My Veterinary Life

“And I feel like the word stuck is a tip, is just a tip of the iceberg. And you have to figure out individually what that means for people. There’s a lot beneath the surface that ultimately makes you feel stuck.” Our guest today is Dr. Cassidy Rist. Dr. Rist shares how her career has taken her on some incredible adventures. This includes completing two internships, traveling internationally, time...

“It’s going to be up to you. What is your rich life and now how are you designing your finances in a way that is going to help you get there.” Our guest today is Dr. Grace Kim. Dr. Kim is both a DVM and an AFC. Not familiar with AFC? It stands for Accredited Financial Counselor. We learn about her journey to veterinary medicine and then how she became interested in finances- something that surpris...

“They told me in my days of self-reflection to just sit down and make a list of things that I want in a career and things that I don’t want. And it was not specific things like, I want to work in nutrition, or I want to do this kind of medicine. It was thinking about things I enjoyed and things I didn’t. I enjoy teaching. I enjoyed having time to sit and think and actual process what I was trying...

“You know, I think that...I’ve said it several times, is believe you can, say yes and the other thing that I realized more recently is you never know who you are influencing on any day and it could be a podcast but it could be at the grocery store, it could be a client. I have heard so many…I guess you get to a certain age you start hearing from people you never knew you were influencing and their...

“But just know that as a student, the doors are endless and wide open and no matter how many of them you want to walk through in the long run is completely fine.” Our guest today is Legend Thurman. Legend is a veterinary student at the Royal Veterinary College and at the time of the recording was completing and externship with the AVMA Membership and Field Services Team. She shares what the vet sc...

“You know for the most part, veterinarians tend to be very caring people that want to reach out and help when they can. The problem with disaster response is that we need trained, caring veterinarians to reach out. And by trained, I don’t mean, they are trained as a veterinarian, I mean that you are trained as a first responder.” Our guest today is Dr. Warren Hess. Dr. Hess has had an incredible c...

“Fixing animals and being a voice for them when they don’t have one and feeling like I make a difference in an animal’s life is more rewarding to me than anything else in the world. And that’s why I really got interested the most in veterinary medicine.” Our guest today is Patrick Douglas. Patrick is a certified veterinary technician. After a few years in private practice, he decided to relocate t...

“Shelter medicine is a lot of surgery. Which is also why I was like, yeah, I could definitely do shelter medicine, because, it’s everything. It’s just like the melting pot of the vet med field I feel like.” Our guest today is Dr. Rachael Wooten. After graduating from the College of Veterinary Medicine at Tuskegee University, Dr. Wooten pursued a shelter medicine internship at the University of Ill...

“It reflects, I think, the spectrum of pet ownership and just how different cultures care for pets and love pets. You know we didn’t really know what to do with this dog but we learned over time and we were so grateful for people who helped us. But it really convey that loving and owning a pet comes in a variety of ways.” Our guest today is Dr. Chumkee Aziz. Dr. Aziz is a graduate Cummings School...

“And then just be prepared to be adventurous, compassionate, and enthusiastic every day because the craziness will come your way and if you meet it with positivity you will really, really enjoy this type of career.” Our guest today is Dr. Traci Gilbert. Dr. Gilbert is a graduate from the University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine. After graduation she was in small animal private practic...

“I got to a point in my career, and I’m sure other people can relate to this, where I had to balance what was comfortable against the desire to do more, to stretch my wings, to learn more, to add more to the organization that I was working for, Hill’s, but to do that in a different way." Our guest today is Joann Fuller. Joann is the Brand Engagement Manager at Hill’s Pet Nutrition and she joins us...

“We call them insureds-veterinarians that have professional liability insurance and are insured by the company can call anytime. So, we take a lot of insured phone calls to answer questions or they are in a tough situation and need some advice. I really love reviewing the claims and it’s really like I’m back at school. My textbooks are all dusted off. We do a lot of research, particularly I think...

“When we talk to clients, we can completely put ourselves in that situation and our heart breaks for everyone that we speak to. And so, believe me, there is absolutely no judgement.’” Our guest today is Dr. Jennifer Frey. We have an incredible conversation that not only includes a thorough look at how insurance claims are handled, but also touches on her passion for the profession…. Diversity. We...

