My Veterinary Life

“When you feel called to, find the courage, find your voice, and find your way forward. Build your community of allies and cheerleaders around you, which is what I did.” Our guest today is Dr. Sonja Olson. Dr. Olson has had an incredible career! We dig into how the road was not a straight path to where she is now and how it all ended up working out in an unexpected way for her to pursue her dreams...

“That’s what happens when you come together in community, and you take advantage of everybody’s strengths and you recognize, ‘I don’t need to tell you how to be different, I’m going to show you in my own life and then I’m going to invite you to consider coming on that journey with me.’ I think that’s how you change the world, actually.” Our guest today is Dr. Betsy Charles. Dr. Charles wears many...

“Let’s find your story. That’s the important part. Find your story. And, you know, the lesson for all of us, is that we all have a story. Everybody has a story.” Our guest today is Dr. Morgan McArthur. Dr. McArthur was one of the keynote speakers for the 2022 Veterinary Leadership Conference. We chat about the importance of finding and owning your story and how the stories we tell ourselves can re...

“And I think if we take that sort of, more of a collaborative approach, I think it’s, you know, as long as we feel good and we feel comfortable with that, I think it’s a great approach to try and take even in GP or in emergency. I, you know like I said, I don’t like eyes. So for years on emergency, if that was the next triage o that was the next case, I’d be like, I will do anything for you. I’d l...

Our guest today is Dr. Anna Reddish. Many of you may know Dr. Reddish as one of the original co-hosts of My Veterinary Life Podcast. We chat today about new opportunities and what it is like to take a leap to try something new. She shares the importance of self-reflection and really being honest about what your goals are for both your personal and professional life. It’s a fun conversation full of...

“I had to choose and make that, change that trauma and that sadness that was so deep and make it into something that gave me motivation to go into veterinary medicine and be somebody who can bring people together and who can bring out the empathy in those moments.” Our guest today is Hidayah Martinez-Jaka. Hidayah is completing her fourth you of veterinary school. This would already be a full plat...

“My biggest thing was, I said I’m a veterinarian and how that one word created so much conversation. And that’s how I ended it to the quietest of people. Because you have reserved youth, reserved children, and by just saying that. And that’s what I feel like as veterinarians we need to remember.” Our guest today is Dr. Stephanie Jones. Dr. Jones was one of our early guests on My Veterinary Life Po...

Our guest today is Dr. Jen Brandt. Dr. Brandt is the Director for Member Wellbeing Initiatives at the AVMA. She joins us for a quick conversation on some timely topics in wellbeing. Dr. Brandt offers some highlights from the most recent Merck Wellbeing Study and what we can do with this information. It’s a great conversation and we can’t wait to share it with you. Remember we want to hear from you...

“Find your North Star. What’s your North Star? I have a necklace that has a pendant on it and people are always asking, ‘What does that mean?’ It’s a reminder to find my North Star. If everything disappeared and I could not be a veterinary technician, and I didn’t work for the organization that I work for and I’m involved in the activities, at the end of the day, what’s my North Star?” Our guest t...

“You know veterinary medicine has provided me a great life over the last years. And I keep emphasizing that because I don’t think we hear it enough. I don’t think we hear enough that, you know, that veterinary medicine can be a great life. It’s very rewarding. I mean it has its challenges but everything has its challenges.” Our guest today is Dr. Vernard Hodges. Dr. Hodges was one of the keynote s...

“And I think that was the first instance of you have to be able to pivot. You are going to be put in positions or situations that you probably never thought you would and so you have to make the most of it. And so, I did a lot of quick learning on my feet, like, ‘you’re the only doctor right now, you’re fresh out, you have to call in reinforcements.’” Our guest today is Dr. Lauren Rowe. Dr. Rowe i...

“It really hit me that, you know, this could be something oncologists could use. There really is a huge gap also with just access to oncology. I think it was the National Cancer Institute came out and said about 6 million dogs a year get cancer and if you look, there is actually less than 450 boarded veterinary oncologists in the US and Canada.” Our guest today is Rachael Venable. Dr. Venable is a...

