Staying Put

The year 2010 wasn’t the best time to graduate from veterinary school and start looking for a job.

“I applied for three positions around Lake Superior and Alaska,” Dr. Stephanie Holloway said. “At that time, the job market was different, and the Alaska position was impractical.”

Holloway and her husband sought to live in a rural community in the Michigan North Woods, so she accepted an associate position at the Range Animal Hospital in Ironwood, Michigan.

In the years hence, she has had multiple chances to move on from Range Animal Hospital. But a change didn’t feel right to Holloway.

“I stayed in the practice and community in which we had settled as life and family factors kept us there,” Holloway said. “I went on to buy this practice and now work as a solo practitioner.

“As a solo practitioner, there is a positive aspect of not having to manage other doctors or sharing leadership and ownership. That is also the main negative – it’s all on me all the time.”

Another advantage of being in charge – you can explore different specializations. Since graduating, Holloway has received advanced certification in acupuncture with the International Veterinary Acupuncture Society. Acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Veterinary Medicine have given Holloway another answer to disease and treatment. 

Her foray into acupuncture has been rewarding. One of her best days as a veterinarian came when she watched a patient who had been acutely paraplegic walk into her clinic for his next acupuncture treatment.

“He had gone from being completely non-ambulatory for the first few treatments to walking within 48 hours,” Holloway said. “If acupuncture hadn’t worked, and there was no guarantee it would, which the clients knew, he would have been euthanized.

“Expanding the paradigm of what I can offer to my patients is important to me, as well as benefitting them. Finding my niche and satisfaction in providing service to my patients is a must to stay reasonably content, and learning to cope with moral injury and secondary traumatic stress is vital.”

One way Holloway works to relieve the stress of owning a business is taking advantage of the North Woods of Michigan. She is an avid runner and skier and is a member of the U.S. National Snowshoe Team.

Through that team she has competed at the U.S. 10K championships, collecting a bronze medal in the Masters Division at the U.S. event.

“I came into the sport on a whim,” she said. “I won our local snowshoe race and was encouraged to compete at the nationals that just happened to be an hour away from home. After that, I continued racing and competing because I could.

“There’s nothing quite like moving fast and silently through a snow carpeted forest.”

Searching for Clues

First, she took the dermatology rotation twice her fourth year at Iowa State. 

Then Dr. Sarah Benson completed an internship at VCA West Los Angeles with the intent of specializing in dermatology.

“I loved derm so much that I did the rotation with Dr. (Jim) Noxon twice during my fourth year,” Benson said. “I chose to do an internship because I was, at the time, interested in specializing in dermatology.”

Instead of looking at a residency, Benson instead choose a different route, coming back home to Minnesota where she accepted a job at Lyndale Animal Hospital, a small animal practice in the Twin Cities.

“One of the things that drew me to general small animal practice is the wide variety of cases I see,” Benson said. “I love surgery, dentistry, complex medical cases, behavior issues and of course, dermatology.”

It’s in this role that Benson has found her true calling as a veterinarian detective. 

“One of my favorite things about working with small animals is the feeling of being a detective,” she said. “I am always thrilled when I can discover the cause of medical issues. Using small clues to discover how to help sick animals is incredibly rewarding, and is what keeps me coming back to the office every day.”

That office is still the Lyndale Animal Hospital, the same practice Benson came back to Minnesota a decade ago after completing her internship.  She thrills at the prospect of seeing patients with non-specific symptoms and ferreting out the cause based on following the trail of evidence.  Her favorite example was discovering that an anxious dog with lethargy and anorexia had been scratching at the apartment door, ingesting small paint chips and ultimately developing lead toxicosis.

Benson is also attracted to this type of practice because she has been able to follow a patient through its entire life, caring for it as a puppy or kitten and then later in its senior years.

“Being at Lyndale Animal Hospital for ten years now, I have been able to do exactly that,” she says. “While it can be devastating to lose a patient I have been seeing for ten years, it is very rewarding to be there for those patients and clients at the end.

“It is my clients and patients that have kept me at Lyndale for so long. I can’t imagine leaving them.”

As a fourth-year student, Benson says she walked the halls of the hospital every day with a huge smile on her face. That smile has remained in private practice, but it’s a little more grueling than she had anticipated.

She now works part-time in an effort to maintain a good work-life balance.

“I don’t think I fully realized how stressful and emotionally draining being a veterinarian can be,” Benson said. “As a young child dreaming of being a veterinarian, I certainly didn’t envision lying in bed late at night worried about a surgical patient or mulling over blood work results.

“Fresh out of my internship I happily worked 40 hour weeks, but as a mother of two young girls, I love to split my time between work and home.”

Home Sweet Home

Walk into most veterinary clinics and you’ll see one, maybe two clinic pets who roam the building 24/7.

Walk into Tomorrow’s Veterinary Care in Waverly, Nebraska, you will see not one, not two, but five “clinic critters” who call the clinic home.

Some came with the job. Cats Elizabeth and Mary were removed from the dashboard of a rental car by Dr. Raven Klone, the owner and sole practitioner at Tomorrow’s Veterinary Care. Pig Pig was relinquished due to behavior issues and is feeling much better and seeking a new home.

Another pair of cats, Bond and Beef, were adopted from the ARL as kittens and have changed homes with Dr. Klone over the years. Beef passed away a couple years ago, but Bond still calls the clinic home. Edison, a Maltipoo, lives with Dr. Klone’s family but comes to work with the 2010 Iowa State graduate. Most of her other dogs make occasional appearances, as well.

“I don’t believe in euthanasia for treatable problems,” Klone said. “That said, I won’t decline one if I’m not able to offer a solution.

