Value of a Dollar

Is it really Friday?  Yesterday felt oddly like a Monday, even though I had already worked all week.  It probably had something to do with the fact that yesterday was the first day that I'd been at the local veterinary clinic in a week.  I have been in the classroom all week, though, making for a long week all together.  Each time I teach, it makes me respect the teachers that put up with me on a daily basis for thirteen years.  (College professors don't count - I'm paying them to put up with my questions and so forth.)

The local clinic was not terribly busy tonight.  In between patients, I had the chance to flip through the latest issue of "Veterinary Economics."  When I'm at the emergency clinic, it's usually the girly mags that end up in my hands.  Reading something that could affect my career and give me tidbits of knowledge that I can take with me is probably the more intelligent thing to do, though.  Reading about how he "soothed my holiday blues," might be "awwwhh" reading, but nothing that will make me (eventually) a better veterinarian.

The cover article in this month's VE is "What Are You Worth?"  Interestingly, University of Florida senior veterinary students thought that they were worth about $30/hour during a discussion with the author.  Thirty bucks an hour?  If I worked 45 hour weeks, 50 weeks a year, for just over 4 years, and had ZERO other bills, I could pay off my student loans with $30 an hour.  In my opinion, part of the reason that veterinary salaries continue to be lower than our counterparts in human medicine and the legal world (for all my lawyer type friends that read this) is that we do not value ourselves as highly as we should.  If I were asked the same question, I think I still would have devalued myself somewhat.   I would say that as a graduate veterinarian, my services are worth at least $50 an hour. 

I read the rest of the article, and the little hamster that hides behind my spiky hair started doing some work on the exercise wheel.  I did some number-crunching and realized that if I am able to produce the numbers that the article suggested (including having approximately 3,300 client visits per year with an average client transaction over $100), I could come home with a salary that is more commensurate with the letters that signify that I am (will be) a doctor.  The numbers were eye-opening of the potential possibility that I will have in about eighteen months.   I believe that I have the motivation to provide the best medical and surgical care for my future patients.  Above all, I think that will take me far in the profession.

In other money news, since every dollar counts now, the gas prices in my area have dropped to a number that I haven't seen in months.  I happily filled my nearly empty tank today for just $25.00.  The price of gasoline has dropped to just $1.62 per gallon here, and apparently even lower just south of here.  I have a hard time justifying driving fifteen extra miles to save $0.64, though.  That's an early Christmas gift, sort of. 

Lastly, are you thinking of vacationing over the holidays?  I'm sure some top spots are anyplace warm if you're living in the northern hemisphere.  Then again, some of my friends are inexplicably drawn to the slopes, having a love-love relationship with cold weather and soft powder.  Have it your way, I say.  But, I think you should vacation in one of the countries considered to be part of W's "axes of evil."  Paul Davidson, author of Words for My Enjoyment, agrees with me.  Once again, he stole my words, and used them his weekly Friday feature - Words for YOUR Enjoyment.  Thanks, Paul.