Protecting the World’s Food Supply, One Student at a Time: An interview with Jacque Pelzer, DVM

From building surfboards to helping veterinary students achieve their goals, Jacque Pelzer’s career path was … Read more

Best in Show: AVMA President Joseph Kinnarney on What Makes a “Really Good Vet”

Joseph Kinnarney, DMV came to this year’s UC Davis Pre-Health Conference with one goal in mind: to “encourage great new minds to go into the veterinary profession”.
With a keynote presentation entitled “Helping Animals and People: Veterinary Medicine is More Than You Think”, the current President of the American Veterinary Medicine Association (AVMA) explained the tremendous opportunities of his field to a captive audience. “When you look at veterinary medicine, the training allows us to do lots, and be lots of things,” Kinnarney told Student Doctor Network after giving his speech. He described the roles vets can take in a variety of areas, including public health offices, the armed services, and food safety.
For Kinnarney, it wasn’t the lure of these more alternative veterinary-related careers, but rather the traditional desire to care for pets that brought him to the profession. “I was 4 years old, and I had a dog who was trying to have puppies and couldn’t,” he says. “I had what I thought was a dying dog – and she probably was.” Kinnarney went with his parents to the local veterinarian. “He saved my dog’s life, and also the lives of her 5 healthy puppies.”

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20 Questions: Deborah Elaine Linder, DVM, Veterinary Nutritionist

Deborah Elaine Linder, DVM, is a board certified veterinary nutritionist and a research assistant professor at Tufts Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine. She received her bachelor’s degree in biological anthropology and anatomy from Duke University (2005), and her Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM) from Tufts Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine (2009). Dr. Linder completed a one-year veterinary medicine internship at VCA South Shore Animal Hospital in Weymouth, Mass., followed by a two-year veterinary clinical nutrition residency at Tufts.
Dr. Linder is a member of the Massachusetts Veterinary Medical Association, American Academy of Veterinary Nutrition, Boston Nutrition Obesity Research Center, American Association of Human-Animal Bond Veterinarians, and International Society for Anthrozoology, and she is a steering committee member of the Pet Therapy Group Tufts Paws for People. She has been published in the Journal of the American Animal Hospital AssociationVeterinary NursingBMC Veterinary ResearchAmerican Journal of Veterinary ResearchJournal of Veterinary Emergency and Critical CareVeterinary QuarterlyJournal of the American Association for Laboratory Animal Science, and Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association.
When did you first decide to become a veterinarian? Why?

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