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Following curiosity with Dr. Keshe Chow · My Veterinary Life

0:09
Speaker 1: Welcome to this week's episode of the My Veterinary Life podcast.
0:13
Speaker 1: I'm your host, doctor Annie Chafont, and my pronouns are
0:15
Speaker 1: she her, and our guest today is doctor Keith Chaw.
0:19
Speaker 2: Doctor Chow is a specialist.
0:21
Speaker 1: Feline veterinarian and best selling author of fantasy, romance and
0:24
Speaker 1: speculative fiction. I am so excited to share doctor Chow's story,
0:28
Speaker 1: but before we do, I do want to give a
0:30
Speaker 1: thank you to our podcast partner, NVA General Practice. NBA
0:34
Speaker 1: helps great vets become even greater with multiple paths to
0:37
Speaker 1: build a career that's uniquely yours. Lead a team, explore
0:41
Speaker 1: a specialty, own a practice, or shape care across our
0:45
Speaker 1: network of over nine hundred neighborhood clinics. Wherever you want
0:48
Speaker 1: to go next, NBA has a path to help you
0:50
Speaker 1: get there. Visit careers dot NBA dot com to find
0:54
Speaker 1: your next role. And with that, Welcome to the show,
0:57
Speaker 1: Doctor Chow. Thank you so much for having me an.
1:00
Speaker 2: Oh, thank you so much for sharing your time with us.
1:03
Speaker 1: What an exciting career story and I cannot wait to
1:07
Speaker 1: jump in. But we do like to start each episode
1:10
Speaker 1: in a similar way here on the podcast, So can
1:14
Speaker 1: you tell us how you first became interested in veterinary medicine.
1:17
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, I think it's pretty typical of most
1:20
Speaker 3: of us vets that we all grew up loving animals.
1:23
Speaker 3: So I was just an animal lover. And actually I
1:27
Speaker 3: was never allowed a pet growing up. I did have
1:29
Speaker 3: fish at one stage, but I was never allowed a
1:32
Speaker 3: dog or a cat, and I desperately wanted one. So
1:34
Speaker 3: when I grew up and was decigning on career paths,
1:37
Speaker 3: I was like, well, I'm just going to become a
1:40
Speaker 3: veterinarian because that is going to give me access to
1:43
Speaker 3: all the pets I could ever want. And my parents
1:46
Speaker 3: are like, don't you want to become a doctor because
1:49
Speaker 3: my brother and sister are by doctors, And I was like,
1:51
Speaker 3: I am a doctor, just so if.
1:53
Speaker 4: I as a doctor of animals.
1:56
Speaker 3: So that was kind of like my pathway into veny medicine.
2:00
Speaker 1: I love that way to make that work for you
2:02
Speaker 1: and to put yourself into the beats position to get
2:05
Speaker 1: that one day. I've always had a pet since, perfect fit, exactly, wonderful.
2:13
Speaker 1: So you aspired to become a veterinarian, you pursued that
2:18
Speaker 1: goal after graduation, you took a path to specialization. So
2:23
Speaker 1: I'm curious as to how that played out, What was
2:27
Speaker 1: that thought process and what did that look like for you.
2:31
Speaker 3: Well, I ended up when I was in school taking
2:34
Speaker 3: on a job as a cattery hand at.
2:37
Speaker 4: My local vetom clinic.
2:39
Speaker 3: And prior to that, like I said, I'd never had
2:41
Speaker 3: a pet, cat or dog, but I had really had
2:44
Speaker 3: very little interaction with cats at all, so I did
2:48
Speaker 3: not consider myself a cat person at all. I thought
2:50
Speaker 3: I was a dog person. And when I started this
2:52
Speaker 3: cattery job, I was very handling cats. I would have
2:56
Speaker 3: to be regularly bailed out and I'd be like, come
2:59
Speaker 3: and save Can you come and get this cat out
3:01
Speaker 3: from under this band or can.
3:03
Speaker 4: You like get it out of the cage, or can
3:04
Speaker 4: you like come and help me change the lit tree?
3:07
Speaker 3: And then eventually they're like he should just going to
3:09
Speaker 3: have to learn to do yourself. So after like a
3:13
Speaker 3: few months, I just had to learn to do it.
3:15
Speaker 3: And over a few years that I worked at their category,
3:18
Speaker 3: I ended up becoming really really good at cat handling.
3:22
Speaker 3: So by the time I graduated and started working in smaller,
3:25
Speaker 3: more practice, I was like the cat vispr. So when
3:28
Speaker 3: I started working in a sort of small animal clinic.
