Ketarinary Science: Conversations with a vet student

Ketamind telling us all what vets really get up to? They’re up at the break of day and powering through to the twilight hours, working with animals both alive and deceased, moving across the country for their studies all while juggling their own social and work lives. Anyone who even attempts to get through the workload a Massey Veterinary student takes on should be proud of themselves.  

But a big reputation leads to big exaggeration, so it’s no surprise that the hardest workers around also have some of the harsher stereotypes. 

“Vet students all need to take ketamine and uppers to get through their workload.” 

“Vet students spend all their free time sleeping together.” 

“Vet students only know how to talk about animals and literally nothing else.” 

The stereotypes and rumours are seemingly infinite. 

But a vet student, Dr Dolittle (not their real name… or is it?) says the stress of their degree is where all these stereotypes originate from. 

“Yeah, we are a pretty stressy bunch. But also, we know how to blow off steam and party.” 

The rumour that vet students LOVE ketamine makes sense given that it’s a horse tranquilizer. But Dolittle put these Wolf of Wallstreet type rumours down.  

“Vet students are absolutely party animals! However, personally I don't think we have much of a drug scene! Just classic Kiwi binge drinking.” 

“I guess some people may dabble in MD? But nothing more serious than that.” 

Dolittle wondered if the ketamine rumours came from people assuming vet students have unregulated access to animal drugs. But they said all medication is under tight regulation and paperwork to get it is super strict.  

“No one would even consider stealing anything because you'd go to jail and waste all the late nights studying.” 

But Dolittle didn’t deny that vet students love to talk about vet. “If you put vet students in the same room and we will yap about stories from placements all night.” 

Think about the vilest thing a vet has to do, and that’s what vet students chit-chat about over brunch. Dolittle said vet students are totally desensitised to how gross their degree is. “We talk about the vilest things while eating and don’t even think twice about it.”  

Just like the ketamine locked up at Massey, the pressure of the degree can make vet students feel restrained. Dolittle said placement, where students go and work in the industry, is a particularly difficult time. “Placements can be the best and worst part of the degree”. 

The fifth year of Veterinary is all done in placement. Seeing what you learn in lectures first hand is exciting, but it's also a lot to take on board. “The experience you get definitely depends on the clinic you go to and the vets you are with. It can be really long days, and some clinics don’t let you do anything.” 

Working with live animals also creates an emotional attachment. “You get really close to them when you spend days or weeks caring for them.” The way Dolittle dealt with this is having what they called ‘work me’ and ‘home me’.  

“As soon as I put on my lab coat, overalls, scrubs – I am ‘vet-me’, who is a professional. Then when I take them off, I leave all the emotion and stress and tears behind and I am ‘home-me’.” 

“It helps me to switch off and not worry.”  

Near the end of our chat, Dolittle mentioned that they had been on campus since 7:30am. It was 5:40pm when we finished talking. 

Post interview, I received a follow up text from them: “Still here lol. 20 more minutes and then its more than 12 hours which is technically against policy.” 

Vet student policy states that “a student will not be requested or permitted to work more than 12 contiguous hours in the VTH or 15 hours within a 24-hour period”. Dolittle’s day was pushing those 12 contiguous hours, and due to the nature of their work was not showing signs of letting up any time soon. 

The Veterinary Student Code of Conduct explicitly states that a vet student will “maintain my wellbeing to the best of my ability to enable me to carry out my role.” It’s concerning that the expectations on these students forced them to go directly against the code of conduct.  

One thing after the other, Veterinary sounds very grim. Dolittle did assure me that it is a line of study they do enjoy and did not want to warn anyone off taking up the challenge. The degree comes with its bad reputation of sketchiness in the shadier parts of the vet building. I’ve heard people say Vet is the hardest thing anyone could do. But for every person saying that, there’s another with a smile on their face yelling at me about how interesting the biology of a horse is.