Latest / Beyond the Green Bibs / Ep 09 Chat with Dr. Elizabeth Kohtz

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Ep 09 Chat with Dr. Elizabeth Kohtz · Beyond the Green Bibs

• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: Hi and welcome to Beyond the Green Bibs.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: I am Annie, a cattle vet, farmer, mom of two boys, and business owner with passions involving agriculture and personal finance.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: I am on a mission to inspire and encourage women who want to be involved in large animal medicine and also be a mom and so much more.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: I believe we as women can create a community to provide support to other women as we build a life filled with gratitude and purpose.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: So whether you are in the vet truck on your way to a farm call, a mom running the kids to school, a gal that loves animal agriculture, or heck, all of the above.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for joining me.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: And let's roll on with today's conversation.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Beyond the Green Pibs.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: I'm your host Annie.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_02: Today we have another interview, and we're getting a little close on our interviews of being actually from last fall.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm gonna keep on chugging through.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_02: I was able to get quite a few interviews completed last fall, so we're uh we're just gonna keep rolling with them.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_02: Today's interview is with Dr.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_02: Elizabeth Coate.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_02: She is a wonderful lady.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_02: We had a really great conversation.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_02: She is a private practitioner in Idaho.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_02: She has her own practice and she has her own milk lab.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_02: She works primarily with one very large dairy, and they have multiple facilities that she interacts with.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_02: So it was just an honor to talk to her and get to know a little bit about her story and her journey of becoming a veterinarian and now her role not only in private practice, but also being part of an organization and getting pretty high on the ladder up in that organization.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_02: So it was a pleasure speaking with her.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_02: One of the things that she said that I wanted to share before the beforehand, and then you'll get to hear it from her, is when we were talking about being the large animal vet, being the mom, having our other hobbies and passions, and how it's a lot, but we can have it all.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_02: And she said, you know, we can have it all.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_02: It might not be at the same exact time.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_02: And yes, it's going to be hard, especially when we have the little ones in tow, but we can't have all of these things that that we do want.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_02: And and so don't give up on your dream and your passion for large animal medicine because you want to have a family, or because you want to have these other passions.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um, we can fit them all in.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_02: And then um along those lines, another thing she said that really stood out to me was there's no perfect time for starting a family.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_02: And we, as large animal vets, going through school, having to get the perfect, I'm putting in air quotes, grades, everything is is kind of, you know, has to be just so.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um, we run into this stumbling block of when do we start our family?
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_02: And there is no perfect time.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_02: And I I loved how she said it.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_02: Just go ahead if you want to have a family, just go ahead and do it.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_02: Don't wait till the practice hires another vet, or you're in the perfect town, you're in the perfect practice, because this we're not gonna end up in that situation.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_02: So make it your own perfect in air quotes.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_02: And find support wherever you are when you're when you're on that journey of starting the family, becoming the family, having children, find support in in friends, also family, but a lot of times we end up, especially our first practice may not be at um a place near our near our family.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_02: And so we we meet people and we become friends with people in that area, and they can become a support system for us, which even if we don't have children, we definitely need to reach out in our communities when we move to a new place and find something, uh a church, a running group, um, some kind of group to join and start making connections to have these friends and and kind of family away from family to to be our support when we run into tough times and to celebrate the the wins that we that we have.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_02: So, all right, enough jabbering from me.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_02: Let's go ahead and get into our interview with Dr.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_02: Elizabeth.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so I am at the AABP conference in Omaha, Nebraska.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_02: That is the American Association of Bovine Practitioners.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_02: So everybody here is a Calvet.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_02: Whoop whoop.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_02: And today I am talking to Elizabeth, and she has a very unique story, and I'm just very, very much looking forward to speaking with you and hearing of your journey as a veterinarian so far.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_02: So thank you for coming to talk to me.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_02: To start out, can you tell me a little bit about where you're from, what school you went to, and then what you're up to currently?
