the goalposts had moved, and I found myself chasing an entirely new set of milestones without stopping to ask why.

In hindsight, I look back on vet school with real fondness. I made close friends, had unforgettable experiences, and met my gorgeous wife. However, I also wish I had slowed down more, taken it all in, and enjoyed those moments without always blindingly pushing toward the next step. Even now, I catch myself falling into that same pattern. It’s easy to spend so long climbing the ladder that you never look around to see where you are. And if you’re not careful, you risk reaching the top and realising you never enjoyed the view on the way up.

Now that I teach students myself, I see the same pressures creeping in. Many initially believe that getting into veterinary school is the goal, when in fact it’s only the beginning. The profession is more complex, emotionally charged, and demanding than we initially expect. It’s not the warm, nostalgic image many of us had while reading James Herriot’s All Creatures Great and Small. It’s real and rewarding, but also tough and at times

isolating. Thus, my second lesson is to enjoy the journey, because it is long, and it is not worth wasting that much of your life.

Lesson 3: Take ownership of your well-being, and if you need to stop, that is ok.

I hit my clinical stride just as the COVID pandemic kicked in and the pet boom began. Within hours of Australia announcing lockdowns, six months of locum work I had lined up vanished, and unlike in lesson 1, this was a crisis, as I had a mortgage to pay with no income. Out of necessity, I took a night ER position, working five 12-hour shifts a week in an overstretched clinic with a dodgy reputation.

The pandemic exacerbated every challenge the profession was already facing. While the COVID rules and restrictions were created with safety in mind, they often felt excessive and deeply impersonal. I found myself performing euthanasia as owners watched through a glass window, unable to hold or comfort their pets in their final moments. At the same time, I was treating endless litters of poorly bred puppies, many of whom were so deformed they barely survived to adulthood. The sheer volume of cases was overwhelming, and the emotional weight of it all was immense. That period exposed just how close many of us were to burnout, and how there were no support systems in place. I didn’t realise I had crossed that threshold until it was too late and had become someone I never expected to be, someone I am ashamed of. Even to this day, when I look back, I struggle to recognise who I became.

Veterinary medicine teaches us to keep pushing forward in the face of adversity, to earn the next credential, land the next job, climb the next rung. But you are never taught how, and if anything, you are pushed to achieve those goals NOW. Without the ability to pace yourself, to find meaning in small moments, and to hold on to joy, the work can become a relentless grind.

Other jobs also have a high volume of burnt-out employees. However, veterinary work is unique, as we experience the highs associated with saving the sick, but we often end lives. It is hard enough ending a life, even if for the right reasons. Still, we usually end up carrying an overwhelming burden of responsibility, grief, guilt, and emotional projection of our clients. I can’t even count the number of times I have had to euthanise a pet, just to be told that that patient was the only thing the owner had left as a connection with a dead partner. I can’t keep count of the number of times I have been abused because of the cost of medicine, and have been told that I am evil, because they think I am guilt-tripping them into choosing financial ruin vs killing their beloved pet. And too often the abuse happens when we are physically and emotionally exhausted, under-supported, and while being reminded to hurry up, as there is a queue of other patients waiting.

Veterinary medicine has a way of pushing you to your limits and then asking for more. Although it often feels like a race to the finish, the reality is that this career is more of an ultramarathon than a sprint. To stay the course, you need endurance, perspective, and the ability to keep showing up with compassion, without losing yourself along the way. Burnout is a real phenomenon, and it can strike you when you least expect it. You must take ownership of your well-being, find joy in the work where you can, and make space to recover when you need to, because no one else is going to do it for you.

The one key takeaway I took from burnout is: If you do not feel anything while euthanising a pet, you need to stop, take a career break and find help. I am not saying you should suffer when doing so, but you should always question if this is the right thing for the patient, not jump to it as a first option because it is easy and you need to feel compassion when doing so.

Lesson 4: Don’t forget about those around you

Residency and internships brought new lessons. My first job was so demanding and toxic that I left clinical work entirely to join a research lab. I had great colleagues and interesting projects, but I missed treating animals. That experience helped me realise that veterinary medicine was more than a job to me; it was a sense of purpose. I was fortunate to find a supportive rotating internship, followed by a cardiology internship, and ultimately, a residency with mentors who genuinely cared about me. Even in a healthy environment, the expectations are enormous. Long hours, overnights and weekends on-call, constant studying, teaching,

publishing, and research. And what people often don’t see are the unpaid evenings and weekends spent catching up from home, while life continues without you. You miss birthdays, weddings, and milestones, and it becomes easy to lose sight of what you’re sacrificing.

The greatest cost, though, is often not your own. It is felt by those closest to you. Partners and family move cities or countries with you. They live in modest accommodation, carry more than their share of the emotional and financial weight, and support your goals without the professional rewards or recognition. They endure the exhaustion, mood swings, and last-minute cancellations because something at work has come up. And too often, we forget to say sorry and thank you.

I’m writing this paragraph after finishing the placement of a pacemaker in a dog at 2:30 am and having gone back in to check on him at 8 am. My partner is asleep in the next room. And only now am I starting to fully realise how much she has given up for me to chase this path, and how rarely I show appreciation for it.

So, if you’re somewhere along this road, here’s what I would tell you. Work hard but be kind to yourself. Compete less and reflect more. Grind less, enjoy more. Don’t lose sight of the people who keep showing up for you, especially when you are too busy or tired even to realise. Most of all, take the time to enjoy where you are, and who you are with, not just where you’re going.

In conclusion, would I do it all again? Fresh out of vet school, without question. After years of overnight ER shifts and some truly punishing internships? Absolutely not. But now, with the end of residency in sight, I have a clearer vision of my future, and after doing the personal work to heal from the toll this path has taken, I can finally say yes. Just remember it’s easier to prevent damage than to repair it. Prioritise your well-being from the very beginning, because rebuilding yourself is harder, and along the way, you risk losing what may not be recoverable… FIN.