“We end up with occasional foster cats and dogs because of this. It keeps some of the compassion fatigue at bay but we never actively seek more animals to care for.”

Klone is passionate about caring for animals. She also supports a rescue for tiny kittens who are frequently abandoned or injured in the Waverly area. 

“Any of those kittens are welcomed back to our clinic if they are unable to stay in their homes,” Dr. Klone said. “Rescue organizations are important to support, and it is absolutely essential that any one bringing lives into this world be responsible for them.”

From the very first appointment a client makes, Dr. Klone is educating them about the care their animals should receive. The basics of preventative care are discussed in every puppy or kitten visit. 

“A person must be invested and understanding in order to make the best decisions for their pets,” Dr. Klone said. “I try very hard not to lecture, but rather to converse with my clients.

“Asking questions and sorting out why and how allows us to provide better recommendations and better care. If we assume reasons without asking, we lose an opportunity to help make compliance easier for the client and patient.”

Owning a veterinary practice was always in the plans. Still it was quite the journey for Dr. Klone. After graduation, she took a few temporary and part-time positions in Nebraska. Relief work in the Lincoln and Omaha areas followed.

The unpredictable work schedule was difficult, especially with a young family to support. She even opened a clinic in Hickman, Nebraska, before purchasing Tomorrow’s Veterinary Care, working towards some predictability.

“Owning a clinic is the best way to control your own destiny,” Dr. Klone said, “The main challenge is finding enough time and support to get everything done as it should be. The management tasks are endless.”

Timely Omen

You would think exploding embryos would be a bad career omen

Not so for Dr. Nathan Schmidt.

At the time of the exploding frozen embryo incident, Schmidt was a co-owner of Northwest Veterinary and Supply in Parkston, South Dakota, a clinic he joined after graduating in 2010.

“I was doing some self-taught embryo freezing,” Schmidt recalled, “and my client sent some frozen embryos to Trans Ova Genetics to store.

“One day, they contacted me to tell me that I hadn’t prepared the embryos correctly and they had exploded. I didn’t expect them to also tell me about a job opening at their firm.”

While a student in the College of Veterinary Medicine, Schmidt had done an internship with Trans Ova Genetics. That familiarity and the timely exploding frozen embryos ultimately led Schmidt to leave his South Dakota veterinary clinic to join Trans Ova Genetics.

“This was a part of veterinary medicine I always knew I would be interested in,” Schmidt said. “I had gotten to the point in my practice that I found that type of general medicine a little monotonous. I was tired of preg checks and vaccinating calves.

“I found embryo work more challenging which is good because I do get bored easily.”

Making a career change was an easy decision for Schmidt. 

“When I added it all up, my interest in embryo transfer and being able to work with progressive cattlemen, it was an easy decision to make to move on,” he said.

Over the next seven plus years Schmidt was with Trans Ova Genetics, he worked with clients in South Dakota, Minnesota and Iowa. He also traveled internationally and eventually relocated to Rock Hill, South Carolina, to be closer to his son.

Since January, Schmidt has served as the repro director for Vytelle, a company that has developed an integrated technology platform built to accelerate genetic progress in cattle. He says his job responsibilities are similar to those he had with Trans Ova Genetics.

“I’m still managing veterinarians, but Vytelle is a new company and I’m doing anything you would associate with a growing company,” Schmidt said. “I’m not out in the field as much as I would like to be, but I have to devote my energies to other things right now.”

Now instead of doing late night farm calls in South Dakota, Schmidt is on the phone in the middle of the night to clients in China, Australia, Ireland and South Africa. 

“Never would I have imagined I would be doing this after graduating from Iowa State,” Schmidt said. “I thought I was going to be working on cats and dogs in the morning and on farm calls in the afternoon.

“But I definitely ended up doing what I’m most passionate about.”

A Good Story to Tell

Most of the clients walking through the doors at the Midland Prairie Veterinary Services are bringing their dog or cat to be seen.

It’s a familiar tale for Dr. Meredith Johns, one of the three owners of the veterinary clinic which has offices in Colfax and Maxwell, Iowa. It was the same story at the mixed animal practices she worked at in Moberly, Missouri, and in her hometown of Ottumwa, Iowa.

While she enjoys working with companion animals, Johns has a special interest in large animals.

“One of the reasons why I came to Midland Prairie was because I wanted to get back in a mixed animal practice,” Johns said. “I’ve always like working with people in the agriculture industry.”

And although 80 percent of the clients at Midland Prairie are dogs and cats, these days Johns gets to see her fair share of horses, cows, pigs, goats, sheep and even some pot-bellied pigs. She had such a strong desire to get back into a mixed animal practice, that while she was in Ottumwa, she did a little bit of veterinary work on cows and horses on the side.

It’s the variety of a mixed animal practice that excites Johns professionally. 

“It’s like it’s an adventure every day, it’s always something different,” she said. “Eleven years later I am still learning and something almost always surprises me every day.

“I just like to have a good story to tell at the end of the day.”

One day, the story could be about doing preg checks on a herd of 4-H cows with a group of high school students watching nearby. 

“It’s always interesting when I can show something to someone they have never seen before,” Johns said. “One day it will be the babies on the ultrasound that intrigues them.”

In recent years, Johns has become a co-owner of Midland Prairie Veterinary Services, reaching another one of her professional goals. She prepared for just such an opportunity by taking business classes in school and observing her parents as small business owners.

“It was a steep learning curve,” Johns said. “I like being a decision maker and it has worked out great that I have two other co-owners in this partnership – that way I don’t have to make all the tough decisions by myself.”