Out in the Field

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Out in the Field

One moment Dr. Pam Dinslage is indicating her job as a veterinary field officer for the State of Nebraska operates at a much slower pace than she experienced while in private practice.

Then she begins to go into a little more detail about her vast job responsibilities.

“I have responsibility for 18 counties in northeast Nebraska,” Dinslage said. “That includes everything from monitoring cattle imports from Mexico, Canada and the states, to the feedlots, swine, poultry, gamebird, cervid operations, sale barns, and rendering plants in these counties.”

Eighteen counties is a fair amount of responsibility. While she works from her West Point home, Dinslage says she is consistently on the road, traveling as far away as 2 ½ hours to visit feedlots, swine and poultry facilities. Nebraska trails only Texas in the number of cattle on feed and Dinslage’s home county of Cuming has the largest number of beef cattle on feed in the state.

“One of the best parts of this job is being able to talk to the producers and getting to know them and their operation before a problem shows up where they need guidance,” she said.

The feeling isn’t always mutual. Dinslage is the person contacted when there is a problem at an operation. One of her primary responsibilities is determining if a foreign animal disease has shown up in a herd. When Pathogenic Avian Influenza hit the industry hard a few years back, Dinslage was on the front lines taking samples and testing for the disease.

“It seems like I only get calls when something is going wrong,” she said, “but it is humbling to be the voice of reason and to be the mediator between the Nebraska Department of Agriculture and the producer during stressful animal disease situations.”

After graduating, Dinslage worked part-time at mixed animal clinics in Schuyler and Laurel, Nebraska, before working full-time at another mixed animal practice in Oakland, Nebraska.

Her husband Tyson (’09) practices at Nebraska Vet Services in West Point and it seemed like every night and weekend one or both were on call. Looking for a different lifestyle, Dinslage joined the Nebraska Department of Agriculture seven years ago and hasn’t looked back.

“I do miss surgery,” Dinslage said, “but Tyson will let me help out with his spay/neuter clinics his practice offers for veterinary students.  We also have our own cattle herd, so it seems we end up having to do a C-section on one every now and then, so I still get to cut stuff sometimes.  Turns out it really is just like riding a bike. ”

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Pam Dinslage
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Dinslage

Hog Wild About Pigs

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Hog Wild About Pigs

She may have grown up in suburban Chicago, but Dr. Melissa Hensch sure loves her pigs.

“My friends and family ask me a lot of questions,” Hensch says. “I love helping explain what I actually do.

“Sometimes even my closest relatives I have to explain the whole process. It’s been an eye-opening experience to me. I’m surprised at how little people know about modern pig production.”

Hensch has a lot of experience in swine production. After graduating from Iowa State, she spent almost three years at Innovative Agriculture Solutions, a small private consulting practice in suburban Des Moines.

The practice was swine-exclusive and provided her with a broad range of hands-on experiences. Since leaving Innovative Agriculture Solutions, Hensch has spent the vast majority of her professional career with The Maschhoffs, the largest family-owned pork production network in North America, in a variety of positions.

Now the director of health and animal care at The Maschhoffs, Hensch leads a team of seven herd veterinarians in addition to the company’s animal care and veterinary technicians. She has ultimate responsibility for 175,000 sows at over 60 farms across seven states.

“I was able to find something I was truly passionate about,” Hensch says. “I love teaching and working with people and that’s what I’m doing every day.

“I get my rewards by seeing others be successful and developing people. That’s the core of what I do.”

One of the ways Hensch teaches and works with people is getting out of the office and working directly with pigs. She doesn’t want to be known as strictly an office veterinarian.

“It’s important to me to get out into the field and into the barn at least one or two days a week,” she said. “I love those days. It’s fun. It’s easy. It’s what I’m trained to do.”

But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t enjoy the other aspects of her job. The Maschhoffs is a broad operation, with everything from feed mills to truck washes and other support areas included on the farms.