3:31
Speaker 3: Everyone was always like, oh, I get keys, She's really
3:33
Speaker 3: good at handling cats. So in that time I developed
3:35
Speaker 3: really good cat handling skills. It was like this, you know,
3:37
Speaker 3: baptism by fire, almost And I did a couple of
3:40
Speaker 3: years just in general practice and I did enjoy it.
3:44
Speaker 3: But I ended up working overseas, so I went over
3:47
Speaker 3: to the UK to do some local work. And when
3:50
Speaker 3: you go to the UK, as opposed to Australia, they
3:52
Speaker 3: have a lot more exotic little creatures than we have
3:56
Speaker 3: in Australia. They have a lot of little rodents that
3:58
Speaker 3: we are not allowed to keep this pets. So I
4:00
Speaker 3: went over to do this like this work as a
4:03
Speaker 3: locom in the UK, and I was sort of thrown
4:06
Speaker 3: into these situations where I was sole charged in these
4:08
Speaker 3: clinics and having to see all these exobic pets that
4:11
Speaker 3: I didn't really know how to deal with. And so
4:14
Speaker 3: I just remember this one time, and I was already
4:16
Speaker 3: sort of starting to think, you know, maybe I should
4:19
Speaker 3: specialize in feline medicine. But I remember this one particular
4:22
Speaker 3: day where I was told I would have to go
4:25
Speaker 3: and see a gerbil and I did not even know
4:29
Speaker 3: what a gerbil was supposed to look like like.
4:32
Speaker 4: I was just like, I had to google it. I
4:35
Speaker 4: was like, what does a gerbil look like? So I
4:37
Speaker 4: googled it.
4:38
Speaker 3: And I just sort of fumbled my way through this console,
4:41
Speaker 3: and I think I remember coming out of that and
4:42
Speaker 3: I was like, I can't do this.
4:44
Speaker 4: I can't do this.
4:45
Speaker 3: Like, I know, some people really good at being like
4:48
Speaker 3: Jacksonville Trades, Like they're really good at handling a whole
4:51
Speaker 3: range of animals and they just roll with it.
4:53
Speaker 4: I am much better at being the type.
4:55
Speaker 3: Of person who can really focus on like one topic
4:59
Speaker 3: and get really good at it and just feel really
5:01
Speaker 3: really sort of confident in what I'm doing. So at
5:04
Speaker 3: that point I was like, no, I really am going
5:06
Speaker 3: to specialize because I feel like I am just not
5:10
Speaker 3: really coping with the wide array of sort of like
5:13
Speaker 3: things that I'm thrown into in general practice.
5:16
Speaker 4: So yeah, then I sort of started.
5:18
Speaker 3: I was over in the UK and I started applying
5:20
Speaker 3: for internships over there to start the process of specializing,
5:24
Speaker 3: and I got rejected by everywhere I applied for.
5:27
Speaker 4: They just I kept on not getting any jobs.
5:30
Speaker 3: So then I finally got a job offer at Sidney
5:33
Speaker 3: University back home, in Australia, and so I actually cut
5:37
Speaker 3: my chip short and I flew home to start my
5:39
Speaker 3: internship there and then it float on into residency and
5:42
Speaker 3: all that sort of stuff. And then once I completed
5:44
Speaker 3: my residency, I moved back home and I started working
5:47
Speaker 3: at a cat only clinic here in my hometown of
5:51
Speaker 3: Melbourne in Australia. And I did that for a couple
5:53
Speaker 3: of years, and I was actually signed up to do
5:55
Speaker 3: my fellowship exams.
5:57
Speaker 4: I bought exams and I got pregnant.
5:59
Speaker 3: And remember I got pregnant and my due date was
6:02
Speaker 3: going to be basically when I was going to have
6:05
Speaker 3: my oral exams, and I remember when I told my boss.
6:08
Speaker 3: My boss was like, you timed that really badly, Like
6:13
Speaker 3: it's true. But you know, for me, I've always kind
6:16
Speaker 3: of just like gone with things because for me, you know,
6:19
Speaker 3: having a family was really important. And I was like,
6:23
Speaker 3: you know, things can wait. You know, there's always you
6:25
Speaker 3: can always sort of like re arrange things. You've been
6:28
Speaker 3: rescheduled things like, you know, there's always ways to rearrange
6:32
Speaker 3: things to make things work. So I basically deferred my
6:36
Speaker 3: exams and I deferred them, I think for two years
6:40
Speaker 3: because I obviously, you know, the first year after you
6:43
Speaker 3: have a baby is pretty intense. I remember I did
6:46
Speaker 3: have times where I was, you know, holding my baby
6:50
Speaker 3: for a nap and i had my iPad with like
6:52
Speaker 3: journal articles open and I'd be like reading and like,
6:55
Speaker 3: you know, should be there like sort of napping on me.
