What first drew you to veterinary medicine?

A deep love and curiosity about animals and the natural world in general. I loved the idea of understanding how things work in order to try to heal them.

What would surprise people about your work?

I think people would be most surprised by two things: one is the variety of work and challenges that occur daily – different diseases, different species, medicine, surgery- all of those things. The second thing that surprises a lot of students that come to shadow us at our clinic is how much our job involves interacting with people. As a clinician a large part of my day involves working with pet owners, explaining what is happening, communicating treatment plans and doing follow up calls. If you want to work in private practice you definitely need to be a people person, not just an animal person!

Is there a case or a moment in your career that stayed with you?

I can’t really just pick one, which is a good thing because there are lots of moments good and bad. You can be really proud of yourself and your team for helping a really challenging medical or surgical case or maybe you just go to an elderly clients house to trim their cats nails and they are really grateful for that because that is very impactful to them. Making a difference doesn’t always mean doing something heroic.

What is it like practicing in Saskatchewan? How does the region influence the work veterinarians do there?

Regina is a smaller city and the nearest specialty referral centre is nearly 3 hours away. We are lucky to have a clinic open 24 hours to help with emergencies now – that was not always the case. Often we are doing things in clinic that would be referred in larger cities simply because accessing care further away is just not feasible for some patients.