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_04: Sure, thanks for having me, and it's a pleasure to be here.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_04: I grew up on a dairy in southern Idaho, and my mom was a home app teacher, and she could never keep me inside.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_04: She was worried that her own daughter wouldn't know how to cook or sew or do any of those things.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_04: But I was always outside with my dad and wanted to be a vet from about the time I was three or four years old.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_04: Like many of us set the goal early on, and was fortunate to be able to go to the University of Idaho for undergraduate, and then went on to vet school at Washington State University.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_04: Um always wanted to be a dairy vet because the cows were my passion, and after graduation went to Southern California.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_04: My husband was in medical school down there, and I was in vet school at Washington State, so we did three years long distance, and we got married, and I was looking for any dairy job close to him, and was um fortunate to find veterans outlet, Paul Blackmer, who um kind of redid dairy vet medicine in the 70s.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_04: It's what what we know it today, population medicine, having labs, those sorts of things.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_04: And I was the last that he hired before he retired.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_04: So I was fortunate to be able to be under the um mentorship of Dr.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_04: Paul Blackmer.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_04: And then after four years in California, we decided to move home to Idaho, and that's where we've been ever since.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, and now that you're in Idaho, um, what you have you been doing since then?
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_04: Sure.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_04: So we moved home in 2008, decided to start our family right away, and so I only worked one day a week mixed animal relief.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_04: I'd only done dairy since I'd graduated, so working one day a week doing some small animal stuff, it's really hard to get proficient at small animal work when you do it one day a week and you're by yourself.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_04: So that was definitely interesting for me.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_04: My husband would say, uh you're getting crabby, we gotta get you around some cows.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_04: So every once in a while, I just have to go find some cows.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_04: Um, my family sold our dairy in 2004 and got out, or excuse me, 2008 and got out of the dairy industry, so I'd have to go to friends' places.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_04: Um we have two girls, and once the youngest was in preschool, I started doing more dairy work again.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_04: So I guess it took three years of doing just relief work and then went back to all dairy uh when she started school, and so now I primarily work with one large dairy family.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_04: They milk 20,000 cows over six dairies, have two heifer ranches and a calf facility, and and then I also have a milk quality laboratory.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_04: And I'm kind of like you, I have a lot of uh things that I do.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_04: So we also own about 200 acres of row crop farmland, and I manage that.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_04: And then with my dad, we have uh a hundred Dorper use and 10 sows that we breed for 4-H projects, so a little bit of everything going on.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_02: That is awesome.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_02: I love, I love, I mean, you have a lot of passions and you're hitting them all.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_02: That's awesome.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_02: So you had already mentioned when you were very young, you want to be a dairy vet.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_02: Right after graduation, you were the dairy vet, took a small break, and are now for a pretty long time, yeah.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_04: Um have and are back in practice for 21 years now.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_04: Okay, hard to believe it's been that long.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_02: So I mean, you're you're back, you know, doing the dairy um that you had dreamed of as a child.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_02: So that's that's wonderful.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um, everybody's journey looks a little bit different, and so I appreciate you sharing, you know, how that has happened for you.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_02: What are you most proud of from being a vet?
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_02: And this is your moment to shine.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_02: Um, one of my comments is this is your badass moment.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_02: Like, we are amazing women, you have accomplished so many things.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_02: What are you most proud of?
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_04: Sure.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_04: So I might take this.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_04: Um, I'm gonna answer this in a couple ways.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_04: So perfect.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_04: First, I'm gonna say um, so a couple of years ago, I fractured my radio head and uh tore the insertion of my extensive attendance, ferrowing one of our own pigs.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_04: Oh no.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_04: But um a couple weeks later, we had parenting your conferences, and my daughter had written an essay, it was on grit, and she had used her mother, and she wrote her essay all about um how cool her mom was that her mom had ferrowed this pig and got the babies out of life so that they could take them to the fair, and she had a broken arm, and she still did it through the night, and then she went to the doctor the next day, and she still goes to work and all these things, and that was one of those times where I was like, Oh, you know, here I am, I'm upset because I broke my arm, and it's more work for me and everybody else.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_04: And my daughter's writing an essay about how badass her mom is and how she wants to be like her.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_04: So, I guess so that's kind of a personal yet um professional uh badass moment.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_04: And then um another one I'm gonna use it was a summer I had of that student with me, and we had a research project that was funded through a pharmaceutical company, and my daughter is 16, my oldest one, and she wants to be a vet as well, and so she got to help with this research project.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_04: And we're at the all three of us were at the calf wrench, and all three of us are runners, and so we all run our running stuff, and we were all working on the calf wrench.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_04: And I look around, and there's just you know, I'm in my mid-40s, the vet students in their late 20s, and my 16-year-old daughter, and there's three women at different stages of life there.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_04: We're all enjoying the cows, we're enjoying the research project, we're all excited that as soon as we're done here, we're gonna go for a run.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_04: And I was hopeful that I'm teaching them, you know, you can work, you can play, you can do all these things together, and so that would be another moment.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_04: Um, I'll do one more.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_04: Absolutely, go ahead.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_04: And that's gonna be um when uh I'm going to be the ABP vice president on Saturday at the end of the luncheon and or business luncheon here.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_04: And I think that the moment when the nominee committee called and asked if I would run for our ABP vice president, I don't know.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_04: I have like a lot of your listeners and maybe even you, I've had imposter syndrome my whole life.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_04: So for them to call and say, you know, that you are someone that we think would be a good fit to lead our organization, that's professionally and personally one of those moments that you're like, wow, you know, thank you, and I'm humbled.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_04: And like, of course, since I have imposter syndrome, are you sure?