It’s that broader operational scale Hensch enjoys about her job and the opportunity to make a difference in the world.

“We’re providing food for the world here,” she said, “safe and affordable food.”

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Melissa Hensch
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Hensch

Determined to be a Veterinary Dentist

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Determined to be a Veterinary Dentist

There was this vet school class Dr. Mary Krakowski Volker distinctly remembers.

And she should, because that class and its speaker decided her career path.

“It was called ‘Vet and Society’ and the course explored the different career options you could have as a veterinarian,” Volker recalled. “I thought it was fabulous to be exposed to all these different routes you could take.”

But one career path stood out.

“A board-certified veterinary dentist lectured during one class period,” Volker said. “Right then and there, I knew that’s what I was going to do.”

The only problem was at the time, Iowa State didn’t have a dentist on faculty. No two-week dentistry rotation, no opportunity to be mentored.

That didn’t stop Volker. In her fourth year, she did two dentistry externships, preparing to apply for a rotating small animal internship after graduation. Her requirement – it had to be an exceptional internship that had a veterinary dentist on staff.

The next problem – there were very few internships available across the country that had veterinary dentists employed at their hospital.

Again, that didn’t deter Volker one little bit.

“I was going to get one of those internships and then a residency,” she said. “I went out to meet people in the field. I went to conferences. I worked really hard. I made sure people knew this was what I was interested in.”

And she was selected. She completed her rotating small animal internship at VCA Alameda East Veterinary Hospital in Denver. She then interviewed and accepted a veterinary dentistry and oral surgery residency at the Animal Dental Center in Maryland.

Today she is a board-certified veterinary dentist and oral surgeon and a partner at Animal Dental Center, which has four offices in Maryland and Pennsylvania.

Volker, who now also serves as the co-director of the Animal Dental Center’s residency training program, works primarily at the Annapolis, Maryland, office location.

“Most everything we do in veterinary dentistry can fix an animal’s issues,” Volker said. “It’s incredibly satisfying.”

Volker’s professional interests are varied and include endodontics and restorative dentistry. Almost all of the Animal Dental Center’s patients are dogs and cats, although the practice does see some pocket pets and has performed surgery at local zoos and aquariums.

“Veterinary dentistry and oral surgery is really fulfilling work,” she said. “I perform procedures every day on patients that come in with horrible oral and maxillofacial disease and after we’re done, they leave immediately better, their quality of life markedly improved.

“The clients are pleased and the patients are happy.”

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Mary Krakowski Volker
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Volker

Small Town Vet

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Small Town Vet

She didn’t know a combine from a cultivator. Her parents thought she was crazy.

Yet Dr. Elizabeth Harriman Hill took the plunge and opened up her own veterinary clinic in small town Iowa right after graduating from the College of Veterinary Medicine.

Oh, did we mention Hill is a Maine native and lived in Boston for several years and had never set foot in Iowa before coming to Ames to attend vet school.

“I met my husband in the middle of my third year and by the time graduation was nearing we knew we were going to be together and stay in Iowa,” Hill said.

Hill’s husband was a farmer from the Ellsworth, Iowa, area. When she began to seek veterinary employment, nothing was available.

“At the time, the job market was pretty saturated for veterinarians,” she said. “There was not much out there in the part of the state where I was going to live.”

Sometime during her job search, it was suggested that maybe Eldora, Iowa, might be a possibility. The community of 2,500 didn’t have a local veterinarian. Hill did her due diligence, speaking with the economic development office, the town’s mayor and others before deciding to open a clinic in Eldora.

Another veterinarian had operated a clinic in Eldora previously but it had been closed for years. The building was still empty but it lacked any equipment although there were dog runs and cages for boarding animals.

“I started out slow,” Hill recalls. “I think we only had eight appointments that first day. Now that would be a bad, slow day.”

