Be honest — were your college notes a battlefield of blue highlighters, circles, underlines, and pentel pens?
If yes, congratulations. You survived one of the toughest diseases known to veterinary students:
Excessive Highlighting Syndrome (EHS)
And no, it’s not in the Merck Manual — but it definitely left its mark on us.
The Classic Symptoms:
Step 1: Highlight everything. As in, lahat. Even the margin.
Step 2: Underline the highlighted part. Because “what if hindi ko maalala?”
Step 3: Bilugan lahat ng keywords. Para sure. Para topnotcher mode.
Step 4: Pentel pen level. Emergency protocol. Usually happens kapag postponed ang exam o life-and-death na ang memory retention.
Bonus sign? Planner mo? Also color-coded like a rainbow gone rogue.
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Why We Did It
Because we were fighting for our dreams. Because we were terrified. Because every highlight was a cry of, “Lord, please paalala mo to during the exam.”
We weren’t just studying — we were trying to survive….
Every page was a battlefield. Every highlight, a bullet point in a war against doubt.
Fast Forward to Now
We’re licensed. We made it.
And yet — that version of us? The tired, anxious, ultra-dedicated vet student?
They deserve to be remembered.
Because they got us here.
To the one who stayed up with 4 cups of coffee.
To the one who memorized fungal types while eating instant noodles.
To the one who cried after every failing quiz but still opened the book again —
Thank you. You didn’t give up.
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Real Talk for Today
Your EHS wasn’t weird.
It was your way of saying, “I refuse to quit.”
And that version of you? Still lives inside the vet you are now.
Compassionate. Detailed. Obsessed.
Still doing your best — only now, for lives that bark, purr, and matter.
To all vets who once highlighted like their future depended on it — because it did —
You are not weird. You are a warrior.
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Dr. Geoff Carullo is a Fellow and the current President of the Philippine College of Canine Practitioners.
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