Paradise?

Although graduation is still three years and 4.5 weeks away for me, I have been procrastinating studying by finding possible externships and exploring veterinary career choices.

I just can't help but think ahead, it keeps me going to classes and enjoying life, frankly in the midst of my non-clinical years of veterinary school. Lectures can become really dry with limited clinical application and I am always seeking more information after lecture on how I will somehow assimilate all this information on anatomy, physiology, and pathology, etc. and apply it to an actual patient or clinical case. 

I often find myself discouraged when I don't do as well as I had hoped on an exam. Somehow, the veterinary school curriculum makes you feel that if you don't achieve straight A's, you won't be a good veterinarian. I think that is VERY wrong, but I can't help but think I have failed or let myself down by missing questions on exams. I need to remember that part of that learning is making mistakes and trying again. I think it is much better to do this on paper than on a real clinical case. But in real life, clinical cases will not be an exam, I will be able to collaborate with colleges and have the ability to utilize resources in all my cases.

I recently was exploring the American Fondouk website and found a blog of past visitors of the Fondouk. I felt I should share it on my blog because it is inspiring and thought provoking all at the same time.

 Epilogue from Dr. Biros' 2009 Visit

"I have signed each correspondence on this trip “From paradise” but have in my own mind struggled to define exactly what paradise means. Is it having everything you want? Is it a place where there is no suffering and no one has a need for anything? At first I thought I was being a bit romantic; after all I was visiting an exotic place where there is a need for the services that I can offer, that is to help sick animals without asking for anything in return. I soon realized that Fez is a wild place filled with life, death, emotion and action everywhere you turn. The Fondouk is only a small part of that, but it is a part that cannot be taken away. To me, paradise is not the utter fulfillment of one’s desires and the absolute elimination of every bad thing; rather it is the act of giving and receiving, exchanging our gifts to one another no matter how great or small. Paradise is ensuring that we are an active participant, to the best of our ability, in this sometimes crazy world and consciously soaking it all in along the way. No matter how one defines paradise, I feel that part of the definition is the wish for paradise to endure."

http://www.mspca.org/americanfondouk/about-us/blog/day-7-april-27-2009.html