6:59
Speaker 3: But yeah, I didn't get a lot of study done
7:01
Speaker 3: in that first year. But then just when she was
7:04
Speaker 3: just under two years old was when I actually sat
7:07
Speaker 3: for my dev So it was like a prolonged period
7:09
Speaker 3: because I had had that additional time where I'd worked
7:12
Speaker 3: in cat only practice just to because I felt like
7:14
Speaker 3: I really wanted to get more experience just working in
7:17
Speaker 3: sort of like a wide case slode because when you're
7:19
Speaker 3: in a university, in a university situation, you see really
7:22
Speaker 3: complicated things because it was obviously like a you know,
7:25
Speaker 3: a tertiary institution, but I think your caseload is smaller
7:28
Speaker 3: because it's teaching hospitals, so you sort of don't see
7:31
Speaker 3: such a high volume of cases. So when I went
7:34
Speaker 3: into sort of private practice and I was just seeing
7:36
Speaker 3: like a really high volume of cases and being referred
7:39
Speaker 3: a lot, I just felt like I really consolidated my
7:41
Speaker 3: skills that way, and then I took the additional two
7:44
Speaker 3: years because of having a baby. So yeah, so that's
7:47
Speaker 3: why I so it was seventy years later because of
7:50
Speaker 3: my personal lack of planning.
7:54
Speaker 1: No, but I think I'm so glad that you mentioned that,
7:57
Speaker 1: because I do feel very strongly getting the message across
8:01
Speaker 1: that life happens at the same time as our professional development.
8:06
Speaker 1: And I think your perspective of things can be rearranged
8:10
Speaker 1: is so important to keep in mind. It sounds simple
8:14
Speaker 1: just in a vacuum, but there's so much pressure to
8:18
Speaker 1: hold on to that testing date or whatever that goal
8:21
Speaker 1: might be, and you work so hard for that moment,
8:23
Speaker 1: but there are other things that are also priorities, and
8:26
Speaker 1: so what can be rearranged what cannot, and letting that
8:30
Speaker 1: guide you through and it.
8:32
Speaker 2: All worked out.
8:33
Speaker 1: So I think, yeah, I'm just so glad that you
8:37
Speaker 1: shared that experience and that it will be okay if
8:40
Speaker 1: some things need to be rearranged. The timeline might look
8:43
Speaker 1: different than when you started on this goal that you're
8:46
Speaker 1: working towards, but keep the goal in mind, rearrange the
8:50
Speaker 1: things that can be rearranged.
8:52
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's right.
8:53
Speaker 3: It's just kind of like rolling with things and knowing
8:55
Speaker 3: that as long as you've got your eyes on the prize,
8:59
Speaker 3: you can might contap it, you know.
9:00
Speaker 4: And I think that having.
9:02
Speaker 3: The baby like really sort of made me very aware
9:05
Speaker 3: of like how I was using my time. You know.
9:08
Speaker 3: I think like I became super super efficient at like
9:10
Speaker 3: using my time that I had, so yeah, and I
9:14
Speaker 3: think it also put things into perspective because I was
9:16
Speaker 3: kind of like, well, I can get through that, I
9:19
Speaker 3: can get through anything.
9:20
Speaker 4: It's a really challenging time, and so everything.
9:22
Speaker 3: Kind of made me realize that, you know, there's never
9:25
Speaker 3: anything that is insurmountable. You know, things happen, things don't
9:29
Speaker 3: always go to plan, but you can always sort of
9:32
Speaker 3: like get through it in some way, shape or form.
9:35
Speaker 3: And I think it just like it helped me with
9:37
Speaker 3: my resilience and it helped me with perspective. And yeah,
9:41
Speaker 3: so it was a really kind of I think it
9:43
Speaker 3: all worked out in the end. At the time, you know,
9:45
Speaker 3: it's very very difficult, but yeah, looking back at it,
9:50
Speaker 3: I might have a bit of survivor's bias, but I'm like, yeah,
9:53
Speaker 3: I think it all it all worked out as it
9:54
Speaker 3: should have done.
9:56
Speaker 1: There you go, there, you go, Yeah, that is wonderful
10:00
Speaker 1: point to normalize that it is okay to rearrange things
10:05
Speaker 1: do work out.
10:06
Speaker 2: It might be we're not saying that.
