I’m writing this column for you on Easter Saturday, and I must admit I’m enjoying the long weekend as a bit of a rest. I feel quite exhausted after a term’s worth of teaching vet students and a seemingly never-ending cascade of clinical cases. But am I burnt out?
These days, I’ve come across several people saying they are, quite simply, burnt out. Does that apply to me? How would I know if regularly feeling very tired counts as being burnt out? Well, a quick Google of the phrase “being burnt out” tells me that burnout is “an extended period of stress manifesting as feeling empty and mentally exhausted, devoid of motivation and beyond caring”. My goodness! That isn’t me, and I do hope it isn’t you. Every night I go to bed shattered, but every morning I wake up so excited about what the day will bring that “devoid of motivation” and “beyond caring” are phrases that never even cross my mind.
Every night I go to bed shattered, but every morning I wake up so excited about what the day will bring that ‘devoid of motivation’ and ‘beyond caring’ are phrases that never even cross my mind
Just about every day brings a new ophthalmic case that’s of interest to me. It may be an unusual presentation of a common condition like the cat with uveitis I saw last week. It looked for all the world like it had frogspawn in its eye – those were keratic precipitates of inflammatory cells, and I got a fantastic image for my Instagram (@bowt_eye)! Even if it’s a standard eye complaint like dry eye, it is often a new and concerning condition for owners; if it concerns them, it must concern me, too. When I’ve got a student with me, even something as simple as a corneal ulcer is new for them. Taking them through its diagnosis and treatment excites me now just as much as it did when I was new to ophthalmology 35 years ago. Do you find that thrill of teaching when you have an EMS student with you? I hope you do.
Talking of teaching, I had the delight of welcoming three new students to whom we’ve given places to study veterinary medicine at St John’s next year. These three young ladies are just working towards their A-levels at present, but having them visit to show them around the vet school and to get involved in some clinical cases will, I hope, really spur them on in their revision. (Never fear, we do have a male student, too, but we gave him a place last year and he’s on a gap year now, somewhere out there travelling the world!)
This year, we had two interesting examples of hypertension to show them. The first was a blind cat with hypertensive retinopathy, where you could clearly see the tortuous vessels showing the undulating course of the retina detaching. The cat wasn’t polydipsic or polyuric and didn’t have an obviously enlarged thyroid, so we’re awaiting blood results to know why it had a blood pressure of 220mmHg. Just talking them through why renal failure might give the cat high blood pressure stretched me a bit, having to remember what I should know about the renin–angiotensin system. But it helped them see the value of basic physiology in understanding clinical cases.
Just talking them through why renal failure might give the cat high blood pressure stretched me a bit [b]ut it helped them see the value of basic physiology in understanding clinical cases
Then we had a dog with hypertension caused by a phaeochromocytoma, just about to go into surgery for an adrenalectomy. The A-level students were able to tell me that the adrenal gland produced not only adrenaline (I guess that was fairly easy!) but also cortisol, which impressed me, I must say – I’m not sure I knew that as an A-level student 45 years ago!
The dog was on phenoxybenzamine, and I have to say I couldn’t remember how that acted to reduce blood pressure. A quick Google told me that the drug irreversibly binds to alpha-adrenergic receptors. The intern who was looking after the dog told us that the anaesthetists didn’t really like the drug because of its long-term effects and would prefer we use prazosin, which is a reversible alpha-antagonist. This was all news to me, though I guess I probably should have known it! Every day’s a school day, of course, but I think the students were a bit surprised that someone who was going to be their teacher for the next six years was still learning!
Lifelong learning is surely what keeps one – well, me at least – excited that there are new things to learn all the time
But to go back to burnout, this lifelong learning is surely what keeps one – well, me at least – excited that there are new things to learn all the time. Having said that, I must say that realising that I’ll be 67 and at a point where the university will be looking for me to retire when these three young ladies graduate somewhat brought me up short. Maybe I’ll be happy to retire by then, but with a glass half full – maybe even a glass brimming over – attitude, I certainly wouldn’t think of retiring any time soon. Life is just too much fun with more clinical cases to diagnose and treat and more students to teach! I simply can’t wait for the next six years to teach these new, inspiring young people and hopefully encourage them that veterinary medicine is far too fun to ever be concerned about burnout!