Word of mouth brought a steady growth of clients and patients to the Eldora Veterinary Care. Hill primarily sees just dogs and cats, although on the day of this interview she did her first bunny spay.

Looking back, she admits she really didn’t know what she was doing and maybe her parents were right when they thought she was a little crazy to start her own business right out of school.

“I had never worked in a veterinary clinic by myself before,” she said. “I had a lot of questions and my classmates came in real handy.

“I’m super glad I started this business, but sometimes I wonder what I was thinking.”

And while the Maine native misses her home state, she’s more than happy with her choice to reside and work in small town Iowa.

“I just love Eldora,” she said. “I walk through town and know pretty much everybody. Being a part of this community is fantastic.

I love how my small-town life has worked out.”

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Elizabeth Harriman Hill
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Harriman

Doing What She Loves to Do

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Doing What She Loves to Do

Most of the year, Dr. Kimberly McCreedy is a relief veterinarian in the Portland, Oregon, area.

She somewhat jokingly says she is in this line of work so she can do what she’s really passionate about.

“The rest of my year is to make money so I can volunteer for sled dog races,” McCreedy says.

McCreedy’s interest in sled dogs began during her third year of veterinary school at Iowa State. A presentation by an Oklahoma State University veterinarian opened her eyes to the sport.

The rest, as they say, is history. She was able to arrange her fourth-year clinical studies to include a seven-week stay in Alaska for the Iditarod and Yukon Quest sled dog races. If she wasn’t hooked before, this experience definitely did the trick.

Since then, McCreedy has volunteered for 20 sled dog races including 10 Iditarods, three Yukon Quests, five Eagle Cap Extremes, a sprint dog race in Fairbanks, Alaska, and one dryland race.

The Iditarod requires a minimum of five years of veterinary experience before individuals can volunteer as a veterinarian and treat the dogs.

So, even though she had a veterinary degree, McCreedy had to apprentice as what she called a “glorified vet tech” for a couple of years at the Iditarod. She has served primarily as a veterinarian but has performed other duties as well.

“They want you to have that experience because your care for the dogs is solely based on your exam and the dog’s medical history,” she said. “There are no diagnostics, no bloodwork, no x-rays available to you out in the field.

“You have to be very confident in your skills in conducting an exam.”

McCreedy says, like any athlete, sled dogs develop sore muscles and joints during the race. Some will develop pneumonia, primarily if they run too soon after eating or in warm conditions, or rhabdomyolysis, a serious muscle condition.

Each of the three sled dog races McCreedy volunteers at are different. The most famous race, the Iditarod, is a grueling 1,000-mile trek from Willow, Alaska to Nome over at least eight days. The Yukon Quest runs from Fairbanks to the Whitehorse, Yukon Territories in Canada, another 1,000-mile run that takes anywhere from nine days to two weeks to complete. The Eagle Cap Extreme is shorter, just 200 miles and is run annually in her home state of Oregon.

Each race comes with its own special quirks, including extremely cold temperatures.

“For the Iditarod, we get to fly in small planes into villages you’ve never heard of,” McCreedy says. “The Yukon Quest is such a tight-knit group where we get to drive and see the country. And the Eagle Cap Extreme has a real family feel to it.

“The coldest race I have been a part of was 52 degrees below zero on the Yukon Quest, but I wasn’t bothered by the cold. Instead I embraced it.”

During these races, McCreedy will provide a variety of veterinary care including making sure the dogs are fit to continue. Injuries are rare, but she has sown a cut on a dog’s shoulder in the field. If the dog is determined to be unfit to continue in the race, they are withdrawn and not allowed to substitute back in later in the competition.

But just as much as providing the veterinary care, McCreedy is a fan of the dogs and the races.

“I love watching what these dogs can do,” she said. “These athletes are so passionate about running. Watching a team leave the starting point gives me full body chills.”