10:07
Speaker 1: It's not going to be challenging in the moment, but
10:10
Speaker 1: it will all work out if you have that goal
10:14
Speaker 1: oriented focus and are willing to be flexible at the
10:17
Speaker 1: same time, which does actually lead me into my next
10:21
Speaker 1: question a bit of that. You spent some time in
10:24
Speaker 1: practice after getting your board certification, but that also had
10:28
Speaker 1: some twists and turns along the way, So can you
10:31
Speaker 1: describe your time in practice for us.
10:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, So after I did my internship residency and then
10:38
Speaker 3: did that couple of years in private practice, and I
10:41
Speaker 3: took that time off to have my baby and to
10:43
Speaker 3: study for my boards, I ended up opening a feline
10:47
Speaker 3: only vetmy clinique myself with the business partner and ran
10:50
Speaker 3: that for about five years. So we built it up
10:53
Speaker 3: from scratch and it was doing really well. But in
10:55
Speaker 3: the end, so things didn't work out, so my husband,
10:58
Speaker 3: who is also a vet, we sold out of that business.
11:01
Speaker 3: And then after that I was kind of like, well,
11:04
Speaker 3: I've done all this stuff. I've done like almost everything
11:06
Speaker 3: I wanted to do, like in specifically in feline medicine,
11:09
Speaker 3: and we could have opened up another clinic, but I
11:11
Speaker 3: was kind of like, I've always had some other interests.
11:14
Speaker 3: So one of my other major interests was always animal welfare.
11:17
Speaker 3: When I was in high school and in UNI, I
11:21
Speaker 3: was always the person who was always like banging on
11:23
Speaker 3: about animal welfare and stuff like that, and like having
11:26
Speaker 3: robust discussions about animal welfare issues with some of the lecturers.
11:30
Speaker 3: So I decided I would go and try to get
11:34
Speaker 3: a job in animal welfare, and I ended up doing
11:37
Speaker 3: a couple of years as an animal welfare officer at
11:40
Speaker 3: the University of Melbourne, my alma mater.
11:42
Speaker 4: That's where I did my VETNU degree.
11:44
Speaker 3: And again, that was just a really, really interesting time
11:48
Speaker 3: and I absolutely loved that job.
11:50
Speaker 4: That was one of my favorite jobs there.
11:51
Speaker 3: But we had an amazing team, and I think it
11:54
Speaker 3: was just so nice that we all had this sort
11:57
Speaker 3: of common goal of just wanting to promote animal welfare
12:01
Speaker 3: and do what was best for the animals. And it
12:04
Speaker 3: was so funny because it was going a complete opposite.
12:08
Speaker 3: And I know I said that I didn't necessarily wanted
12:10
Speaker 3: to be a jack of all trades, and that's why
12:12
Speaker 3: I focused on feline medicine, but then when I went
12:15
Speaker 3: into animal welfare, I was dealing with a whole lot
12:17
Speaker 3: of species but just focusing on their welfare. So it
12:20
Speaker 3: was still quite sort of specialized because that's what I
12:22
Speaker 3: had to know about. We still had to know about
12:24
Speaker 3: their physiology and anatomy and biology and all that sort
12:26
Speaker 3: of stuff, which I did learn, but it was focused
12:29
Speaker 3: on their welfare. I'm in the context of their welfare.
12:32
Speaker 3: And I think that when I thought about, you know,
12:34
Speaker 3: why are you going from feline medicine to this like
12:37
Speaker 3: animal welfare job where you've got to see all these
12:39
Speaker 3: different animals, And I was like, I think I just
12:40
Speaker 3: really loved to learn. I think I got to this
12:42
Speaker 3: stage where I was like, I had done all this
12:44
Speaker 3: stuff and feline medicine, and I was like, what's the
12:46
Speaker 3: next challenge?
12:47
Speaker 4: What else can I sort of learn?
12:49
Speaker 3: Because I really love learning, and so I'm kind of
12:51
Speaker 3: addicted to this learning thing, and so this new challenge
12:55
Speaker 3: of expanding my knowledge even more was like just so
12:58
Speaker 3: it was so juicy to me, and it was actually
13:00
Speaker 3: really funny because when I did my interview for it,
13:03
Speaker 3: I remember I was in this panel and there was
13:05
Speaker 3: like four people from the university, like fairly high up
13:08
Speaker 3: people in this university system interviewing me, and they're like
13:12
Speaker 3: looking at my resume, my CV and they're like, you've
13:15
Speaker 3: very specialized. You've literally only worked with cats for like
13:19
Speaker 3: more than ten years.
13:20
Speaker 4: Are you sure you can do this job?