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and then uh winning the election, you know, kind of those those same thoughts, but sitting here being able to show other women that yes, you you can be a vet, you can be a mom, you can take a few years off, you can come back and still do it, and um we can have it all.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_04: It may be hard, we may not be able to have it all at the exact same time, but we can, and I think that's important for us to realize.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, that is a beautiful answer.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_02: And three badass moments, love it.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_02: I love it.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_02: So if you could go back in time, is there something that you can think of that you might change um that would have maybe changed the trajectory of your life?
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_04: Oh gosh.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_04: I look back and I would always plan on coming straight home working on our family dairy and then working for other dairies in the area, and now um I wouldn't want to do it that way.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_04: So I'm happy that things happened the way that they did.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_04: Um, it's I don't know that I really want to change anything, but I think the biggest thing is to be able to be open to when things aren't as you wanted them to be, and and embracing those changes.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_04: The one thing that I would change a little bit, I don't know if it would change my trajectory, but I would try to be more confident in my own skills and as myself as a veterinarian and have less of the imposter syndrome, think that could have helped me with a little less heartache, a little more sleep, you know, over over my life.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_04: And so that's one thing you know, I try to talk about whenever I have students that ride with me and try to talk about with my own daughters.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: No, that's wonderful.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_01: And we all to a certain extent have imposter syndrome.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, if I asked some of the gentlemen here at the conference who have been practicing for 40 plus years, I'm sure they could come up with something in the last six months that gave them that.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_02: And so um, it's something that we just need to keep more or less, I want to say, embracing and knowing that we have the skills.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_02: We, if we don't know the answer, we can ask, and just being confident enough to say that for sure.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_02: So that was a wonderful answer.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_02: So, what were the biggest challenges that you faced as a woman in Large Animal Med?
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um, when you got out of school, um you had your your babies in were kind of, I guess, less seen, um, you know, take care of those babies.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but as you were navigating, you know, prior to to that, did you run into some challenges being a woman?
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_04: Sure, I did.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_04: I was also 25 when I graduated vet school and I looked very young.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_04: So you know, you add that all together and then prior prior primarily man-dominated field, especially back in 2004 when I graduated with the the the vets and then also the dairy man.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_04: There was only um, I don't know if I knew of a dairy woman owner at that time period, or at least not the one that I worked with.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_04: And so I used to every time I get the comment, um, are you sure you're a vet?
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_04: Are you old enough to be a vet?
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_04: And then you know, you don't look like a dairy vet, is the other thing.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_04: Uh so and sometimes I would quit back, it took me a few years to be able to say this, be like, Oh, what does a dairy vet look like?
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_04: You know, that's a great answer.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_04: So I I don't know, you know, there's tall men, there's short men, there's big men, there's skinny men.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_04: So you know, why why can't you have a slender tall woman that you know be a dairy vet?
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_04: So those are some things that once I got a little more confidence, I was able to put back and say, uh, I know that women still have obstacles to overcome.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_04: I do feel like that perhaps we've made a little bit of a pendulum switch there uh for the young women that are going into veterinary medicine now.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yep, no, I agree.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_02: And I was asked one time, and this was from an Amish client of all things, when I pulled up and got out of the vet truck, are you old enough to drive that?
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_03: And are you the vet?
