I met Dr. Virginia Edwards when I was working over Christmas at ACE, taking care of the teaching herd horses. I came to find out that Dr. Edwards was my boss, covering a shift for the next day and a half. I had already started on morning rounds by myself, making feed rations, administering treatments, and loading two dozen bales of hay into the field truck. When Dr. Edwards arrived, I was throwing hay for the first field of horses. She helped me throw hay, feed horses, and complete treatments for the remaining fields throughout the rest of the morning. I learned about her journey from undergrad, to vet school, to practicing veterinary medicine, to now teaching at the Virginia Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine. Her two kids sat in the back of the truck during our evening rounds, and I remember being unable to fathom myself balancing the amount of work Dr. Edwards does on top of raising a young family. 

 

Working with Dr. Edwards for those few days was special to me, as it wasn’t like working with the majority of my coworkers. She was open and willing to answer my questions, and I felt no tension or hesitation in her trust in me despite my lack of experience working with horses. Later, in an interview that the vet school conducted on my study abroad experience in Italy, she described me as “confident and competent,” which instilled a newfound sense of confidence in me. I had often felt out of place at my job at ACE because of my lack of experience working with animals compared to my coworkers, who had for the most part grown up having horses, riding them, or both.

 

Over the years, I’ve talked to Dr. Edwards about her experiences and perspectives on the veterinary and equine industry, as well as sometimes running into her at the farmers market. She has always been kind and patient with me, and I’ve never doubted her belief in me or my potential. I naturally reached out to her about shadowing her for this project, and she was more than happy to. 

 

I had the opportunity to watch Dr. Edwards lead students through a preparatory lab the day before a spay lab. The lab I shadowed was a make up lab, which gave me the opportunity to focus on how one team of vet students prepared themselves for their spay lab the following day. The pod I shadowed included Chloe, Matt, and Edrik, all second year vet students. They took vitals of their dog, walked through their responsibilities and procedures to complete for the following day, and took extensive notes about the dog and the data they collected. Dr. Edwards explained that there are typically 12 groups, or pods as she called them, with 3 students each, rotating between the roles of anesthesiologist, surgeon, and assistant surgeon. Assisting Dr. Edwards was LVT Whitney, who worked with exotics throughout most of her career and recently started working at VMCVM. Dr. Edwards was more of an overseer than a participant in the lab, allowing the vet students to collaborate with one another and work to solve problems as much as they could on their own. She answered their questions with patience and without judgement, as well as my own. 

 

I asked her what about teaching it was that she found more compelling than practicing veterinary medicine. She explained that teaching was much less stressful, there was more routine, and that teaching allows her to still use her expertise while having a better work life balance. She appreciates that she has the ability to watch students grow throughout their time in vet school, as she finds that her students are all highly motivated and eager to learn. She talked about just how much the vet school curriculum has changed since the time she attended Virginia-Maryland, and appreciated the fact that the faculty at Virginia-Maryland constantly takes feedback in order to improve their curriculum year by year.