13:22
Speaker 3: And I was like, yeah, I can totally do this job,
13:24
Speaker 3: but I'm really passionate animal welfare.
13:26
Speaker 4: And they're like, are you sure.
13:27
Speaker 3: Because you know you're going to be seeing like horses
13:31
Speaker 3: and sheep and goats and like wildlife and donuts. And
13:37
Speaker 3: I was like thinking, what is it Like, I was
13:43
Speaker 3: thinking that, but then I was like, of course I
13:45
Speaker 3: can do all that, and they're like okay, great, well
13:50
Speaker 3: hire you. And then later and I was like, okay,
13:52
Speaker 3: I have to learn about dune uts, how these little
13:54
Speaker 3: Australian marstupiols.
13:55
Speaker 4: And in the end I ended up.
13:57
Speaker 3: Loving working with the dunhots, like they were one of
13:59
Speaker 3: my favorites tea is to work with and we did
14:01
Speaker 3: a lot of research.
14:02
Speaker 4: Involved in the data.
14:04
Speaker 3: But yeah, it was just it was just so funny
14:06
Speaker 3: because I was like the other extent because I had
14:08
Speaker 3: been so specialized, and then I was sort of like
14:09
Speaker 3: working with all these different species, but again in a
14:12
Speaker 3: very specialized way because I was like really focusing on
14:14
Speaker 3: their welfare. And it was so nice because it was
14:17
Speaker 3: like my other major interests. I love cats, I love
14:19
Speaker 3: animal welfare, so it was kind of like this sort
14:21
Speaker 3: of just you know, tickled my brain in such a
14:24
Speaker 3: good way. And then after I did that, I did
14:26
Speaker 3: a couple of years working actually for the AVIA which
14:30
Speaker 3: I think is similar to the AVIU May but it
14:32
Speaker 3: was the Australian version, so the Australian Venterory Association, and
14:36
Speaker 3: they actually approached me because they had heard that I
14:39
Speaker 3: was an author, a writer and they were looking for
14:42
Speaker 3: a veterinarian to work in their marketing and communications team
14:46
Speaker 3: as a content writer, and so they asked I would
14:50
Speaker 3: be interested in doing some work for them, and I
14:54
Speaker 3: was like, well, that's perfect because that again it's a
14:56
Speaker 3: new challenge.
14:58
Speaker 4: I love sort of learning things.
14:59
Speaker 3: I want to learn more about marketing and communications because
15:03
Speaker 3: I just was like really interested in that.
15:04
Speaker 4: Side of things.
15:05
Speaker 3: I wanted to learn more about what the ABA did
15:07
Speaker 3: as well, and it just was a really good marriage
15:10
Speaker 3: of my skill set as well.
15:12
Speaker 4: But I didn't want to leave my other job, so
15:13
Speaker 4: I ended up doing both jobs for a while.
15:15
Speaker 3: So I was like working, you know, some days at
15:18
Speaker 3: the ABA, and I was working other days I'm at
15:20
Speaker 3: the university.
15:21
Speaker 4: And I did those two for a bit.
15:22
Speaker 3: But then it became a bit overwhelming balancing the two
15:24
Speaker 3: of them plus night being an offer and having kids.
15:28
Speaker 3: So I ended up very sadly leaving the university job
15:31
Speaker 3: and focusing on the ABA job.
15:33
Speaker 4: And yeah, so it's kind of just done.
15:35
Speaker 3: Lots of different things, and things that kind of chopped
15:38
Speaker 3: and changed and more fed as my life has changed.
15:41
Speaker 3: And I would still definitely love to do more animal
15:44
Speaker 3: welfare work. I'd definitely love to do more feline work,
15:47
Speaker 3: but yeah, I just go with where life takes me,
15:51
Speaker 3: and yeah, just what the circumstances allow for.
15:54
Speaker 2: I guess thank you so much for walking us through
15:57
Speaker 2: some of those twice and turns.
15:59
Speaker 1: As we said, the thing that struck me the most
16:02
Speaker 1: is that your level of enthusiasm was consistent across the
16:08
Speaker 1: broad diversity of.
16:10
Speaker 2: Areas that you were involved in. VetMed.
