How it all started

It was a decade ago, and we had just started university.


We were about 200 fresh new students, at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Bucharest. However, Tri-vet was quickly established. That's us, Alinetu, Ricks and Andreika. All 3 born and bred in Bucharest, we became good friends from early on. And nothing was more of a team building for us then the bieniall exam sessions.

The exam sessions felt like mental training camps. For 2 months at a year, we lived, ate, red endless pages, laughed and pulled through. Ricks quickly established himself as the top student in our generation in anatomy, and that was by far our scariest exam in the first 2 years. He never did manage to make anatomy geniuses out of us, but he still takes pride in remembering our exam subjects. Alinetu always insisted that we go early at exams (they were mostly oral examinations and one could choose whether to queue up early bird or later in the day). The rest of us never really liked going that early, but it did become a tradition doubled by the superstition of "we'd better not change the habit".

The next picture... ...don't even ask!!!





Later on, a new addition came to the group. Mihnea joined the University having already aquired a vet tech diploma.

The triumvirat system of learning was never to be broken, but Mihnea took part in all the after-hour adventures. The endless trips to the horse studs, the classical March romanian tour, the mountain trips and then the student jobs with the animal market inspections. Enthusiastic, Mihnea also had a valuable asset, a blue stout Dacia that took us with courage on many new roads.

And then.... then we were seven!

Ovidiu, Ioana and Irina came to complete the group, youngsters in comparison to the old initial 4 dinosaurus (they haven't even graduated yet:) , establishing however their new paths and standards.

So, what's happening nowadays?

A lot is to be said about a vet's life in today's Romania, but more on that to come later.

We spreaded in all directions, seeking a better education, for those that still can;) , or simply better jobs, salaries, horizons.



Alinetu is currently a RCVS member and working in full mode in England. She had already obtained a masters degree in Scotland, and now is working in small animal practice.

Ricks, after coming and going in various countries, decided to try to make it in Romania. So he is currently the co-owner of a newly established small animal practice in Craiova, while in the same time developed a low cost, high volume trap/neuter/release programm for stray animals.

Mihnea worked after graduation in Cyprus for a year and, for the past 2 years (and at least for the year to come), established himself far away in the Pacific Ocean, being the small animal vet and bird flu expert of a small state called Palau.

Ovidiu studied for a year in Bologna, Italy, came back to graduate this year in Bucharest and from fall onwards, he'll be located in Vienna, where he will start a postgraduate year of studies in wild animal medicine.

Ioana, a brilliant student from the beginning, managed to transfer, and is currently located in Vienna, Austria. She still had a year and a half to go, being the youngest one of us, and many exams in german still ahead.

Irina is about to graduate as well, here in Bucharest. She is nowadays one of the most active of us in the animal welfare field, taking part and organising many campaigns.


As for myself, I've been into small animal practice since graduation, with a small infusion of large and exotic animals as the situation called. I have been working in Romania, Cyprus and the Emirates. With a new exotic location soon to come, but more of that in later episodes.

andreika

You don't know where you're going....

...if you don't know where you've been.

7 people, each with different backgrounds and motivations, same job title. What brought us here? Well, feeling somewhat introspective today, I decided to post today something on the early beginnings.

You see, my mother wanted me to be a lawyer. I have resisted this idea more then a Clostridium spore in hard times, and eventually went on to become a vet.

What else, if ever since I can remember (and this is precisely 1982) I was completly drawn and fascinated by 4 legged creatures. The slightly burgeois picture shows me convinced that even they didn't move, those horses could really get into motion IF they so wished, so I was pretty much on top of the world there and then. (Predeal, summer of 1982).

Growing up on a the grey and concrete city that Bucharest is, contact with this fantastic

creatures wasn't easy, especially all equine creatures that owned without doubt, supremacy. Still dreaming at a lawyer daughter, my mother had the brilliant idea around 1984 onwards to take me once a year, while in holiday at the Black Sea, for a few hours to visit an ride at the Stud in Mangalia. (actually located in Venus but minor detail).

This is an Arabian stud located very close to the Black Sea, I can truly say the day spent there was the high rise of the whole year, a fantastic land populated with 300 plus horses, imagine

that. I even got to ride, or so I like to believe I suppose, as you can see from the picture on the left, and thank God, they were able to find some nice quiet Arab horses which were available for the public. Not officially of course, but for some extra monetary attention, but we are all human beings, right?

To the day, and may it be good or bad, going to a horse stud is the subconscious equivalent of an incredible experience, althou really the bitter truth is that romanian studs aren't all that great anyway, due to huge financial constraints, poor management, and so on. In the student years, I actually visited all the national studs, evenly spreaded all over Romania, even the most exotic one, in Lucina, that lies very close to the border of Ukrain, breeds Hutul horses and is so wild, that wolfes still manage to grab a few foals every winter.

Promise to post later on a whole story and pictures upon the romanian horse studs, but for now...

You'd expect me to be now a horse vet I suppose, well, the complicated ways of life and jobs....NO,NO, NO, I am not a lawyer but more into the small animal practice so far. The fascination is still there thou, just as unchanged.

andreika's

About us...

Well, we made it. One late February siberian-like Sunday evening, most of us gathered around a cup of exotic tea, and just before we part ways for the year to come, we decided it's finally time to make it happen. Of course we have talked about it before, but like most good romanians we postponed it... till I finally gave it the initial shape, later in the same sleepless night.

I actually really feel we are one special gang, and truly extraordinary when it comes to the places where we have practiced as vets or volunteers , and the wide variety of the species we share amongst us. This blog will hopefully be held by all of us, 7, a good number, ei?! , respectively 4 already graduated vets and 3 about to graduate soon.

We all came together at the vet school of Bucharest, Romania, where we have or will soon graduate. All but one, that has escaped and will graduate in Wien;) Apart from working in many places of our mother nation, Romania, members of this gang are currently or have been in the past located all over.... England, Cyprus, USA, United Arab Emirates, Greece, Italy, Cayman Islands, Austria,...and even as far as Palau.

Adventure seekers, nomads in spirit,wanting to learn to be better vets or merely trying to make a better living....or maybe a cocktail of them all, welcome to our blog!