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The Other Family Doctor
A Veterinarian Explores What Animals Can Teach Us About Love, Life, and Mortality
1 of 1 copy available
A tribute to our furry, feathery, scaley, and wet family members, All Creatures Great and Small meets Being Mortal in this compelling memoir of one woman's dream to become a veterinarian.
Karen Fine always knew that she wanted to be a vet and wasn't going to let anything stop her: not her allergy to cats, and not the fact that in the '80s veterinary medicine was still a mostly male profession. Inspired by her grandfather, a compassionate doctor who paid house calls to all his (human) patients, Dr. Fine persevered, and brought her Oupa's principles into her own practice, which emphasizes the need to understand her patients’ stories to provide the best possible care.
And in The Other Family Doctor, Dr. Fine shares all these touching, joyful, heartbreaking, and life-affirming tales that make up her career as a vet. There's:
• The feral cat who becomes a creature out of a fable when he puts his trust in a young vet to heal his injured paw
• The pot-bellied pig who grows too big to fit in the car but remains a cherished part of her family
• The surprising colony of perfectly behaved ferrets
• The beloved aging pet who gives her people the gift of accompanying them on one final family vacation
• The dog who saves his owner's life in a most unexpected way
Woven into Dr. Fine's story are, of course, also the stories of her own pets: the birds, cats, and dogs who have taught her the most valuable lessons—how caring for the animals in our lives can teach us to better care for ourselves, especially when life seems precarious.
*Includes a downloadable PDF of additional resources and guides from the book
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
March 14, 2023 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9780593668382
- File size: 260358 KB
- Duration: 09:02:24
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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January 2, 2023
“Animals connect us to the environment... to our families... and to our own reactions to illness and death” writes veterinarian Fine (Narrative Medicine in Veterinary Practice) in this spirited homage to domesticated animals and their bond with humans. Fine first became interested in veterinary medicine while visiting her family in South Africa at age 11, and a safari trip paired with the influence of her physician grandfather sent her on her path. In recounting her career, she recalls the prejudice she faced for “taking away a spot from a man” as an aspiring female veterinarian and describes the bias against women for not being “physically capable of treating animals.” As well, she chronicles the beginning of her private house call practice and addresses difficult subjects, including caring for a terminally ill pet, making the decision to euthanize, and coping with the grief and guilt that frequently follow. She circles back to her profession throughout, examining what qualities make a good veterinarian (notably, being willing to learn from animals and recognizing the emotional impact animals have on humans) and sharing the particulars of how she developed her combination of conventional Western and traditional Chinese medicine. Fine’s keen observations will strike a chord with animal lovers, and her upbeat style keeps the pages turning. Agent: Jennifer Herrera, David Black Agency. -
June 10, 2024
Fine narrates her debut memoir, sharing the lessons she's learned through her career as a veterinarian. She attended veterinary school at Tufts University in the late 1980s, when women especially struggled for professional recognition and faced discrimination from people who believed they were taking positions from men. Settling into her practice, she gained experience with a wide range of animals and adopted her own pets along the way. She instituted creative approaches to care, including launching a mobile vet to provide people and their pets with at-home care and training in acupuncture and alternative medicines. Fine movingly describes how her connection with her pets informed her practice and gave her insight into the struggles her patients and pet owners were experiencing. When her pets faced illness and death, she gained a better understanding of the impact of a pet's death on its owners and on the vet as well. Much of the book concentrates on Fine's sensitive conclusions about end-of-life care for pets, owners' grief, euthanasia, and burn-out and suicide in veterinarians. VERDICT A heartfelt and moving book for listeners who enjoy animal stories and insights into connections between humans and animals.--Joanna M. Burkhardt
Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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