I just finished my week of nights and my brain REALLY wants to convince me I messed up last night.

By Gunila Pedersen • • 3 min read
I just finished my week of nights and my brain REALLY wants to convince me I messed up last night.

A 7m dachshund came in subdued, hunched and vomiting in the waiting room. Owners brought the remains of a rubber ball he’d chewed, with pieces missing. He’d also chewed a foam ball, and pulled out the insides of a pillow. All this after playing with a labrador, they mention in passing.


Bloods; meh. Imaging; is that…? It’s gassy, but… what’s that in the cranial abdomen? Meanwhile, he’s not responding to pain relief and still subdued after bolus. In my mind, I’d rather regret going in and not finding anything, than NOT going in and suddenly standing there having to do an enteroctomy, possibly sprinkled with peritonitis.

So we go in. And the above pic is of me, slightly confused and deflated, leaving theatre in that awkward moment where you’re no longer sterile but still haven’t got your own gear back on (nor shoes!), thinking about how to tell the owner I didn’t find anything.

Dog goes on to feeling great a couple of hours later, eating a bit and passing feces. Ok, maybe he just needed that famous “gut massage”? 🤷‍♀️

Then, one hour later we’re back to square one. Subdued, hunched, and now the damn thing is defensive over back and hind end. And suddenly my neurons fire: IS THIS SPINAL?!?! Did that Labrador do more than what I initially understood? Did I just spend HALF THE INSURANCE MONEY on abdominal investigations and now this little man needs to have advanced imaging on his spine?!?

So, right there. Brain rubs its chubby little hands together and gets ready to whip out the 9-tailed cat to beat me up with hindsight, should haves and what ifs.

The moment I said that out loud and my nurse and I looked at each other over the dog, she was already ahead of me as soon as our eyes met: “You did the right thing. Anyone would have suspected foreign body”.

And we went through it. Evaluated. Realised how much we HAD ruled out. And the dog was ok, and stable.

So. I don’t know IF I did the right thing. But there are two important things here in my favor:

1. I have zero ego to protect. I know I’m not infallible, and that I will mess up sometimes. I don’t have a need to prove otherwise.
2. I have learned to show myself the same compassion I show everyone else (with the help of my amazing nurses who always pull me back and snap me out of it when I start to spiral🌀). So when I’m not perfect, I don’t make it mean anything about ME. As a person. My value and right to exist in this world. My worth as a vet, or my competence.

My dedication, commitment and compassion will always be 100%. My results, hardly ever. Because they don’t just depend on me.

And that is exactly the same for any other vet out there. As much as you want to do your best, there will be times where red herrings and left curve balls are flying through the air and you’ll make decisions that in hindsight MIGHT not have been the “right” ones.

It means f*ck all about your competence and worth as a vet. I share this story because I want you to SEE IT. It happens, all the time, to all of us. And you can’t let it weigh you down and use it to despise yourself. Because when you do, you’ll end up despising the profession. And all the crazy cases out there will be missing out on brilliant vets JUST LIKE YOU AND ME to do their best, in the middle of the night, at weekends or Monday morning, to solve the mystery and help.

In your corner,

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