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Kimberly McCreedy
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McCreedy

In Memoriam

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In Memoriam

Kimberly Bebar (1983-2014)
Dr. Kimberly Bebar loved being a veterinarian. Family and friends remember Kim being driven in her desire to joining the profession.

“Thinking back, we believe Kim wanted to be a vet since she was in the second grade,” her parents, Rick and Rita Bebar said. “She knew what she wanted to be and stuck with it.”

Classmate Dr. Claire Dorniden Hotvet also remembers that drive.

“Kim was such a passionate individual both in becoming a veterinarian and in friendship,” Hotvet said. “As a student, we would have endless study sessions in her trailer. As a friend, she always let me borrow her puppy, Razi, to protect me on my night time runs.”

As an undergraduate student at Iowa State, Kim began working as a vet tech at an emergency clinic in Des Moines. Hotvet recalls she continued her association with the clinic, traveling to Des Moines as often as she could.

"I remember going with her to work at the emergency clinic in Des Moines and she was so excited to show me as much as she could about emergency medicine," said Dr. Caitlyn Glick, another classmate. "She wanted everyone to love ECC as much as she did."

During her vet studies, she was the founder and president of the Emergency Club where she coordinated wet labs and brought in guest speakers.

After graduating from Iowa State with her DVM, Kim was an intern at Angell Animal Medical Center in Boston in the emergency department. She was completing a residency in critical care at Cape Cod Veterinary Specialists in Massachusetts when she passed away on March 11, 2014, as a result of an automobile accident.

Massachusetts colleagues describe Kim as “an incredible teacher who left everyone with more knowledge and confidence in their abilities to help out in a crisis.”

In a memoriam written after her passing, the doctors at Cape Cod Veterinary Specialists wrote this… “Though the time she was able to dedicate to this specialty was senselessly fleeting, the impact she made at our facility and in our referring community will be long remembered.”

In particular Kim was interested in CPR and the RECOVER initiative. She was instrumental in leading a CPR teaching course for not only her co-workers at Cape Cod Veterinary Specialists but for countless veterinarians and technicians from nearby hospitals.

“Kim like to be challenged and never backed down from any challenge,” her parents said. “She had a great gut instinct and was quick thinking on her feet.”

The Bebars cherish the many testimonials they received after Kim’s passing from clients.

“They talked about how good and caring Kim was treating their pet but also how good she was at explaining things to them,” the Bebars said. “Kim never took no for an answer, she pushed ahead when others paused. She kept driving for her goal."

"Kim had so much more to offer this world," Glick said. "But those who knew her, know how big of an impact she had on everyone around her."

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Kim Bebar
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Bebar

Bare Bones Spays and Neuters

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Bare Bones Spays and Neuters

Having worked in an animal shelter for seven years after graduating, Dr. Katie Spaulding was used to not having the most up-to-date equipment on hand to treat her patients.

Then she accepted a position in Hawaii with Animal Balance, a global, non-governmental organization that provides spays and neuters throughout the world.

The working conditions she found on the Island of Kauai was a little more extreme than she was used to as the Dakin Humane Society’s Adoption Center veterinarian in Springfield, Massachusetts.

“I’ve always worked in a shelter so I’ve never had access to a lot of fancy equipment,” Spaulding said, “but this was bare bones.

“It was a little nerve wracking at first because I was used to having walls in the surgical suite.”

In Kauai, Spaulding was doing field surgeries in all sorts of locales including an old car dealership and parking lots. A half shipping container (just 16 feet long) was outfitted as a semi-permanent spay/neuter clinic serving all cats on Kauai. Pop-up tents were used for induction and recovery, prompting Spaulding to say she was “basically working outside.”

Spaulding said there is a huge need for spays and neuters in Kauai because of the feral cat population, estimated at 20,000 just on that island.

“The feral cat population is a big problem in Hawaii, particularly in Kauai,” she said. “The cats prey on the bird population here and these clinics have a goal of reducing the number of cats with a high volume of spays and neuters.”

