We can do hard things...

September 3, 2024

Emily Ward, AVC 2025, travelled to Nain and Postville as one of the student participants on the Chinook Project. As part of the experience, the students craft various pieces of writing.

“We can do hard things” I said to a fellow chinook team member as we prepared to take off on the final leg of our plane trip from Nain to Postville. I was referring to the motion sickness we were both feeling as our tiny plane dipped up and down between the rocky terrain of Labrador, landing and taking off every 20 minutes or so in each community. Originally said as a joke to lighten the mood during the rough flight, it quickly became a team motto over the next few clinic days in Postville. 

One thing was certain from our time in Nain; our Chinook team was very capable of doing hard things. Our first full clinic day was a blur of organized chaos. We saw a seemingly endless list of medical and surgical appointments. I can remember looking around at one point in the afternoon and seeing animals carefully tucked in just about every corner of our makeshift clinic – puppies wrapped up in the boxes our clinic supplies came in, huskies of all shapes and sizes curled up and snoozing away on various piles of blankets around the room, and several cats resting in their carriers in a quiet bathroom off the main area. It was unlike any clinic I had seen before, and I loved it. As we became more familiar with our set up, and with a few tweaks here and there to our systems for organizing our day, our team was running smoothly. On the first day, I completed my first dog spay and my first dog castration. On the second day, I performed a challenging spay on a large, mature, deep-chested dog. Due to her anatomy, there were certain steps I needed to do by feel instead of visualizing – a particularly nerve-wracking task when you are working quite closely to large important blood vessels. On the third day, my peers and I were steadily working through multiple solo surgeries with newfound confidence and skill. In total, over the four clinic days in Nain our team performed 50 surgeries. I went from having only performed 2 cat spays in junior surgery to completing 10 surgeries largely on my own. It is amazing how much better you can get at something when you practice that thing, and only that thing, for multiple days in a row.

Emily doing hard things!

We arrived in Postville as a well-functioning team, equipped with a working knowledge of how to set up our temporary clinic, dramatically improved surgical skills, and much more confidence in our ability to handle whatever walked through the door. As we faced new challenges our team response became, “we can do hard things!”. One of the biggest differences in Postville was that our space was one large room rather than multiple connected ones. Our clinic became open concept, meaning the owners were present and able to observe everything we did throughout the day. Initially, I was apprehensive at the idea of performing my 11^th or so surgery I have ever completed with the owner of the animal standing at my side. But, hey, we can do hard things, right? In the end, the open concept set up of the Postville clinic was one of my favorite things about this trip. It was so rewarding to interact with members of the community throughout the day and get to explain to owners exactly what I was doing as I performed surgery on their pet. The curious owners were fascinated by the process and loved getting to understand more about the procedure. The nervous owners appreciated getting to touch and interact with their pet during the procedure and were reassured as we explained everything we were doing to keep their pet safe. In general, our patients appeared happier and calmer with their owners present throughout the day. I finished up my time in Postville proud of how well we adjusted to the new environment and grateful for the opportunity to challenge myself in new ways.

Reflecting back on my time on Chinook, I truly feel that this experience has made me into a better future veterinarian. The resilience, problem-solving, teamwork, and adaptability that I have gained will be invaluable in my career. I am so grateful to our Chinook team, the communities we visited, and all of the organizers that made this project possible. We can do hard things!