We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Christine Wickenheiser a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Christine thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Over the course of your career, have you seen or experienced your field completely flip-flop or change course on something?

COVID changed so many things in Veterinary Medicine. During the pandemic a huge amount of pet owners purchased or adopted more cats and dogs. Pet owners were also spending more time at home with their pets and observing their behaviors more closely. In turn, more workers were leaving the work force to work from home, this included veterinary receptionists and veterinary technicians. Veterinary clinics were inundated with more and more animals and pet care concerns and have limited staff to help address this. Our clinic kennels and cages were maxed out/filled by late morning and we have had to turn pet owners away by triaging their pets health concerns. The overnight veterinary emergency clinics were have wait times of greater than 6-8 hours and turning away pet emergencies that really are emergencies they just simply did not have the staff to care for the animal. Veterinary medicine become overwhelmed with pet care needs that could not all be addressed in a timely fashion. I went from treating 8-9 patients a day to 20+ patients. Burnout in the career of veterinary medicine was become more and more of an issue. I started Ask Vet Christine, an online pet care consultation service to help pet owners and veterinarians out with this surge in pet care needs. Ask Vet Christine can offer after hours advice to pet owners while to wait weeks to have their pet examined by their regular DVM and Ask Vet Christine to help pet owners understand if their pets urgent concerns can safely wait until the next day to ease up the load of emergencies at overnight Veterinary Clinics

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My name is Dr. Christine Wickenheiser. I have been a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine for over 20 yrs. I am married and have two college age children. I love the outdoors and any activity that includes my pets or water (lakes or the ocean). I love helping people by helping their pets. I love being part of the joy of a new puppy and kitten, I love being able to help them through any illnesses, and I love being able to make the hardest day of being a pet owner, saying goodbye through euthanasia, as healing as it possibly can be. Pets can make such a huge impact in pet owners lives. They help with anxiety and trauma, they are the reason for some people who live alone to have something to get up for every day. It is so fulfilling to be able to play a role in facilitating this for pet owners by providing preventative care and medical care when that is needed.

Other than training/knowledge, what do you think is most helpful for succeeding in your field?

A few lessons that I have learned from practicing veterinary medicine is to know when to say “I don’t know”. Mostly to not be afraid to say that. When you are a new graduate there is SO much that you do not know. You are constantly relying on mentors and resources (medical books for example). But you cannot possibly know everything. It is impossible. Sometimes every medical test that can be performed on a beloved pet can come up with no known medical reason for their illness. This is not only disheartening for the pet owner but also for the Veterinarian. Having the ability to say “I don’t know” why your pet is sick is hard to do but necessary. Another lesson I have learned over and over again, is to never judge a pet owner by their appearance. They may arrive at the clinic clearly with minimal funds, but that does not mean that they should not be offered the best options of pet care for their pet.

If you could go back in time, do you think you would have chosen a different profession or specialty?

I love my career choice. Years later, I would continue to choose this career. However I think I would find a way to do this through the army reserve or any other way that has a school repayment program. I am 22 yrs out of graduate school and still have a huge amount of school debt facing me over the upcoming years. This is not something that is conceptually easy to understand when you are 20 years old. But now that I am getting closer to my late forties the continued debt hits harder.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://askvetchristine.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/askvetchristine/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/askvetchristine/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christine-wickenheiser/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@askvetchristine2034