I’m Sydney Pond, and I’ve had a pretty intense start to my pre-vet journey. While most people picture bustling animal hospitals, I spent my summer at Paws N’ Claws in Florence, NJ, a tiny clinic where it was just me and Doctor Andrew Levine running the show. Yep, just the two of us, talk about diving headfirst into the vet world! On the second day, I helped take our 14 bladder stones from a Shih Tzu. Originally from Moorestown, NJ, right outside of Philly, I’m all about hands-on learning, and this summer gave me a front-row seat to some seriously unique experiences.
This summer I was a vet tech and surgery assistant, and I gained many new skills and knowledge over the summer. My main responsibilities included working reception, answering the phones and making appointments, checking people in and out; which I had never done at my other practices so that was a good experience. I also performed tasks such as filling prescriptions and administering vaccines, holding for appointments/blood work, assisting with all the surgeries, taking vitals every 10 minutes, handing the doctor tools or more stitches, adjusting the isoflurane, administering the reversals and sedatives and helping to put the endotracheal tube in. On simple surgeries like a cat neuter, or a dog spay, the doctor would let me make a few incisions.
In the future, I want to go to veterinary school and eventually have my own practice so this was a great hands-on experience working with someone who does exactly what I want to do. I definitely gained patience and saw how stressful it was to be a business owner in a world where people have very high expectations but maybe aren't willing or able to pay for them. I also improved my technical skills, I learned how to better hold difficult animals, and gained more knowledge about different medicines and how to draw blood. We are not an emergency clinic and a lot of people show up in need of immediate help and that can be stressful but that brings me to what I would say my biggest accomplishment is. A mini poodle showed up without an appointment which had been seizing for over 5 hours and the family didn't take the dog anywhere, his temperature was 106.8 and we knew if we sent the dog to a hospital he would have died on the way. So we got ice packs on his paw pads and cooled the room down, put a wet cold rag over his body, and gave him medicine. We ended up saving the dog and it was scary but very rewarding.
My ideal supervisor would be someone with a lot of experience, even-tempered, and who has 100 percent care and compassion for the animal. Even though we are only working with animals, an advisor with good people skills is also crucial because we deal with a lot of temperamental people especially ones that won't take good care of their pet until it's too late. Fortunately, I worked with a very kind doctor who had very nice things to say. I asked him to write a letter of recommendation for me and took out a few sentences of what he wrote. Dr. Levine said, “She really is able to quickly bond with all the pets she encounters and is a genuinely warm, caring, and very even-tempered person who always rises to the occasion in high-pressure situations. She was very attentive assisting during surgery and did an excellent job of monitoring vital signs and surgical recovery. She also did an outstanding job of assisting during appointments and she actually had a calming effect on some of the nervous patients.” With all the experience I gained and great staff and pets of course I would rate my internship a 9.5, with half a point off for not being able to get a tan in the summer because I worked indoors every day. Either way, I wouldn't have changed a thing!