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_02: And so, yeah, when we we graduate as a young individual and we have the the blessing of looking young, sometimes it doesn't feel that way for sure in the moment.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_04: And I guess um one thing I used to get a lot too, like especially if I come up on an emergency to a client that I'd never been to before, a prolapse or a calving, and they say, Oh, after afterward, I usually get that you're stronger than you look, or something like that.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_04: I'm like, Yeah, well, the other thing I would say too is that well, um, sometimes you need to use your brains more than your brute, and and you know, you just think about different ways.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_04: It's not all about how strong you are to get the uterus back in or to get the calf out, it's about positioning the cow right, it's about using um drugs when you need to, and and a lot of those things and being patient, and that's a lot of times where women may have an edge over the men, too, is a lot of times we're more patient on things, and so especially in calving, yes, yes, it's using our strengths.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_04: Absolutely, absolutely.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_02: So, as your kids were born and you're getting back to the dairy practice.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_02: Do you have some stories that that they would be okay with you sharing?
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_02: One or two stories of having your daughters now.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_02: How old are your daughters now?
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_04: They're 14 and 16.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_02: Well, okay.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_04: We're freshman and junior in high school.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_02: That is that is what happens.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_02: You blink and it's like, oh, it's been three years already.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, okay.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um, yeah, if you've them coming along with you or different experiences, I love the story that you shared about the grit.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_02: I think that was a wonderful story.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but um if you have stories of like them being involved doing something, something silly, um, I would love to hear.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_04: I have a couple of just kind of cute little short ones.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_04: So, my my oldest, the one that wants to be a vet, uh, when she was younger, all she wanted to do was wear skirts and she was really into tutus.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_04: And um, I'd bring her to the dairy and she had this colorful tutu on, and one day she'd say, Mom, how come you never wear dresses to the dairy?
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_04: And just told her, Well, it's hard to put my coveralls on.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_04: And she's like, Oh, yeah, like that's a good answer, Mom, and would believe that.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_04: Um, but the younger one, so she used to come with me.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_04: She only went to uh half day preschool, so sometimes she would come with me on the farm, and one day a cow's foot slipped, and she was just covered in manure.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_04: And uh I was trying to wipe off at least her face and everything, and she was okay with it.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_04: And then we got in the truck and I was cleaning her off a little more, and I was like, honey, it's okay.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_04: Mom gets covered in cow poop all the time.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_04: And she goes, wait, manure is poop! And I just starts crying and screaming.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_04: I don't know what she thought manure was before then, but she was okay with it until then.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and I guess one more little one about Arabella and it wants to be a vet.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_04: I used to leave them in the car seats um and keep them hooked in so they couldn't fight, and then I would put my laptop on the console with the DVD on so they could watch a movie.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_04: I'd pull it up next to whatever I was working on so I could see them.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_04: And uh Arabella was probably about three, and I was doing a kneecropsy, and this is a time period where she started getting interested and wanting to be a vet, and her head was outside my truck.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_04: I was like, Mom, what you doing?
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_04: What working with that?
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_04: Yelling at me, wanting to know.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_04: So after that, I could not keep her in the truck.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_04: Uh I had to let her out with me, which becomes more difficult because you have to watch them a little closer when they're not contained.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, absolutely.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_02: No, that's awesome, and how wonderful.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I mean, we all want our children to grow up and you know do something successful, be happy, and you don't, you know, you never know if they're gonna have the same interest as you, and to kind of have that, you know, mini me, I guess we'll call it.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um, just wonderful.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_02: That's awesome.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_02: I'm so excited.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so the next question, if you're comfortable sharing, that will be great.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_02: If not, that's okay.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um, this podcast is going to have some personal finance topics.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_02: I will share at a different time.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_02: I'll do some um episodes on different personal financial topics, but I had to throw the question in here to just get some other points of view.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_02: Have finances affected your path to where you are currently?
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_02: And if you don't mind sharing, how?
