{"word_count": 922, "character_count": 5037}
No one of us specifically worked on the feminization of the veterinary profession. However, in our research on food safety in slaughterhouses (Laure) and on antimicrobial use in livestock (Nicolas), we met female veterinarians who talked with us, yet sometime briefly, about their careers. To illustrate our former note, we have decided to present short extracts of these interviews in which those women speak about their personal and professional trajectories.This third note tackles the question of the articulation between private and professional lives, more particularly the place of children in career choices. Even though the women who are talking here have about 20 years of age difference, these questions have had an impact for both of them.After I graduated I did some replacements during a short period of time. Then I followed my husband for his military service and we spent one year in Africa. We came back with a baby, so I had to wait a bit [before working again], but then a second baby. After this baby I wanted to work again a bit, so I did small animal medicine. I was doing replacements a few afternoons per week in a companion animal practice that was about 30 km from where I lived. I have been offered to set up a partnership but I refused because it is difficult to go into partnership and just work half-time, and I was living pretty far (30 km) to be available for emergencies. So I did a break in my career again, for a third baby, and then a fourth. (…) I got back to work after my fourth baby because I thought “well maybe it’s time to stop making babies (laugh). Perhaps it’s time to think about working again and I thought “maybe it’s worth to send an application to the veterinary services [slaughterhouses inspections], we never know”. I didn’t receive any news and I didn’t call back, but after 6 or 9 months I got a call from the chief of the local veterinary services, who I knew very well since we were from the same school promotion. So she said me that I could start, as she was looking for someone to replace one of the vet inspector during his leave. So I said yes and this is how I started. First with short terms contracts only, and it was very irregular because it was only when they needed me.Graduated in 1980, married to a veterinarian working in rural practice.I graduated from Nantes veterinary school in 2001. It was the first promotion with 5 years of studies, so we could choose a specialty during the fifth year, and then pass our DVM. This year, we have been asked to choose a specialty as early as the fourth year, which was not that common. So I chose farm animal production. My partner was already working in a mixed practice, in the west of France [near Nantes]. So maybe the choice of my specialty has been a little bit influenced by the area I knew I would work in. So farm animal production implies cattle, pig or poultry sectors. I finally chose to specialize in poultry production.So you rapidly excluded small animal medicine?We learn small animal medicine in the third year, so I knew it a bit. It was something that I liked, but I also liked farm animal medicine. But companion animal… I don’t know. I didn’t want to work in an urban area. I wanted to be in the countryside, though I have no rural origins at all. I really like it at school but I also wanted to do rural medicine. So I thought that farm animal production was a good choice to try something else. (…) It was also a way to have more career opportunities. I chose poultry production because I did my internship in a rural practice, with poultry and calves. Then I did my DVM in a pharmaceutical lab that was doing trials on poultry bacterial flora. (…) And finally I stayed in the domain of poultry production. My first job, in 2002, was in a veterinary group with several practices but I had a position in the laboratory, not in the practice side. I wanted to work on the practice side but there was no opened position. But at some point there was an opportunity to become the lab chief. I hadn’t the required experience for that but the team was already very autonomous. And this position also requires a lot of lab work: autopsy, autopsy management, bacteriology… So it really helped me (…). Then I got my two first children, I got fired from my position as lab chief and I went back to the practice where I did my internship. I had a complete autonomy there. It was a rural practice with a lab as well. I was mostly working in poultry production, though I also did a little bit some pigs and calves. I stayed there for 3 years and then I had a parental leave for my third child. Then it was the lab technician I worked with in the veterinary group who contacted me and said to me “I work in a new group, would you like to work with us? There is an opened position”. As my relationships with my boss in the small practice I was working during three years weren’t that good, I wanted to work in a big group again. So I resigned and I came here in 2010.Graduated in 2001. Lives with a veterinarian.&#160;