Veterinary Science

Animals get sick. Animals get hurt. Animals can't tell you what's wrong, can't sign a consent form, can't decide for themselves whether they want the surgery. That's the structural difference between veterinary science and human medicine, and everything about the field flows from it.

The pull is the same one that pulls people into human medicine — the suffering body in front of you, the visceral need to do something. But the work is harder in specific ways. The patient can't describe the pain. The patient is afraid of you. The patient is held by an owner who is also frightened, who loves this animal, and who cannot afford the gold-standard treatment, and you are the one who has to navigate that conversation. Veterinary medicine carries a layer that human medicine doesn't: every clinical decision is also a financial decision made on behalf of a human who is grieving in advance.