And talk about high volume. Spaulding says she and her partner were able to do 40 spays and neuters a day and thousands over the life of the program. At each of these clinics, Spaulding and her partner were the only trained professionals and they relied on volunteers to help staff the clinic.

Animal Balance moves into an area to help with spays and neuters for a short period of time. While that organization is now gone, Spaulding has remained on Kauai and has started her own non-profit, AnimalohA to provide accessible veterinary care to underserved Hawaiian island communities.

“I’ve always liked making a difference,” Spaulding said. “That’s why shelter medicine made so much sense for me to focus on.”

AnimalohA was just getting underway when COVID-19 hit and Spaulding’s non-profit took a back seat to the pandemic. That opened up other opportunities for her.

For the past year she has been volunteering, once a month, at the Ke Kai Ola Hospital for Hawaiian Monk Seal Conservation on the Big Island.

Spaulding has also recently accepted a position with the County of Kauai’s Department of Health, working on infectious diseases. In addition to her DVM, Spaulding earned a Masters of Public Health while at Iowa State from the University of Iowa.

“I was looking for something new and I’ve always been interested in population health and population medicine, so I believe this is going to be a good fit for me,” she said. “Now I get to use my master’s and help the human population with disease prevention.”

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Katie Spaulding
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Spaulding

Veterinarian Hero

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Veterinarian Hero

She may not know every member of the Class of 2010, but it seems like all of Dr. Katherine Polak’s classmates know about her.

When a 2010 graduate was approached about this project, they would say something similar to…“you have to talk to Katherine Polak. She’s doing amazing work.”

It’s hard not to be impressed with what Polak has accomplished in the decade since graduating from Iowa State. She has wasted no time putting her DVM degree to meaningful use.

Polak works for the charity FOUR PAWS International, managing its companion animal work in Southeast Asia from her home base in Bangkok, Thailand. In this role, she developed and launched a regional partnership program which aids local animal welfare groups, trains local veterinarians, and operates community engagement programs.

“When I started, FOUR PAWS had only operated stray animal programs in Eastern Europe, so work in Southeast Asia was completely new for the organization,” Polak said. “I had the unique opportunity to help craft a regional strategy and launch a program designed to help capacity build local animal welfare charities who really needed help.”

She combats poor veterinary training and the lack of government interest in animal welfare. There is rampant pet abandonment in Southeast Asia and a lack of spay neuter services.

Polak tailors the programs to the local situation. In Cambodia and Thailand, she goes up against a huge animal welfare issue by working with local governments and providing care to animals at Buddhist pagodas and underserved communities. Veterinary training is also incorporated into programs. In Vietnam, “Cats Matter Too” provides free spay/neuter and medical care for thousands of cats in Vietnam in addition to educational programs for children.

“These programs are so desperately needed given the significant suffering of companion animals in much of Southeast Asia,” Polak said.

But the program’s most notable focus is on the cruel dog and cat meat trade in Indonesia, Cambodia and Vietnam.

Under Polak’s direction, FOUR PAWS launched an international campaign to end the cat and dog meat trade in these countries. She manages the on-the-ground operations, investigations, as well as local activities and lobbying.

FOUR PAWS has established an international transport/adoption program for rescued dogs, transporting them from Phnom Penh, Cambodia to Boston and Los Angeles for re-homing. In 2019, the organization was successful in shutting down a dog slaughterhouse in Cambodia, which was responsible for killing over 2,000 dogs a year. Since then, she has helped shut down three more slaughterhouses, one of which killed more than one million dogs since opening.

“Our first closing took months and months of planning, determining a livelihood conversion opportunity for the slaughterhouse owner, and then finally rescuing dogs,” Polak said. “It was so incredible to save them from an imminent death, but also help the slaughterhouse owner and his family who really didn’t want to be killing dogs for a living.”

She also manages FOUR PAWS undercover investigations. That means visiting dog and cat markets, slaughterhouses and restaurants.

