Andrea Suárez Carrió is the Big Sister the Vet School Generation Needs

Andrea Suárez Carrió is a fourth-year student at the University of Glasgow, a growing voice in the veterinary student community, and proof that the most powerful thing you can offer someone who is struggling is honesty.

There is a moment most veterinary students recognize. It usually happens somewhere between your first semester and your third year, in the middle of an exam block or a difficult rotation, when you look around at everyone who seems to be holding it together and wonder if you are the only one who is not. The answer, almost always, is that you are not the only one. But the information that would tell you that is rarely available, and rarely said out loud.

Andrea Suárez Carrió decided to say it out loud.

The fourth-year student at the University of Glasgow has spent the last several years building a social media platform aimed specifically at current and aspiring veterinary students, not to curate a highlight reel of how great vet school is, but to offer something more useful: the honest version. The one that includes the pressure, the doubt, the moments of feeling lost, and the reminder that feeling those things does not mean you are doing it wrong.

She describes her approach as the “big sister” model. “I started it because I remember feeling lost at times during the application process and throughout vet school, and I felt there wasn’t always clear or honest information available,” she says. “I wanted to create the kind of space I wish I had.”

Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Somewhere Between Two Countries

Andrea grew up in Edinburgh, with both parents from Spain. Her childhood was shaped by movement: between Scotland and Spain to see family, and further afield to different corners of the world with her parents. Travel, she says, gave her something that has stayed with her.

“It exposed me to different cultures, ways of living, and ways of thinking that you simply can’t fully understand from a distance. It made me more adaptable, more understanding, and more appreciative of different perspectives.”

That adaptability has served her well in veterinary medicine, a profession where no two clients are the same, no two presentations go exactly as expected, and the ability to meet people where they are is as clinically relevant as knowing the pharmacology. Andrea draws the line directly: being open-minded, she argues, is not just a personal quality. It is a professional skill.

The pull toward veterinary medicine was never a decision she had to make. “From as young as I can remember, I knew I wanted to be a vet. I’ve always been drawn to animals, often finding myself on the floor petting dogs at social gatherings rather than with the humans.”

The Pressure to Be Perfect

Getting into veterinary school requires years of sustained performance. The grades, the experience, the personal statement, the interviews. By the time most students arrive at university, they have already proven something about themselves. What many of them have also developed, without quite realizing it, is a relationship with perfectionism that is going to cause them problems.

Andrea is candid about hers. “For a long time, I put a huge amount of pressure on myself to be perfect, especially academically. I believed that getting into vet school meant maintaining top grades at all times, and when I got there, I struggled to keep up with that expectation. That pressure took a real toll on me.

It took time to reach a different conclusion, and the reaching was not comfortable. But the conclusion she landed on is worth passing forward. “Grades are not everything. Getting through vet school is important, but even more important is looking after yourself. You can’t pour from an empty cup.”

She heard something similar reflected back to her by lecturers, employers, and people she met on placement. “No one is looking for perfection. They’re looking for someone who is kind, resilient, and passionate about what they do. Someone who can communicate, care, and keep going when things are tough.”

It is the kind of advice that sounds obvious until you are the one who needs it. Andrea built a platform to make sure it actually reaches the people who need to hear it before the pressure does its damage.

Building the Space She Needed

The social media platform Andrea has built is not about aesthetics. There is no perfectly curated study flat or aspirational morning routine. The content is more honest than that, and intentionally so. She covers the application process, what vet school is actually like, how to manage the harder moments, and why looking after your mental health is not optional in a profession with one of the highest burnout rates in healthcare.

“Mental health is something I care deeply about, especially having seen how demanding and emotionally challenging this profession and training can be,” she says. “I hope to encourage others to prioritize their wellbeing not just during vet school, but throughout their careers, and to remind people that being a good vet should never come at the expense of your own health.”

What she has created, essentially, is a resource that treats the reader as someone capable of handling honesty. That is rarer than it should be, and it is the reason people keep coming back to it.

What She Carries

Ask Andrea what has gotten her here and she gives a three-part answer: kindness, determination, and family.

Kindness first. “I truly believe kindness is one of the most powerful ways to move through life. What you give out, you receive. In veterinary medicine, that doesn’t just apply to animals. It extends to owners, colleagues, and everyone we work with.” She means it practically, not aspirationally. In a profession where difficult conversations are daily and the emotional load is high, the decision to be kind is a choice made under pressure, not in the absence of it.

Her family has been the constant. “There have been so many moments where I’ve felt overwhelmed, lost, or unsure of myself, and they’ve always grounded me.”

And then there is the determination she describes as an inner drive, one that has carried her through the moments when the work did not go to plan and when the doubt was loudest. Not the brittle determination of someone who cannot accept failure, but something more durable: the kind that keeps going even when things are hard, because the alternative is not actually an option.

What Keeps Her Balanced

For someone who talks so openly about stress and mental health, Andrea has been deliberate about building her own coping toolkit. She goes for walks in nature. She goes to the gym. And then there is dance, which has been part of her life since childhood, starting with competitive Highland dancing and expanding from there.

“Dance gives me a complete mental break. When I’m in a class or workshop, I’m fully present, focused on the movement, and everything else fades away. It’s also such a positive environment.”

She also admires, genuinely, the people who know how to switch off. Not as a performance of wellness, but as a functional skill. “I’ve experienced first-hand how overwhelming stress can be, especially in a demanding field like veterinary medicine. So when I meet people who have healthy ways of coping, who can genuinely relax and create boundaries for themselves, I find that incredibly inspiring.”

There is something useful in that framing. The ability to decompress is not a personality trait you either have or do not. It is a skill that can be built, practiced, and refined. Andrea is still building hers, and she is honest about that too.

What She Wants the World to Understand

Andrea has a clear answer to the question of what change she would most like to see. She wants people to understand what the veterinary profession actually is, and who the people in it actually are.

“There’s a growing narrative that vets are driven by money rather than care, and that couldn’t be further from the truth. Every single person I’ve met in this field is here because they care deeply about animals. This isn’t a career people fall into. It’s something we’ve worked towards for years, often from a very young age.”

She is also clear-eyed about the emotional cost that goes unseen. “Losing patients, not being able to provide treatment due to financial limitations, and facing criticism from the public. It all adds up. The profession has one of the highest rates of burnout and mental health struggles, yet there’s still so much misunderstanding.”

Her solution is not defensive or resigned. It is the same one that drives her platform: transparency. “As vets and future vets, we need to share more about what we do, why we do it, and the impact it has on us. The more we open up that conversation, the more we can rebuild trust and understanding.”

What Comes Next

Andrea is still in her fourth year and, by her own description, still figuring out exactly which direction her career will take. She has a particular interest in exotic species and can imagine a path that combines that with small animal practice or a mixed practice environment. She is, in other words, exactly where a fourth-year student should be: curious, open, and building toward something without yet knowing the precise shape of it.

What she already has, though, is the platform, the voice, and the instinct to share honestly with the people who are a few steps behind her on the same path. That is not a small thing in a profession where so many people have done the hard work of getting there and then found themselves quietly struggling on the other side of the gate.

The big sister energy is real. And the profession is better for it.