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_04: Sure.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_04: I've been pretty fortunate that my student debt was very low, and when I graduated, um interest rates were very low.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_04: So luckily, that wasn't um, I didn't have the student debt loan debt load that we're seeing today.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_04: Um and then when my husband graduated from residency and got his first job, and we moved back to Idaho, we bought a farm and decided to build a house.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_04: And what we did at that time is we did all the loans based off of his salary because we didn't know we had just moved, I didn't hadn't built up my practice yet, we didn't know what that was gonna look like and everything.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_04: And so things could have looked a lot differently if we had tried to um put a specific amount in for me to earn, and so for us that worked out perfectly, and it's helped us so that uh finances haven't had to be as worrisome as it is for a lot of people.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_04: Um, so that you know, when the opportunity came for me to work more, I was able to, and it wasn't a financial choice, it was just more of a I want to work choice.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_02: That's awesome, that is an awesome answer, and that's kind of how things have worked out for me, as well as I I mean I busted my behind in private practice for eight years, um, was able to get the student loans paid and make a nice cushion of savings so that when we moved back home, that allowed me more flexibility to find what I really wanted to do, and I didn't have the stress of I have to take this job because I need it.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it was more of because I want to do this particular position.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_04: And that's what I try to tell uh students that write with me.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_04: It's one of those things that you know when you get your first job and you finally have some money, you're gonna want to buy that car, you're gonna want to buy a house and do all these things.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_04: But I try to recommend to them that they really strongly think about holding off for a couple of years because if you have all those loans and then that practice.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_04: You're in isn't a good fit, you're kind of stuck.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_04: And so if you can delay that gratification for even two more years, that's hard, but you've done it already for so long.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_04: What's a couple more years to delay the gratification by a little bit to be able to hopefully be know that you're in a good spot.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_02: Nope.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_02: I love that answer.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_02: And that actually covers my next question of what kind of advice would you give?
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's fabulous advice.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um, we finish met school, we finally get that real paycheck, and it's like, well, I have worked really hard.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_02: I should get XYZ.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_02: And it's very, very tempting to just go do that when, yeah, we don't know if that first practice is actually going to be a good fit.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_02: Are they, you know, is it going to be a good fit for your family?
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_02: Is it going to be a, you know, there's so many different aspects of it, how it will be a good fit, if it's going to be a good fit.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and and saving maybe that first paycheck for an emergency fund, maybe, you know, something to that effect if you don't have one.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_02: Or um, for me, I I am a boot person, cowboy boot person.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_02: And so I still had that.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_02: I worked hard over you know these last four years, and I passed the daily, I got a job, I'm in a new place, like I should get something.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_02: And so I I toned myself back a little and I just bought myself an expensive pair of cowboy boots, and that was my treat for all that hard working idle.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_02: That was kind of silly.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I do wear them, but probably could have saved it.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but that's a great advice.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_02: So, do you have any special memories or stories, funny, humbling, out in practice, um, different situations that have happened to you that you'd like to share?
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_04: Sure.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, I am the type, I'm the person that when things things something that can go wrong will go wrong for.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_04: So I was only in practice less than a year, and I finally talked this dairyman into letting me do rumen pHs, and I had never done them before, and uh he was pretty nervous, and I of course was nervous, and I prepped the side of the cow, he's there watching me.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_04: The first one I go in with the um 14 gauge, you know, four-inch long needle, pop it in, and the needle came off the hub and was in the cow.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_04: Oh no.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_04: Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, you know, finally calm myself down and use the scalpel to go through the skin, and it was actually just sitting there in the muscle there.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_04: It wasn't free in the rumen or anything, thank goodness.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_04: Pulled it out and did the rest, but every time I do rumen biopsies, I have a mini panic attack because of that.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_04: And like a month later, there was a recall on needles from that company, and they had problems with needles coming off the hub.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_04: I'm like, Well, yeah, they sure do.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_04: But those kinds of things.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_04: I guess another real humbling story for me, uh, which turned out okay, but was um one of my clients and he told me one day he said, You are not the best vet I've ever had, and it was just like a shot to the heart.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_04: And I'm like, Oh my gosh, you know, and he said, But what you are the best at is when you don't know something, you reach out and you get us the answer, you have a lot of contacts, and so I think that's one of those things that um it's important to have your community.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_04: You know, I'm a solo practitioner, and so it's really important for me to be able to reach out to industry veterinarians, to faculty, to other private practitioners, and know who is the experts in these different areas to be able to help me be the best vet that I can be because we can't know it all.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_04: And I think that was hopefully what he was saying is that I don't know it all, but I can figure out the answers when I need to.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, that's a yeah, that first statement, like there wasn't the pause, but was it the end of the sentence, or was there any more?
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_02: Thank goodness he did have more to say.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_03: Thank goodness, yeah.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_03: I can feel the tears like my face getting hot and the tears coming when I'm not gonna crash her.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yep, yep, I would have been in the same boat.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_02: And so, do you have any advice for new large animal women veterinarians?