“The cruelty there is unimaginable,” Polak says. “Seeing the drowning, hanging, stabbing and blowtorching of companion animals is heartbreaking and it can be difficult and so emotionally exhausting.

“But the progress made is also incredible. In July 2020, we were able to secure the first-ever ban on the dog meat trade in Siem Reap, Cambodia.”

These experiences have cemented Polak’s long-time passion for helping underserved animals. After graduating from Iowa State, she completed an internship in shelter medicine and surgery at Colorado State followed by a residency at the University of Florida.

But her passion was really cultivated at Iowa State during the Summer Scholars program. Polak was assigned to work with Dr. Claudia Baldwin on feline respiratory infections in shelter cats and Polak spent the summer at the Ames and Boone County Humane Society.

“I was shocked by the number of healthy animals being euthanized,” she said. “That really struck a chord with me how dysfunctional in many ways the sheltering systems was back then, and how little resources there were for shelters to work with and improve their practices.”

After her residency, Polak served as the medical director at Soi Dog Foundation in Thailand, where she trained local veterinarians and launched a program in Bangkok to neuter upwards of 80,000 dogs per year.

Her humanitarian work hasn’t been limited to Southeast Asia. She is the founding medical director of the Spayathon for Puerto Rico with the Humane Society of the United States. This groundbreaking initiative has a goal of neutering more than 85,000 dogs and cats over a three-year period.

For her efforts, Polak has been honored, and honored a lot. In 2019, she was named the Association of Shelter Veterinarians’ Veterinarian of the Year. The American Humane Society named Polak its Hero Veterinarian of the Year in 2020, an honor that was presented on the Hallmark Channel for the world to celebrate.

And this past fall, the Iowa State University Alumni Association awarded her its Alumni Humanitarian Award. The award, established in 1932, annually recognizes ISU alumni outstanding contributions to human welfare that transcend purely professional accomplishments.

“Improving animal welfare is central to my philosophy as both a person and veterinarian,” Polak said. “I’m really fortunate to have the opportunity to try to create sustainable change for animal welfare in an area of the world where there aren’t many resources for animals, particularly strays.”

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Katherine Polak
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Polak

The Health of a Dairy Farm

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The Health of a Dairy Farm

Growing up on a 200-head Pennsylvania dairy farm, Dr. Joe Bender just knew what his career path would be.

“I was going to be a dairy practitioner,” he said. “I specifically tailored my program in vet school to suit those needs.”

He made true on his goal and after graduating from Iowa State in 2010, went back to his home state to work as a veterinarian in a traditional 10-doctor dairy practice.

“I did that for three years,” Bender said. “I didn’t think I was going to stay in practice forever, but I thought it would have been longer than three years.”

A career change was in the offing when Bender realized the dairy producers he was providing care for were seeking answers he couldn’t provide in traditional veterinary practice.

He’s found those answers at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Veterinary Medicine (Penn Vet) where he serves as a veterinarian and assistant professor of clinical dairy production medicine with the Center for Animal Health and Productivity.

In that role, Bender helps farmers on a different level, helping them understand the health of the farm and their herd. He works specifically with dairy farmers who are struggling financially.

“We refer to this as caring for the ‘health’ of the farm,” Bender said. “Healthy animals alone do not guarantee a profitable farm. The interface of production and economics really interested me.”

Bender is housed at the New Bolton Center, about an hour outside of Philadelphia in Chester County. He lives in Lancaster County, which has the highest animal density in the United States.

And a vast majority of those animals are dairy cows.

“I have carved out a niche here,” Bender said. “I spend most of my time providing consultative support to the region’s dairy producers, dealing with real-world, on-farm issues.”

His advice to the dairy producers isn’t always met with open arms.

“Unfortunately, many of the dairy farms I work with have not taken the time to look at finances until they have to,” Bender said, “and now they have to do it to stay in business. I get very frank with producers and have found most of my clients really want somebody to tell them what to do.

