My careers teacher thought I should be a chiropodist. It had something to do with the number of science subjects I was taking and the general ambition of girls at the high school I attended I guess.
Whatever! I assume she hadn't bothered to check out my class exam marks when she tried to put me off my chosen goal of veterinary medicine.
To cut a long story short I did become a chiropodist. I've dealt with the foot problems of guinea pigs, mice, rats, cats, dogs and the occasional reptile. I sliced into my wrist quite deeply paring a dairy cow's foot, and removed the entire toe of a ram using only a gigli wire, sedation and local anaesthesia.Oh yes indeedy, I became a chiropodist but not in the narrow one-species-centric vision my dear careers advisor envisaged. I had ambition and wasn't put off by the very competitive nature of my chosen profession.
So that was my first career.
It metamorphosed into a research track from clinical work and by the time I left the UK for Canada I hadn't been in practice for seven years ... and that was my second career.
So what now? Is being a stay-at-home parent my third career or is it merely a stop gap giving me some thinking space? What do I want to be now that I've grown up?
