Stuck between Vetmed and Medicine

Sorry for the kind of frenzied way this post reads, I'm feeling a bit confused. I'm in Year 11 and I've always wanted to be a vet- preferably small animals- but i shadowed one and it struck me that whilst I'm not afraid of handling animals or getting hurt, a lot of time was spent restraining them for examination/treatment (though to be fair the clinic worked mostly with strays) and I don't know how to explain it exactly but I’ve felt upset that as a vet a lot of my patients would be stressed and resistant to being helped because an animal can’t easily understand it’s being helped. I know as a doctor your patients will be stressed and aggressive because that just comes with illnesses but they won’t (usually) try to scratch or bite you!! It just seems a pity to me. Is that really as big of a problem as I think it is? Is it something I'll just get over?

I haven’t considered being a doctor until recently and haven’t shadowed any but I’ve read books by them about their jobs that have really piqued my interest. Areas like psychiatry I’ve been into recently, but its such a long process to qualify as one and I don’t know if I have it in me to do that. It feels like such a back and forth, though- I want to do vetmed but don’t like the idea of animals constantly being upset by what I’m doing, but on the other hand I’m honestly not so interested in human medicine, but on the other other hand I haven’t actually looked into it as much, etc… I really love animals (though I know that’s not what being a vet is all about), and I love the idea of diagnosing diseases and treating them, but I feel like since I could be swayed either way I should just go for medicine for the higher pay for a similar course difficulty (at least if you go private). I don't really know what I want anymore, but I feel like considering the length of both courses I should only apply for one if I'm 100% sure it's what I want to do. The more I think about the issues with each field the less of a problem they really seem so I don’t know if I’m overreacting or not.

Ultimately I can’t tell if my opinions are my own or of the people around me- people have always expected me to become a vet, so I don’t want to deviate from that. At the same time doctors are held in high regard and I’m drawn to perfectionism- I feel to some degree I’d study human medicine only because I feel it the ‘right’ thing to do and ‘more prestigious’ than vet med (whether that's true or not). I wondered if anyone had further advice? Thank you!!!!

(edited 1 month ago)

Reply 1

TSR Hippocrates

Hey there, thanks for posting a question in the Medicine forum. :biggrin:

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Stuck between Vetmed and Medicine

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