Years ago, as a student vet seeing practice at a mixed vets in Watford, I was asked to help.
One of the large animal vets was on a call at a nearby farm. He had diagnosed that a cow which was calving required a caesarian section, but he did not have the surgical kit with him.
Would I be prepared to take it to him? Of course, I leapt into my car. These were the days when we had no mobile phones and no sat navs. I had a paper map, and had pre-memorised my route.
But the traffic was a nightmare. Some hold-up had occurred and the by-pass was crawling nose to tail. I had not been told the exact clinical situation, so my mind started creating scenarios.
Maybe the calf was hanging on, but needed me to get there fast to save its life. Maybe the mother was in distress, and both she and the calf were at risk if I didn’t get there immediately.
My stress levels started to rise. The journey should have taken me twenty minutes. After fifteen minutes just crawling I resolved to take the next exit to anywhere, and try to find an alternative route. I ended up in a cul de sac, stress levels rising higher still. I retraced my route, with the muscles in my back and face as stiff as boards. I could not phone anyone to report the issue, and I knew that the vet and the farmer must be wondering what had become of me.
We inched forward until at last I was off the bypass down the correct route, and free to finish my journey. I just prayed that I was on time. Luckily all was well. Mother and calf survived, the farmer was ecstatic, and the vet was happy to demonstrate his skills to such an enthusiastic and conscientious student. Being at vet school was all about learning to be a good vet, but there were so many other lessons to learn too, including how to manage the situation that you simply cannot control, such as terrible traffic.