“Looking back I feel really blessed that I had two choices, I could either go down the path of being an artist or possibly being a scientist and I thought, ‘ok if I could be a veterinarian, this is going to be exactly what I’m meant to do.’ I feel lucky that I had that vision as a child and that’s what I wanted to do. So yeah, it was an easy choice, growing up, I wanted to be a veterinarian.” Our...

“My stepdad, who I adore, and I quote him all the time. One of the things he always told me, ‘Never run away from something, always run to something’. So, if you don’t like your job, that’s not a reason, really to go looking, that’s not a reason to take something else.” Our guest today is Dr. Lisa Fortier. She recently joined the staff of AVMA as the Editor in Chief for publications and we loved h...

“You know I really look back and things that I found myself doing that I may not have chosen to do really gave me a wealth of experience and helped me bring a completely different set of skills to this position.” Our guest today is Dr. Sharon Wappel. Dr. Wappel currently works for Zoetis as an Associate Director of Global Biologics and a Small Animal Clinician. We talk about all the turns her care...

“What I learned was, it’s just about building relationships and seeing how you can fit in the puzzle, just education. A lot of it was letting them know what there was available and what could be done.” Our guest today is Misty Tobyne. Misty is a veterinary technician who works for Hill’s Pet Nutrition. We talk about her road to veterinary medicine and how she jumped straight into an role in indust...

“The thing that I would say to anybody listening, is that you are doing great. It’s a hard time to be in the veterinary field. You know, I know so many people are overwhelmed and just remember that you know, that what you are doing is enough and that if you need help, to reach out to somebody and that you are definitely not alone in the struggle right now.” Our guest today is Dr. Yvette Huizar. Dr...

“And I’ll say one thing about mission statements, is that they constantly change. I don’t think that I had this, well I know I didn’t have this mission statement a year and a half ago.” Our guest today is Dr. Sumeet Gupta. Dr. Gupta joins us to continue our discussion on diversity, inclusion and belonging in veterinary medicine. He shares an incredible list of resources that you will want to go an...

“What we sort of know deep down is that changing the way our community looks is a long term goal. And it’s not something that we are going to solve as quickly as needing a task force overnight. And so not, sort of, the real work begins.” Our guest today is Dr. Evelyn Galban. Dr. Galban is an associate professor of neurology and neurosurgery at Penn Vet. She is also the founder of the Native Americ...

“And I remind myself you know, ‘Who are you going to be today, Mia are you going to be the best version of yourself? Are you going to be part of the solution? Or are you not?’ And so, that’s how I chose it.” Our guest today is Dr. Mia Cary. This is the third time Dr. Cary has joined us on the show, so be sure to check out her previous episodes. Today she helps us kick off our 4-part miniseries foc...

“It took time for me to stop and get my phone and take a picture and get on our app and text it to the owner. But it was such a valuable moment, that made that experience better for them and made my day better. So, trying to find those ‘golden snitch’ moments and putting in that little extra effort, certainly pays off.” Our guest today is Dr. Michael Miller. Dr. Miller was previously on the show a...

“If you go to a conference and sit in the audience, you’re just in the audience, and you may learn some things. But if you are on the platform, you’ll get some visibility and every single practitioner, and every single veterinarian has something to offer.” Our guest today is Dr. Gary Vroegindewey. Dr. Vroegindewey has had an amazing career and experienced so many different areas of veterinary medi...

“Making sure that you’re managing your own emotions. You can’t manage someone else’s emotions. You can’t control someone else’s emotions. At best you can remain present for them. But you can manage your own emotional reaction to their emotional reaction.” Our guest today is Kim Scott. Kim is the New York Times Best Selling author of the book Radical Candor. She was also a keynote speaker at the 20...

“Your pets that you’re caring for have parents. And those are your clients who see face to face and so, you know, it may be more difficult to say this to someone, ‘Hey, I’m raising costs on you.’ So, that’s very difficult but certainly in this environment where a lot of the input costs are rising.” Our guest today is Dana Peterson. Dana is the chief economist at The Conference Board. She was also...

“Making sure that I’m investing my time and resources into my own learning and development I think has been probably the biggest takeaway for me growing this thing.” Our guest today is Dr. Addie Reinhard. Dr. Reinhard is the founder of MentorVet a program established to help early career veterinarians learn important skills to help them succeed in the first years past graduation. We talk about her...