I'll be leaving my hometown to go back to school on Friday, so today was my last day at the animal hospital where I've been volunteering every Saturday this summer. Part of me was sad to be leaving, but for the most part I was relieved, and I'm not sure I'll be going back next summer unless the situation changes. Let me backtrack a bit to explain.
My boyfriend's mom wanted to help me out with finding an internship, so she talked to their regular vet for me and set everything up. I was expecting something that would get me a lot of experience, and the first red flag should have been when they told me they would only need me once a week - on Saturday, from 8 to 2. When I called later to confirm, that was shorted from 8:30 to 1:30, and eventually through the course of the summer it became 8:30 to 12:30.
The second red flag was that on my first day, they referred to me as the new "volunteer" rather than intern. This may have been something to distinguish me from an actual veterinary student or recent vet school graduate intern, but it still rubbed me the wrong way a bit, since I had been told this was an internship.
The third red flag was that I wasn't told about the insurance issues until I was already there, ready to work.
Now, I don't know a lot about insurance and how private practices handle volunteers, but I had been used to working at shelters, which is obviously a whole different situation. Maybe I should have realized there would be a problem, but I still feel that they should have talked to me about it before I started, or before they even agreed to the "internship". Instead, it turned out that I had agreed to an internship that 80% of the time consisted of me standing around, waiting for someone to come in for an appointment so I could observe yet another wellness exam.
There were plenty of times throughout the summer when I considered quitting because I could easily have been doing something much more useful elsewhere. For the first month and a half, I couldn't even touch any of the animals that came in. It wasn't until a couple of weeks ago that I was allowed to help walk dogs. Once I started working at the community clinic run by the humane society, the vast difference in responsibilities became even more apparent (and annoying) to me. But I stayed, from the beginning of May until today, because I needed to broaden my veterinary experiences.
And yet, I was still a little sad that today was my last day. I had come to like the techs there, and even though I couldn't do much, they still seemed to appreciate the few things I could do. There was a day where their usual kennel tech didn't show up, and they were very grateful for what I did to help them get things done. The vet was nice too, though she was a little distant and didn't seem to be very keen on teaching me about what she was doing. She was also away several of the times I was there, which made it more difficult to build any kind of relationship. I doubt I'll be asking her for an LOR next year. But when I reminded her that it was my last day, she wished me luck and told me to keep in touch, and that she wanted to know how everything turns out for me. Whatever else I may have felt about "working" there, I appreciated the feeling that they genuinely wished me well in my future endeavors.
