Hi everyone!
In my last post, I discussed my values and sustainable goals. My top three values were helping, compassion and competence, and my main goal is good health and well-being. As I mentioned before, to address these values and goals, I will be volunteering at a veterinary clinic. I’m already volunteering there now, but I only started quite recently, so I will explain the process I went through.
To obtain this volunteer job, I had to first contact the manager of the hospital. I sent her my resume and cover letter, and we arranged a date for an interview and orientation. The interview went fairly well, and she showed me around the place and introduced me to the people working there. I then started my orientation/volunteer work about a week later.
I will be volunteering there twice a week for the remainder of the semester. Some of the tasks I will be doing include washing animal dishes, washing and packing surgical instruments, washing and putting away the laundry, cleaning out the kennels, cleaning the exam rooms and counters, vacuuming and mopping the floor, restocking supplies and pet food, taking out the garbage and recycling, looking after the boarding animals and assisting the veterinarians or veterinary technicians when they need help with a task such as holding a cat or dog still while they do work on the animal.
Of course, “everything is complicated.” One complication with my volunteer work is that although one of my main goals is to get the small and tedious but equally important tasks out of the way so that the people working there have more time to look after patients and attend to clients, there are many things that I have to learn first, which takes some of their time to teach me. For example, I do not know how to do the packing for surgical instruments yet, so someone will have to spend some of their time showing me how to do it if they want me to look after that. However, in the long run, once I understand how everything works and where everything goes, the vets and vet techs should hopefully have more time to focus on other tasks while I’m volunteering. A few of the veterinarians there have retired very recently or are leaving soon, so it feels nice to be able to help them out as they are missing some people. The work veterinarians and veterinary technicians do such as helping sick/injured pets, spaying/neutering pets, providing vaccinations and looking after cats while their owners are away is incredible and very impactful for both pets and people. Furthermore, the clinic helps support people and pets in need through VCA Canada’s national philanthropic program, Paw It Forward. Every pet should be able to live a quality life regardless of their owner’s financial situation, and they help ensure that pets receive the care they need and deserve. It feels great to be a part of this team knowing that they provide care to every cat or dog, which leaves a positive impact on the quality of life and wellbeing of pets and their owners.
That’s it for this week! In my next post, I will be discussing what I have done and some of the successes and challenges I faced. Thanks for reading!
Hi Jessica,
Wow, another fantastic post. You never fail to impress! I really enjoyed when you explained the process in obtaining this volunteer position. It was very through.
I’m looking forward to see what you have done while volunteering at veterinary clinic. Perhaps in you next post, along with your difficulties with working at the vet clinic, you could explain the challenges you faced with a busy schedule and how you’ve managed to balance your school/personal/volunteering life.
Once again, great post.
Alison
Hi Jessica,
I am doing something sort of similar to your action project and cant wait to see what your next post has to offer. It was interesting getting to know all the stuff that actually needs to get done at the vet, i have a dog myself and didn’t think that had to do so much.
Excited to hear from you soon.