We are thrilled to bring you this bonus episode! Our guest today is Sarah Culberson. Sarah is one of the keynote presenters at the 2021 Virtual AVMA Convention. She is also an author, an actor, a humanitarian, AND a princess of Sierra Leone! We discuss what it was like to write her book “A Princess Found” and draw some parallels between her experiences and those that some of us face in veterinary...

“And so my colleague and I did a whole bunch of research on the AVMA website and through former JAVMAs and prepared this great argument for why we should not have our salaries. And we walked into the meeting and our boss and the leader of the large animal team said ‘So, we’re going to sell off the large animal practice and we’d like you guys to buy it.’” Our guest today is Dr. Rebecca Stinson. We...

“Delegate. Delegate. Delegate. You know, you’re a veterinarian, you just practice good medicine, and the business will come, and hire people that are experts in running businesses, or you know, HR and it might be you think you can’t afford it, but believe me it’ll pay it forward. You’ll have more business, if you are able to do what you were trained to do.” Our guest today is Dr. Nina Mouledous. T...

"That’s when I started remembering all of my contacts in industry and I used that network to finally land an equine tech services role at Merck.” Our guest today is Dr. Cynthia MacKenzie. She helps kick off this special series focusing on the AVMA Trust Veterinarians. Dr. MacKenzie shares what her journey to veterinary medicine looked like and how she handled some very unexpected challenges that c...

“Let me share that our groups are completely free to attend. They’re confidential. They’re virtual. They’re one hour in length and they are facilitated by clinical psychologists, myself, Dustin, and then we’ve recently been fortunate to add three other experts to our team, and we all have a background in grief and loss, work-life balance, mood symptoms and traumas.” Our guests today are Drs. Katie...

“My vision for this profession in 10 years, so by 2030 we’ll say, I want to see more people joining the profession than leaving the profession. So, I really want to see the script flipped.” Our guest today is Dr. Jacqui Horner. Dr. Horner shares how her career has taken her in new and unexpected places. After graduation, she started in small animal practice, and while she began to hit her stride,...

“I mean I try. I still try to help him out when I can. He figured a lot of it out. He’s in such a unique position. I came straight into veterinary school from undergrad, so it was a very clean, or I guess cleaner transition and so he put in a lot of effort to get into vet school and get all his prerequisites done while working and it’s very impressive. I’m very proud of him.” Our guests today are...

“I learn too. I get to say ‘Wow that’s a great idea. I have never done that.’ I think it’s important for people to see that even if you are a specialist, you never stop learning. You never have all the answers. You don’t have every case go perfect. You know you flub up on stuff. It’s just really important to visualize that because I think people think ‘oh specialist, well you know it all.’ Our gue...

“And it’s really, it’s a universal experience. We all have to learn how to bear the things we think we cannot bear over the course of our lives. And I think in so many ways that is why Wild resonated with so many people around the world because it’s not necessarily they all want to go hike the PCT. They all are thinking, you know, I’ve had that moment in my life too where I thought I couldn’t take...

“And so then I went full vet. Right? I’m like ‘oh yeah, I’ll show you.’ And I went and I took classes and I’m like I’m going to be the best. I just got really into it. And then I realized, this is great because I said before I don’t like surgery. And it’s not because I’m not precise, it’s because I don’t like things bleeding and being able to think about things. And when you make a cake, you can t...

“So, the way I think about, you know, just our mission statements, is how do we alleviate pressure on the veterinary team by allocating responsibility to pet parents. And they are happy to do so, these are their furry children. They call them as such and so we can, in fact, five them more responsibility. It just is important that we actually utilize them as resources for our patients.” Our guest t...

“So, the same process happened again. I had an interview but then got wait listed again. And I say this because I hear so many stories of people, of how they got somewhere and they just succeeded, and I feel bad because I’m like, ‘Why is everyone else just getting what they want and I’m not and so I think it is important to share the stories of failure or, you know, not being accepted into somethi...