16:12
Speaker 1: You love feline specialty, but you also love animal welfare,
16:16
Speaker 1: and you've loved learning about the marketing and communications and
16:19
Speaker 1: contributing in that way, and so I think that it's
16:23
Speaker 1: a really good thing for us to keep in mind
16:25
Speaker 1: that are we putting ourselves in a box unnecessarily or
16:30
Speaker 1: what are all of the passions that we have and
16:33
Speaker 1: how can we explore them in this profession? And I
16:36
Speaker 1: think that it was really special the way that you
16:38
Speaker 1: identified the common thread between those you like learning new things,
16:42
Speaker 1: so where can we apply that passion to that It
16:47
Speaker 1: might look a little bit differently, but then that tickles
16:50
Speaker 1: your brain in different ways as well and keeps you
16:53
Speaker 1: excited about the things that you're doing. So yeah, really
16:56
Speaker 1: appreciate you sharing that journey with us.
17:00
Speaker 3: And I think that my time at the AVIA really
17:03
Speaker 3: sin drove home to me that I loved learning about
17:05
Speaker 3: is like I wait really closely with the advocacy team
17:08
Speaker 3: because obviously we were doing a lot of content writing
17:11
Speaker 3: to highlight all the advocacy work that the ABA was doing,
17:13
Speaker 3: and they do like incredible advocacy for the profession as
17:17
Speaker 3: well as for animal welfare. So again it was like,
17:19
Speaker 3: you know, just like just bringing in all these interests
17:22
Speaker 3: that I had already developed and what I sort of
17:26
Speaker 3: like just realized and I already knew this, but it
17:28
Speaker 3: just really sort of like brought home in a very
17:30
Speaker 3: visceral way. It's just how involved vets are across all
17:34
Speaker 3: aspects of life. I was just talking to vets all
17:37
Speaker 3: the time across the country about all the amazing things
17:40
Speaker 3: they were doing. And I've always been so interested in
17:42
Speaker 3: learning what people's interests are as well, so I was
17:45
Speaker 3: just always like asking them, like, you know, what are
17:47
Speaker 3: your passions and what are you working on, and just
17:49
Speaker 3: like being so blown away by like the diverse range
17:53
Speaker 3: of skills and diverse involvement that vets have in all
17:58
Speaker 3: aspects of society. That was just incredible and I think
18:01
Speaker 3: I would love to like to be able to disseminate
18:04
Speaker 3: that more to the public and just showcase that. And
18:06
Speaker 3: that's what I loved doing when I was part of
18:08
Speaker 3: the AVA, and that's partly why I wrote the VOCA.
18:11
Speaker 4: I write as well because I wanted to showcase that.
18:13
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, that is so cool, And I didn't
18:17
Speaker 1: want to circle back around to that because it's your
18:20
Speaker 1: writing was the first draw for the AVA, and we
18:24
Speaker 1: haven't even gotten to talk about that yet. So in
18:26
Speaker 1: addition to your other roles, you also are an author.
18:30
Speaker 1: And the thing that caught my eye about that is
18:34
Speaker 1: author of the fiction genres, because we do hear sometimes
18:39
Speaker 1: veterinarians who are writing technical books about the profession. You've
18:43
Speaker 1: gone in a completely different direction and exercise that other
18:48
Speaker 1: part of your brain through writing. So what was your inspiration?
18:53
Speaker 1: What are you doing in that area of your professional
18:56
Speaker 1: life as well?
18:57
Speaker 4: I just always loved writing. I'm a huge reader.
19:01
Speaker 3: I grew up just always with my nose in a book,
19:03
Speaker 3: and so when I was growing up, I was like
19:05
Speaker 3: always writing stories and things like that. And then that
19:07
Speaker 3: stopped when I graduated from high school until sort of
19:11
Speaker 3: like I had kind of basically finished my I'd gotten
19:14
Speaker 3: my specialty, and I'd done my master's degree, and I've
19:16
Speaker 3: done all of this like sort of vetmory stuff.
19:18
Speaker 4: I didn't do any creative writing in that whole time.
19:21
Speaker 3: It was like more than ten years because I was
19:23
Speaker 3: like writing journal articles. I was like writing science things,
19:26
Speaker 3: and I was only ever reading veto things, which is
19:29
Speaker 3: a very very different part of your brain that you use.
19:31
Speaker 4: And so then I started when my kids were young
19:35
Speaker 4: and they were like little.
19:36
Speaker 3: I was often like nap trapped, so like I was
19:38
Speaker 3: like with my laptop, they would be like lying on me.
19:41
Speaker 3: I didn't have study to do anymore because I'd already
19:43
Speaker 3: gotten my specialty, and I was like, I'm just going
19:45
Speaker 3: to start writing that book that I've always wanted to write.
19:48
Speaker 3: And so I started writing, and my first efforts were terrible, terrible,
19:52
Speaker 3: because I had not written creatively for so long, and
19:56
Speaker 3: it is a skill, it's a muscle that you need
19:59
Speaker 3: to use that you can lose if you don't use
20:02
Speaker 3: it all the day, but then you can get it back,
20:03
Speaker 3: like it isn't like it's not setting the stone.
