VetSpeak E3: From Student to Baby Doctor, Practice Owner and Beyond

Hello everyone!

Welcome to Vet Speak with Dr. Karie. This is episode three. It's called From Student to Baby, doctor, practice Owner and Beyond. I always wanted to be a veterinarian. This episode is very much my journey.

I volunteered and interned at the Humane Society in Champaign County and it was a great experience and I made a lot of great connections there as well and met a lot of great people. Shelter medicine is basically general practice, but for a whole herd of animals and so different mindset and different perspective. I decide I want to be a shelter medicine veterinarian and do spays and neuters and save all these lives of animals who don’t have homes.

Then third year comes around, I am shocked at how I dislike surgery. It's so repetitive. It's the same thing over and over again.

I decided to look into other avenue where I could be helpful with skillsets that set me apart. And so I took a bereavement course, which led me to volunteering for the grief hotline that Illinois had at the time. The pet loss hotline helped me understand the depths of this human animal bond.

And so I have these things that I love. I'm making my fourth year schedule. End of Life Care and hospice started moving up the ranks, which I honestly was not really expecting. I decided to do one of my externships in Tampa, Florida with Lap of Love. It was just so eye-opening to see in-home euthanasia and hospice care work.

It hit my heart and I was like, I wanna be one of these people. But it's not something I wanna do all the time and every day. I also learned of my passion for behavior during my fourth year and just how much it affects the human animal bond. Aggressive animals are many times fearful and there are so many ways we can help them if we are patient.

I figured out some pieces of my puzzle of what I wanted my veterinary career to look like.

Fourth year students you truly have to put everything your whole heart into fourth year and figure out where your passions lie, and find that purpose. Find those things that you're good at and that you want to do, and focus there and then go into the real world and do that. Do what you are most passionate about. I utilized my fourth year to hone my skills. I asked my specialty doctors with every case- If I was in general practice, what would I do for this case? Pick their brain. Ask the questions. You’ll come out a better doctor for it. And I feel like that's the only way that I was able to get my mobile practice up and running 6 months out of school is because I took fourth year extremely seriously.

Then I graduate and I'm baby doctor now. Baby Dr. Karie had Danyahl at her side always. I would check in with the senior veterinarians and asking if they agreed with my plan. Get that quick validation that you are going down the right path. Get that reassurance. Know what you know and what you don’t know. Learning your style is super important right out of school. It’ll turn into how you practice medicine.

I started up my own practice which is very difficult. Make sure you set boundaries not just for now but for later in life too. You don't have to do it all. Take care of yourself and take care of your family first. You need to be able to have that balance. And now my job with Purina, I have great work life balance.

That is how I went from student to baby, doctor to practice, owner and beyond. I'm still a practice owner. It just looks a little different now. I have my full-time job with Purina and we have all these different aspects of life and veterinary medicine that people don't think of.

We're all human and we all love pets, and we all want what's best.

Help me build this trust in Vet Med. Help me translate care. Tell your friends, tell me what topics you wanna talk about. Let's do this you guys. Let's all work together as a team. Thanks so much.

-Dr. Karie