Why failure should inspire you

Mariana A. Pardo, BVSc, MV, DACVECC (Image courtesy of Alyssa Mages, CVT, BS)

Failure, although painful and disappointing, is inevitable. Although the word often carries a negative connotation, according to Mariana A. Pardo, BVSc, MV, DACVECC, a veterinary emergency doctor at the Veterinary Emergency Group, in Whiteplains, New York, failing repeatedly was the best thing that happened to her. In fact, she said, it shaped her way to becoming the successful veterinary criticalist, mentor, and educator she is today.

“Sometimes failure can steer you towards your true calling,” she said, during her keynote session Friday morning at the Fetch dvm360® conference in Kansas City, Missouri. “Failure allows for better preparation. You must constantly revise your approach, adjusting things as you go.”

Pardo, the first female board-certified critical care specialist in Latin America and mentorship director of the newly founded Latinx Veterinary Medical Association, boldly and transparently revealed to attendees how her failures, ironically, helped her to succeed in many ways.

A dream denied but a passion unlocked

According to Pardo, she always wanted to become a singer, but her family didn’t support that dream. Instead, she rebelliously went to veterinary school at the Universidad Mayor in Santiago, Chile. She partied hard her first year, she said, and failed nearly every class. When she was kicked out of the veterinary program, the lightbulb moment occurred for Pardo—veterinary medicine was indeed her passion. She was determined to get back into veterinary school, so much so that she went to the dean’s office daily, from Monday through Friday. After being turned away repeatedly, she finally convinced the dean to let her back into the program.

Taking a leap of faith

After graduating from the Universidad Mayor and practicing as a veterinarian for a few years, Pardo soon discovered her love for emergency and critical care. Because she couldn’t become specialized in Latin America, she took a leap of faith and came to the United States with very little money and no plan, but a determined and hopeful heart.

“I traveled with my partner at the time, and we moved to Miami with $1600 in our pockets, no job or place to live. We arrived at the airport and began to plan what to do,” said Pardo. She visited 20 veterinary hospitals in 1 day and by the evening, she secured a job. “Within 48 hours, we had rented a room, and I had a job as a veterinary technician.”

During her 4 years working as an ICU veterinary technician, she applied numerous times to the match program of her dreams at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, but she heard nothing. Just when she was about to lose hope, she landed an emergency and critical care internship at the University of Georgia, outside of the match program, and the rest was history.

“I never wanted to be a veterinary technician, but working as a tech, even though I was a veterinarian, was 1 of the best things that could have happened to me,” said Pardo. “Failure during this time to get an internship meant more time to prepare, to learn, to appreciate my technician coworkers. This knowledge has been invaluable throughout my career.”

Overcoming setbacks: Lessons learned

Although Pardo has accomplished a lot during her career, none of her successes came without a fight. There were so many tearful nights, she said, but she pushed through the adversity. Here are 3 lessons she learned from failure that she hopes will help her fellow veterinary professionals.

• Failure can help you reevaluate your life. Failing her first year of veterinary school taught Pardo that failures can help you put things into perspective. Failure also helped her to reset goals and motivated her to be resilient.
• Failure allows you to reflect on what you can do better. Failing during her first internship taught Pardo the significance of self-introspection and evaluating what your responsibility is for your failures, and actively trying to better yourself. This reflection time will help you become better prepared for the next steps toward success, she explained.
• Humility is crucial to your success. “Sharing your struggles and failures with your team and shifting the view of vulnerability from a weakness to a strength creates more confident team players that are less scared of failing because they feel supported and see how failure can propel you to success,” she said.

Key takeaways

Pardo highlighted the significance of not letting failure deter you. She also explained that the most renowned people didn’t succeed right away, and they learned through failed experiences. For them, failure was not the end but the beginning to a journey of success.

“Make sure every day you are better than who you were yesterday. We all have our own journeys, so comparing your timeline with your friend, colleagues, or partner is not reasonable. Your detours and setbacks are shaping who you are and will lead you where you need to be,” Pardo concluded.

“Stay humble, and don’t be afraid to not know [something] or to fail. And if you are scared….do it scared.”