How I Found Literacy At An Animal Hospital - My Final Conclusion

This post is just a brief summery of my observations, research, and my final conclusion to my study.  I chose to research Durant Animal Hospital in Durant, OK.  This is of interest to me due to the fact that I am in my first semester of studies at Texas A & M - Commerce with a major in Pre-Vet, Animal Science.  I really wanted to make sure that I wanted to continue my studies without "wasting" four years of my middle-aged life to realize this just was not for me.

I have some experience already with animals as I have worked on a K-9 team, own/breed/show AKC English Bulldogs, own Boar Goats, and own horses.  I have loved animals all of my life and have always loved working with them.  Due to this, I had to be careful in approaching my research and observations to make sure that I explained things in detail to those reading my post would understand.  I also had to keep my writings in check as the surgical procedures I found interesting but to some of my readers they may have found these to be disturbing.

I needed to find how literacy was used at this site through my research while observing how it would fit a discourse community.  With veterinarians and staff dealing with the public on a daily basis, I found that the owners of the animals must be the voice for the animal and explain to the staff what is wrong with the animal and why they brought the animal to the facility.  Literacy therefore, plays a huge role in this practice.

Throughout my research and observations I studied many different aspects of the veterinary hospital.  Some of these were:

• The differences in caring for the different animals and how the staff of the hospital interacted with them during this care with both the animal and the animal's owner(s).
• Procedures in handling and caring for the smaller animal breeds like dogs and cats compared to those of horses and cattle.
• Different safety precautions used for the different species of animals.
• Different types of clientele.
• How the staff explained procedures or treatments to their clients.
• Public awareness and education for the public.
• How the staff of the hospital worked and communicated with other.
• Veterinary terminology.
• How the staff, clients, and patients of the hospital communicated through sight, sound, feel/touch, smell, and the use of their voices and body language.

Through these observations  I found that tones of voice, touch, and body language were very important in dealing with the animals.  To an animal, body language can mean friendship or possible threat.  The staff's use of body language and how it is perceived from an animals view can mean the calming of the animal in order to perform the necessary procedures or the animal being scared and lashing out to the staff who are trying to perform the procedure.  Animals don't understand our spoken language and cannot communicate through this type of language, therefore they rely on body language.  A calming or reassuring touch can immediately calm down a frightened animal while offering reassurance.  You can be discussing the most grotesque procedure you are about to perform on the animal but when said in a sweet and calm tone, the animal only understand the tone and not the words therefore they react with a calm demeanor.

I discovered when dealing with clients (the animal's owners) the staff dealt with many types of emotions and verbal language.  I saw people's concerns, questions, and misunderstandings followed by their eventual understand voiced through verbal communication and body language.  I understand how a person's emotions can affect a situation and how it is being handled or perceived and just how important these emotions can be whether being expressed verbally or through one's body language.

I understand how important communication is between the staff of the hospital.  It does not matter if it is written or verbal, this communication can ultimately mean the difference between life or death.  The quick understanding of language could just safe a life.  It also means the continued care, treatment, and increased health of an animal because without proper communication, you would not know what is going on.  Language / communication is an important aspect of a veterinary practice and it's staff.

When I first entered the site, I saw people, animals, equipment, and machines.  Now I see cultural artifacts and literacy in motion.  I am really surprised at how much one can go through life looking through a tunnel but once you step back and observe and think about what you are seeing, you see observe things differently.  These observations feel like a newborn baby or child experiencing the world or something new for the first time.  You really become aware of your surroundings and just how you fit into them.  My research has also brought about a better understand of myself as a human being and just how much my literacy, spoken and unspoken, can be viewed by others and how interpretations of these can vary.  It is important to always be thinking of others when literacy is concerned.  Where my verbal language or body language to some can seem direct, to others it could feel like a knife through the chest.  In one case, my spoken words could seem empathetic by my body language may appear as stand-offish.  I know that my spoken language must match my body language in order for people to perceive and understand me correctly as this literacy aspect is now understood more clearly through my research.

Oh, and one other big questions that I wanted to answer through my research was, " Can I handle all the gore, sight, smell, and sound of a veterinary practice?  Is this really the career path I want to follow, continue with my education, and not feel that it was a waste of my time." The answer to these questions is a big, fat, and shout out loud, "YES!"