20:05
Speaker 4: You don't lose it forever.
20:07
Speaker 3: So I sort of wrote like a whole bunch, and
20:09
Speaker 3: I think the first book I wrote, I got about
20:11
Speaker 3: twenty thousand words into it and I was like, this
20:12
Speaker 3: is so bad, no, like no one should ever look
20:14
Speaker 3: at this. Scrapped it all. Then started again learning, like
20:19
Speaker 3: because I went back to craft and I started learning
20:22
Speaker 3: about how you approach writing creatively and so again it
20:25
Speaker 3: was this challenge that I wanted to do. It was
20:27
Speaker 3: like more learning. It was like I wanted to learn
20:30
Speaker 3: how to write creatively again. So I started like connecting
20:33
Speaker 3: with other authors and we would train writing samples and
20:37
Speaker 3: I learned a lot from them. And then I started
20:39
Speaker 3: writing another book and I wrote another book, and then
20:41
Speaker 3: I wrote a third book, and then that was the
20:44
Speaker 3: one that I ended up querying agents with and signing
20:47
Speaker 3: with an agent and then getting a publishing deal for
20:50
Speaker 3: and then it sort of went from there. And so
20:52
Speaker 3: that was all sort of happening in the background in
20:55
Speaker 3: after hours. I was doing that, like really at night
20:58
Speaker 3: after the kids were in bed asleep, and I was
21:00
Speaker 3: doing that while I was doing you know, I had
21:03
Speaker 3: the business, and then I sold out of the business
21:05
Speaker 3: and then did the animal welfare work and did the
21:08
Speaker 3: AVA work as well. I was doing that during the
21:10
Speaker 3: day and I was writing at night, and it was
21:12
Speaker 3: just a really nice way of using.
21:14
Speaker 4: My brain in a really different way.
21:17
Speaker 3: And yeah, so at first I was writing things that
21:19
Speaker 3: were completely not Vetory related because it was kind of
21:22
Speaker 3: like my escape. But yeah, and my third published book
21:25
Speaker 3: that just came out in May is actually like Vetory related,
21:28
Speaker 3: and it was the first one I'd ever really sort
21:30
Speaker 3: of like written that was so close to kind of
21:32
Speaker 3: like my life.
21:33
Speaker 4: I was like, why didn't I do this sooner?
21:35
Speaker 3: You know, I mean I kind of I kind of know,
21:38
Speaker 3: because as I said, I did it initially to escape
21:40
Speaker 3: from my day job. You know, I was working in
21:43
Speaker 3: my own clinic to begin with when I started writing,
21:45
Speaker 3: so I was kind of like, I'm going to write
21:47
Speaker 3: about stuff that's completely different because this is my day job,
21:50
Speaker 3: and I'm just like, I don't want to go home
21:51
Speaker 3: and experience morrifying day job. But then now with a
21:54
Speaker 3: little bit more time and distance, because I have not
21:56
Speaker 3: been in clinical work for a little while, I was like, oh,
21:59
Speaker 3: what if I wrote about magical veterinarians. And so in
22:02
Speaker 3: this book, the small and moal vetts treat which is familiar,
22:05
Speaker 3: so things like cats and reptiles or birds or whatever
22:08
Speaker 3: that will communicate with the witches to help you channel magic.
22:12
Speaker 3: And then the large animal vets will treat mythical creatures,
22:15
Speaker 3: so like dragons and centaurs, unicorns, that sort of thing.
22:18
Speaker 3: So yeah, that was really fun because I could sort
22:20
Speaker 3: of bring in like my knowledge and then like apply
22:23
Speaker 3: it to these fantasy situations and.
22:25
Speaker 4: Just had a lot of fun with it.
22:26
Speaker 3: And so, you know, I was hoping that it would
22:28
Speaker 3: be a book that would appeal to, you know, an
22:31
Speaker 3: audience that doesn't know about vetmoself, but also appeal to
22:34
Speaker 3: ti vets who you might like fantasy and romance.
22:37
Speaker 2: So fascinating.