“Once I show them the data, then usually they are on board and begin to make more informed financial decisions. Unfortunately, like any other veterinary area, there are always certain clients that do not heed advice.”

While Bender spends a vast majority of his time consulting out in the field with dairy producers, he is also an excellent classroom instructor at Penn Vet and has been honored with the school’s Zoetis Distinguished Teaching Award.

“Being able to teach and interact with students was one of the reasons why I came to Penn Vet,” Bender said. “I try to allow students to be healthy skeptics.

“Usually students figure things out on their own. I just try and help them get through that process.”

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Joe Bender
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Bender

A Family of Veterinarians

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A Family of Veterinarians

Several members of the Class of 2010 grew up with a parent who was a veterinarian, paving the way for their own chosen career path.

And there are multiple veterinarian couples in the class, who not only graduated in 2010, but who were soon married.

But there are few families like the Hoffmanns, who not only have dual veterinary degrees, but whose fathers were also veterinarians.

“Annette (the couple’s daughter) probably isn’t going to have much of a choice on her career since both of us and both her grandfathers are vets,” said Dr. Pat Hoffmann.

Pat, along with his wife, Dr. Kate (Baker) Hoffmann own and operate the Atlantic (Iowa) Animal Health Center. In reality, Kate is the sole proprietor of the clinic since Pat is a veterinarian and swine technical consultant at Elanco.

“I mow the yard and change the light bulbs, but I don’t see any patients here,” Pat said. “If Kate has a difficult surgery, I will sometimes assist her.”

Kate just shakes her head, asking her husband, “when was the last time you assisted me in surgery?”

Even though they are in the same profession, the couple has pretty much gone their separate way after graduation. Pat is a swine veterinarian. Kate started out as a mixed animal practitioner, focusing on cows, but now just sees small animals at her clinic.

That was the case right after graduation when both were employed at Southern Hills Veterinary Services, a multi-office clinic in several southwest Iowa communities.

“We both practiced there for two years,” Kate said, “but they didn’t have us in the same office on the same day. I think that was even more challenging than if we would have been able to work together.

“We always seemed to be going in different directions all the time. One week I would be on call, then the next Pat would be. It’s nicer now that we’re in different areas.”

When the opportunity came in 2014 to purchase the Atlantic Animal Health Center, the couple jumped at it.

Then another challenge.

“We learned I was pregnant right before we bought the clinic,” Kate said, “and Pat had to work all that time I was on maternity leave.”

Kate says the timing of her pregnancy was great. Her new clients saw her not only as a veterinarian but a soon-to-be mother.

“It was a blessing to start the practice where people could see I was going to be a mother,” she said. “I think my clients have really appreciated the fact I not only care for their pets but I also care for our daughter as well.”

As essentially a sole practitioner, Kate finds the wide array of medical procedures she performs on a weekly basis challenging. She says she has particularly begun to appreciate surgery, and internal medicine is a favorite specialty to practice.

Since leaving his first practice, Pat has focused his career path on swine medicine, working first for Genesus, Inc., then as director of health assurance for DNA Swine Genetics, and now with Elanco. His territory covers what he calls the “Western Corn Belt” of the Dakotas, Nebraska, Minnesota and Iowa.

Swine medicine was probably always in Pat’s future. His father, Dr. James Hoffmann (’82), partnered with legendary swine veterinarian Dr. Roy Schultz (’60) and growing up Pat would tag along.

“I had a great backseat view of a lot of cool things that were happening in the ‘90s in swine medicine,” Pat said. “What I learned from Dad and Roy helped develop my passion to help feed the growing global population without destroying the planet.

“When the opportunity to work exclusively in swine medicine came about, I couldn’t pass it up. You just never know what path your career will take.”

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Pat and Kate (Baker) Hoffmann
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Hoffmann

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