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, here at the conference, I'm seeing a lot of students, and I'm very hopeful because there's been quite a few of them here.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_02: And so um that just lends me to to see if there's advice that you would want to share um with those women as they are starting out with their real job.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_04: Sure.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_04: So I guess a couple of things.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_04: And one is that if you have a passion for bovine, small ruminants, whatever it is, and uh your first job doesn't work out, that don't give up on it.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_04: And even if you're in a small animal clinic somewhere, especially in this day and age, there are more and more people that are having backyard pets, and as as ruminants or small ruminants, pigs, show pigs, backyard chickens, you know, you can still do food animal medicine from a small animal job, and perhaps there's a way to still keep your foot in the door, and just to not give up.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_04: If that first job doesn't work out, don't give up completely on food animal medicine.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_04: It's hard, but it can be uh all that is hard, and so you know it's been so rewarding for me, and I think that I have uh I say I'm blessed as a mom, I'm blessed as a wife, and I'm blessed in my profession, and I can't imagine it in any other other way for me to have uh no life as perfect, but I guess the most perfect life that you could have.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_01: That's awesome, that's a great answer.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_02: So, as you were practicing and then you know took a little break to start your family and kind of get them up and rolling.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_02: Do you have advice for young women who are on the fence about starting a family or have started a family and are now especially stressed about how they're gonna be able to do things?
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um, any advice you want to share on that?
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_04: Sure.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_04: So for those that want to have a family and are trying to figure out when, there's never the right time.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_04: And so I think that's you just have to rip off the band-aid and decide we're doing it now.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_04: And because if you wait until you're more financially stable, you wait until the clinic has another vet, you wait until this or that, you're either never gonna do it or the time is still not gonna be right.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_04: So you just gotta go for it.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_04: And then as far as um, you know, you're struggling because you've had kids, you're not getting any sleep, you need help, all those things, uh it can be hard.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_04: I'm not gonna lie.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_04: There are times where it's really, really hard.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_04: And hopefully, you're able to surround yourself with either a spouse or a partner that can support you.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_04: Um, perhaps family and friends can become family.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_04: When we lived in California, we had no family, and so our friends became our family.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_04: And in fact, I just met with uh the daughter of a friend from when we first lived in California, she's our second year in at Iowa State, and she had to come find Aunt Elizabeth at AAB because that's what it was to her and when when she was young, and so don't discount those relationships.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_04: There are other women, other people that need friends to become family in your community as well.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_02: I love that answer.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_02: That was that's perfect.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_02: So taking a little pause here, is there anything that we maybe missed that you want to share with the audience?
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_04: I think I pretty much told all the stories I was thinking about telling.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_02: They were all wonderful.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_04: Oh I I think just to reiterate that don't give up on food animal medicine, especially if it's one of your passions.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_04: There are a lot of ways to be involved, whether it's industry, um, academia.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_04: We have a huge shortage in academia for food animal.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_04: I think there last I heard there's like 400 openings throughout the US, and um with all the new schools coming online.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_04: I think we really need a lot of teachers too.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_04: And so um, you know, it's never too late also to go back and get an internship and residency if that's something that you thought about at one time and go into academia.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_04: There's just uh federal vets, state vets, you know, there's so many things that you can do that still have involvement in food animal medicine.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's a great place to pause.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yep, I think that was great.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um thank you so much for chatting with me.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_02: It's great to get to know you a little bit.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_02: And um, if something in our conversation resonated with you and you would like to reach out to Elizabeth, I will include her email address in the show notes and you can send her a message.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_04: Thank you.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, you're welcome.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_04: Thanks, Ann, for having me.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_02: So there is a new feature for this podcast where you can support the show financially.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_02: If you are liking what you're hearing and you would like me to continue to publish episodes on the various platforms that are available, please feel free to go ahead and click on the support the show link and put in a little bit of information and make a contribution.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_02: No pressure, but if you'd like to do it, I would appreciate it.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm just gonna keep chugging along, meeting people and sharing their stories.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_02: So if you'd like to help me do that in a in a small way, that would be wonderful.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's all for this episode.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks again for spending your valuable time with me.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate it.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: Just a reminder: this podcast is not intended to provide medical advice.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: Please contact your local veterinarian to establish and maintain a valid VCPR veterinary client-patient relationship.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: If you liked what you heard on this episode, please rate and review this podcast and share it with a friend.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: If you have questions or comments about this podcast or topics covered or ideas for topics, you can reach me at beyond the greenbibs at gmail.com or on Facebook and Instagram at Beyond the Green Bibbs.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: Have a great day, and we'll catch you next time.