Isolation Protocols

Today’s post is once again brought to you by Dr Ugg.

Infectious diseases are all around us. But they’re a whole lot less of the medical battle than i first thought. When i went to uni i was naive and thought a lot of the stuff i’d learn would be about bugs and germs and things we treat with drugs. A lot of it is but less than i thought. There’s parasites, which are kinda different. There’s kennel cough and parvo and cat flu and a variety of other interesting things. But mostly we see the same bugs over and over, and we treat them the same because it works.
To prevent the spread of disease between infected animals, we have specific protocols. Contagious things go in isolation. What “isolation” is varies between clinics, but the outcome is the same. Absolutely as few bugs (viruses or bacteria) get out from the sick animal into the rest of the clinic. Not on our feet, our hands or our clothes. But thats not the isolation i was wanting to talk about.

We spend 5 years at uni. In my case that was 3 in central melbourne followed by two in werribee. Before moving to werribee i was surrounded by friends from school, friends at work, uni friends and family. That was a great time of my life. And as with most of my uni mates, i didn’t study perhaps as hard as i could have. Meh.

After those three years were up i moved to college with all my uni mates. By that stage we were becoming different from our other friends, we’d talk about things that make other people cringe or walk away, or we’d make weird in-jokes that the rest of the world didn’t get. We were surrounded by friends, all going thru the same things. Relationships formed within our groups. We always had like-minded people around. We were surrounded by incredibly smart lecturers and clinicians, and we soaked it up and took it for granted. It was a great time of my life. And as with most of the folk in college, i didn’t study perhaps as hard as i could have. No regrets on that count though!

Graduation. We’d all looked forward to it for so long. “We’re real vets now”, we told ourselves and each other. We told each other that we’d keep in touch. We all knew that it would be the last big gathering of our year. Ever. So we drank and partied and tried to keep that night going for as long as possible.

New jobs. Looked forward to that for so long too! Jobs where we would finally get to practice what we’d spent so long studying, so much of our lives aiming towards. We all had our dream jobs depending on the case load, the location, the staffing, the setup. Some of us went out thinking we were almost ready for the world, other didn’t have the confidence. Some went out hoping for as much support as we could get. Others wanted freedom. And i know for all my confidence i’m lucky to get through a day without being frozen in indecision at least once. Noone can be fully prepared. 20 years experience appears to almost get you to that point. Most of the time.

The isolation i was thinking of has nothing to do with infectious diseases. We’re a bunch of early-20’s young adults. Our average friend from highschool would be living in the inner city or suburbs. Working regular hours, heading out on weekends. we’ve associated almost entirely with our own strange little group for the last 4 years. Now we’re out in jobs we’re not prepared for, making life and death decisions on a daily basis. For most of us we’re a long way from home and family. For a lot of us, we’re a long way from our partners, those of us who’ve managed to maintain a relationship. We’re in regional areas and small towns, working long hours and on call. Lots of people know us. But most of them are faces linked to a furry face linked to a problem or a vaccination or a treatment. Not exactly drinking buddy material. My best mate is a long drive then a plane flight away. Some of my family is still in the same state, some aren’t. I’m alone. And i’m not prepared for this. Treating the patients is easy.

Treating isolation is hard.