Today on my Facebook feed, an article posted by the AVMA (American Veterinary Medical Association) caught my attention. The article was titled 'Veterinary Students More Depressed Than The Rest'. Here is the link to it: Vet Students More Depressed.
I actually laughed out loud when I saw the title of the article. While unfortunate, I am not surprised. The article found that veterinary students are more depressed than medical students, undergraduate students, and graduate students. Of all the students, we are the most depressed! Go us!
The study, performed by Kansas State, found that 32 percent of first year vet students are depressed, compared to 23 percent of first year medical students. The numbers increased in second and third years, and then decreased in fourth year. The article offers some possible explanations for why us vet kids are so much sadder than every other type of student. They say things like 'vets deal with euthanasia on a daily basis, which human physicians do not deal with', and 'vet students need to learn many species and not just one'. While the second option makes sense, and is an argument we frequently use to prove that vet school is indeed harder than med school, the euthanasia explanation doesn't apply to students. As a practicing vet, yes, but as a student, no. We are sitting in class all day, every day. Even in the fourth year, when we will actually be in clinics and will actually be facing these issues, depression rates go down.
So why are we so depressed? Let me offer several explanations. First off, the work load is horrifying. In our first year, after the initial adjustment period, we had an exam every single Monday for the entirety of the first semester. Not only is the stress of major exams enough, these were Monday exams, so those weekends that would normally offer sweet respite from the stress of class were absolutely crammed full of studying. There was never a break.
From personal experience, and from seeing others go through it, another major issue many of us faced was relationships we had brought to school with us. To make it even harder, mine was long distance, and there was a major disconnect between us regarding how much I actually had to study and how much he thought was enough. This relationship ended with perfect timing the week before finals of my first semester of second year, notably the most horrifying semester of veterinary school potentially ever (apparently this upcoming semester may rival it, but we will see). Similar circumstances befell many of my friends. Even if the relationship weather the vet school storm, it is incredibly hard to balance school with life, and often times the non-student partner just doesn't understand.
What else makes vet students depressed? Fear of the future? Our incredibly massive debt that is hanging over our heads every day? Especially at this wonderful time of year when we receive our financial aid packages and we get a stinging reminder about just how much money we will owe; my personal package for this year totals about 57 thousand dollars. When most of us graduate, we will be facing nearly a quarter of a million dollars in debt. I have absolutely no concrete concept of how much money this really is, but in my mind I will be paying back loans until I am dead (and when this happens, I so nicely won't have to pay them back any more! How generous! No paying back my debt from the grave.) Thinking about having to repay this much money is enough to make anyone depressed.
Then they have people come for lunch talks, and tell us how we don't make nearly as much money as human physicians, how our debt load is so much greater, how we are screwed in 'a tough economy'. Great, guys, great. You know your students are depressed, you maybe want to try to cheer us up a little??
Yes, veterinary school is tough. I'm actually surprised I haven't had more teary stress-induced breakdowns than I have. But for those of us who really want to do this, we love it. We love to learn, we love to solve puzzles and work up cases. We love animals, and their humans (sometimes), and we love to help them. We trudge through this grueling assault because we know it will be worth it in the end. To help ease the burden, we long-suffering students need to learn to lean on each other, to be open and helpful to our colleagues, open up to our families and ask for their help, and lean on our significant others who support, encourage, and gasp, understand what we are going through.
Nobody said it was easy, but we chose our path, and it will ultimately be worth it. We just need to make it that far :-)
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