Vet Amanda takes us through her typical working day.
5:45 AM - I wake up, grab some coffee, and enjoy breakfast with my two dogs, Moose and Fern. I get ready and leave the house no later than 7 am as I do have about an hour commute on weekdays.
7:30 AM - I arrive at work and go to change into my scrubs and get organized for the day. I will generally spend 5 or 10 minutes checking the schedule, reviewing any admits, and replying to e-mails before I start my day.
8:00 AM - I work a variety of shifts – ER, surgery, and consulting. Depending on the day it varies. If I am on an emergency shift, I make sure nothing is waiting or that the night vet does not need any assistance with something that may have walked in not long before I arrived. The emergency shift is nice as you just field what comes in through the day. Occasionally I will assist with emergency surgeries (pyometra, foreign body, caesareans, etc) when the surgery team is already fully booked.
When on surgery, I admit procedures for the day until roughly 9 am. The admits consists of an exam and discussing with the owners the procedure being performed, the risks, and the costs associated with it. I then transfer the patient back to our preps area for the nurses to start collecting bloods, placing IVs, etc to get them prepared for their procedures. Once admits are complete, I will review any pre-anaesthetic bloods and confirm with the nurse the pre-medication protocols for our first patients. Once my nurse and I are ready, we will pre-med our patient and head into our procedure. Our procedures can be routine surgeries, emergencies that were stabilized and prepared for surgery that day, radiographs, dentals, ear flushes – anything that requires sedation or a general anaesthetic essentially. It is a good variety and never feels monotonous!
If on consults, I start consulting in 15-minute blocks for most of the day. The schedule is consciously structured to provide healthy visits before and after sick visits to help with time management and account for those appointments which will inevitably run long. Thankfully, there are designated blocks of admin time to catch up on notes and calls and they really do help in making our days run more smoothly.
1:00pm - No matter what shift, there will always be a one-hour lunch break. With surgery, I just decide with my nursing team what works best for us that day around our procedures. On consults, there is one already placed in my schedule to make sure I get a break, and nothing is scheduled in that time.
6:30pm - Generally, at this point in the day things start to wind down. Admittedly, if on emergency I may be seeing things up to the end of my shift as that is just the nature of ER. If I admitted any patients on my consulting shift, I would try and make sure they are settled with completed treatment plans and make sure I have properly handed the case over to the hospital vet. When I am on surgery, I usually have some administrative time to finish up all my notes, call any owners, and discharge patients.
7:30pm - With another day complete, I go upstairs to change and then head out for my evening drive home
