My work experience at a vets practice

Its been a long time since I did my work experience at David Cuffe and Associates Vet Surgery in Clapham, London but the skills I learnt from this have stayed with me even today. 

I did this work experience as part of a careers module at secondary school where each student took a 2 week placement in any industry they wanted, as long as they could organise a company to take them on. I decided I wanted to go to a vets so I scoured the local area for every surgery I could find and called them all up, one by one, to see if they had anything they could offer me. Unfortunately, no luck was to be found in the area as most surgeries either had no places available or were not willing to take on a young student. 

It was suggested by my dad to look further afield, he knew of a surgery not far from where he was working at the time, in South London, so he paid them a visit to ask if they would offer me some work experience. To my surprise they said they'd be more than happy to accommodate me for the 2 weeks, I was so excited as finally I was going to get the chance to experience working in my dream job. 

It was scary at first, as it always is when you don't know anyone, and on top of this I was in a huge city which I had not visited often before this. I had to get up very early to travel to London in the car with my dad where he would check in at work and drop me off at the surgery. After being there for only a day my fears had gone as all the staff were so friendly and helpful, they made me feel welcome and like a real part of the team. 

I was surprised at the amount of responsibility they gave me from giving injections to animals (under close supervision of course) to sterilising surgical equipment, running various machines for blood testing, helping in operations and general tasks around the practice like sorting stock orders, mopping the floors and answering the phone. All the time I welcomed every task they gave me and enjoyed the challenge of mastering new skills. It never felt like they were using me for free labour (like some internships and work experience I've heard about) but instead they saw me as a trainee nurse and they wanted to teach me everything they possibly could while informing me about lots of different aspects of the job.

At the end of the experience they gave me the best possible compliment by saying I was the best work experience student they had ever had in the practice. I'm grateful for their kindness, patience and willingness to give their time to teach me and even though I did not end up on the medical career path, I still value all the skills I learnt during this time.