22:39
Speaker 1: I love hearing the homecoming of your enthusiasm for creative
22:45
Speaker 1: writing and the way you pursued that in a similar
22:50
Speaker 1: way to pursuing the different aspects of your veterinary professional career,
22:55
Speaker 1: and that you're able to incorporate some vatman into that
22:59
Speaker 1: third book and be able to experience both of those
23:03
Speaker 1: sides together. Also so impressed with your ability to navigate
23:09
Speaker 1: a full time job, pursuing a passion in the evenings,
23:12
Speaker 1: and then also making sure that you've got time for
23:15
Speaker 1: family and other relationships. I do have to ask, though,
23:21
Speaker 1: especially with the last book, in the writing process, there
23:25
Speaker 1: have there been any similarities expected or unexpected between the
23:29
Speaker 1: practice of vemed and getting a book published on paper.
23:34
Speaker 4: They look completely wildly different.
23:36
Speaker 3: But really, when it comes down to it, I think
23:38
Speaker 3: really like empathy unites the two things, because in both
23:42
Speaker 3: cases you really have to really empathize with the people
23:46
Speaker 3: that you're either writing about or working with, and obviously,
23:49
Speaker 3: like we all know as vets, you really have to
23:52
Speaker 3: have such empathy for the animals, but also for the
23:55
Speaker 3: people involved with those animals, whether they're owners or whether
23:59
Speaker 3: they're you know, farmers or researchers or whoever you're working with,
24:02
Speaker 3: the you know, ancillary to those, to those animals you're
24:05
Speaker 3: working with. You really have to be a people person.
24:07
Speaker 3: And so you know, I spent so much time when
24:10
Speaker 3: I was working in Get New Medicines really fascinated by
24:13
Speaker 3: the people I worked with. And I remember I was
24:14
Speaker 3: always like asking them what did you work? Like what
24:17
Speaker 3: are your pasions? Like what are you interested in? Like
24:19
Speaker 3: I was just like so curious about like their lives
24:21
Speaker 3: because they were so different to mine. And so you know,
24:24
Speaker 3: I think that that was that was that thing. And
24:26
Speaker 3: then like when I'm writing, it's almost like I'm just
24:29
Speaker 3: kind of like sticky beeking into I think that's a
24:32
Speaker 3: very Australian term, isn't it, sticky beeking is it? Yeah?
24:34
Speaker 3: Sticky beeing is basically where you're like being a little
24:37
Speaker 3: bit of a like peeping tom into like their lives.
24:40
Speaker 3: So I'm like creating these characters, but.
24:42
Speaker 5: I'm kind of like being a little bit like hey,
24:45
Speaker 5: what what you what have you got going on? I'm
24:47
Speaker 5: like looking over their shoulders, being like, hey, you tell me,
24:49
Speaker 5: tell me what you're doing. And so it kind of
24:53
Speaker 5: again it's like developing that empathy, it's being curious about people,
24:57
Speaker 5: and obviously in my latest book, it's also the animal
25:00
Speaker 5: aspects of it in as well.
25:02
Speaker 2: So fascinating.
25:04
Speaker 1: It's so true that empathy is really at the core
25:09
Speaker 1: of our profession, and I really hadn't thought about how
25:14
Speaker 1: intimately you need to be able to understand and relate
25:17
Speaker 1: to your characters as an author as well, And so
25:20
Speaker 1: what a great uniting factor between the two is that
25:25
Speaker 1: curiosity that you mentioned is at the heart of it
25:29
Speaker 1: and wanting to make those connections, whether it's in the
25:32
Speaker 1: exam room or across the pages. I can totally see
25:36
Speaker 1: why the challenge would be an enticing combination of similar
25:40
Speaker 1: but different.
25:40
Speaker 2: It makes a lot of sense.
25:42
Speaker 1: Well, Keis, thank you so much for coming on the
25:44
Speaker 1: show and chatting about your career journey and giving us
25:48
Speaker 1: a little window into what looks like to be a
25:51
Speaker 1: veterinarian and an author and also a mother. You're balancing
25:55
Speaker 1: a lot, and your enthusiasm for each of the aspects
25:59
Speaker 1: of your life life really shines through, and I absolutely
26:03
Speaker 1: loved hearing from you and your perspective on all things
26:05
Speaker 1: veterinary and beyond.
26:07
Speaker 4: Thank you, Thank you so much for having me. It
26:09
Speaker 4: was really fun to chat.
26:11
Speaker 1: Likewise, and thank you to each of you for joining
26:13
Speaker 1: us on this episode of My Veterinary Life podcast. We
26:16
Speaker 1: love sharing this journey with you, and remember, we want
26:19
Speaker 1: to hear from you, so please be sure to leave
26:20
Speaker 1: us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or whatever
26:23
Speaker 1: platform you listen to, and you can also email me
26:26
Speaker 1: at MVL podcast at ABMA dot org.
26:30
Speaker 2: Take care and we'll see you next time.