Tech student tip: Use your own pets to practice getting vitals

Practice collecting vitals on your own pets to gain experience outside the classroom.(dtatiana/Adobe Stock)

I'm in a veterinary technician program, and here's a personal destresser I use, it also helps with extra practice: When lying around the house with my pets sleeping or calming down after playing, I will listen to their respiration and heart rates. It helps me get a better handle on what's normal to hear, and also get faster at as well as getting better at getting quicker and better calculations for a T.P.R. (temperature, pulse and respiration) calculations-all while relaxing at home and enjoying my fur babies and not the high stress of a classroom.

-Chelsey Morel-Bushnell is a veterinary technician student at Murray State University in Murray, Kentucky.